Breaking Free of the Stigmas from ADHD, Dyslexia and Autism with Shane Thrapp

Mike Forrester: 00:00:00

Well, hello and welcome back, my friend, man.

Mike Forrester: 00:00:03

This week, I'm joined by Shane Thrapp and Shane has similar like experiences to

Mike Forrester: 00:00:09

kind of like how I have as well in finding out with dyslexia kind of later in life,

Mike Forrester: 00:00:15

and it fills in the clue of like where you've been, what you've experienced, but

Mike Forrester: 00:00:20

Shane's story is like just persevering.

Mike Forrester: 00:00:24

I mean, He hit some hard hurdles, but he didn't quit and where he's at now and

Mike Forrester: 00:00:30

how he's using his voice to advocate, not only for himself, but for others to

Mike Forrester: 00:00:35

bring about understanding, education, enlightenment and encouragement.

Mike Forrester: 00:00:40

Uh, so totally excited to jump in here with Shane.

Mike Forrester: 00:00:43

How are you doing today, Shane?

Shane Thrapp: 00:00:45

I'm doing really good, man.

Shane Thrapp: 00:00:46

I really appreciate you bringing me on.

Mike Forrester: 00:00:49

Absolutely.

Mike Forrester: 00:00:50

Well, when, when I was reading through and we were kind of chatting back and

Mike Forrester: 00:00:54

forth, it was like, dude, I know that, you know, it's like you and I are not

Mike Forrester: 00:00:59

the only ones that have kind of had this later in life, uh, explanation

Mike Forrester: 00:01:06

or, or discovery of like, Hey, why is, why have things been the way they are?

Mike Forrester: 00:01:12

So I was like, You know what Shane?

Mike Forrester: 00:01:14

Let's, let's have a, have a chat.

Mike Forrester: 00:01:17

Bring somebody, uh, you know, that's gone a similar path that

Mike Forrester: 00:01:21

can encourage other men that might be going like, I don't get it.

Mike Forrester: 00:01:26

I feel like I'm still on the outside.

Mike Forrester: 00:01:27

I'm facing these challenges, but I don't understand.

Mike Forrester: 00:01:30

And, uh, dude, you, you're the perfect man reading through what

Mike Forrester: 00:01:35

you've gone through and where you're at and what you're doing now.

Mike Forrester: 00:01:38

I was like, yeah.

Mike Forrester: 00:01:39

I was excited to have you join me.

Mike Forrester: 00:01:41

So Shane, thank you for being here.

Mike Forrester: 00:01:44

I appreciate that, man.

Mike Forrester: 00:01:45

Absolutely brother.

Mike Forrester: 00:01:47

Um, so I wanted to start out, Shane, what does life look like for you today

Mike Forrester: 00:01:51

on the professional side of life?

Shane Thrapp: 00:01:54

So, uh, one of the things that people out there are

Shane Thrapp: 00:01:56

going to learn is I have ADHD.

Shane Thrapp: 00:01:58

I'm also on the autism spectrum.

Shane Thrapp: 00:02:00

And.

Shane Thrapp: 00:02:02

When it came to, like, my professional career, like, I essentially

Shane Thrapp: 00:02:08

had to reinvent myself in 2018.

Shane Thrapp: 00:02:11

And the number one job that I had to reinvent myself with was being

Shane Thrapp: 00:02:15

a stay at home father to twins.

Shane Thrapp: 00:02:20

Which meant, like, You know, 2018 was such a crazy year for me because

Shane Thrapp: 00:02:27

I became physically disabled.

Shane Thrapp: 00:02:28

I developed fibromyalgia because in 2016, I had a mental breakdown and I

Shane Thrapp: 00:02:35

ignored it like many men out there do.

Shane Thrapp: 00:02:39

And in 2018, my body said, you know what?

Shane Thrapp: 00:02:42

We're going to go ahead and make you rest.

Shane Thrapp: 00:02:44

You're going to go ahead and go on some bed rest.

Shane Thrapp: 00:02:45

And luckily I was working for a company, awesome company, Cisco.

Shane Thrapp: 00:02:51

And they really understood, and they gave me the space, but, of course,

Shane Thrapp: 00:02:56

when time for the contract came around, they said, well, it's been fun.

Shane Thrapp: 00:03:01

And then, a couple of months after that, my wife tells me that she's pregnant.

Shane Thrapp: 00:03:06

And then in January of 2019, we find out she's pregnant with twins!

Shane Thrapp: 00:03:13

And so, I still had that urge to work though.

Shane Thrapp: 00:03:17

I still had that drive to work.

Shane Thrapp: 00:03:18

That thing that really drives men to be the provider.

Shane Thrapp: 00:03:22

It's one of the things that we're taught.

Shane Thrapp: 00:03:26

But I didn't have the physical capabilities of that anymore.

Shane Thrapp: 00:03:30

I lost all of that.

Shane Thrapp: 00:03:33

Working more than 10 hours a week.

Shane Thrapp: 00:03:35

My body would shut down again.

Shane Thrapp: 00:03:39

And so, I had to take a couple of steps back and say, What can I do?

Shane Thrapp: 00:03:48

And that's where I am now with my work.

Shane Thrapp: 00:03:52

Because I took that time to really build the foundation Of being able

Shane Thrapp: 00:03:57

to put a focus on being a stay at home father first that meant.

Shane Thrapp: 00:04:03

I needed to give my body time to heal.

Shane Thrapp: 00:04:06

But then as I started healing, I started adding little

Shane Thrapp: 00:04:10

things to what I wanted to do.

Shane Thrapp: 00:04:13

Well, I've been a project manager for years at this point.

Shane Thrapp: 00:04:15

So let's do what I know.

Shane Thrapp: 00:04:18

And that's where creating order from chaos came from.

Shane Thrapp: 00:04:21

I take chaotic environments and stuff and processes and

Shane Thrapp: 00:04:26

I make structure out of them.

Shane Thrapp: 00:04:29

That's the ADHD and autism side of things, by the way.

Shane Thrapp: 00:04:34

But that wasn't enough.

Shane Thrapp: 00:04:37

I needed a business that.

Shane Thrapp: 00:04:40

Allowed me to do different things because I know, and we'll talk

Shane Thrapp: 00:04:43

about this a little bit more later on, that I get bored easily.

Shane Thrapp: 00:04:48

Yay.

Shane Thrapp: 00:04:48

ADHD.

Shane Thrapp: 00:04:51

So what all do I enjoy doing?

Shane Thrapp: 00:04:55

Well, project management is a passion, but so is website design.

Shane Thrapp: 00:05:01

So is podcasting.

Shane Thrapp: 00:05:03

So is public speaking.

Shane Thrapp: 00:05:06

So is social media management.

Shane Thrapp: 00:05:12

And the list goes on and on and on.

Shane Thrapp: 00:05:13

There's a whole ton of them, including, including Dungeons and Dragons,

Shane Thrapp: 00:05:18

professional DM for the nerds out there.

Shane Thrapp: 00:05:21

I see you or hear you.

Shane Thrapp: 00:05:25

And so professionally speaking, that's my business creating,

Shane Thrapp: 00:05:28

creating order from chaos.

Shane Thrapp: 00:05:32

But I wanted to give back.

Shane Thrapp: 00:05:34

I wanted to do something that I felt was meaningful.

Shane Thrapp: 00:05:37

And so I had discovered in 2022 a group out there called

Shane Thrapp: 00:05:43

the Men's ADHD Support Group.

Shane Thrapp: 00:05:44

It was a Facebook group and it was ran by a man named Mark Almodovar.

Shane Thrapp: 00:05:52

And he had had this crazy idea in 2019 to create a space for men with ADHD

Shane Thrapp: 00:06:01

to have a place to talk about those things that they can't talk about in.

