Hey, tolerators. This is Natalie. And before we get to the meat of the episode, I had some quick announcements for to all the men I've tolerated before. First, we have our fall merch available in our merchandise store. So make sure that you get yourself to the link in the show notes to check out our tarot inspired and spooky inspired anti-massage and the merch. Our Patreon is currently running a seven day free trial on all tiers.
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So you can see all of these changes happening in real time. Enjoy the episode. [Music] Hey, Tyler Readers. This is to all the men I've tolerated before with Natalie Patona. You're weekly look at everyday misogyny. Today my guest is from the podcast. The bar is ankle high, which if you have ever listened to me complain about a romcom or Lucas Scott on one tree hill. I'm still comfy. You know this is one of my most headfast beliefs on the show. [Laughs]
Katie and her coos here are openly honest about life, love and everything that comes with an ADHD diagnosis. Today we will be talking about how misogyny plays a role in how women often go undiagnosed and untreated for ADHD. Welcome and thank you so much for being here Katie. Thank you so much for having us. I know that my co-host Gary would have loved to be here. She just couldn't make it today. But yeah, no, we are the bar's ankle high. Actually started and was inspired that name.
Was inspired by a coworker I used to have and we were talking about dating go figure. And she was dating a guy who all she wanted was that good morning tax, right? And all this motherfucker would send her is like GM and would say shit like that. And she was like she's just getting so irritated. And then she was like well I know he's doing it now because I know it's pissing off. And he's like doing that cat and mouse bullshit.
She's like honestly like the bar is ankle high. I'm asking for a text message. The iPhone like pre-populates the words for you. Like this is just ridiculous. So it just turned into this whole thing. And when I worked with her we had something with my co-workers called the Tinder committee because all of us were single and trying to date and so we would like group thing for perspective date and see who was like worthy and not worthy.
And as of right now only one person from that committee is with somebody to met during that round of dating. Good for them. The winner. I'm sure it was you you would have claimed the crown like it's me. Oh I sure I would have actually had a crown.
So yeah we should always have a crown. Yeah on on on standby. It's like the I mean I'm drinking champagne tonight but like that Coco Chanel quote like ooh always have champagne in the fridge because sometimes the special occasion is just that you have champagne in the fridge. I simply I can't remember when we connected about your podcast name and my podcast name. If I told you that like my tattoos always like the bars on the ground and it's starting
to slowly sink because that's how long it's been in the ground. I don't actually remember typical but yeah it was something to that effect. Do we meet in Peru? Do you listen to and that's why we drink? I do listen to and that's why we drink. Are you in the podcast group for them? I'm in the podcast. Yes that might be how we went up. Yeah I'm up with everyone through Instagram so I'm like I don't know I probably answered one of your stories as
a text message as you do when you're like this person probably wants my opinion. I mean it's not unreasonable I'm pretty active on our Instagram but no I think it was actually in the club podcast group that we linked up which tracks because actually the co-host of that podcast is the reason that I thought I had a HD and their experience in seeking a diagnosis and exploring that really kind of validated my own experience but I was like
a minute and then I had already worked with Garrett for a few years at that point but I was talking with her about it and she was like oh yeah I got diagnosed a few years ago
so that I would like check in with her and be like hey what about this? She's like yeah no that's that's the thing and so that I asked my therapist for an assessment and she's like well I can't assess you because I'm not an MD and that's in New York and so I saw my GP and yeah he diagnosed me but yeah so at the age of 34 I was finally diagnosed with ADHD which is also crazy because my mom for sure has it and my brother was diagnosed as a
child of course and I think today I mean I always did very well in school but I think today my brother probably would have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder back in the day he was diagnosed, well not diagnosed but he was assessed for Asperger's which of course you don't say anymore but at the time we were but he was given the categorization of borderline aspergers so he wasn't allowed to have the in-school supports for it because he didn't actually have
the diagnosis with his IEP but looking at him now, what's that ASD?
Like there's so much where I'm like bro and I think that's one of the things that I want to make sure that we talk about is like how stingy and selfish people like to be with the accommodations like one time I asked the police sister to repeat herself and it was something that I had to know I do not remember what it was or whatever and she's like I'm not repeating myself I've already told you and I was like uh-huh and I was I think I got a text message
or whatever and I was like so I didn't hear it and I need the information and she's like I'm I'm not repeating myself and I was like and I just want to just because at the very beginning and I remember feeling this way about my disorder to and depression and all of it when you're at the very beginning of being like oh this is what's going on in my body and my brain everything is just like hyper-sensitive and wrapped up to the a million.
