ADHD Superpower? Gifts, Capitalism, and Who Really Benefits

"Everyone has ADHD now."

You've heard it. Maybe someone said it to you — with a half-joke, half-accusation edge. Like, neurodivergence is just the trend of the season.

But what if that reaction tells us less about ADHD and more about the systems we're living in?

In this conversation with Kristina Kyser — psychotherapist, educator, and creator of the Neurodivergent Rising course — we pull apart the "ADHD superpower" narrative that's everywhere right now. Because yes, there are gifts: innovation, nonlinear thinking, deep passion, hyperfocus. Those are real.

But who benefits when we only talk about the parts of capitalism that it can extract?


What We Cover:

ADHD masking: the invisible labour of appearing "normal"
From childhood, neurodivergent people — especially women — calibrate to a world that says: you're too much, you're wrong, you're different. Kristina breaks down what masking costs and why perimenopause often unmasks ADHD in midlife.

The construction of "sanity" and who it was built to serve
Normalcy isn't neutral. The DSM, psychiatry, the witch burnings — all of it is tangled with patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism's need for compliant workers. Kristina traces the historical roots of how neurodivergence gets pathologised.

The superpower question: what's true, what's missing, who profits
Yes, ADHD comes with strengths. But when we only celebrate the traits capitalism values (innovation! hyperfocus! productivity!) while erasing the lows, the burnout, the 13-year shorter life expectancy, the systemic barriers — who does that serve?

Why ADHD is a disability under capitalism — and that's not your fault
ADHD isn't a medical deficit. But in a society built for neurotypical brains, it is disabling. Kristina explains the difference between individual healing and systemic change, and why we need both.

Meet Kristina Kyser:

Kristina (she/her) is a late-diagnosed AuDHD educator, former psychotherapist, and course creator with a PhD in English Literature and over 13 years of clinical experience. Her work bridges trauma healing, animist practice, and systems-level critique. She creates initiatory spaces that blend science, soul, and lived neurodivergence in service of collective remembering and repair.

Learn more:
Neurodivergent Rising Course

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening: The “Everyone Has ADHD” Claim
• 2:30 Masking And Who Gets Missed
• 7:00 Safety, Belonging, And Early Conditioning
• 12:30 Systems At Peak: Capitalism And Compliance
• 18:00 Women, Perimenopause, And Late Diagnoses
• 24:00 Who Defined “Normal” And “Sane”
• 31:00 Neurodivergence As Threat To Hierarchy
• 36:30 Schools, Compliance, And Parenting Choices
• 43:00 “Superpower” Framing: Gifts And Harms

Transcript

Jennifer Walter: 0:00

So I'm sitting with Christina here and we're gonna kick us off with just a snippet I had I heard in a recent conversation that it everyone has ADHD now, air quotes. And yes, while that phrase might seem to be everywhere, and I heard it, it was said to me as kind of like a half joke, half accusation. With some certain fatigue for sure, but like hmm, but what if that like reaction of that person when I shared my story tells us less about ADHD and more about the systems we're living in, right? And what if in ADHD and neurodivergence, it it isn't it's not really uh in my opinion, um, about overdiagnosis. Is there such a thing? Or trend culture, like no, but about like the growing friction between like our humanness, how we're built, and norms and expectations and roles deeply shaped by the systems we're in, colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, and so on. There's a different way to think about mental health, and it starts with slowing down. Sometimes the longest way around is the shortest way home. And that's exactly where we're taking the scenic route. Hi, I'm Jennifer Walter, host of the Scenic Route Podcast. Think of me as your sociologist's sister in arms and rebel with many causes. Together, we're blending critical thinking with compassion, mental health with a dash of rebellion, and personal healing with collective change. We're trading perfectionism for possibility and toxic positivity for messy growth. Each week, we're exploring the path to better mental health and social transformation. And yes, by the way, pretty crystals are totally optional. You ready to take the scenic route? Let's walk this path together. So, Christina, like I think this is a perfect segue into this. We're already like give everyone a glance what we're like what's coming at them. So if that's not your gem, please move along. Otherwise, if we ever get off topic, please excuse us. We're in the same boat.

