ADHD with Sam Bush

In this episode of the Day in the Life series, host Taylor Dorward sits down with Sam Bush, Chief Marketing Officer at Dooap, to explore what it’s like to live and work with ADHD. Sam shares her journey to receiving a diagnosis later in life, the challenges of navigating traditional workplace structures, and the strategies she uses to thrive, including body doubling, fidgets, time-blocking, and creating an environment that supports the way her brain works. Together, Taylor and Sam discuss misconceptions about ADHD, the complexities of the diagnostic process, the importance of self-advocacy, and how disability and neurodiversity can present differently for every individual. Join us for an honest conversation about embracing your uniqueness, finding the right support systems, and building a life that works for you rather than against you.

Transcript

Sam [00:01]

You say you have ADHD, or you’re visually impaired—those things can mean a hundred different things to each person based on the context of how they understand it and what they've experienced through it or around it. I was talking to a friend of a friend of a friend at an event, and they were like, “Oh, my brother has that too.” And I'm like, “Well, we all think we know it, but his is probably very different than mine because we're two different people and we have two different lived experiences.” But it's nice to have a relation point, at least. I go back and forth on that.

Taylor [00:42]

Welcome to the Day in the Life series on the Accessible Community Podcast, where we explore disability and accessibility in everyday life. Each episode offers a new lens to broaden our understanding and drive inclusion. For show notes, go to accessiblecommunity.org slash podcast. Let’s make accessibility part of every day. In this episode, we’re focusing on ADHD. Before I introduce my next guest, Sam, a quick introduction to myself. I’m your host for this series, Taylor Dorward. I’m a Caucasian male with short brown hair, blue eyes, and a short brown beard. Today I’m wearing a black undershirt with a gray and black plaid flannel layered over the top. All right, sweet. Sometimes it can be a little guesswork, but thanks for the confirmation. With that, I’ll go ahead and turn it over to my guest, Sam, to introduce herself.

Sam [02:06]

Yes, hello, everyone. I am Sam Bush. I am about 10 years into my Microsoft channel career, and I am the chief marketing officer at Dooap. I just started about two months ago. I’m a short woman with medium-length dark hair and bangs, wearing black-rimmed glasses and a black-and-white animal-print top today.

Taylor [02:32]

Nice. Thank you for the introduction. It helps me, as well as any other listeners who are visually impaired or anyone listening to the audio-only version. You told us a little bit about yourself and a tiny bit about your job, but can you go a little more into detail—whatever you want the guests or listeners to know about Sam?

Sam [02:54]

Yeah, a couple of things. I started my marketing career about 10 years ago—13-ish—starting in marketing agencies with big teams, building teams, and having a lot of responsibility to create those teams. Then I moved into the Microsoft channel, where I did the same for a little while, and then went into a relatively large organization where I lost a lot of autonomy and had a lot of structure. After about three years in that role, I quit—not on the spot, but pretty close. The structure of it all was too much for me. I found myself struggling with the repetitiveness of tasks and not being able to build my day in a way that worked for me. It wasn’t until that year, when I was 32, that I actually got diagnosed with ADHD. It was an interesting time in my life because, from the outside, it looked like I had this exciting, amazing career and a great time in my job. I did love it—I loved the people, and I liked a lot of what I did. But it was really eye-opening for me to understand that that way of working doesn’t work for me. To finally be able to say it out loud was the biggest hurdle I had. Now I’m a team of one, with potentially some additions in the future, and I get to structure what I’m focused on based on our goals and how I actually get them done, which really works with my uniqueness.

Taylor [04:37]

Awesome. So how does ADHD present for you? Because some people experience it a little differently.