I'm sure I like got up the phone with her burst in the tears and was like I'm a throat no one's ever accommodated me how hard is it to just accommodate people totally yeah and I've seen a lot especially since especially since starting the podcast but even before starting the podcast I had hopped on Reddit and I was like okay like let's see what Reddit has to say when it comes to information they help me find the right broad size so like why not right and
um I've seen that chart the one where you have to bend over and lay on the floor and lay on your side yeah I did it and let me tell you it like I mean I have some underwire bras they're nice now yeah I don't I don't um I have to rip them off of my body like they're made of acid and I'm in the lake and Dante's peak anymore and I understand I also was like what do you mean I'm like a letter cup higher and two bands higher and then and so I was like yeah your boobs are just supposed to
float in the cup not just be compressed by the cup I was like what's up but you were on Reddit trying to be like so does the deep sea thing and call focusing by the way good job um yeah so I was just looking at it and you know there was a lot of people asking questions of like you know basically like that seen from Mrs. Doubtfire when Sally feels it's like the whole time the whole time this was it this is what was going on and so I was reading all these posts and like reading about people's
dating experiences and I'll be like yep that resonates and yep that resonates again like holy shit doesn't everybody's going through this and I mean I would say that mine my personal experience with ADHD isn't so severe in me like I can do the dishes like I would probably I probably leave them way longer than I ought to but it's never almost never at a point where I have to throw something away because it's so disgusting and moldy unless it's like fell out of my bag and under
the seat in my car and I just forgot about it so it's not quite that extreme I've never lost a job because of my ADHD but there are a lot of experiences especially when it came to the executive function thing because my apartment was constantly a mess and I remember my mom saying to me when I was a child like well it never really bothered me if your room was messy because you'll care when you have company over like when you're a teenager and you start having your friends over you'll come up
because you'll care and she's right the thing is that's the only time I'll call you exactly yes like I need that threat and I mean I'm an attorney I made it through law school and undergrad I graduated undergrad with honors I managed to get out of law school anyway I did not graduate with honors but I passed the bar on my first time and it's the not that it matters you're no better or worse than an attorney no matter how many times you take the bar as long as you pass it um but yeah
so I was looking at Reddit and it was that kind of thing where I was like well shoot like I wonder what I could have done differently and what especially my dating life but then if I had known this about myself sooner I think on the one hand I know that we've talked before but um I was in a abusive relationship that culminated in a night of physical violence and I am not grateful for that but I know that the work that I've done since that happened has made me a much more secure and strong person
but that being said I think a lot of what I was tolerating was because I was trying to make up for my ADHD that I didn't know with ADHD and I think that's what I was just coming to terms with now as we were talking where I'm like because it's that whole like what could I have accomplished had I have known or if I had understood what was going on in my body and my brain or if I had worked better with
my body and my brain instead of just holding me like other people clean your house or clean their house and you're just useless and you just don't refuse to do things that you don't like to animate like do you think that I don't like everyday I just also don't clean the shower right yeah like I guess it was like I get out like I'm in the shower and I'm like I really got a cleanness it's getting slippery and then I get out of the shower and the shower no longer exists you should see my car
because that's my car's start I was thinking about it and it's like so many like what I have been a teacher if I didn't know that like being a teacher was like a quote unquote normal female run of the male job that would eventually get you to wife status would I remember when I truly think that I would have experimented more sexually or had been more open about the idea that I fall somewhere on the LGBTQ spectrum of things if I wasn't always trying to make my life fit what I thought and like
a lot of things playing to that depression religion misogyny politics your family all of that but it's your juggling all of that and then one day someone's like also your brain needs help have you thought about that and you're like I just need help I don't know my brain does my brain or just me exactly it's definitely not feeling of like well yeah of course if I could just push a button and fix it I would like I don't enjoy like I I definitely so it's not that I don't enjoy
having a messy place it's that it doesn't bother me I for sure do enjoy having a clean place and having a very tidy place and having everything put away so it looks like a magazine I love when that happens that's one of the very few reasons I'm looking forward to moving and if you see there will be a point where everything is put away and it looks like I'm about to have a photo shoot in my living room it's getting to that point and I think for so long especially professionally speaking
so much of what I did was build as um oh I'm just a perfectionist and I'm just super competitive which is fair I mean I knew I wanted to be in a train because I won a moth trial in seventh grade and then I decided that I wanted to be in a train and that was the end like I had backup plans but like not really like they were backup plans because people are like okay well what if you don't get into law school pretty competitive but I had really good grades so I was like well yeah like
theoretically I can do whatever the fuck I want I will just pick something else right like I grew up in the 90s remember you said I could do whatever I wanted to do so like eat a whole dick but like but so I like went to law school and I would have trouble especially leaving deadlines and I would say like oh I'm really deadline oriented and I was in the sense that I met all of my deadlines but I would meet them at the last minute and I would meet them at the last
minute because I needed that like a adrenaline rush of am I gonna get it done am I gonna get it done to actually finally just like hit the gas pedal because up to that point it was like this paralysis thing and it doesn't mean that I'm not thinking about the thing that I have to do which on the one hand as I'm 20 it's helpful it allows me to work on something else while I just have this other thing
going on in the back burner where I'm like okay well how do I want to wear that augment like could I come at it from this way but I'm working on this other thing on the front burner so in that perspective it can be helpful but overall it's not helpful I'm doing so much better now that I'm meditating and diagnosed then I ever was before I mean my therapist is able to offer me like working solutions to problems that I'm having with managing my time and managing my personal life