Kristina Kyser: 2:08

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I I I'm sure that most people have heard that response now, like, oh, everybody's autistic or everybody's authentic. Yeah. So I I mean I would counter that with two main points. Like one of them is that what we're really seeing is the fallout of decades and decades of medical research that has only been on male uh on white on white boys, essentially, when it comes to neurodivergence. And when it comes to all of health, right? So, really, you know, uh, we don't know anything about the female nervous system because it's never been studied. Uh, we don't know about female hormones. I mean, exactly. Right. Like it's so what we're seeing, and I think it's partly through social media, what we're seeing is the spread of um, you know, what we could look at as masked ADHD or masked um autism, especially in populations in which it has been particularly unsafe to display the traits of neurodivergence. So this would include uh women, it would include um trans, non-binary, queer, it would include people of color, right? Anyone who is under a massive amount of societal pressure to appear normal, to appear neuro neurotypical, to conform. Um, so I mean, biologically, ADHD shows up differently in women than in boys. Like, you know, the hyperactivity tends to be internal and mental and emotional as opposed to external and physical. Exactly. And then and then we have the phenomenon of masking, which is, you know, masking is this.

Jennifer Walter: 3:49

Yeah, say please say more about this because I'm not sure. Everyone tuning in now like has an idea of what we mean when we say masking.

Speaker 1: 3:57

Yeah, so masking is an unconscious adaptation. So you can you can do it your whole life and not know you're doing it, but it essentially is your nervous system calibrating to the fact that the the way you your embodiment functions is not welcome. So the way you express emotion, the way you move your body, the way you think, the way you speak, the way you do or do not make eye contact, the kinds of things you like to talk about, if your feedback at a consistent verbal and nonverbal uh level is from the time you're a child, you're too much, you're wrong, you're different. We don't want to hear that truth. We don't want to feel what you're feeling, we don't want to see you moving the way you're moving. You are a problem, then what your nervous system does is says, I'm I'm a I'm in I'm in threat. I'm in threat of being ostracized, I'm in threat of not being cared for, and I will adapt. And so masking is a tremendously complex set of phenomena. It's it's not only about how am I holding my body, it's about how much eye contact am I making. It's about what what are what are my intonations? Do I smile? Do I not smile?

Jennifer Walter: 5:08

Um, you know, and essentially what it does is back like the general social consensus now. Should I make eye contact? Should I not? Should I, is it too much? Is it too strong? Is it we do think about a lot about these things?

Speaker 1: 5:22

Well, and and essentially what that means is, you know, that we learn very early and very unconsciously to be more attuned to the other than we are to ourselves. So in addition to having a nervous system that is already incredibly sensitive and already taking in so much information, we are now disconnecting from our own internal connection to self. And we are attuning to how is this person reacting to me right now? What am I doing that's a problem? What do I do to have to remain safe? And safe can mean socially accepted, it can mean, you know, not physically attacked, it can mean not killed. Like if we if we look at what it means, for example, for a black man with neurodivergence to mask, you know, his life could be at stake. Yes. Right. Or if you look at, you know, if you look at just what it means to be um a woman who speaks truth bluntly, right? Which, you know, neurodivergence will predispose us to, like where we're told very, very early on, don't, you know, that's not permitted. So masking is, yeah, incredibly, it's incredibly complex and all pervasive and very, very deeply physiologically, psychologically, spiritually damaging. And what's happening now is that we are seeing all the masked neurodivergent people. So all the people who, you know, we're seeing them on social media. They're they're writing books. You know, there's a fantastic book called Um Unmasking Autism by trans author Devin Price, right? So um they go through all the populations.

Jennifer Walter: 6:55

Kind of like if you're allowed, like Googling, no, don't just listen to us talking, and we'll go to the show notes later.

unknown: 7:02

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:03

So, I mean, we're now seeing all the populations that have been not only neglected by medical science, but also socially conditioned to suppress and to hide our truth. And so that is, I, you know, my understanding is that is so that accounts for the surge in diagnosis. The other thing is that we're in late-stage capitalism. And so all of the systems that have always been um working against life, capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, colonization, they are at their peak. They're at their zenith. And so anyone who, I mean, everyone is impacted now, um, except, you know, arguably the the billionaires.

Jennifer Walter: 7:50

The rich white male billionaires, but everyone else.

Speaker 1: 7:54

Yeah. Yes. And so those of us who have, you know, a brain that's 42 more percent more active and a nervous system that's far more porous. And, you know, so we are going to be more symptomatic. We are the, you know, we are the canaries in the coal mine, right? Our sensitivity is a reflection of the fact that look, we're reaching peak death cult in Western culture, where you know, everything is set up to sustain extraction and to destroy life. Um, and so I I would I would argue that that is also reflected in the increase in diagnoses because it's it's not sustainable. It's not sustainable to live within these systems.