Sam [04:45]

Yeah. I am high-functioning ADHD. As a child, I hyper-fixated on a couple of different things. My parents thought I was just a little OCD or a hyper-focused person. I was obsessed with reading from a young age, and I still am now. I read about 200 books a year because the easiest way for me to ground myself is to find a new way to think or learn, or build a new world creatively with my imagination. That’s how I started my life. In my daily work life, a couple of things show how it manifests. I have the kind of ADHD where, if I’m hyper-focused on something, I could finish a task that used to take me three days in five minutes. But if it’s the wrong day and I don’t have that in me, it could take me five hours—five years—to finish something. I don’t necessarily have all of the focus at all times. I have it in significant chunks or tiny spurts throughout the day. So it can be really hard working for a large organization that expects a certain number of outputs a day versus outputs a month. Outputs a month, I’m totally good with, but outputs a day, or checking off tasks—I’ve got to have my head in the right place to do them. Some days you wake up and all you’re thinking about is the laundry pile that you walked over six days in a row, and now you’re hyper-focused on getting the laundry done, and you can’t focus on writing a blog article for Dooap until you finish that task. That’s where it’s manifested in my work in a couple of different ways. Sometimes for the better, I will find a challenge like our lead forms aren’t converting at the highest rate I think they should, so now I’m hyper-focused on fixing that, and it’s all that I’m working on. It will better the business because I have this direct, narrowed focus. But it often leads to this: I’m an extrovert. Everyone who’s met me before knows I’m a big extrovert. But I have a pretty big comedown from being an extrovert. So you’ll see me at a conference and I’m a hundred percent on the whole time, and then I get home and I’m like, I don’t even know how to feed myself, because I’ve been performing. Performing isn’t the right word, but it feels like it sometimes. It’s natural to me and it’s not fake, but the act of being fully present, sometimes, when you have ADHD in the way that I do, means you do have to perform a little bit to keep it up. Because if not, you’re going to go into your hobbit hole and focus on the laundry.

Taylor [07:43]

So I’m curious: on those days that it’s a little cumbersome for you, do you have any strategies you use to overcome that?

Sam [07:53]

I have a couple. One that I’m doing right now, because I’ve had a busy day, is that I’m a fidget person. I love fidgets. All my friends buy me fidgets. Right now I’m holding some green and pink ones, which are the colors of my podcast. They’re little magnetized balls that I can roll around, and they have textures to them. Anytime I’m not wanting to do something, I find my brain is okay doing something I don’t want to do if I’m doing something else at the same time. I’m kind of like an iPad kid a little bit, but with my hands. The whole concept of an iPad kid is they’re on their iPad playing a game while they’re also watching a movie—they’re doing two things at once. If I can use my hands while also using my brain in a different way, that’s usually how I overcome it when I’m really trying to get something done. Two other things that I’ve put into practice ever since I was about 30: I actually made one of these with a team at Flowcast, where I was for a while. We created this body-doubling day once a quarter, and then I moved it so that now, in my life, I do it once a week with a couple of my friends, either in person here in Columbus or on Zoom. The concept of body doubling, for those who don’t know it, is basically starting to do work collaboratively with someone who’s doing something totally different. You do it at the same time and commit to doing it together. For example, last week I went to this really cool place that’s a coffee shop, a bar, and a restaurant, but it’s also a calming, interesting co-working space with a ton of plants, and I’m a plant connoisseur. I love plants. We went there on Thursday—and we go every Thursday—about one o’clock until five. At the beginning, I say, “I need to get this, this, and this done today. What are you guys working on?” We all admit what we’re working on, and then we say, “Okay, I’m going to lock in and get one of these things done.” The minute we do, we check in with each other again: “I did finish that, and now I’m moving on to my next thing.” It’s just a way to keep yourself focused and controlled without the pressure of it being your boss or your coworker. Instead, it’s just a community of people. So that’s one of my favorite ways. Thursdays are my no-meeting days after 11 o’clock. I take no meetings on Thursdays because that’s when I’m locked in and doing the things I maybe procrastinated on because my brain is running in 60 directions.

Taylor [10:38]

That’s a really neat strategy, and thank you for sharing that. Hopefully someone watching will consider taking that on. I relate to that. I have this stress ball—I forgot what company it’s from. I got it from a conference like 10 years ago. I also have a couple of metal balls that I can move around in my hand.

Sam [11:00]

Yep.

Taylor [11:00]

I have a lot of stuff to keep me occupied and manage stress because often I would find I’d bite my nails or clench my teeth, and it would give me a headache.