and it's also allowed me to having that diagnosis and even having the clarity of like understanding what's going on without a formal diagnosis allows you to take those steps to work towards what works for you I also noticed when I was on Reddit that there were a lot of people even now make only them about a year so it's not much has changed but there's a lot of gatekeeping and a lot of gatekeeping diagnosing and a lot of like saying well not everything is ADHD and I agree not everything is ADHD
sometimes it's depression sometimes it's anxiety sometimes it's autism spectrum disorder sometimes you just forget to move the laundry from the washroom to the dryer and that's a totally normal thing for people who work full time and have families and obligations the issue and the difference is that it's actually impairing my life the difference is that I can't have company over at a moment's notice because my house is in this the issue is that I am missing deadlines
or if I'm not missing a deadline I'm not doing as good of a job on something that I should be doing when I have plenty of time to do a good job on it the issue is that in my interpersonal relationships my romantic relationships there I'm struggling with those boundaries and with understanding and reading other people and and not interrupting I mean oh my god my use of eggs he said to me one time like one of the things that he was like really good on me about was that I was
always interrupting him and then we spent some time with my extended family on my mom's side and we left and he was like well now I know what you get it from because your entire family interrupts and it's fucking disgusting and I was like whoa I never noticed it before because we all interrupt you know that video right it's just called normal in my family look and because so I have a lot of pride in speaking after my mom's side of the family but it's a lot of the same thing where we tell
stories in the round because everyone knows the story so as soon as my uncle has paused because he needs to breathe then someone just picks up the next part of the story and then someone goes that's not how it happened at all it was a Sunday and now they're in charge of the story and you're all laughing and having a good time so you're like this is normal and this is what love looks like right and even if it's not like even telling a story in the round like you just interrupt you
you all probably have ADHD that reminds you of it and that's the end and it's just whatever like it just never occurred to me as a problem my biggest downfall is actually that I was so successful against my own like better doing because I too would just push it until be like I can write a 20 page paper in two hours and how do you someone tell me that I couldn't and then do it and score the A or the B or whatever and be like ha ha yeah I'm brilliant
and oh my god that's how I got through all of high school like yeah I would and I remember there's a kid now who's a cardiologist whatever whatever great nerd but we were in AP Euro together and I remember him saying like to somebody else but like next to me basically like maybe not even smart why is she even in this class and I was like first of all fuck you I'm about to have my L with moment but second of all funny either you're stupid because we're in the same class or I'm smart
like I don't know what to tell you and he was like super p.o because in New York we have like our state regents exams at the end of each year and then we had the AP exam and he was like super mad that I got a four on the test and then on the AP test and then I did like whatever 95 to 98 or something on the regents exam and I was like duh I'm a good test taker the problem is the homework in between have you heard I'm brilliant um I was in a exact same way and if I wasn't naturally gifted at
something my perfectionist frame would immediately go we don't have to care about this because if we had to care about it we would just be good at it and then I would trick someone into getting me by sometimes it was a student teacher sometimes it was an older guy in my class who was like my friend and also like the fake teacher assistant because it's like high school and that's how he's just spending
his study hall and I'm like hey buddy it's me you're cute adorable funny friend what is when you made my homework you just remember how much you love me and I and I was diabolical and I got whatever I wanted whatever I wanted and then that continued into college and then you're in this fucking real world and they're like who told you you get what you want and I was like my brain because I'm so good at the hustle my issue in undergrad was that I mean I loved my major I was a pretty medieval and
pre-modern history major and um I could just read my notes from from lecture if I just want to lecture and took notes I was fine and I did well on the exams and I would read you know sometimes if the class was interesting and if the professor made it interesting but otherwise like I was pretty solid like I was on the dean's list every semester and I was cool the problem with that was that I went to law school and it turns out you can't just read the notes from class that's useless
hugger law school yeah this is crap and they kept saying like all this is a crack method and it was like means shit to me I don't know what that means you keep saying so crack method as if that's supposed to be an answer to the question I don't and I have like no concepts like looking back I'm like like our TA in law school was like well you can do an outline for the final after the syllabus or you can base it on the textbook and I was like what the fuck are you talking about what
what outline and then I was even more confused because I was like okay well I'll do the textbook one fine like we basically went through the textbook in order still doesn't answer my question because I highlighted everything I had no fucking cool out reading where's the cardiologist asking why I was in law school then and then I went to teacher school and to me teacher school is a lot of just like
soft skills that they then make textbooks out of and they're like don't you want to know the science of the braiding wickets can we and I'm like why would I ever need to know that so no so I would just like thanks for asking unsubscribe yeah thank you but no I'm master's please yes there's please so I was really good at all of the performative parts of teaching um and then again it was like that false sense of success and then so when I quit teaching to go work in theater a friend that I had
having college he was younger than me like went back to one of our college events and ended up telling one of my education professors oh nearly doesn't teach any more she um she got a job in theater she's really loving it and that and he loved me I remember this professor loving me so I'm just like so hurt but he went I knew naply wouldn't love teaching but you know what she was just like one of our stars and I was like no you call me aside and you go hey honey do you want to spend six
years just be like more in the mud with your code appendancy but it's with like 38 year olds I think that that is a part of a higher education especially that is not talked about enough I had a professor in law school because my first year of law school I actually did down in my early Florida and I had a professor who like pulled me aside one day I went to his office hours about some things like pd are you are you happy here and I was like no like this like my amy suck it's hot