Jennifer Walter: 8:36

Absolutely. Like it's we're seeing, like, I mean, on so many levels, right? We're seeing like so many people I talk to are exhausted, like truly, not just like tired, like we love a good tired, but emotionally exhausted um to the point where they where they really have a hard time to know even just not practice, but knowing what true rest is. Um and uh to be fair, like I I mean I'm born in I was like I grew up in the 80s, 90s, and that time, like it was a time where only boys have ADHD, girls do not. And now looking back, I have like entries and like in like school report cards of like, well, good grades, but talks a lot or like talks super loud all the time, where I'm like, well, the signs were there, I suppose. So it's really now kind of coming into um that into kind of like that awareness, and another thing, and it comes into awareness for me specifically at this particular moment in time, because I'm entering or I am in perimenopause, and that messes with my brain a lot. And so the masking gets even more harder, it uses so much more brain power to the point where my ADHD comes true after like 40 years of masking. So, yeah, that is also an effect I believe that's not like scientific back, but might be interesting too, because this entire generation of women perimenopause and now coming into like, oh wait, maybe. And then I had a son diagnosed with ID medically diagnosed with ADHD. And then I went into check-ins. They sent me all your textbook. This is actually textbook. You have a kid with ADHD, you know it's genetic and epigenetic, you're in menopause, and you have all these weird symptoms. So this might be another thing. So if you think this is not just perimenopause, there you go. Something to think about.

Speaker 1: 10:59

Yeah, as the estrogen drops, the way we can't we can mask much, much less. So so the the sort of textbook um ways that ADHD manifests, they're they're they're amplified for sure in perimenopause.

Jennifer Walter: 11:15

Yeah. This this brings me to like the whole masking thing. I think this is a good way into you've already said it. We mask to feel safe. And a lot of this happens for us in our affirmative years, so up until the age of seven. So it was it's at really at a crucial point of where we feel if we do not belong to this uh nuclear family, we'll be dead because we cannot sustain ourselves. Um so we really have uh so that's kind of like that part. We mask because we feel safe, and of course, we uh to that part is uh we mask towards something, and we mask towards this idea of what normal normal diver normal brains, normal behavior, normal people should do, should talk like, should like, should dress like it goes through all kind of layers. Like how like how do we like start cleaning this up? Do we have to look at it historically? Yes. Where do we where do we start cleaning this mess up?

Speaker 1: 12:29

Yeah, so I so just for a bit of context, my middle son was diagnosed with ADHD years ago, and actually uh in 2024, I was doing a deep dive to better understand him when I self-diagnosed with autism, and then later went to a clinician, and she said, no, it's autism and ADHD. And then part of what I did to process my own diagnosis was do this really deep dive. You know, I have 13 years of experience as a um as a psychotherapist, but in all of my training, advanced training, none of the neurodivergence was not covered. So I did a really deep historical dive into the history of psychiatry and the construction of normalcy. Like who decided what normalcy is, what sanity is, and what are the criteria? And if we look back at this construction, it is so far from neutral, right? It is so uh deeply, deeply entwined with patriarchy and norms. Uh you know, sanity is um the rational, civilized white male. And what does that mean? Um, you know, emotionally cauterized, spiritually dead, right? Like these are the constructions, and we can we can look back at the construction of sanity, you know, that had to have the other. So the woman was always representative of the irrational, the hysterical, right? And we can go back before hysteria to the witch burnings, right? So, so essentially women become pathologized because we don't support um empire, or more precisely, we are needed to be um the resources for empire. All of our unpaid labor, all of everything that we do to support and nourish life, it's needed, but it is not going to be valued. So the witches were burned because they were opposed to the introduction of capitalism into Europe, right? That was the death of indigenous, the destruction of indigenous Europe, was the rise of capitalism. Um, and so the witch, the other, the feminine, gets constructed as um primitive, uncivilized, irrational, dangerous. And she gets also bound up with the ways in which indigenous cultures, African cultures are being constructed to justify colonization, right? So you have the uncivilized, primitive, overly sensitive, overly intuitive, nonlinear beings, right? Who all have to be suppressed and used as resources for empire. And then you have the construction of the civilized self who is desensitized and quote unquote rational and um linear and controlled.

Jennifer Walter: 15:22

Uh, and in fact, you know, deeply acceptance of this hierarchical structure.