Shane Thrapp: 00:06:06

Public forums or on other Facebook groups or coed Facebook groups.

Shane Thrapp: 00:06:12

No man is comfortable talking about the issues with erectile dysfunction

Shane Thrapp: 00:06:16

from stratera and a popular ADHD medication and a public forum.

Shane Thrapp: 00:06:24

No man is comfortable now to be able to talk about how his emotional dysregulation

Shane Thrapp: 00:06:31

caused him to lose his temper and throw a giant fit without people

Shane Thrapp: 00:06:37

coming into the comment sections and talk about how abusive he is.

Shane Thrapp: 00:06:42

Now, of all the things, we, he wanted to have a place where people

Shane Thrapp: 00:06:45

were held accountable to for their actions, because we know we have ADHD,

Shane Thrapp: 00:06:50

we still need to understand there's accountability for the actions.

Shane Thrapp: 00:06:55

But we also need to understand why it happened.

Shane Thrapp: 00:06:59

And emotional dysregulation is such a huge aspect of ADHD that people didn't

Shane Thrapp: 00:07:04

know where to go to talk about those things and feel safe enough to do that.

Shane Thrapp: 00:07:11

And that's where the Men's ADHD Support Group came from.

Shane Thrapp: 00:07:15

He brought me on board, actually goes to me for a month first because ADHD, right.

Shane Thrapp: 00:07:23

And, but he brought me on board and I really got involved

Shane Thrapp: 00:07:27

with the group and I do a lot.

Shane Thrapp: 00:07:30

I'm now the operations director for the nonprofit that we formed in late 2022.

Shane Thrapp: 00:07:36

It's a platform for us to use to redefine the concept of masculinity,

Shane Thrapp: 00:07:42

not some of the more toxic stereotypes that are out there, the cultural

Shane Thrapp: 00:07:47

stereotypes that many of us learn.

Shane Thrapp: 00:07:49

From childhood about men aren't supposed to show their feelings, they're supposed

Shane Thrapp: 00:07:54

to be strong always, you have to bear the burdens without complaining.

Shane Thrapp: 00:08:00

All of these different cultural stereotypes that many people with

Shane Thrapp: 00:08:03

ADHD and or autism take to the extreme because we have a very

Shane Thrapp: 00:08:08

black and white view of things.

Shane Thrapp: 00:08:11

And so we wanted to redefine that storyline and give people

Shane Thrapp: 00:08:15

a different example to live by.

Shane Thrapp: 00:08:18

And that's what we're doing.

Shane Thrapp: 00:08:20

As far as that's concerned, I am also on the board of a dueling minds and

Shane Thrapp: 00:08:26

ADHD support group, also a nonprofit.

Shane Thrapp: 00:08:30

And these are just the things that I do because I enjoy so much about these

Shane Thrapp: 00:08:38

different aspects of mental health.

Shane Thrapp: 00:08:41

And they're my passions.

Shane Thrapp: 00:08:44

And so that's what I'm doing now, professionally speaking.

Mike Forrester: 00:08:47

And that is a lot and super impactful.

Mike Forrester: 00:08:51

When I was 40 and first told, Hey, you've got dyslexia found out about ADHD.

Mike Forrester: 00:08:56

I was like, uh, okay, this fills in pictures, you know, like, uh, Yep.

Mike Forrester: 00:09:02

gaps, you know, questions I had of why I struggled as a child

Mike Forrester: 00:09:05

and felt like I was different.

Mike Forrester: 00:09:08

I was an outsider, um, in many ways, but it was like, You know, what was

Mike Forrester: 00:09:15

going on and so it started to help stuff, but then it was a matter

Mike Forrester: 00:09:19

of, are there better ways of doing things now that I understand this?

Mike Forrester: 00:09:24

Because, you know, like when I was diagnosed to be on my kids

Mike Forrester: 00:09:29

because of their struggles, it was like, yeah, you have a Rolodex.

Mike Forrester: 00:09:32

It's like, that's it.

Mike Forrester: 00:09:33

Yeah, I see.

Mike Forrester: 00:09:34

I see what you mean.

Mike Forrester: 00:09:35

Yes, I do have a Rolodex for words.

Mike Forrester: 00:09:37

I look at them.

Mike Forrester: 00:09:38

If I don't understand it, I will pull one out of a hat.

Mike Forrester: 00:09:41

It's not a rabbit.

Mike Forrester: 00:09:42

It's a word, you know, but, uh, man, it's just one of those that,

Mike Forrester: 00:09:48

um, there's so much that goes on.

Mike Forrester: 00:09:52

Like you and I have talked earlier about like misdiagnosis, um,

Mike Forrester: 00:09:56

you know, not wanting to go get.

Mike Forrester: 00:10:00

Diagnosed because there's shame associated with it of, you know, if I just ignore it.

Mike Forrester: 00:10:07

It doesn't go away.

Mike Forrester: 00:10:08

So whether we ignore it or not, it is still exist, but, uh, you know,

Mike Forrester: 00:10:13

there's, there's ways to address it.

Mike Forrester: 00:10:14

So I love that you're advocating, you're speaking out, you're bringing awareness

Mike Forrester: 00:10:20

to a situation that exists and helping guys to be able to work through those

Mike Forrester: 00:10:25

hurdles and not be alone in that process.

Mike Forrester: 00:10:28

It's like, Hey, I'm, I'm a guide.

Mike Forrester: 00:10:31

I haven't figured this fully out, but I'm further down the road and

Mike Forrester: 00:10:34

I'm happy to lead you through the potholes that are ahead of you.

Mike Forrester: 00:10:38

So, uh, I so appreciate what you're doing on that stuff.

Mike Forrester: 00:10:41

Shane, that is fantastic, man.

Mike Forrester: 00:10:44

It's so needed.

Mike Forrester: 00:10:45

So my friend.

Shane Thrapp: 00:10:46

Thank you very much.

Mike Forrester: 00:10:48

Absolutely.

Mike Forrester: 00:10:49

Um, well, let's jump over to the personal side.

Mike Forrester: 00:10:52

We know you've got, you know, twins and like, but what all

Mike Forrester: 00:10:56

does the personal side entail?

Shane Thrapp: 00:10:59

So I'm married to a special needs teacher who's absolutely amazing.

Shane Thrapp: 00:11:04

We've been actually married for a decade now.

Shane Thrapp: 00:11:07

We've been together since 2012 and in 2019 we had twins.

Shane Thrapp: 00:11:15

They're now five.

Shane Thrapp: 00:11:17

And from a previous marriage, I have a 21 year old and an 18 year old,

Shane Thrapp: 00:11:23

literally he just turned 21 and she just graduated with her, uh, diploma and

Shane Thrapp: 00:11:28

associate's degree and, um, things are a lot better now, you know, kind of going

Shane Thrapp: 00:11:37

back to what I was saying earlier that.

Shane Thrapp: 00:11:39

2018 being just such a catastrophic year for me, physically speaking,

Shane Thrapp: 00:11:46

really taught me the value of really taking a step back and evaluating my

Shane Thrapp: 00:11:52

values and understanding my strengths and understanding my weaknesses.

Shane Thrapp: 00:11:59

Not to bemoan my weaknesses, not to like cry about, oh, whoa is

Shane Thrapp: 00:12:07

me, but to have a very objective

Shane Thrapp: 00:12:13

foundation for understanding who I am.

Shane Thrapp: 00:12:17

Values are what makes us who we are.

Shane Thrapp: 00:12:20

They are the foundation building blocks that we live upon.

Shane Thrapp: 00:12:26

And strengths are the way that we move forward in our lives, living those values.

Shane Thrapp: 00:12:32

And one of the things that I really found was my strengths are rooted in

Shane Thrapp: 00:12:40

various aspects of my ADHD and autism.