Sam [11:14]

Yep.

Taylor [11:15]

I’ve always seen stress balls and stuff, but I think it was only like a year ago—or actually six months ago—that I found this in my drawer, tucked in the bottom when I was cleaning it. I was like, “Huh, that’s soft.” During a call, I just picked it up and started squeezing it without even realizing it. It calmed me down. It centers me. It’s been a really interesting revelation, and it’s something I wish I had known a long time ago. Me too. I don’t know if I necessarily had any level of ADHD. I was medicated for it and diagnosed when I was really young, but I could have also just been a 12-year-old boy. So I’m not entirely sure, but it kind of opens my eyes to always be looking out for ways to improve yourself. Don’t just get complacent and assume you know everything, because something as simple as this squishy little ball from some random company is something I told my parents I have an emotional attachment to now.

Sam [12:31]

That’s how I feel about these three specific ones—the green ones. These are the ones I gravitate toward the most.

Taylor [12:37]

Yeah, it’s been a really interesting and eye-opening experience. I know our situations are very different, but it’s fascinating how we manage these things very similarly.

Sam [12:52]

Yeah, that’s so interesting to me. Another way that I manage mine is I put myself on a shot clock. I’ll set an alarm on my phone for 45 minutes, and I literally handwrite what I’m doing. I have my shot clock for tomorrow already started. I can’t be listening to music, I’m not allowed to check my phone, and I’m locked in for 45 minutes. When it goes off, I reward myself with either a nice little latte, a walk, or just taking my dog out for 15 minutes. That way I break up my time in my day because, I don’t know about you, but most of my day is consumed with meetings or a lot of writing. Those are the two biggest ways I spend my days, and that can be hard when you’re sick of sitting still.

Taylor [13:40]

Yeah.

Sam [13:41]

Right, so it helps me in that way. I also have a standing desk that helps. I really struggle with it during meetings because I’m more focused on not falling off the walking pad that I have, and typing while standing is still a strange concept, even though I’ve had it for years. But when I’m just listening to something like a webinar or whatever, I’m always standing and kind of bobbing around and stretching.

Taylor [14:10]

That’s interesting. Is the standing desk specifically something you got to help manage ADHD?

Sam [14:19]

My therapist actually told me to try it out when I was switching jobs at the time, so I was already pretty anxious. I had just gotten an actual diagnosis, and I was like, “I don’t even know where to start,” because my whole life I’ve lived this way and I just managed it—not well, but I was trying to. She was like, “Maybe try more upward motion. Try standing up a little bit more during your day. Try taking more walks throughout the day. Try separating the day.” Especially because working remote, for me, is really difficult as someone with ADHD, but also just for my personality in general. Both sides of it, I need a little more visual stimulation than maybe most. So the whole outside thing is really what makes it best.

Taylor [15:11]

Awesome. I’m curious: what was that diagnosis process like? As I’m sure you know, a lot of people go undiagnosed, and I’m sure it might be helpful for anyone listening to know the pros and cons.

Sam [15:28]