100% of the time it's so fucking humid it's Florida people are mean the drivers have no work in tail lights I'm sorry why is there no state inspection in a place that has no fault insurance and like it is just fucking crazy to me like I don't understand you have daily downpours where you can't see your hand in front of your face but you don't have to get like mandatory car inspections or you need to have work in tail lights fucking nuts absolutely fucking nuts no this place is crazy I
absolutely he said will be one of the professors law here and I was like no why would I this place is the hell hole and he was basically like yeah so the thing is he's like I vacation every summer in upstate Newark in the out of on backs um you need to go home you need to go back to Newark and I was like there there he's like why didn't you go to Albany law like that's a great school and I was like my whole family would go Albany law and I would like go somewhere where they were and get
into free and he was like that's that's not that's not it something in that way they're never gonna cancel your student loans Katie well he was basically like like if you can get into a place because your family is known there just fucking take that hand out like no that's not not the hole to die on what you're saying is I can blame my stubbornness on ADHD thank goodness I'm gonna write that down accommodate me it is um I'm I'm of the mindset actually that I think ADHD will end up being
incorporated into autism spectrum disorder I think ADHD itself is a spectrum of course but I think that there's so much overlap in the symptoms of ADHD and ASD particularly I think in the elements of rigidity especially I think you see all these like tweets or whatever what people are talking about how like if I can fully understand your reason for having a rule I will follow your rule if I don't understand your reason for it or I think your reasoning is
flawed or stupid then I'm not going to follow your rule I'm gonna do it my own way because my I know that my own way is either more efficient for me or more efficient for everybody but it works for me better than your way and I'm gonna do it my way and I'm gonna dig my heels in and a story and that sort of rigidity I think is more often associated with autism spectrum disorder but I see it a lot in ADHDers I think that we are very rigid in our understanding of things and I think that especially
having a co-host who also has ADHD my partner has ADHD her partner has ADHD so between the four of us like there are definitely points where we have to all kind of take a step back and like think about the words that we're choosing because we are all also the four of us friends but when there's like this business component to it we have to like separate things a little bit and say like okay this is what I would like let me know if you can do that or not and then I can adjust my
expectations or adjust and figure out what I'm asking and you can figure out if what I'm asking is unreasonable and/or why and go from there but you it is something that you really have to be conscious that you're working on and when especially when you're undiagnosed or you're newly diagnosed or you've been diagnosed for a long time burnout can catch up with you so fast you didn't episode on it in I think it was December and we didn't episode on burnout and it was just this idea
of like when you have ADHD everybody is is riding a bicycle whether you have ADHD or not everybody's on a bicycle but if you have ADHD you're on a low year trying to go uphill and so you're pedaling so much faster and so much harder than everybody else just to keep up but by the time you get to the top of the hill they might be a little bit out of breath you need a full break like you need to get
off the bike and walk around and catch your breath and get your bearings and then you can probably go down the hill way faster but you need that time to recalibrate and catch your breath but the reality is especially I think if you're undiagnosed and I mean the reality is that I think in fact I know my current employer my supervisor made a comment to me in like December or December of last year where
he didn't know that I had a HD at this point but he made a comment with me and said oh well if you want to talk you think you have ADHD now or whatever and I was like well yeah some people do and it looked at me and I was like well well like and the reality is like again I think there is something that comes from being like aging like I'm 35 now my boss might be 15 years older than me but I'm experienced enough in my field that we're effectively the same so it's it's enough for me to say
like no you don't get to speak to me that way which is the benefit of aging I think and it's beautiful and it's something that nobody's nobody ever told us when we were kids that like when you're older you actually like get to really hold your own and it's like really beautiful and powerful way and whether you choose to dye your hair or get Botox or not you still get to do all those things and be like really
assertive and like like wonder woman like Gal Gadot when she like realizes her power is kind of thing also with Chris Evans because you're sidekick but also doing that or not Chris Evans no Chris Pine yeah all the Chris's all the Chris's man except for Chris Pratt so mad at him all the time and I think when it comes to art so there's so much where the popular and I don't know I'm not a historian but I think that this is the pattern society and large groups of
people will be like three to five years ahead of where we're actually at so we're looking at employers where still like you work a nine to five maybe around 10 30 you get a little jittery so you go and you like stand at a waterfall where it was someone and talk about praise anatomy and then at noon everyone goes to lunch and then at five everyone goes home and by seven year eating dinner and they just think like that's how it should be that's how it will be and everyone can live in that
flow and what I've learned is once I didn't have to live in that flow anymore because of the pandemic I could not transition back to you telling me what I had to do when I had to do it yeah I know that not to speak for her but my co-host Garrett feels that way immensely and because she's currently pregnant she's considering like our our offices policies on pumping and the availability of a pumping space for nursing mothers which is required by state and federal law but she's going through all
these things where she is sad like we had a whole conversation at work with actually one of our meeting reps the other day and the union rep was like well just ask for reasonable accommodation and you can work from home five days a week because we have a hybrid schedule right now when you can work from home two days a week if you want and because she said she's like I can't go back two weeks five days a week like absolutely not and so she said like she's like I might have to because
they want her to like pump on a regular schedule every single day at the back same time you have to go down to HR get the key to the pumping room then go from R4 which is the sucking for then go up to the fourth floor pump then go back down to the first floor drop the key off and then go back to your desk and then at the end of the day because there's a mini fridge in that room you go back down to