Speaker 1: 15:27

Yes, deeply dissociated and deeply traumatized and very, very ill. And that has been, you know, that's been the binary that has created the life-destroying structures that all of our institutions are built in. So sanity, you know, has been constructed in service to patriarchy and in service to colonization and white supremacy and empire, in you know, and the church and all the ways in which the church has has participated in that. So it, you know, we look at these textbooks, like you look at the DSM, the diagnostic and statistical manual that's used, you know, um, in a lot of North America to determine what are the symptoms, where do we get these diagnoses from? And they look like these neutral objective texts, but they they are arising out of this social context. And you, when you look at, for example, uh indigenous or African societies in which um, you know, those that we would call quote unquote mentally ill are actually people who are connected to spirit or who are connected to other layers of, you know, who have a conscious connection.

Jennifer Walter: 16:31

Possessed by spirit, but in it like not in a bad connotation, like not in a bad connotation, possessed. Like yes.

Speaker 1: 16:37

Yeah. So what you know, the church also constructed sanity. You know, the church came to um Turtle Island, North America, and said, you know, you are you are primitive, you are possessed by demonic spirits. Why? Because you communicate and have and have reciprocal relationships with non-human intelligence, because you you honor and communicate with rivers and mountains and uh animals, and you are are participating in this wider web of intelligence. We don't believe in that. We believe that's demonic, right? Um, so you see the construction of sanity there too. And a lot of the properties of neurodivergence, you know, ADHD has the word disorder in it, um, autism spectrum disorder, they are deemed disordered because they they they exemplify a lot of these qualities, nonlinear perception, profound sensitivity, justice sensitivity, um, you know, uh integrity, alignment with um moral truth as opposed to superficial, performed uh personalities, right? Yeah, I see resistance to hierarchy.

Jennifer Walter: 17:52

To like our perceptions of time, space, pace, the whole shenanigans.

Speaker 1: 18:02

Because we do not, we are not wired to comply. And I want to be clear that we are perfectly, we are all susceptible to social conditioning. So this is not about neurodivergent people being morally superior or immune to being conditioned into white supremacy and all kinds of supremacy and sickness. However, physiologically, physiologically, we are not wired to comply. We are not wired to fit these systems. And so um attempting to comply comes at a much, much higher physiological cost. And you know, to the extent that we actually risk being our authentic selves, we are a problem. We are a problem to conformity, to hierarchy, like hard hard to control. Yes, exactly.

Jennifer Walter: 18:50

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting that you said like about this moral compass. Like, I see, like I always knew this about myself, and all like I already see this in my son. He's six years old. And when something goes against his grain, there is just no way that he's gonna do this. Like he has this very clear inner North Star compass who is like no, yes, like this is un undilute undiluted, like super like dang, this is it. And I know or I I've learned to kind of like really go with my first kind of like somatic reaction to something. And if it's like then it's a no. And I have to kind of like speak this before my logic or my ego or whatever comes in and be like, yeah, you know, but you could, because then it's I don't know, more socially acceptable, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it's really interesting to kind of like have to see this also in my younger son. Of like just how can how can I let him be undiluted for as long as possible?

Speaker 1: 20:12

And I I think to me, and that's one of the most painful things about parenting, was like, okay, I have to take these um these humans, you know, who are born so connected to themselves, so connected to life, and I have to put them into systems that I know from experience were so contorting and stolifying and um damaging. Like so I have to put them in the school system, and I know the school system is based on compliance, and I know the skill school system was actually developed to create compliant factory workers, right? That it's it's there to dull creativity and to um make us obedient. Um and it's I think it's really devastating as a parent to try to navigate that. Like the reality is that most of us don't have the leisure or the temperament or the training or the financial capacity to school our kids at home. Um, but we're really, and even if we do that, we still have to introduce them to this broken society at some point. But it is, yeah, it's it's a very painful clash that's really visible with young children. Yeah. Is how do I, how do I put this child into an environment in which they're going to be told to do precisely the opposite of what you just named, which is they're gonna be told to override and ignore what their body is telling them. Yeah. And especially for boys, especially for boys, the desensitizing and the shaming around sensitivity, around um intuition, around emotion, around vulnerability, it's you know, it's really powerful.