Shane Thrapp: 00:12:44

The reason why I am so good at learning a business's background and processes

Shane Thrapp: 00:12:53

and all those different things is my ADHD ability to hyper focus.

Shane Thrapp: 00:13:00

I want to learn everything there is to know about this

Shane Thrapp: 00:13:02

thing because I want to know it.

Shane Thrapp: 00:13:05

But, autism needs and has a driving focus on creating a very specific structure

Shane Thrapp: 00:13:15

out of something that makes sense and has a logical background and like

Shane Thrapp: 00:13:24

each piece feeds into the next piece.

Shane Thrapp: 00:13:28

And so for me to walk into a company as a project manager, I knew the

Shane Thrapp: 00:13:33

company in and out within two weeks.

Shane Thrapp: 00:13:36

I could redevelop their entire processes within a month and a half.

Shane Thrapp: 00:13:41

I could put those processes in place and measure everything within six months.

Shane Thrapp: 00:13:48

So those are the things that made me uniquely qualified to do those

Shane Thrapp: 00:13:51

different aspects of my job.

Shane Thrapp: 00:13:54

And that also applies to the work I do as an ADHD coach.

Shane Thrapp: 00:13:59

I go into a system, a person, we figure out what their chaos is, and that

Shane Thrapp: 00:14:06

doesn't just apply to my professional life, it applies to my personal life.

Shane Thrapp: 00:14:11

Everything about it.

Shane Thrapp: 00:14:13

My children,

Shane Thrapp: 00:14:17

my twins, were born at 27 weeks.

Shane Thrapp: 00:14:25

The doctors were telling us all of these different, very real possibilities

Shane Thrapp: 00:14:33

of what my children would deal with.

Shane Thrapp: 00:14:38

And because of ADHD, emotional dysregulation is

Shane Thrapp: 00:14:40

such a serious issue for us.

Shane Thrapp: 00:14:42

The more stress and frustration that we're under, the more dysregulated we become.

Shane Thrapp: 00:14:49

And we feel things more, so we're already starting at, you know,

Shane Thrapp: 00:14:53

negative three instead of zero.

Shane Thrapp: 00:14:58

This meant that I had to really focus on making sure that I

Shane Thrapp: 00:15:01

was as healthy as I could be.

Shane Thrapp: 00:15:05

And so, I really had to take the time to make sure that my mental and physical

Shane Thrapp: 00:15:10

health were priority, as well as my wife's and as well as my children's,

Shane Thrapp: 00:15:16

within the capabilities that I had.

Shane Thrapp: 00:15:18

And so that meant having a very good understanding of what that looked like.

Shane Thrapp: 00:15:22

And now, I'm in a position where I'm able to Work and be a stay at home

Shane Thrapp: 00:15:29

dad and be a good husband but a lot of my personal life is tied up in my

Shane Thrapp: 00:15:34

professional life, but only because my work life balance is so even keeled.

Mike Forrester: 00:15:41

Now, when I think back, like, On kind of where you were, you know,

Mike Forrester: 00:15:47

discovering, Hey, yeah, I've got autism.

Mike Forrester: 00:15:49

I've got ADHD.

Mike Forrester: 00:15:51

You're learning, um, you know, what that entails.

Mike Forrester: 00:15:56

If we look at where you were Shane versus how you're regulating your emotions

Mike Forrester: 00:16:01

now for the different, um, areas in your life and the different hats that

Mike Forrester: 00:16:06

you're wearing, do you see that it?

Mike Forrester: 00:16:10

Because you became aware of what was going on and then learned how to be more

Mike Forrester: 00:16:17

effective in processing and handling stuff that you're able to be in this place.

Mike Forrester: 00:16:22

Like, is it a result of you invested the time you almost

Mike Forrester: 00:16:28

project managed your life, right?

Mike Forrester: 00:16:30

Do you see that you're able to handle more now than you would have back then?

Shane Thrapp: 00:16:36

No, actually, to be completely truthful.

Shane Thrapp: 00:16:39

So when I talked about having a mental breakdown in 2016, I was dealing

Shane Thrapp: 00:16:44

with severe burnout, autism burnout, autism burnout to be specific.

Shane Thrapp: 00:16:50

And this is, you have to liken burnout when it comes to ADHD and autism to being

Shane Thrapp: 00:16:59

very much like a, um, a shattered knee or a torn ACL or a severe back injury.

Shane Thrapp: 00:17:09

You're never going to be the same because you do that kind of damage

Shane Thrapp: 00:17:14

to your brain, to your mind.

Shane Thrapp: 00:17:17

And

Shane Thrapp: 00:17:20

that's a big thing that a lot of people go through and deal with that.

Shane Thrapp: 00:17:26

Our society has really

Shane Thrapp: 00:17:31

missed the mark on this one because as men were told, walk it off, got a

Shane Thrapp: 00:17:39

broken bone, broken finger, walk it off.

Shane Thrapp: 00:17:42

You like messed up your leg.

Shane Thrapp: 00:17:44

Then you think about Friday night lights.

Shane Thrapp: 00:17:46

They're sitting here injecting that, that, um, the drugs into his knees so

Shane Thrapp: 00:17:51

he can keep being the star quarterback.

Shane Thrapp: 00:17:55

That's a, that's what our society teaches us is that that's

Shane Thrapp: 00:17:58

what men are supposed to do.

Shane Thrapp: 00:18:01

The problem is, is that's not sustainable.

Shane Thrapp: 00:18:06

And.

Shane Thrapp: 00:18:07

When I had the mental breakdown in 2016, and I kept trying to go and kept

Shane Thrapp: 00:18:12

trying to go and kept trying to go

Shane Thrapp: 00:18:16

in 2018, that's where the physical manifestation came from is because of

Shane Thrapp: 00:18:21

all of the damage I had done to my mind.

Shane Thrapp: 00:18:26

Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain disorder that sits very much like a rheumatoid

Shane Thrapp: 00:18:32

arthritis in certain joints in your body, and it's kind of different

Shane Thrapp: 00:18:35

for a lot of different people.

Shane Thrapp: 00:18:37

Mine sits in my shoulders and my hips.

Shane Thrapp: 00:18:40

Fibromyalgia And my knees.

Shane Thrapp: 00:18:45

I was bedridden for most of 2018 because I ignored my mental health.

Shane Thrapp: 00:18:52

And it was because I was dealing with so much stress and so much frustration

Shane Thrapp: 00:18:57

and I had not been putting enough work into therapy and learning my emotions

Shane Thrapp: 00:19:03

and learning how to process them in healthy ways and Deal with emotional

Shane Thrapp: 00:19:07

regulation and things of that nature.

Shane Thrapp: 00:19:09

I wasn't taking ADHD medications because you know, it was such a weird

Shane Thrapp: 00:19:15

stigma to take ADHD medications and I was, I was afraid of looking weak if

Shane Thrapp: 00:19:20

I took those kind of medications and I wasn't, I didn't even know about

Shane Thrapp: 00:19:28

emotional regulation medications out there that people can take.

Shane Thrapp: 00:19:32

I didn't have any clue about any of this stuff.

Shane Thrapp: 00:19:34

I knew generally speaking, cause again, I'd started learning

Shane Thrapp: 00:19:37

about ADHD when I was 30.

Shane Thrapp: 00:19:39

But by the time I was 37, you know, 36, and I was starting to

Shane Thrapp: 00:19:45

get up to go through these things.

Shane Thrapp: 00:19:48

Oh, I had a mental breakdown.

Shane Thrapp: 00:19:50

Add that to the things that's going on in my life right now.

Shane Thrapp: 00:19:53

But I, I did start finding out things then, right.

Shane Thrapp: 00:19:57

It was the next year that I learned I had ADHD and

Shane Thrapp: 00:20:05

you talked about earlier, like the late life diagnosis, so much made sense, man.

Shane Thrapp: 00:20:12

Holy cow.