It was a lot. Growing up, I was in a family that didn’t believe in mental health until about the last five years. It was very much “just deal with it.” I think that’s a generational thing, at least in my experience. When I was about 26 or 27, I went to a new family doctor. I left the one I’d gone to my whole life and went to someone new who didn’t know my family. I was like, “Here’s what actually goes on in my day. This is how fast my brain is working.” I told her some stories, and I still remember sitting in the exam room bawling, because I was like, “I don’t think anybody understands, but I cannot think about one thing at a time. I’m thinking about 75, and they overwhelm me. On top of that, I have things I have to do, and personal-care things like laundry or dishes, and I just get so bogged down by the hundreds of things in my head that I can’t do it.” They actually diagnosed me with anxiety. It was an interesting journey because I was like, “That makes sense.” I Googled it, and it sounded like what was going on. So I’ve been on Lexapro since I was 27, and now I’m 38, so it’s been a long time. When I was struggling so much in my job at 32, I went back to my doctor and said, “This isn’t working.” I took a chemical imbalance test and another test—I forget the name of it, but when I find it I’ll send it to you for the notes. It was basically a blood test and a genetic mouth swab that said what medications were best with my body makeup for anxiety and depression. It said Lexapro was the best. I’m like, “Well, if it’s the best and it’s not working, then something else is going on.” If it’s the best option for me and I’m going to therapy twice a month, I think we’re missing something here. So I got a referral from my doctor to go to a psychiatrist, which was a really scary word to me. I actually avoided it for over a year—never showed up and missed two appointments. That was a fun experience, just coming to terms with it. I also struggled with how to talk about even going to my appointment because there’s such a stigma when you say ADHD, especially as a millennial. Like what you said—you were a boy in the ’90s, so you probably got diagnosed with ADHD. But if you were a girl, it was more like, “No, you just need to stop obsessing over something.” So I still had all of that in the back of my mind. But I went to the psychiatrist and had a couple of sessions with her over the course of a year before I decided to actually pull the trigger and do something about it. It was a very personal experience. In the state of Ohio, there are a couple of things required before you can get an ADHD diagnosis. A few of them are interviews with people close to you. They typically want your parents to fill out online paperwork about you. I love my parents—they’re the best parents in the whole world—but they don’t think any of this is true. So I’m like, “They’re not going to be able to fill this out unbiased.” I had to find the right people and get it approved. It is a process. Other states are similar, and others are a lot more lenient from what I gather. I have a best friend who is a school psychiatrist for elementary school kids, so she walked me through a couple of ideas based on her training. She’s been doing it for 15 years. So I was like, “I guess I’ll just run with this.” I had my sister do it, and I also had my dad do it, but then I added a roommate of mine from a few years prior to do it too, just about my habits. I never actually looked at what they asked because I didn’t want to know the answers my family and peers were putting down. After that, it was a process of finding medication that works for me. I don’t take a daily medication for it. I’ve switched from Lexapro to something else that’s kind of between ADHD medication and anxiety medication, and then I have medication that I can use as needed for when it’s really bad. But I am not fully dependent on something like Adderall.

Taylor: 20:19

Well, that's really interesting. Thank you for sharing that. I knew like there's a diagnosis like process, but and but I didn't know how much it can differ because I've heard stories from some folks on the diagnosis process, but I didn't know about interviewing like loved ones and people close to you. That's that's really interesting. It's interesting. And then it also you gotta deal in your situation with worrying about bias from your family.

Sam: 20:47

Exactly. Exactly.

Taylor: 20:49

That's really interesting, and seems kind of uh like they should have a better way of doing that.

Sam: 20:56

Couldn't agree more. I could not agree more. I was actually pretty upset by the process, which is why it took me so long to do it. Because I was like, what do you mean? Like, I know how my mother would answer this question, and it is like, just go pray about it. And I'm like, well, my brain can't even stop to do that, like you know, so it was it was definitely a journey for me, but I'm glad I did it. Um, as painful and crazy as it was, it's nice to know that I'm not in my brain by myself and that I have doctors who are helping me navigate the life that I have always wanted to live, and now I get to.

Taylor: 21:33

Awesome. Yeah, the diagnosis process can can be very stressful and frustrating. Like for me as a blind individual, more leaning towards visually impaired, I've been considering getting a guide dog, and I did not realize just how much goes into that.

Sam: 21:55

A lot.

Taylor: 21:56

Yeah, like it's it's not something you can just get. Like snapping your fingers. Like, I had to go to appointment after appointment and get form like a hundred forms filled up on my doctor, go to a optometrist and my neuro optometrist, get it signed up by my neurologist, and then and then I gotta apply for it and like all this stuff. And it's gotten to a point where I started the process about a year ago, I stopped. I'm I might start butt back up at some point, but I think that's something that gets overlooked for many disabilities, how cumbersome that diagnosis process can be. And in turn, you need that diagnosis to get accommodations.

Sam: 22:40

Exactly.

Taylor: 22:41

Like imagine if I were fully blind and really needed that guide dog, I would still have to go through all these insanely convoluted steps. And so it's it's always a very interesting topic because it can be very different depending on the disability. Like obviously, you didn't have to prove you were blind.