Jennifer Walter: 21:56

Yeah. And I think it's what I mean, we've talked about if like what we're gonna do, and we knew, okay, yeah, we don't have the capacity to homeschool. Um, even though my my like his dad, my partner, is a is is a teacher, um and also a special needs teacher. So we we would have like some ideas, but what is really mind-boggling is that uh it comes down to uh really this singular instance of how is your how is the teacher of your child because when you have someone there who is really accepting of uh what is going on, you're so much better off, of course, because they're in defined against their system per se. So we decided to send them into school and we set really, really clear boundaries of we're going for knowledge, like with any kind of homework or tests or whatever, kind of shenanigans that they're doing in first grade, which is nonsense anyway. We're testing for knowledge, not compliance. We had this argument with our teacher so many times of like she sent homework back, like the circles are supposed to be blue, but they're red. And like, well, did he color in the right amount of circles? Yes, then I don't give a shit. Like, we're not testing for compliance, don't care. Um, of like all these really things, and it's they're daily battles, it's insane. But I'm not sure if he would be better off, like completely you know, removed from the system because as you said, there will be a point when he will enter the systems, and I don't think we're gonna see the destruction and the dismantling of capitalism the next 15-20 years, unless something really rapid cascades, but maybe not, maybe, maybe not, who knows? So he would who knows at this point. We're in an unprecedented moment. But no, we're getting off topic. But uh this is kind of like one thing of I think we've really touched a lot on really important parts where we had this. I kind of brought this in of that, it really comes down to like who if within the system you're working with. So sometimes it really helps to switch class or switch schools. But I remember um we had one conversation, and that was rubbing me so wrong, the so the wrong way. Oh my god, was this whole notion of well, we don't really look at like neurodivergence as deficits, which is fine. Um but they're like it's it's your superpower. And especially when you're in the online world, TikTok, Instagram, you have a lot of people who are like, oh, ADHD is my superpower. And I'm curious what you what do you think of that?

Speaker 1: 25:22

Yeah, I I excuse me, I think there is a kernel of truth to that because there are tremendous gifts that are associated with neurodivergence, including, you know, innovation, creativity, nonlinear thinking, you know, the capacity to see truths that others don't, you know, deep passion, hyper focus. Um, I think these are gifts to the individual, they're gifts to society, but they cannot be taken out of the context that neurodivergence within the existing structures of our society is a disability. Now, it's not a medical disability in the sense that there is no inherent deficit. That's true. There's nothing wrong. It is not a disorder, it is not a deficit. However, according to the social definition of disability, which is it's the interaction of an individual with a system.

Jennifer Walter: 26:21

Yes.

Speaker 1: 26:22

Right. And when and as a neurodivergent person with ADHD or autism or both, interacting with a society that was built for the neurotypical brain, we are disabled. And when we downplay that, we downplay the reality that, for example, ADHD takes 13 years off your life expectancy. You know, that's more than diabetes. You know, it's it is, and this is the other the downside to it being viewed as a trend or a social media, you know, meme is that we don't recognize like the percentage of people with ADHD in prison, for example, or with addiction, or the risk of suicidality for neurodivergent people either.

Jennifer Walter: 27:04

Yeah, right. You have such an incredibly higher risk of um being incarcerated, being addicted to whatever kind of substance there, like drugs, alcohol, shopping. What like the list is endless.

Speaker 1: 27:18

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that is because of the failure of our society to accommodate any difference in nervous systems. It it is because our society has been built for this constructed version of human, which honestly really doesn't exist for anyone. It's not healthy for anyone, right? To be a compliant worker, to be a cog in a machine.

Jennifer Walter: 27:40

No.

Speaker 1: 27:40

Um, but it but it lands with much more force on more sensitive nervous systems and brains. So the superpower is it's a piece of the picture, but it's not the whole picture.

Jennifer Walter: 27:53

100%. And what I always kind of like ask in in this like superpower like conversation is like, well, you have you pick out very specific parts of super as superpowers, right? And who benefits from reframing those as like superpowers, right? Reframing innovation, reframing like high pressure thinking or fast thinking, fast reaction. Like those are very high capitalistic traits of human behavior that you pick out. So it's almost kind of like, well, who benefits if you frame it like that? So just unlike something for everyone to think about is always like who benefits if we do something?

Speaker 1: 28:48

Yeah, that's a great point. And I what I what I see in that, you know, when it's framed as a superpower, sometimes I see something really healthy, which is someone who is seeking to move out of the shame that they've been living like their entire life. You know, they've been pathologized their entire life, and they're reframing that. And that you need, you know, you need to flip the script. You need to say, actually, everything you have not valued in me has tremendous value. Yes. And so that move has has like is important to make as part of the trajectory of healing and combating gaslighting. Yes. However, it is also, like you said, it falls very much in line with like very extractive. Like you are valuable because you can provide something to other people, because you can provide innovation, or we can extract or benefit from your innovation. Um, and it it also, I think that the challenge is that people then also will say, Well, I love you when you're up and you're the life of the party and you have all this energy, but I don't want to see the burnout or the meltdown. I know I'm not there for that. That doesn't interest me. I just want the superpower piece, right? As opposed to, well, this is the complexity. The complexity of, you know, ADHD in particular is extremes in experience, like extreme highs that yes, can be incredibly uplifting and powerful and ecstatic and amazing, and also very, very deep lows of like I want someone to hold their hand through the lows. Like, yeah, yeah. And you need to recognize that they are two pieces of the same hole, they are two sides of the same coin. We can't just take one and leave the other one.