Shane Thrapp: 00:20:13

Why did I jump from job to job, to job, to job?

Shane Thrapp: 00:20:16

Well, because I have a different system.

Shane Thrapp: 00:20:20

My brain runs on a different operating system and one of the

Shane Thrapp: 00:20:25

things I started kind of really coming to terms with that was.

Shane Thrapp: 00:20:30

Oh, okay.

Shane Thrapp: 00:20:34

Well, now what?

Shane Thrapp: 00:20:40

There wasn't a whole lot of answers out there.

Shane Thrapp: 00:20:42

Didn't have nothing but time on my hands at that point.

Shane Thrapp: 00:20:45

I'm stuck in a bed.

Shane Thrapp: 00:20:47

I'm working from home on a computer doing project management

Shane Thrapp: 00:20:50

and that's when I really started taking research in ADHD seriously.

Shane Thrapp: 00:20:57

And then throughout that entire time, I also discovered that I'm autistic.

Shane Thrapp: 00:21:03

Which made absolutely no sense because I'm not the rain man, you know, I'm

Shane Thrapp: 00:21:10

personable and I can talk to people.

Shane Thrapp: 00:21:13

When I told my doctor about this, whenever she was doing the test and she's like,

Shane Thrapp: 00:21:18

yeah, how's that mask you're wearing?

Shane Thrapp: 00:21:22

I didn't come here to be attacked.

Shane Thrapp: 00:21:24

Thank you very much.

Shane Thrapp: 00:21:25

And it's perfectly fine.

Shane Thrapp: 00:21:27

She goes, and.

Shane Thrapp: 00:21:31

It was funny because that was a conversation that she and I had and

Shane Thrapp: 00:21:34

she goes, do you realize that masking most children learn it early on to do

Shane Thrapp: 00:21:40

it when they're neurodivergent because they want to seem normal, right?

Shane Thrapp: 00:21:43

Because our society is all about everybody is supposed to fit in this box.

Shane Thrapp: 00:21:51

Every time we mask, we're having to make minute changes.

Shane Thrapp: 00:21:57

In how we're presenting to everyone around us to what we think their expectations are

Shane Thrapp: 00:22:05

and so that's one more little stone that we're carrying one more little

Shane Thrapp: 00:22:11

stone that we're carrying each person is another little stone that we're

Shane Thrapp: 00:22:14

putting in a little bag on our back

Shane Thrapp: 00:22:19

what happens after 20 years of putting more and more little pebbles in

Shane Thrapp: 00:22:22

your stuff in your bag on your back

Mike Forrester: 00:22:25

that is not a small backpack that becomes like a a

Mike Forrester: 00:22:29

massive a few ton kind of bag there.

Shane Thrapp: 00:22:34

Yeah.

Shane Thrapp: 00:22:35

And that's, that's where autism, uh, that's where autistic burnout comes from.

Shane Thrapp: 00:22:40

Constantly masking, constantly not processing our emotions, constantly

Shane Thrapp: 00:22:45

not having outlets for creativity, constantly sucking it up and being a

Shane Thrapp: 00:22:52

man about it and moving forward and being the provider and, and, and, and.

Mike Forrester: 00:23:00

Layers deep worth.

Mike Forrester: 00:23:02

Mm hmm.

Mike Forrester: 00:23:03

So in in light of you know, the burnout and everything you went through there

Mike Forrester: 00:23:11

What do you do to keep yourself in a place where you're healthier you

Mike Forrester: 00:23:16

have more to draw from You're not pulling from that internal energy to

Mike Forrester: 00:23:21

just deplete yourself and burn out.

Mike Forrester: 00:23:23

But you're, you know, creating almost a renewable, you

Mike Forrester: 00:23:27

know, renewable Shane, right?

Mike Forrester: 00:23:29

You keep going, um, in a healthy manner, which without, um, writing

Mike Forrester: 00:23:35

checks that are going to bounce.

Shane Thrapp: 00:23:37

Honestly, one of the reasons I use like a torn ACL and

Shane Thrapp: 00:23:40

things like that as an analogy for the, the, the effects of autism and ADHD

Shane Thrapp: 00:23:46

burnout is because it's much the same.

Shane Thrapp: 00:23:49

Right?

Shane Thrapp: 00:23:50

Therapy, going to a physical therapist, learning how your leg and works now,

Shane Thrapp: 00:23:55

you know, figuring out what exercises that you can do to strengthen it.

Shane Thrapp: 00:24:00

What can I do to make sure that I have the energy to move around and do the

Shane Thrapp: 00:24:05

things I need to do throughout the day?

Shane Thrapp: 00:24:07

What, you know, this is why I go to a doctor and talk to a psychiatrist and

Shane Thrapp: 00:24:11

have a full understanding of the different mental health issues I deal with.

Shane Thrapp: 00:24:15

Is so that I can make sure I have a medications that are accurate for what

Shane Thrapp: 00:24:20

I deal with and that I can take and make sure that there's no weird count,

Shane Thrapp: 00:24:24

you know, issues that I'm dealing with with them and or if I start to develop

Shane Thrapp: 00:24:29

a little bit of a tolerance for it, maybe I need to bump the dose up.

Shane Thrapp: 00:24:32

Maybe I need to add a different dose.

Shane Thrapp: 00:24:33

Maybe I need a different medication altogether.

Shane Thrapp: 00:24:37

It's very similar.

Shane Thrapp: 00:24:39

But the number one thing I learned is rest.

Shane Thrapp: 00:24:43

I had to let myself heal, and I did.

Shane Thrapp: 00:24:46

I took a year off and did absolutely nothing but focused on my family, focused

Shane Thrapp: 00:24:51

on my babies, and focused on myself.

Shane Thrapp: 00:24:55

And I learned that self care is not selfish.

Shane Thrapp: 00:25:02

I had to learn that lesson, that self care is absolutely

Shane Thrapp: 00:25:06

a part of what we need to do.

Shane Thrapp: 00:25:08

I also really gained an understanding of what rest actually meant.

Shane Thrapp: 00:25:13

I don't know about you, and I don't know about the listeners out there, but how

Shane Thrapp: 00:25:16

many of y'all feel guilty when you're resting, when you're reading a book,

Shane Thrapp: 00:25:22

or when you're playing a video game, or when you're playing Dungeons and Dragons,

Shane Thrapp: 00:25:27

or working on your car, or out fishing?

Shane Thrapp: 00:25:31

The thing is, is everybody needs rest.

Shane Thrapp: 00:25:35

I've had prominent doctors in the field tell me, multiple different

Shane Thrapp: 00:25:39

times, One hour a day where you're doing something you really enjoy

Shane Thrapp: 00:25:44

doing or taking a nap is important.

Shane Thrapp: 00:25:52

Seven hours of sleep, minimum, no matter what.

Shane Thrapp: 00:25:57

You have to have seven hours of sleep.

Shane Thrapp: 00:26:00

And I want to touch on that one here in a second, but I'll continue my point here.

Shane Thrapp: 00:26:06

One day a week, where you do nothing but things that you enjoy doing.

Shane Thrapp: 00:26:10

Spending time with friends, taking your family out to do things, going

Shane Thrapp: 00:26:14

on a fishing trip, going for a hike.

Shane Thrapp: 00:26:17

Whatever thing that you enjoy.

Shane Thrapp: 00:26:20

The other day of the week, that's when you can do your house chores and stuff

Shane Thrapp: 00:26:23

like that, big things around the house, but it's not meant to be really working.

Shane Thrapp: 00:26:29

How many of your listeners work 6 hours, or 6 days a week, 7 days a

Shane Thrapp: 00:26:32

week, 12 hours a day, 10 hours a day?

Mike Forrester: 00:26:36

Oh yeah, I've been guilty of it.