Sam: 23:02

Yeah, yeah.

Taylor: 23:03

But like it's it's just crazy what they make you go through.

Sam: 23:07

I know, I know. And so I have a nephew who has spina bifida, he's in a wheelchair, so he will be starting the process of trying to get a guide dog. And now I at least have some reference for when I he's going through it, but it's terrible. I feel like in the States, and especially with the style of healthcare and all that we have, I find having a disability, they they almost make it even worse. Like I already am feeling some type of way about the way my brain was made and how I walk through life every day. But then on top of it, to add the stress of number of appointments or number of times I have to talk to someone about what's going on, how many times I have to be vulnerable in order to solve for something is is daunting. And I think that's why it took me so long to do it.

Taylor: 23:56

Yeah, and I think that's another like thing that I've never thought about, like how it can differ on depending where you live. Like here in the US, I've actually heard from different people with different disabilities that they've actually moved states because of their disability, and they weren't as accommodating in that state.

Sam: 24:17

Interesting.

Taylor: 24:18

And so, yeah, I find that really fascinating, and and I think that's something that even I who and I spend a lot of time in this kind of world, I rarely think about, but the environment you're in can greatly affect how you perform, like even like county to county, some schools handle children with disabilities better than others.

Sam: 24:42

And exactly.

Taylor: 24:43

Yeah, that's that's also really important to keep in mind.

Sam: 24:47

Yeah, like my brother and his family live about 40 minutes away from me in uh one of the cities that has another kid, my cut my nephew's age, that also is in a wheelchair in Spina bifida. So he'll grow up with one of his like besties who's also in the same Spina bifida. They don't all have the same outcomes and and activities and all of that, but he'll grow up with a buddy who's exactly in his same kind of wavelength of life. And I'm really grateful for that for him.

Taylor: 25:17

Yeah, absolutely. It's great to have that kind of support where it's someone who sh truly understands exactly what you're going through. Yeah, that's and it can be challenging because as you were saying, disabilities, even the same one on paper, can represent in different ways, but at least having some insight into how your your life is can be very helpful.

Sam: 25:42

Yeah, exactly. No, I really appreciated the question you asked early on, which was how does it present? Because I think that's a big key for it too, because you say you have ADHD or you have, you know, visually impaired, like all of those things mean a hundred different things to each person based on the context of how they understand it, what they've experienced through it or around it. Like I was talking to one of a friend of a friend of a friend at an event, actually, and they were like, Oh, my brother has that too. And I'm like, Well, we all we all think we know it, but his is probably very different than mine because we're two different people and we have two different lived experiences. But it's nice to have a relation point at least. Um, I go back and forth on that.

Taylor: 26:30

Yeah, it it can be interesting to kind of go back and forth on because like I always use blindness as an example because I feel like it's one of the most misrepresented disabilities in media. Uh, so a lot of people, when I tell them that over 95% or around 95% of people who are labeled as blind or visually impaired still have some functional vision. People are blown away because they're used to seeing in movies and TV shows guys see like having like white eyes or like seeing black, yeah, just going off echolocation, like exactly, and yeah, so like with blindness, there's so many different causes and like genetics and from injuries, like from what mine is from. Like, there's so many different each one has its own severity, and then as you were saying, it we it also depends on how that individual adjusts to living with it. So there are so many variables that go into these disabilities, and that's part of the reason we do this to show how vast disabilities truly are.

Sam: 27:38

Exactly. Exactly. It's wild how just a simple diagnosis can mean a thousand different things, and then on top of it, the whole concept of like dis the word disability, I really don't like, but I don't know what better word to use. This is one of my like things I've been trying to think about. I try to call it my uniqueness more than I call it a disability, but also there's power in the word disability too. I go back and forth.

Taylor: 28:07

Yeah, yeah, I I fully agree. It's and it can be very contextual too on when you use it. But yeah, I I fully agree. And I I've heard that same thing from a lot of other people, and also people who don't have a disability. Yes, there's there's been this stigma tied to disability for so long now, and like you'll I'll hear it some kind sometimes call it uh my superpower, yeah, uh like my ability, like things like that. But like like you were saying, like sometimes disability is like you can use it strategically to like emphasize something. So yeah, I I fully agree with that. It's it can be uh challenging and confusing to make a decision on. Oh, sorry, go ahead.