Jennifer Walter: 30:29

Yeah. Like I I totally see on a very individual level that the reframe a superpower or a strength is incredibly healing and powerful. Yes. And it needs to ripple outwards back into like the social sphere, the community sphere. Like we cannot uh individualize ADHD, meaning like if it just becomes like another neoliberalism trope, right? Like, oh, I just have to fix my mindset, I just have to think ADHD is my superpower, ADHD is my superpower affirmation on steroids, and then everything will be fixed. No, that's not how this works. Like, what gets erased when we individualize ADHD instead of addressing this the very real structural barriers?

Speaker 1: 31:31

Absolutely. And and yeah, and I think again, it's you know, like when I was creating the Neurodivergent Rising course, I was I was sitting with, okay, am I gonna provide tools for people? Like, am I gonna provide way, you know, ways that we can work with um work with our strengths and also, you know, um support ourselves through our challenges. And I just, I just instinctively felt like, no, that's not my role. Like there's a lot of that out there. There's a lot of people doing amazing work that are helping with precisely like how to adapt, how to, how to um, you know, support yourself in various ways. And my approach was no, we got to look at the systems. We we have to look at the context out of which we've been labeled a disorder, labeled disordered, and we have to look at how um how they're set up against us because they're set up against all of our thriving. Um, and we have to look at systematically how this is playing out. That's where the change is gonna come. Doesn't mean we abandon what we can do for ourselves individually, but again, the individualism individualism is the frequency of the problem.

Jennifer Walter: 32:46

Yeah. Like it's always I always kind of say, like, what's the first kind of like first medical response? Like you have a you have a strong bleed and you need to put a band-aid on, right? That's the that's the the whole superpower mantra. You put the band-aid on, but then you kind of like have to stop the bleed. The band-aid will not like stop the arterial bleed. So we have to kind of like yeah, address the structures we're in, because that's the same thing, like in general, mental health, not just neurodivergence, but like mental health in general. You can do a fucking resilience training and affirmations and positive psychology the whole fucking day, if you're still within these harmful systems. There's only so much you can do. And yes, you should be doing that, but again, neoliberalism told us that's enough, which it isn't. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 33:41

Yeah, and that again just supports the existing structures, right? If you're if you're so focused on your individual healing, uh, you know, and you know, this is this is part of um what I woke up to within my role as a psychotherapist was this real tension between um the really powerful things that can happen when you do trauma therapy and you, you know, you shift internal relationships with different parts of yourselves, you metabolize trauma. But the reality that if we treat that as the end of the story, then then we're participating in the system, right? We're we're just continuing to comply with and participate with the system that wants us to believe the problem is individual and not systemic.

Jennifer Walter: 34:29

Yes. This is I don't know. I think this is already the perfect way to kind of like to like the closing words. But I'm I'm curious, like this is this is something I hear a lot. I'm a sociologist and people always come from me, but like, well, well, what can I do? Like, I can't find the system. Like, well, you can always find the system. Um, but I I get the sentiment that sometimes it's really it's hard and it's hard by design to really distill down. Okay, what can I do to really um bring along a certain change in how I don't know how neurodivergent people in my immediate circle um move through life.