Mike Forrester: 00:26:38

I mean, you talked about sleep Shane, for, gosh.

Mike Forrester: 00:26:43

Decades, I slept maybe four hours a night and I would be at work saying,

Mike Forrester: 00:26:51

yeah, I took care of this issue because it was a global company.

Mike Forrester: 00:26:54

Right?

Mike Forrester: 00:26:54

So I would take care of those issues, the production issues that came up at night.

Mike Forrester: 00:26:59

And that was like a badge of honor.

Mike Forrester: 00:27:01

It meant that I was value.

Mike Forrester: 00:27:03

And oh, my gosh, dude, that was just quicksand.

Mike Forrester: 00:27:06

And it's, it's one thing that I'm now working to like reclaim my

Mike Forrester: 00:27:10

health because of the, the negative consequences from trying to maintain that

Mike Forrester: 00:27:16

lifestyle for that long of a timeframe.

Mike Forrester: 00:27:18

And, um, yeah, sleep is vital more, more than we want to give it credit for.

Shane Thrapp: 00:27:25

Yeah.

Shane Thrapp: 00:27:26

And that was one of the things that learning about ADHD and learning about

Shane Thrapp: 00:27:30

sleep, 75 percent of people with ADHD actually have a different circadian

Shane Thrapp: 00:27:35

rhythm than the neurotypical people.

Shane Thrapp: 00:27:38

We actually tend to go to sleep two hours later and wake up two hours later than

Shane Thrapp: 00:27:43

other people, than neurotypical people.

Shane Thrapp: 00:27:46

So where everybody else is trying to go to sleep at 10 because they need to

Shane Thrapp: 00:27:49

wake up at 6 to get ready for work by 7, we're sitting there tossing and turning

Shane Thrapp: 00:27:56

from 10 to 12, feeling guilty from 12 to 1, just pissed off from 1 to 2.

Shane Thrapp: 00:28:04

Because we've been trying to go to sleep for four hours and we still

Shane Thrapp: 00:28:08

have to get up at six o'clock in the morning to get ready for work at seven.

Shane Thrapp: 00:28:12

I had to learn about my own sleep patterns is that it, it's okay for me to go to

Shane Thrapp: 00:28:17

sleep at midnight and wake up at eight.

Shane Thrapp: 00:28:21

So granted I have five year olds, so that's not a thing.

Shane Thrapp: 00:28:26

Yeah.

Shane Thrapp: 00:28:27

I do my best to try to go to bed by 11.

Shane Thrapp: 00:28:31

You know, have my, my rest and relaxation, let myself kind of kind of tone down

Shane Thrapp: 00:28:37

until 1130 and then try to drift off hopefully by midnight, get up by seven.

Shane Thrapp: 00:28:43

That's the goal, right?

Shane Thrapp: 00:28:45

There's my seven hours.

Shane Thrapp: 00:28:48

But, you know, for the longest time I was stuck in that corporate nine

Shane Thrapp: 00:28:52

to five or eight to four or seven to three, and I'm not a morning person.

Shane Thrapp: 00:28:59

I don't even function that early in the morning very well.

Shane Thrapp: 00:29:02

I don't function well until 10 a.

Shane Thrapp: 00:29:04

m.

Shane Thrapp: 00:29:05

And that was another thing that I had to learn about myself.

Shane Thrapp: 00:29:07

When am I productive?

Shane Thrapp: 00:29:10

When I'm in all this different stuff really just started piling on me

Shane Thrapp: 00:29:16

about how impactful ADHD and autism and neurodivergence is in our lives.

Shane Thrapp: 00:29:24

And that was the epiphany.

Shane Thrapp: 00:29:27

It's so impactful because this is how our brains work.

Shane Thrapp: 00:29:33

Is it dysfunctional?

Shane Thrapp: 00:29:35

When compared to a neurotypical society that's built on a

Shane Thrapp: 00:29:38

neurotypical mindset, yes,

Shane Thrapp: 00:29:43

but is it when we compare it to our own methodologies and use our own

Shane Thrapp: 00:29:47

personal strengths and focus in on what we can do and how we do it well?

Shane Thrapp: 00:29:53

No, I hate the term superpower, by the way.

Shane Thrapp: 00:29:57

A lot of people, Oh, ADHD, autism, they have superpowers.

Shane Thrapp: 00:30:01

No, we have different powers.

Shane Thrapp: 00:30:04

We do things differently.

Shane Thrapp: 00:30:06

We do things in a way that neurotypical people are like, how do you do that?

Shane Thrapp: 00:30:10

And we're like, this is how my brain works.

Shane Thrapp: 00:30:13

It looks extremely amazing to you.

Shane Thrapp: 00:30:16

However, I lost my keys 15 times last week.

Mike Forrester: 00:30:20

It's just a different process and a different, uh, a different

Mike Forrester: 00:30:24

flow, I guess you might say, uh, because of the dyslexia when, when

Mike Forrester: 00:30:28

it's time for anybody to move, you know, it's like Tetris in the moving

Mike Forrester: 00:30:32

van, it's just put put dad up there.

Shane Thrapp: 00:30:39

Pattern recognition, a lot of people don't really understand

Shane Thrapp: 00:30:43

like how different struggles that people have is because our brains work slightly

Shane Thrapp: 00:30:49

different and can excel at something, but be very bad at another thing.

Shane Thrapp: 00:30:56

I can read a paragraph at a time.

Shane Thrapp: 00:30:58

When I read, I read a paragraph of words at a time.

Shane Thrapp: 00:31:04

I never thought that was really crazy.

Shane Thrapp: 00:31:06

Like, granted, in like school, everybody thought that was, you know, amazing

Shane Thrapp: 00:31:10

in school, I would read all of my textbooks within the first six weeks.

Shane Thrapp: 00:31:16

Because I could read fast, and since the teacher was going to be going

Shane Thrapp: 00:31:21

from the textbook, I can do that, and then I can sleep through class,

Shane Thrapp: 00:31:26

because I don't want to be awake from 8 to 10 o'clock in the morning.

Shane Thrapp: 00:31:30

Much rather be sleeping.

Mike Forrester: 00:31:32

So as you're going through like the whole process, Shane,

Mike Forrester: 00:31:36

there's different stuff that will, um, put us into a place of like shame, right?

Mike Forrester: 00:31:44

Where we're feeling shame because we're not like in this normal

Mike Forrester: 00:31:50

aspect, we're processing differently.

Mike Forrester: 00:31:52

We're not catching on.

Mike Forrester: 00:31:53

And like you just talked about with the integers and math, you know,

Mike Forrester: 00:31:57

and, and Hey, like pre algebra and above, not my, not your thing, right?

Mike Forrester: 00:32:04

How do you get.

Mike Forrester: 00:32:06

Past that shame that can often come with that stuff to just say, it is what it is.

Mike Forrester: 00:32:13

It's not my strength.

Mike Forrester: 00:32:14

It, you know, it's something I'm aware of and be able to move on to then.

Mike Forrester: 00:32:20

You know, accept it, not feel that shame and then be able to

Mike Forrester: 00:32:27

work from a place of strength.

Mike Forrester: 00:32:29

How do, how do you make that transition there?

Shane Thrapp: 00:32:31

Well, it helps if you know that you have ADHD and

Shane Thrapp: 00:32:34

or autism, you know, it's helped.

Shane Thrapp: 00:32:37

It helps that if you know that you have dyslexia or dyspraxia or

Shane Thrapp: 00:32:41

other issues or other learning, um, disorders, and that's, honestly, that's

Shane Thrapp: 00:32:46

the starting block of everything is knowing what you actually deal with.

Shane Thrapp: 00:32:51

This is why it's so important to talk to a psychiatrist.