Sam: 28:57

No worries, I was just saying it's such a personal thing to decide as well.

Taylor: 29:00

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And one thing I I often ask in these interviews is about how you identify with your disability. Like, do you think of it as part of you or do you think of it as more of a defining quality of you, like person first versus identity first language?

Sam: 29:21

That's a hard stuff.

Taylor: 29:22

I've kind of gone back and forth on that too.

Sam: 29:24

Exactly.

Taylor: 29:26

Because I on one end, I am a blind person, but I also don't like saying it sometimes because then it can give the impression I can't see anything because people are aware, and then also I don't want people to associate that with me every time they hear Taylor blind guy.

Sam: 29:45

Exactly.

Taylor: 29:45

I always I always um love to hear people's opinion like yourself, like how does that tie into your identity?

Sam: 29:53

Yeah, I usually like I usually don't really call myself anything. I don't I don't like labels of any kind really. Um, I think for me it's like it's part of me and it just is what it is. And I'm not thinking like like this thing defines me. So I don't like to say heavily that it's me. You know what I mean? I think I wouldn't be the person I am without my uniqueness, as we call it. But yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't drive a I need to be identified as this sort of thing for me. But I'm fine with people knowing, you know, and I'm fine talking about it. I love to talk about it. Um, but I don't, it's not something I like put on my slides.

Taylor: 30:37

Uh yeah, same here. But uh for me, with with it being blindness, certain contexts I like for safety, or I don't want someone to think I'm being rude by not looking at them in the eyes. So sometimes I feel uh like it's better for everyone involved if I'm more open about it. Um yeah, so in certain situations, I feel like it's best for me to be more open about it, but I get that. And so you had mentioned that you're into marketing, and you also had said you recently moved into a new position. So can you tell us a little bit more about what you do and what a typical day looks like for you?

Sam: 31:16

Yeah, my typical day, I get to kind of make my own. So I work for um a CEO who most relaxed, like full trust. I've known him for a couple of years through the channel. And him and I are are really aligned on like, if you need to get something done, go do it. But also, like, don't tell me when you're going to the doctor, I don't need to know, like, build your day how you want to build it. And that's been really in line with with me. The only thing that's a little bit rigid in my life is a lot of my coworkers are in Helsinki, Finland. So they're only available in the mornings for me. So I have to figure my mornings are busier than they've been. So I've had to switch a little bit of my routine to wake up earlier, drink my coffee earlier, be more on at 8 a.m. Eastern time than I have in years. So that's the thing that has been hard for me. But after kind of talking to the team here, we said Fridays, like no meetings for Sam on Friday mornings, like give her one day to just kind of adjust to this new working schedule. But then after about 11 o'clock every day, the day's mine to figure out I have that's when I have my external meetings or when I have my like work time. Um, and it actually works nice because my time of day, that's my best time of day, which sounds like a short amount of time, but these are this is the truth, is from about 1:30 to 4 p.m. is when I get my best work done and I'm the best version of myself. So in the mornings, I'm trying to figure out a way to still bring some of that energy into kind of how I work. But yeah, most of my day is a couple meetings in the morning, a lot of hands-on keyboard as I'm I'm kind of figuring out what needs done here and managing that, and then calls with partners and um calls with marketing agency that that I'm onboarding.

Taylor: 33:10

Oh, nice. So I knew you had said, I don't know if it was, I think it may have been before we started the recording, but you had said you had moved to a smaller organization from a large one. So I'm curious, what has that experience been like specifically in terms of like accommodating feeling accommodated and mental health and like understanding?