HR get the key go up to the fourth floor assuming nobody's there yes that could be their pumping schedule like if they're there till 5 p.m. they might be pumping it when she leaves but then wait for them to leave so that she can go into the room get her stuff and then skid at all and then go pick up the kid from daycare and it's all these different things which is like that is absolutely ridiculous like the fact that you're thinking that that's acceptable is just nonsense and it's true
but it's that kind of thing that I think the pandemic allowed a lot of us to have the space to be like why am I commuting 40 minutes each way why am I driving and taking the train for hours and hours and wasting all this time that I could be spending with my family or my cats or my whoever well I could just be at home because if I'm at home my accommodations are on me like because that's currently what's happening with my day job my day job is I'm grading standardized
tests with things I have to listen to children ask answer the same two questions over and over and over again and they have two scheduled 15 minute breaks and a half hour lunch but ask me if I'm sitting there at the rest of the time no because I self-accompanied and I'm like okay now I can work out now I can do a tour now I can switch it up and I'm still out performing people yeah oh absolutely and I I agree I think you know even recently I had to go back to fully working from home
because I go into the office full time just because the nature of my job our office flooded because of some like I stand situation or something on the roof so we were I was going in once a week which is what I was doing from the pandemic but fucking sucked because I have to mail a appeal so I had to like do all this math to figure out like the next time I'm gonna be in the office if I could get everything filed ahead of time and just just fucking annoying anyway the boy being
though I was like there's still nothing better than like being like okay I'm hungry I'll go make lunch now or okay it's like 4.30 although take some chicken out of the fridge even though I have another half hour of work like just those little things also being able to be in my own bathroom and not a public situation not that we pee in public but a public restroom just squatting and let push
us outside of here. What's your list there's the thing that like public employees in New York or like just in a bucket or to like literally get so fucking frustrated about something that I'm working on that I can literally just grab my cat and go we will lay down for we're gonna do a quick
seven. Absolutely I mean there were times where I took my lunch break was me taking a half hour now because I can eat at my desk while I'm working that's not a big deal to me I can multitask that way and in fact I think that that helps make me more effective because I'm keeping one of my hands busy and my mouth busy while my brain is busy fine and to have that option like I'm not gonna go sleep in my
car no way if I'm in the office I mean I also wouldn't do that if I was at my house but yeah like just having that flexibility is just so nice and with this whole like nursing situation and pumping Garrett has said like I don't want to hear another thing about not being able to recruit workers when you refuse to give them a fully remote position when the job can be done fully remotely also she and
I don't know but like what if Garrett could be at home pumping comfortably or breastfeeding her infant because now the infant doesn't have to do the daycare because she can kind of do both like right exactly and that's why our union rep is like well that's your reasonable accommodation then if they can't like guarantee that you can get to that room because the reality of of pumping is like it's a bodily function so your your breast will be coming gorge you'll start leaking you will be
in pain until you pump or feed your baby and so and that can be affected by your hormones of how much you had to drink the day before how much the baby ate the day before how much the baby ate that morning I mean it's like so many different things that can affect that but I was like that is and then somebody was like either in HR or different union rep was like well potentially if you're the only person who needs the pumping room we can give the key to your supervisor and I was like so that's
the same as asking your supervisor if you can go potty like if you consider what that really is but because it's a female only experience or a fab only experience it is this like reg like super hyper regulated like oh there's just one key and they're worried about the cost of making key I'm sorry I just had two keys made at home depot for less than 10 bucks and like I are used to believe that the public of your credit state that the entire state doesn't have a key
making machine somewhere in some fucking basement right where they make a copy of a key but not only that we all have ideas that are like little swiper things that's the scanner on the door you'd think and like it's like well it's privacy only one person can be in the room at the time she's like privacy or not just get a room divider like what like also I can't speak to the other floors but to the extent that there's modest involved you've had like no less than 14 different people
inside your cooter when you gave birth so like at that point of another person who's nursing seeing potentially the side of your boob is an exactly an issue right I don't want to talk to anyone else who has a bow I don't want to speak for not I don't want to talk to breastfeeding ladies but I don't want to talk to four people who have to breastfeed but I think that men have way more of a panic about that foundation than we ever have because I remember being a child
sitting in rooms with my mom's best friend with my aunts with anybody and they were breastfeeding a baby I understood the functioning of breastfeeding at a very young age because I was watching it all the time and no one was like handling and bird your eyes are like oh my god someone cover up the boob or the baby right exactly exactly and certainly so I also can't say that I've never at this point nursed or pumped but I can't imagine that if you're in a room with other people who are
also pumping that there's much to look at other than like oh do you like that model this one is better for me because like you might have a conversation about the different type of pumping machines you use but beyond that I just don't like unless really unless the baby is there there's nothing to talk about I I truly knew that like my time at nine to five living had to come to it or that I was like an MLM yeah that I was that I was done playing a nine to five game when it was
my life on the line and my happiness and my joy at one time I had gone out to once come back to the parking lot for my office I was finishing a phone call with my best friend and I seized and my period jump started again and I had period if the fact that it like didn't also just like day lose on to the car but I knew I was like I was like okay well 15 year old me would have been riddled with shame trying to like tie something around my waist or whatever 27 year old me would continue my