Speaker 1: 35:25

So I think a lot of it is deprogramming. Like again, when I when I created the course, it was like I think we are we are devastated by the lack of accurate information about ourselves, the lack of exposure to other neurodivergent people and sharing the experience from the inside instead of pathologizing it. Um, and also the recognition of how biased our conception of normal is. So we have to begin to unpack because we're we've internalized the oppression, we've internalized the shaming, the insufficiency, the disorder. So as we dismantle that in ourselves, already that is a political act because it is going to shift how we view ourselves and how we interact with neurodivergent people and neurotypical people. So the dismantling of the system is in part an internal one because it shifts how we what we embody, the choices we make, how we speak. Um for me, it also meant a radical lifestyle shift. And this is, you know, coming out of, I wasn't, I didn't self-diagnose till 50. So a lot of you know, damage has been done to my nervous system by powering through, by operating on cortisol. So it's taking certain stands and making certain choices about, well, I'm not going to participate in hustle culture. I'm not going to try to meet demands that continually land me in freeze and fawn and a trauma response. Um then it shows up on like, what do you post on social media? And how do you interact with your medical doctor? Do you hold them accountable? Do you suggest that maybe they read an article about neurodivergence and about the comorbid conditions? You know, if you're however you are, wherever your place of employment is, like, so yes, maybe it is lobbying um certain organizations, maybe it is insisting on accountability from teachers or medical professionals or therapists. Um, but all of this is, you know, it's gonna show up differently in each of us, and all of it is going to ripple. So, you know, if you if you teach yoga, how do you accommodate and like we all have a role to play? And it's not going to look the same. It's not gonna look like marching in the streets for everybody. It's um there are many, many ways to be part of a revolution in consciousness.

Jennifer Walter: 37:54

Yeah, I think it's really beautiful, and I think maybe I just want to highlight one thing you said before, and it relates to like how what we can do, and you've said it, you you mentioned shame before, and you also mentioned language, and I think both things are we can put together, and it's just really powerful if we kind of like I mean, shave drives it when we kind of like tr treat our capacity to do things uh when they treat it as character, right? And what I did, and like this whole thing of like lazy, unfocused, inconsistent, not trying hard enough, right? We all like I'm sure this sounds familiar in some sort of way of really like detaching the I am lazy, I am unfocused, to kind of like I have a hard time focusing right now. These really subtle shifts of decoupling something I do with how I am, my character, to really be like, oh, like my capacity fluctuates. I have a hard time focusing right now, or this task requires support, capacity, whatever I don't currently have. I think that's something we can do on a very, very individual, like small like layer that has tremendous potential.

Speaker 1: 39:24

Absolutely. And I think that that self-talk can shift also as a result of actually understanding the physiology, which is so the ADHD brain doesn't release dopamine under the same conditions that the neurotypical brain does. It releases dopamine, which we really need, unless we want to run on cortisol and burn our nervous system out. We need the dopamine, the natural motivation. You know, that is released in response to novelty, passion, challenge, urgency, not in response to delayed gratification, routine. You know, so There's a reason why, like there's a reason why my employment history looks the way it does, right? Because I have had to follow my passion. I've tried to work against that. I have tried for the sake of financial security, yeah, very hard for my entire life. Yearned to be normal, right? Yearned to be someone who could comply and have the security that comes from complying. But now that I see, like, oh my God, I've been literally going against my brain. And my brain has been steering me in the direction of my purpose in this lifetime. And there's nothing wrong with that. And what it means is they're going to be a lot of friction with tasks that are meaningless, that serve, that don't serve humanity, that don't serve life, that don't light me up, that don't feel like a worthy expenditure of my energy. Um, and that's actually something quite beautiful to me, right? Which is that I cannot go against meaning or passion or challenge. And why would I want that? Like I cannot slip into a mundane and superficial life. I I when I've tried very hard, but the c the physiological cost is so high and escalating that it is unsustainable. So I think, you know, knowing the physiology, also stepping outside all the stereotypes we've been presented, which are deeply flawed, and and witnessing other neurodivergent people speak from within their experience and reading books by neurodivergent people about neurodivergence. I mean, this is what enables us to come out of the paralysis of I am, I am broken, I am disordered, I should be other than I am. And that in my experience actually like that opens a kind of internal cage. And it's not a one, one-time thing. It's a, it's a, you know, it's a slowly evolving process. But um, you know, what I've really come to see over the last year is how profoundly rooted that internal pathologizing voice is. You know, I wake up in the morning and I'm already behind. I haven't been productive. I'm not, you know, my day doesn't unfold the way it's supposed to look. I can't, you know, I can't transition between eight different things in one day. I need a good long, deep period of hyperfocus to feel fulfilled. Uh, and so all of that, my whole life has felt like, well, I'm like everything you said, lazy, undisciplined, you know, there's a problem. And now that I'm changing the self-talk and the conception, like it is shifting my entire life in ways that are very frightening, but are also profoundly liberating, and that other people are responding to because there's something here when we trust what our nervous system is telling us, when we trust that it's aligning us with something powerful and beautiful and meaningful, you know, then we're less at risk of the shame, the pathologization, the addiction, all the unhealthy coping mechanisms, right? The burnout, et cetera.