Sam: 33:33

Yeah, it's interesting. So I've been in company sizes of like I used to work at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. Nobody really knows that unless you scroll all the way down on my LinkedIn. So that was hundreds of thousands of people employed at the same company, and that was before I really knew who I was, so I don't count that. Um, but I've worked in companies from about this one's 25 people, and then I've worked all the way up to 2000 in my like actual focused job time. In a big company, oftentimes there's programs that they call DEI, right? Um, so there are ways you can go about asking for accommodation, but I I found that to be kind of a difficult process because there's less of a circle of trust when it's a large group in HR, right? You've got 10 different people all consulting on your unique needs. And it's because I can use my creativity in a way that I can't in a big company, um, and let my that imagination that I've always had just really take off. But with with this, I just was like, hey, Miko, I have like kind of a weird like need for these sort of things in my day. And he's like, Yeah, I don't care. Do whatever you want. He's like, I appreciate you telling me. Good luck. Like, if you need something different, let me know. And so far, everything I've asked for is like, okay, sure, you know. So um, it's a lot easier, especially when you're working with someone you know and trust, to be like, hey, I need to log out today because I am my brain is not here, but I'll I'll do a little bit this weekend. And they just they're like, you didn't need to even tell me. Go go do it, you know. So I think part of that is a small culture, but it's also the trust of a team that's this small too, and like knowing that you're still gonna get your work done and you've got the trust in the business, and they trust you just the same. Um, I think is really nice. Highly recommend a small company.

Taylor: 35:26

Awesome. Well, yeah, I I agree, I agree. I've had similar experiences to that, so I'm glad you shared that. Sometimes I feel like almost getting those accommodations at those larger companies is kind of like going through that diagnosis process. It is to kind of prove like they ask for like paperwork, you shouldn't have to prove you need a reasonable accommodation, exactly, and it's called that for a reason. It's an unreasonable. I'm not asking for Thursdays and Fridays off.

Sam: 36:02

Exactly.

Taylor: 36:03

Just yeah, so I I've always found that kind of interesting, and I understand there's some like guidelines companies have, and depending on where it's located, maybe even, but um, so I know you have to go soon. So before we wrap things up, first of all first of all, first off, thank you so much. And you've shared a lot of great insights, and I look forward to sharing this because I love when guests share how they manage living with your disability, like you were saying, with the shot clock and like your fidgets and all this stuff. I think it could be helpful for people, especially the shot clock. I've never heard that, so I think that'd be cool for other people to try out as well. Uh, so before we head out, do you have one last piece of like main advice for anyone currently living with ADHD?

Sam: 36:56

There's so many things I could say. My my biggest piece of advice is like trust that even though the process sucks to figure it out, it's really helpful to have tools that that help you work through it or work with it or work alongside it. I don't think I would be as steady of a person as I am now without figuring all this stuff out and having doctors who listen and tools that work for me and um kind of my whole kit of things. And then my other piece of advice is talk about it. A lot of people keep it to themselves. A lot of people have this like fear of people knowing, but I think you'll be surprised with how many other people have some similar uniqueness and kind of like what I said earlier, like with my shot clock and things like that, like I learned these things from other people. And I learned it from talking about it. And I think there's this stigma of being open about disabilities that aren't exactly physical presenting, right? There's this like, oh, I don't want people to know, or I don't want people to have a judgment on me. But I think what it's taught me a lot is I'm a really strong person if I just let myself be. And if I help one person, it's worth me telling my story that sucked. It's more than it is to keep it to myself.

Taylor: 38:14

Yeah, that's a great piece of advice and something of I've always tried to share with people as well. Because for a while I wasn't open about it, but now I am, and I found it's much easier for me and everyone else involved when I'm open and just saying, hey, this is my situation, this is how we can best interact. And yeah, you'll be surprised. Exactly. Might might not ever go back to to hiding it. Yeah, exactly.

Sam: 38:44

For sure.

Taylor: 38:45

All right. Well, thank you, Sam, so much for joining us, and thank you, everyone, for watching and/or listening, or I guess listening and/or watching. Love it, whatever. Thanks for having me today. Yeah, absolutely. And then we will see you all next time for another episode of Day in Life. Thanks, everyone.

Sam: 39:04

Thank you.

Taylor: 39:07

Thank you all for joining us while we explore accessibility and disability. If you enjoyed this podcast, check out more episodes and show notes at accessiblecommunity.org slash podcasts. Remember, be accessible, be inclusive.