workday I go but 33 year old me is going to fuck home because I can do this shop from home I'm gonna drive I'm gonna shower I'm gonna change my outfit and I will have my horrendous jump started period at home for sure yeah I think again like that's that thing with aging where I'm like I'm just not going to put up with being uncomfortable if I don't need to be also I think the pandemic made me realize the sensory stuff that comes along with how my brain works because I'm like so I'm
just gonna sit in what pants for the rest of the day and know that I'm miserable and portraying myself and at this point I don't want to torture myself anymore yeah for sure because all I would be thinking about is like oh everybody can smell it I can smell it I'm definitely not even though there's nothing probably there to deal with oh I'm I'm a math now every time I stand up I have to consider like the the middle school like in a good and like like check behind me and you know
let's go I'll just go home and it was like my bus is third day because I had like that in a new boss in the beginning of this job and I just texted him I was like I've had a female wardrobe malfunction I'm going home to change and he's like well are you coming back and I go no because I live 40 minutes away I'm not how is that reasonable for your time and for getting the most work out of me if I'm spending 80 minutes in the car to change my pants well not only 80 minutes but 80 minutes plus the
shower time because like let's be clear let's be clear that is not the good thing I'm taking that handheld shower to myself like you just be like my god a massacre yeah and I think like when I watch women just being like no I will be considered and you just like watch the panic and that's what's eventually gonna happen with people from the 80s spectrum the autism spectrum where it's like no I will be considered and this isn't a big deal totally and I've said that like since my boss made
that comment last year I've said something to him where he's like oh can't you remember and I was like no I have ADHD like you can see like he's just like quiet about it and I'm like well what now man because like if I need to get a doctor's note I will but like it's one of those things where you know it's the struggle with it a lot of times I feel like especially for women comes from the fact that hey and hardly think that it's like everyone else is ADHD and spectrum that's making someone go no
it's a big deal to accommodate you because somehow if I accommodate you I was wrong yesterday when I didn't accommodate you it's like not bro we can just move forward right I have great news I have a table working memory so if you're just nice to me now I'm good well it's like well if I let you work from home I have to let other people work from home okay say hi like I don't get it save the money on rent then dude I don't know oh yeah they're so uppity about it they um are you
gonna be started saying that uh maybe like 10 months or so into the pandemic they were like well you need to fill out this form and tell us what you're doing each day so that like and so as an attorney it's um we call it timekeeping but it's so I've worked her firms over your flat rate firms we didn't build our clients like hourly so they didn't get a bill where oh Katie spent point three hours on the phone with a closing counselor whatever um we didn't do that but when you
have to do timekeeping you still keep a time like a spreadsheet of all that shit you do and they started requiring that I was like this is bullshit for the most part I was in a different unit that I am and now I had nothing to report I was sitting around the courts were closed nothing was moving I'm sitting around writing on my fucking spreadsheet I'm waiting for a call for my supervisor what do you want me to put that I'm watching love is blind or tiger king for the second
and it's all about the the nickel and dining like how do I make sure that you're earning your wage I don't know how are you making sure that you're paying me and actually making sure that I have work available to me like yeah oh totally and I mean I mean I need department where I definitely don't have that issue anymore but one of the things when one of the reasons that I was like I'm absolutely coming back every day and not doing any hybrid schedule bullshit is because if you
were in the office every day you didn't have to do the timekeeper thing and if you did if you worked anything hybrid if you worked at home at all you had to submit that timekeeper thing for every single day you worked not just the ones that you were working from home and I was like this is ridiculous I refuse to be babysat absolutely not I'll just come into the office like if it's that fucking important to you weirdos all be in the office every day I don't care and then
our building flooded and they freaked out as to like why I couldn't possibly work from home when they are the ones that made it impossible for me to work from home I I was infuriated when I was working at hybrid schedule and I would be in an office doing nothing except for watching critical goal and being comforted by William O'Brien and I believe why I could be doing monitoring my cat could be looking at me I could be talking to my best friend but while I'm working on this like there are so
many benefits to my emotional and mental health also my productivity that you're just holding on to some like sick plane to my time yeah we kept getting these like bullshit newsletters every month that were like you know we're showing higher productivity with people who are working from home and then they're like make sure you're not letting your productivity slip and I was like could you just take a while and please are we working more or less because when I work from home it's way
easier for me to work past 5 p.m. because I'll focus and get that second wind at like 415 and I'll blow right past my clock out time and it's not like I'm I'm I'm salaried I can't charge them for that no so like what harm is it you're like effectively getting way more work for me I'm also not having to deal with talking with like about the banal bullshit with my coworkers who I can't be bothered to really care about you know somehow I'm viewed as being less productive when I'm at home or I have
to prove that I'm actually productive and it's the kind of thing where I think it goes into that kind of 80 hd um a little bit rejection sensitivity but definitely justice sensitivity where it's like if I haven't given you a reason to think that I'm not following the rules and stop thinking I'm not following the rules like I'll follow the rules I'm working what I'm supposed to work just like I did before and I think that like her the massage me comes in with a comedy 80 hd or comedy anything
in the office or work from home or you know anything where it's like but then who's in control yes and and do we want women to have an easier time working and raising families because then who's in control then and like well what happens if they can make money and raise their kids yeah that's true and I mean there's also that thing of you know what happens if they can make money well what happens if they're actually producing more like you are you're outperforming your
colleague so now I'm out producing my colleagues I want to raise the end the end you know it doesn't matter where I'm working the point is I'm doing it like you think I have like an army of mice doing this for me like no it's me and that's the other thing I think there's like a bizarre distrust and I think it comes from more the history of paternalism that we have in the workplace that has become