Shane Thrapp: 00:32:55

If you feel like whenever you're reading about ADHD, or autism, or dyslexia,

Shane Thrapp: 00:33:00

or one of these other issues, talk to your doctor about it, and get a better

Shane Thrapp: 00:33:05

understanding of it, and find out if it's a thing that you deal with.

Shane Thrapp: 00:33:10

But, here's The caveat on that,

Shane Thrapp: 00:33:16

when I first started trying to figure out if I actually had ADHD,

Shane Thrapp: 00:33:21

I didn't find out from a doctor.

Shane Thrapp: 00:33:23

I found out because my oldest son was diagnosed with ADHD, and since I

Shane Thrapp: 00:33:27

knew his mom wasn't going to put any emphasis on mental health support for

Shane Thrapp: 00:33:32

her son, I had to be the one to do it.

Shane Thrapp: 00:33:34

So I started learning about ADHD when I was 30.

Shane Thrapp: 00:33:38

And the more I'm learning about it,

Shane Thrapp: 00:33:42

the more I'm going, Oh, I dealt with that.

Shane Thrapp: 00:33:47

I dealt with that.

Shane Thrapp: 00:33:49

I dealt with that.

Shane Thrapp: 00:33:50

And then, of course, I run in to tell my wife, you know, who

Shane Thrapp: 00:33:54

is a special needs teacher.

Shane Thrapp: 00:33:55

I had met her two years before.

Shane Thrapp: 00:33:59

I think I have ADHD.

Shane Thrapp: 00:34:01

And she's like, I Oh, honey, you didn't know?

Shane Thrapp: 00:34:05

And I'm like, no, I didn't know!

Shane Thrapp: 00:34:08

When did you know?

Shane Thrapp: 00:34:09

She goes, I knew it when I read your dating profile.

Shane Thrapp: 00:34:14

And so y'all can't see me out there, but I'm doing this blinking

Shane Thrapp: 00:34:16

what the crap stare at the camera.

Shane Thrapp: 00:34:20

Because, I was like, why didn't you say anything to me?

Shane Thrapp: 00:34:24

She goes, I thought you were just being a guy about it.

Shane Thrapp: 00:34:26

There's the key by the way, y'all.

Mike Forrester: 00:34:35

It's like the biggest realization and yet it's

Mike Forrester: 00:34:40

like, Oh yeah, that, that was.

Mike Forrester: 00:34:42

The big E on the eye chart.

Shane Thrapp: 00:34:44

You

Mike Forrester: 00:34:45

gotta love those.

Shane Thrapp: 00:34:47

And ironically enough, I had actually started like when I

Shane Thrapp: 00:34:51

was 25 to, to make changes in my life.

Shane Thrapp: 00:34:54

I knew I was different.

Shane Thrapp: 00:34:55

And you asked me like, how do we get away from the shame?

Shane Thrapp: 00:34:58

It's acceptance.

Shane Thrapp: 00:35:02

Professionally speaking, I started making changes when I was 25 because I accepted.

Shane Thrapp: 00:35:07

That I didn't like working for companies for more than a year.

Shane Thrapp: 00:35:11

I was never going to be that guy who worked for 30 years,

Shane Thrapp: 00:35:14

got the watch and retired.

Shane Thrapp: 00:35:17

Like, it just wasn't me.

Shane Thrapp: 00:35:20

And I had started kind of as a project manager, finding my way through to

Shane Thrapp: 00:35:25

becoming a freelance project manager who went to a headhunter and said, I

Shane Thrapp: 00:35:29

want to work for a company for three to eight months, no more than that.

Shane Thrapp: 00:35:33

And that's what I did.

Shane Thrapp: 00:35:35

And I worked for a large number of different companies.

Shane Thrapp: 00:35:39

And like I said earlier, I go into a company, I use my abilities

Shane Thrapp: 00:35:43

to figure out all of this stuff.

Shane Thrapp: 00:35:44

And I did, again, I didn't know about ADHD at this point.

Shane Thrapp: 00:35:50

That was my professional life though.

Shane Thrapp: 00:35:52

My personal life,

Shane Thrapp: 00:35:58

when I was 22, I had married an absolutely stunningly

Shane Thrapp: 00:36:02

beautiful African American woman.

Shane Thrapp: 00:36:04

By the way, coming from the South, that's a big no no,

Shane Thrapp: 00:36:10

but we had amazing babies.

Shane Thrapp: 00:36:15

And she was abusive

Shane Thrapp: 00:36:18

and she

Shane Thrapp: 00:36:22

would use my emotional dysregulation against me and she would push those

Shane Thrapp: 00:36:28

triggers when she needed me to feel bad

Shane Thrapp: 00:36:34

or when she needed me to be the bad guy.

Shane Thrapp: 00:36:37

She would push those triggers until I would lose it.

Shane Thrapp: 00:36:41

So while I had kind of accepted professionally speaking, I still

Shane Thrapp: 00:36:46

thought I was a failure at home.

Shane Thrapp: 00:36:49

I didn't make enough money.

Shane Thrapp: 00:36:50

Even though I was working 100 hours a week, I wasn't a good father because

Shane Thrapp: 00:36:55

I was working 100 hours a week.

Shane Thrapp: 00:36:57

I didn't do enough chores around the house because I was working 100 hours a week.

Shane Thrapp: 00:37:03

If I wasn't working, even though I had made enough money to be able to work

Shane Thrapp: 00:37:07

8 months out of the year and have 3 months off, she blew through it, and so

Shane Thrapp: 00:37:13

since I wasn't working, it was my fault.

Shane Thrapp: 00:37:22

That relationship ended when I was 27.

Shane Thrapp: 00:37:27

But I had learned a valuable lesson from my professional career.

Shane Thrapp: 00:37:33

I needed to accept who I was.

Shane Thrapp: 00:37:36

And who I was, was weird and different.

Shane Thrapp: 00:37:42

And you know what?

Shane Thrapp: 00:37:44

I became okay with that.

Shane Thrapp: 00:37:46

I became okay with being weird.

Shane Thrapp: 00:37:50

And I put that stuff in my dating profile.

Shane Thrapp: 00:37:53

At first I put way too much in my dating profile because

Shane Thrapp: 00:37:55

people with ADHD overshare.

Shane Thrapp: 00:37:59

Whoops.

Shane Thrapp: 00:38:00

So then I kind of pared it all down and got it really,

Shane Thrapp: 00:38:02

you know, just a good chunk.

Shane Thrapp: 00:38:04

Because what I wanted was to find somebody who would get it.

Shane Thrapp: 00:38:08

Who would understand me for me.

Shane Thrapp: 00:38:10

I wanted to be authentic.

Shane Thrapp: 00:38:11

And that's the key that I had learned.

Shane Thrapp: 00:38:13

That authenticity was so important.

Shane Thrapp: 00:38:16

Again, I didn't know about ADHD at this time.

Shane Thrapp: 00:38:19

I didn't know about autism at this time.

Shane Thrapp: 00:38:22

But then I met my wife, and she loved me for that.

Shane Thrapp: 00:38:28

And I was honest with her from the get go.

Shane Thrapp: 00:38:30

Hey, I deal with all these different issues.

Shane Thrapp: 00:38:33

We had a really good conversation.

Shane Thrapp: 00:38:35

Once she proved she was safe.

Shane Thrapp: 00:38:37

Once she proved that I could tell her these things about my authentic

Shane Thrapp: 00:38:42

self, and I had a feeling that she would be accepting of it.

Shane Thrapp: 00:38:46

And she was, and we've been inseparable since then.

Shane Thrapp: 00:38:53

And it's awesome.

Shane Thrapp: 00:38:55

That's the key is finding that acceptance in who you are, regardless

Shane Thrapp: 00:39:00

of what you go through, regardless of everything about your life.

Shane Thrapp: 00:39:07

Accepting who you are on a fundamental level, not where you are, not what

Shane Thrapp: 00:39:13

you are professionally, not what level of work you're at, none of

Shane Thrapp: 00:39:18

that, but who you are fundamentally, your values, accepting who you are.