Jennifer Walter: 43:06

And that's really, yeah, I think this is really all very helpful to kind of like just show little cracks here and there. And we all know the cracks are where the light gets in.

Speaker 1: 43:20

Yes. Yes, exactly.

Jennifer Walter: 43:23

So I feel like all the like I always try to redo a lot of uh uh I don't know, a lot of bash, like rightful bashing of systems here. And sometimes this feels heavy for some or as like people dear listeners always tell me like, oh, this was very like um depressing episode. I'm like, I'm sorry, sorry, not sorry, like it is it is what it is. Um, but I feel this is like we'll have to do on a rather hopeful note. So I hope you all appreciate it. Um so Christina, like tell us where people can find you. I know you mentioned um neurodivergent rising um one or two times. Do you want to tell us something about it? I think it's your it's your kind of like your your it's I'm not gonna say program because I think it's kind of like more an initiation if I it is, yeah.

Speaker 1: 44:13

So it is. I mean, technically it's an online course, but I really built it to be less of a course and more of an experience and an initiation. So um it's nine weeks, it's it's online, it's self-paced, but we do have weekly live meetings. Uh, so there's lots of opportunity to connect to me and to other participants, both with the live meetings and the course platform. And essentially, this is a course about neurodivergence that centers neurodivergent people. So not only did I compile hours of video footage of neurodivergent people from around the world sharing their experiences, but we have nine like phenomenal international guests from very different um social contexts who are who are living in alignment with their their truth. And that's not easy, it's not, it's not simple, um, but it's incredibly potent to witness. Um, so yeah, so you you this I'm not pretending to be a representative for neurodivergence. It was absolutely pivotal to me with the systemic lens and with um an intersectional awareness that there'd be an incredibly diverse group of neurodivergent people represented. So essentially, we learn the physiology, we learn why the word disorder disorder is false, and we learn the historical context for how sanity and normalcy have been constructed. And so it's really a course that's aimed primarily at neurodivergent adults who who either have a diagnosis, are self-diagnosed, or suspect they may be, and then also at the people who, you know, the people who love us and the people who serve us professionally. So, you know, therapists, social workers, clinicians, parents, um, anyone, and anyone really who's ready to deconstruct what we have internalized about what is sane and what is what is human and what is healthy. Um, and so we do a really deep decolonizing uh dive. Uh, but it every module really is crafted so that you are emotionally engaged and you are reflecting on your own experience. It is not passively absorbing information. We are perpetually reflecting on our own experience, our internalized oppression as neurodivergent people, and our internalized privilege according to our, you know, our intersection of identities. And we're processing the emotion that comes up because this is how we transform. You know, we have to feel, we have to feel, and we have to reflect upon and come to new insights uh and process the emotion and witness each other in order to move forward. So it I taught it live in the fall. The the new cohort just launched last week. We're still accepting people into this cohort. There's lots of time uh to join us, and then the next one will launch in March. Um and it's yeah, it has been incredibly transformative for me to build it, to teach it, and and I can feel it even as I'm teaching it again. Um, so it's an it's an amazing community. We have people from all around the world. Um, and it's it's truly beautiful and very, very powerful to be witnessing each other in this way. Yeah.

Jennifer Walter: 47:31

Uh this sense this sounds really amazing because especially so many of us, me included, it takes one to know one, have uh relied heavily on their brain and of knowing, of intellectualizing. And there's so many things, I'm glad you put this up. We have to feel our way through and out and not rationalize our way out because that shit's not working. So exactly. Thank you so much, Christina, for sharing um your wisdom with us on a scenic route. We're of course gonna link everything in the show notes as well, the course, the book, everything mentioned. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 48:10

Thank you. This was so amazing, and it just went quite like that. It was lovely talking to you.

Jennifer Walter: 48:22

And just like that, we've reached the end of another journey together on the scenic root podcast. Thank you for spending time with us. Curious for more stories or in search of the resources mentioned in today's episode? Visit us at scenigrootpodcast.com for everything you need. And if you're ready to embrace your scenic root, I've got something special for you. Step off the beaten path with my scenic root affirmation card deck. It's crafted for those moments when you're seeking courage, yearning to trust your inner voice, and eager to carve out a path authentically, unmistakably yours. Pick your scenic root affirmation today and let it support you. Excited about where your journey might lead? I certainly am. Remember, the scenic route is not just about a destination, but the experiences, learnings, and joy we discover along the way. Thank you for being here, and I look forward to seeing you on the scenic route again.