misogyny but it is that thing if I can't see you do it then I can't believe you did it and it's very much a like oh did you brush your teeth before bed let me smell your breath like I don't trust you and it's like okay well yeah it's one thing to ask an eight year old who is notorious for you know they went into the bathroom for 15 seconds and said they brush their teeth well yeah no it's reasonable to question that but you know when I'm winning 90% of my cases when I'm meeting every
deadline and exceeding every deadline and I have no complaints like nobody's complaining about me like leave me alone and let me work like I'm just happy to be left alone well and then it's like an ego-striking thing too because I I've had a lot of employers who will watch my success and because they are in arm length away from my success be like look how well I did training Natalie to do that look at me let her soar and I think what we found out in the combinoids is that middle note
managers are middle for reason and they don't wait and again I think a lot of people panic I think a lot of those people were insecure not quite serve themselves middle managers who were put into middle management because their daddy played golf with someone else's daddy and and then it's like why can't I work from home if I can continuously show you that I'm doing a good job and it's like well because then what would I do I don't know well that's just it so the thing is
those middle managers like let's be real they're all probably mid to late 40s or up right so all of those folks were put into that position by boomers who are like okay like thanks Johnson just finger guns everywhere yeah and they're putting that position and then suddenly at the pandemic where they're like oh make sure you're checking in get on the bus get on zoom with your people have a conference call I mean I was having daily fucking conference calls daily conference calls
with a manager who I my desk before the pandemic was literally outside his office door I got maybe six different assignments in the full year before the pandemic other than document review which let's be honest and intern today regardless we were having these daily conference calls and I was just like we're brodering Christ like what are we doing here but it's because they had to be able to say to the
boomers that put them in that position this is what I did today to make sure my people are paying attention to getting their job but they never did that before because they were able to go into work and be like hey marky and like move on I have a friend who's doing the same job as I am from her own home and she actually like recommended me for this testing job and we will just text one another back and forth and you're like oh they must have been hit on during their leader meeting
about this because everyone's getting a phone call about it cool cool everyone got a DM about this today I think we're gonna have to have you and Garrett back so we can talk about massage and eat within the medical community because I'm about to just start a second episode but we went with jobs instead Garrett has a lot to talk about that one then we will make sure that when I go back so I can talk to you and Garrett at the same time that he's also get to come back yeah yeah we'll make
sure that she's actually available I promise we'll make sure at least that she has power yes but let's end the episode with our two little traditions before my dad just like bust down my door and it's like I'm just standing out there for 45 minutes and I'm like I do you have a text on your phone you're in D&D no I've been checking because I'm in D&D and so I've just been looking occasionally which is great for my age stage just be like I guess I'll make the phone light up
oh I know so we like to end every show with a lesson in the meanestestation so with being kind of I hate using the term late in life diagnosed because then it's like late in life pregnancy late in life marriage late in life I mean I have all of those things going for me at this point but um no it is statistically a late diagnosis in the sense that most um people who are diagnosed in child have our diagnosed before you age of 10 yes um and males are diagnosed at three times the rate of
female or a-fabs anyway um today which is way better than it used to be in the 90s when we were growing up and going through school but um it's still you know with three to one odds of getting diagnosed and getting those interventions young so um yeah I don't have a problem with late diagnosis I'm gonna be a geriatric pregnancy by the time I end up having a kid anyway so with every patient it just feels so offensive well I know it's all my boyfriend on the oxygenarian
I'm sorry for being myself as middle-aged and people do not like that because I'm 34 and I was like I don't know though have you checked out climate change like I might be middle-aged that is dark but I'm here for it I might be old as hell can it like in conjunction with the climate yeah I mean let's we just live through a pandemic yeah and you know I have a medieval and pre-modern history major we are you know in the golden years but what what would you say is that
is your like legacy lesson that you would like to pass on to people like hey kids this is what you should know what I would have liked to know most ten years ago is that um you are different but there's a reason for it and it's okay it doesn't make you less worthy less valid and it doesn't limit your ability to be as accomplished as you want to be yeah I think I would like tag on to that and be like instead of putting in all of this energy to
maybe yourself believe that you deserve grace just do the grace thing to move on like I spend like I told you I loved meditation right up until I realized it was a coping mechanism and then I was like I hate it because now it's just something that's helping me instead of something I'm joined things can be I have this like art date with a friend where we were just like scribbling up with oil pastels on the same poster board like parallel plane and I just remember telling him
like I have a really hard time um actually recognizing what's relaxing and what's just something that I'm doing to do a thing he was like what do you mean I go well I go for so long of my life relaxing only happened when I was burned out so it involved watching 18 seasons of Mary that per site mm-hmm such a good show I love Mary that per site really got them on it whenever you want it's so good it's so bad so I was telling him that the only way I can actually be like I relax
today is that one Saturday a month where my body refuses to move so I have to relax I go but doing this like doing art with you like I'm happy we're having great conversation I'm still using my creative brain so my brain is activated I go look would you classify this as relaxing so I would love to just like have people make that bridge where it's like it all get you get to have the grace to create what it is that works for you absolutely I think that's why I love our podcast so much is that
it scratches that itch mm-hmm I can be weird I can funny I can be intellectual I can do whatever I want to be and so can get it and it allows us the space to do that in a really creative way so I haven't had to dig out my cross stitch box or start sewing face masks again or you know any other random thing because I have this to fill myself into and it's something that yes it's worth absolutely there are times when I'm like yep I forgot to make the post that I was supposed to make today