Shane Thrapp: 00:39:26

I have ADHD and autism

Shane Thrapp: 00:39:30

now, did that change things for me when I got the actual diagnosis for ADHD?

Shane Thrapp: 00:39:36

Yeah, because now I have a reason, not an excuse.

Shane Thrapp: 00:39:41

I have a reason for why I was different, but I'd already learned to accept that

Shane Thrapp: 00:39:47

I was different and that that was okay.

Mike Forrester: 00:39:51

As you were going through the journey, You and I talked

Mike Forrester: 00:39:54

about this a little bit before we pressed record is like the misdiagnosis

Mike Forrester: 00:40:00

of, of kind of getting through and, uh, being told it's one thing and

Mike Forrester: 00:40:06

finding out it's something else.

Mike Forrester: 00:40:08

Is there are there ways to advocate for yourself to kind of, um, shorten,

Mike Forrester: 00:40:16

shorten that process to give yourself a better likelihood of getting the

Mike Forrester: 00:40:22

correct diagnosis in that journey with, with, uh, the health industry?

Shane Thrapp: 00:40:28

Yeah, ADHD and autism are really weird for a lot of people out

Shane Thrapp: 00:40:34

there as far as doctors are concerned, because for a very long time everybody

Shane Thrapp: 00:40:38

thought ADHD was a child's diagnosis.

Shane Thrapp: 00:40:42

And for many of us, it actually was, for a large chunk of us, we did.

Shane Thrapp: 00:40:47

I didn't.

Shane Thrapp: 00:40:49

I was just, according to my dad, the dumbest smart kid that he knew.

Shane Thrapp: 00:40:56

But, one of the things that I discovered after having that conversation with

Shane Thrapp: 00:41:01

my wife was, what do I do next?

Shane Thrapp: 00:41:04

Well, all of the things out there tell you to go talk to your psychiatrist.

Shane Thrapp: 00:41:08

But the problem with going and talking to your psychiatrist and part of the

Shane Thrapp: 00:41:13

issues with ADHD is one of our things is our memory doesn't work the same way

Shane Thrapp: 00:41:17

as neurotypical people's memory does.

Shane Thrapp: 00:41:19

We have, actually, we have a trigger based memory system.

Shane Thrapp: 00:41:22

We don't have a linear system like A, B, C, past, present, future.

Shane Thrapp: 00:41:27

We have this wibbly wobbly timey wimey ball that's there, reaches back and

Shane Thrapp: 00:41:33

finds a thing when we trigger the memory.

Shane Thrapp: 00:41:37

When we smell things, experience things, hear things, somebody asks a question.

Shane Thrapp: 00:41:41

One of the things that you'll see, like a lot of people with

Shane Thrapp: 00:41:43

ADHD do, is when you ask them a question, They seem to not hear you.

Shane Thrapp: 00:41:50

And then they answer the question halfway through.

Shane Thrapp: 00:41:53

He's like, did you hear what I said?

Shane Thrapp: 00:41:55

Yeah.

Shane Thrapp: 00:41:55

Oh yeah.

Shane Thrapp: 00:41:56

That, that, that, because we're actually traveling through a pathways of our brain

Shane Thrapp: 00:42:00

to find the answer that you triggered.

Shane Thrapp: 00:42:03

And we got distracted along the way by all the little shiny

Shane Thrapp: 00:42:06

things that are in there too.

Mike Forrester: 00:42:09

Shane, that's so accurate.

Mike Forrester: 00:42:10

Oh my gosh.

Shane Thrapp: 00:42:12

I know

Mike Forrester: 00:42:13

I live here, man.

Mike Forrester: 00:42:15

Shane, there are times I have to.

Mike Forrester: 00:42:18

I don't have to, I choose to sell my wife.

Mike Forrester: 00:42:20

And unfortunately she's patient like you're, she understands.

Mike Forrester: 00:42:23

Right.

Mike Forrester: 00:42:24

Um, And she'll ask a question and I look, I'm looking up, you

Mike Forrester: 00:42:29

know, I don't look straight ahead.

Mike Forrester: 00:42:32

I look up and it's like, I'm processing, but it'll be a while.

Mike Forrester: 00:42:36

And I'm like, I'll just tell her, I'm not ignoring you processing your question.

Mike Forrester: 00:42:41

I'll just ask you to just give me another minute because I

Mike Forrester: 00:42:44

know that's part of it, man.

Shane Thrapp: 00:42:46

I don't have it, but my wife who has jokes.

Shane Thrapp: 00:42:50

Gave me a, uh, a digital frame with a picture of a loading screen on it.

Shane Thrapp: 00:42:58

And she said, just use this whenever you're processing.

Shane Thrapp: 00:43:03

Anyways, we're digressing.

Shane Thrapp: 00:43:05

Nah, tangents get back here.

Shane Thrapp: 00:43:09

Alright, so people out there, the thing with learning about if you have

Shane Thrapp: 00:43:15

ADHD and going to talk to the doctor, you actually have to go in there,

Shane Thrapp: 00:43:20

if you believe that you have ADHD, then go in there and start with that.

Shane Thrapp: 00:43:27

I think I have ADHD.

Shane Thrapp: 00:43:28

Or if you think you may be autistic or have autistic tendencies,

Shane Thrapp: 00:43:32

I think I may have autism.

Shane Thrapp: 00:43:34

And start there,

Shane Thrapp: 00:43:38

and at least have that discussion.

Shane Thrapp: 00:43:42

But the reason I want you to start there is because you need

Shane Thrapp: 00:43:45

to be looking for psychiatrists who know what these things are.

Shane Thrapp: 00:43:52

Fun fact, your average psychiatrist spends three months on any

Shane Thrapp: 00:43:56

kind of neurodivergent issues.

Shane Thrapp: 00:43:59

In medical school, unless they have a specific thing where they're going into

Shane Thrapp: 00:44:04

pediatrics or, you know, neurology or neurobiochemistry or anything along

Shane Thrapp: 00:44:09

those lines that actually deals with the brain and how it works, three months.

Shane Thrapp: 00:44:13

On ADHD or autism or something like that.

Shane Thrapp: 00:44:17

The rest of the time is spent on depression, bipolar, borderline,

Shane Thrapp: 00:44:21

all of those different things.

Shane Thrapp: 00:44:23

And unless they specifically go through that training, whenever they

Shane Thrapp: 00:44:26

come out of medical school, they still only have that three months.

Shane Thrapp: 00:44:31

So the thing is, is when you go into a talk to the doctor and you're dealing

Shane Thrapp: 00:44:34

with ADHD or autism burnout, and you sit here and you start talking

Shane Thrapp: 00:44:37

about, I can't get out of bed.

Shane Thrapp: 00:44:39

I can't do anything.

Shane Thrapp: 00:44:41

There's no joy in anything I want to do.

Shane Thrapp: 00:44:42

Everything's boring.

Shane Thrapp: 00:44:44

All the doctor's doing is depression, depression, depression, depression, right?

Shane Thrapp: 00:44:49

If you go into the doctor and you're sitting and talking about my brain

Shane Thrapp: 00:44:52

won't stop, I can't, I can't stop focusing on this thing, da, da, da,

Shane Thrapp: 00:44:55

bipolar, bipolar, bipolar, bipolar.

Shane Thrapp: 00:44:59

If you go in there and you're dealing with different issues, and you can't really get

Shane Thrapp: 00:45:04

a, a, a firm grasp, but you're just always anxious, and people make you nervous,

Shane Thrapp: 00:45:10

and it's really weird being in social situations, Anxiety, anxiety, anxiety.

Shane Thrapp: 00:45:17

But the thing is, is those are Maybe comorbid, but the base root

Shane Thrapp: 00:45:23

of the issue is ADHD and or autism.