but um there is so much satisfaction out of it and I think yeah I would agree I do I know that Garrett has on our show she's realized that the only way that she relaxes or what she deans or quote unquote relaxing activity is actually something that's productive it's cleaning it's you know doing stuff around the house and getting projects done and she said on the show she was like oh my god do I not know how to relax and it's that kind of thing where kind of have like we've both
had various existential crisis on the show but um it is that thing where I think it's worth um allowing yourself like you said the space to just exist without having to earn the right to exist or even have to just like keep scrolling with yourself like I was really good today I was really lazy today or like I was a person who relaxed today like we're so hyped up about labels and calling things that I'm like not everything has to just be in the name of my mental like
illness it can just be like it eased by depression but it wasn't about my depression to begin but and I think that when um well then will this come out for you when will this come out for me I feel like it's another summer one I can pull it up on the Google calendar that's okay so in um in may we just did two episodes about mine and Garrett's experiences with Diet culture on our case with dieting and we talked about that thing that we have both done in the past uh well I was really good
today so I I'm allowed to not exercise or I exercise a lot so I can have a glass of wine and kind of like holding yourself hostage and um and that sort of thing but it taught to women especially in the context of dieting and in the context of disorder eating build to us as the way to deserve affection the way to deserve the right to take up space in the world yeah um so yeah what you said going fits into those episodes of our oh we talk like I'm exhausted about talking about like my
relationship with food and how it some days it's good some days it's bad sometimes I think about it all day some days I don't think about it all some days foods disgusting and like why would I ever eat something oh for sure my hyper fixation meals oh they're amazing until they're not and then I would all just starve until I am hungry enough to find something else to eat but what would be something that you hope for for the general collective energy in our future when it comes to ADHD diagnosis
massage in the fall of the above I think that there's plenty of space for everybody mm-hmm I don't I hope that whoever's listening doesn't feel like if they don't have a label for what they're feeling that that doesn't matter so that's what I'd like to put out to the world I love that I think finding the PlayStation is going to come from my lord and savior currently Taylor Swift and I'm just hoping that all you really made me nervous with that lord
no it's usually cash a lady Gaga or Taylor Swift or Tony Collette oh no Jesus Bible bells I don't know uh-uh Jesus Christ and I had a breakup right before I went right when I got into college and I was like it just doesn't make sense for me my lord and savior Taylor Swift has told us time and time again that for everyone who thinks account not accountability oh my god accommodations and accommodating people meeting people where they're at and being empathetic as fuck and just allowing
people to actually thrive with whatever's going on in their body is super hard and will steal joy from them or time or money or whatever Taylor Swift says you need to calm down you're being too loud why be mad when you could be glad and that's my manifestation I hope that people calm down I hope they stop being too loud and I hope they get glad and not happy and not happy and I hope that everyone if you didn't get errors tickets you at least got
to watch it on TikTok that's a solid manifestation yeah okay tell everyone where they can find the bar is ankle high so we are on all podcast platforms you can just search our name the bar is ankle high we're also on youtube with you the subtitles um it's just a static image we don't do like a video podcast or anything but um you have that available if you need that I don't go through and like edit the subtitles it's just what I do so like it may not be it'll be perfect
but it's close enough I guess um anyway uh so we're all on all podcasting platforms and our we are most active on instagram and our handle is at the bar is ankle high or you can go to um bit.ly/incohighmerch if you want to check out our merch which would link you back to our website or just go to the bar is anklehigh.com which has all of that information and our bios um all that stuff and listen links most importantly if you're struggling to find us but I love our Instagram I run the Instagram
I'm super active on it I love getting messages from people occasionally I'll fight with some people on other posts who are claiming to cure different hormonal conditions or
I think that essential oils can cure disease. Yeah um they need to know that was the episode as we're as we're recording this the episode that released this week was about our part one on essential oils and part two we'll talk about essential oils and ADHD and uh all that bullshit I'd love to have some lavender knowing that it's not doing anything for me but like what if I just do it not true it actually does do stuff for you with
you smell it so it it interacts with your all factory nerves and triggers a reaction in your mid-dala which is the motion center of your brain but don't eat them no don't eat them don't eat them also be here's my PSA like I'm Bob Barker also be careful if you have essential oils in your house and you have pets because they're very toxic to pets even sometimes the vapor yes yeah yeah so definitely check with that and um you know MLMs are dangerous anyway right but we do have so by the
time this comes out we'll have had two episodes 36 and 37 on essential oils so if you are curious about essential oils or worried you can go listen to those and um we have some solid tips from like Johns Hopkins and like reputable superstitions how to find an aroma therapist who isn't gonna like point in you and then I think that this episode is coming out after Ellen's episode so I'll make this plug again if you're a person listening to the podcast and you have ended a toxic relationship or
ended a relationship that was just boring and not serving you a la Taylor Swift and that Joe dude in Europe or you told off your boss or some other vassadiness or you were in a position where you stood up for yourself and then looked around and you realized that no one was there to back you up please do you own me because this episode is coming out August 3rd that means it's been two months since I've been at the airstomster but I bet you guys still have friendship bracelets and I'll send you
one remember teller readers you don't have to smile through anything you're tolerating including endless meetings with a boss who's so insecure with themselves and their lives work but they want to know minute by minute what the fuck you're doing while you're working at home and they definitely don't want to hear thriving or relaxing. Files are pretty light. oh oh oh oh oh [Music]