Shane Thrapp: 00:45:27

And by the way, y'all may actually hear me saying, and or autism,

Shane Thrapp: 00:45:31

the comorbidity rate between people who have ADHD and autism.

Shane Thrapp: 00:45:37

Is anywhere from 40 to 75 percent depending on what study you look at.

Shane Thrapp: 00:45:42

Back and forth.

Shane Thrapp: 00:45:43

If you have autism, there's a 40 to 75 percent chance you may also have ADHD.

Shane Thrapp: 00:45:49

But you also have to understand that these are spectrum issues.

Shane Thrapp: 00:45:52

These are spectrums of different, um,

Shane Thrapp: 00:45:57

symptoms that all kind of co mingle together.

Shane Thrapp: 00:46:03

And this is why you need to be working with a psychiatrist who understands ADHD

Shane Thrapp: 00:46:07

and or autism, preferably both, and get an accurate diagnosis for what you need.

Shane Thrapp: 00:46:14

Not just because you need medications, because autism is

Shane Thrapp: 00:46:17

not treated by medication, it's treated by very specific therapies.

Shane Thrapp: 00:46:22

But you also want to talk to them because you need to understand how

Shane Thrapp: 00:46:25

much trauma you've gone through,

Shane Thrapp: 00:46:29

because 80 percent of people with ADHD have some sort of complex

Shane Thrapp: 00:46:32

PTSD or PTSD neurodivergence.

Shane Thrapp: 00:46:37

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Shane Thrapp: 00:46:43

Years and years of constantly being told that you are a screw

Shane Thrapp: 00:46:47

up and that you are not normal.

Shane Thrapp: 00:46:51

Or you're the smartest dumb kid, or why can't you do better than this?

Shane Thrapp: 00:46:55

You're amazing at math, but you're horrible at reading.

Shane Thrapp: 00:46:58

You're great at reading, but you're horrible at math.

Shane Thrapp: 00:47:00

What the heck?

Shane Thrapp: 00:47:03

The average 12 year old who has neurodivergence, deals with 20,

Shane Thrapp: 00:47:07

000 more negative criticisms than their neurotypical counterparts.

Shane Thrapp: 00:47:12

What do you think that did to that person's brain from age zero to 12?

Mike Forrester: 00:47:18

Yeah.

Mike Forrester: 00:47:19

And then it just compounds as those messages continue on repeat

Mike Forrester: 00:47:23

when similar situations appear.

Mike Forrester: 00:47:26

It's like those beliefs just Get ingrained further and further.

Shane Thrapp: 00:47:30

And that's where we start to live with imposter

Shane Thrapp: 00:47:32

syndrome and rejection sensitivity.

Shane Thrapp: 00:47:34

Both aspects of emotional dysregulation and ADHD and autism.

Shane Thrapp: 00:47:41

So, you're going to the doctor about, uh, and getting a diagnosis for that.

Shane Thrapp: 00:47:46

You also need to make sure you're working with a therapist who understands

Shane Thrapp: 00:47:49

trauma and ADHD and or autism.

Shane Thrapp: 00:47:53

Because there's very specific therapies that have to be designed

Shane Thrapp: 00:47:57

to deal with the traumas that you have developed over your life.

Shane Thrapp: 00:48:03

Therapy doesn't really help with the core ADHD symptoms.

Shane Thrapp: 00:48:07

It helps you with emotional regulation, right?

Shane Thrapp: 00:48:10

Understanding your emotions, how to process them, and things like that.

Shane Thrapp: 00:48:14

But honestly, a lot of help comes from ADHD medications themselves

Shane Thrapp: 00:48:17

for emotional regulation.

Shane Thrapp: 00:48:19

Adderall, Shortera, Vyvanse, all these different medications, these

Shane Thrapp: 00:48:23

stimulants, actually help with anxiety.

Shane Thrapp: 00:48:27

Because they help level out the chemistry in our brains that deal

Shane Thrapp: 00:48:30

with all the emotional dysregulation issues that we deal with.

Shane Thrapp: 00:48:34

They help our impulsivity issues.

Shane Thrapp: 00:48:36

Which gives us that one second little pause before we explode.

Shane Thrapp: 00:48:41

And if we're working with a therapist, who's teaching us about how to recognize

Shane Thrapp: 00:48:45

our triggers and our overwhelm and our burnout and stuff like that, we can take a

Shane Thrapp: 00:48:50

step back and breathe and maybe walk away.

Shane Thrapp: 00:48:53

And we've learned to communicate those things to the people

Shane Thrapp: 00:48:56

around us through therapy.

Shane Thrapp: 00:48:58

So that, Hey, if I tell you, I have to walk away, Give me that time to walk away.

Shane Thrapp: 00:49:03

Don't keep coming at me.

Shane Thrapp: 00:49:05

If you come at me, I'm going to explode.

Shane Thrapp: 00:49:08

And regardless of how you feel that you're in the right, I'm going to explode.

Shane Thrapp: 00:49:14

I'm going to have an emotional dysregulation moment.

Shane Thrapp: 00:49:16

And we have to have those conversations early on, not in the moment.

Shane Thrapp: 00:49:21

And so we have to learn to communicate that, and that's

Shane Thrapp: 00:49:23

where therapy comes into play.

Shane Thrapp: 00:49:25

That's where places like the Men's ADHD Support Group come into play.

Shane Thrapp: 00:49:29

Right.

Shane Thrapp: 00:49:29

If you believe you have ADHD and or auto autism, come join the men's

Shane Thrapp: 00:49:34

ADHD support group and find out.

Shane Thrapp: 00:49:36

That's what we do.

Shane Thrapp: 00:49:36

We educate people on this, this kind of stuff, and then reinvent your life, learn

Shane Thrapp: 00:49:44

how to accept who you are and start to find the happiness in who that person is

Shane Thrapp: 00:49:55

and what the new people that you're going to bring about yourself, because now

Shane Thrapp: 00:50:00

you're going to start finding your tribe

Shane Thrapp: 00:50:04

and that's where you start to find more acceptance.

Mike Forrester: 00:50:08

And with that acceptance comes that confidence

Mike Forrester: 00:50:11

and seeing who you really are.

Mike Forrester: 00:50:15

You know, not as inadequate, but being enough and finding your strengths.

Mike Forrester: 00:50:21

Um, Shane, man, I really appreciate it.

Mike Forrester: 00:50:24

That is super powerful, very insightful.

Mike Forrester: 00:50:27

And, uh, just so telling it's like, there's so much that I just, I sit

Mike Forrester: 00:50:34

back and I can laugh now I was crying before when I was in the midst of it.

Mike Forrester: 00:50:38

Cause I'm like, what is going on?

Mike Forrester: 00:50:40

So, and I appreciate you opening up and sharing and providing that insight.

Mike Forrester: 00:50:46

outside of the podcast.

Mike Forrester: 00:50:48

Um, outside of the podcast, how can guys connect with you?

Shane Thrapp: 00:50:52

You can find me at creatingorderfromchaos.com

Shane Thrapp: 00:50:55

or the mensadhdsupportgroup.org or duelingminds.org.

Shane Thrapp: 00:51:00

Or if you really want to find me, look me up on Facebook

Shane Thrapp: 00:51:03

at men's ADHD support group.

Shane Thrapp: 00:51:05

Uh, it's a private Facebook group.

Shane Thrapp: 00:51:07

I'm in there all the time.

Shane Thrapp: 00:51:08

I'm in all the comment sections giving support and help there as well.

Mike Forrester: 00:51:13

Shane, thank you so much, my friend.

Mike Forrester: 00:51:14

I really appreciate it.

Shane Thrapp: 00:51:16

Thank you so much for having me on.

Mike Forrester: 00:51:18

Absolutely.