Hey everybody, it's me. Katie asaurus and welcome back
to infinite Quest this week on infinite Quest.
We are talking school and ADHD specifically Eric and eyes
experience with school. Just you know we recorded this
episode of Live on a twitch stream and the response that we
got from the chat just as we were recording, made us realize
that we're going to need to do a series on this.
So this week's episode is more about Eric and eyes own
individual. Personal experiences with
school. What school was like for us.
And I will be honest. And let you know, this is kind
of a vulnerable episode and I do cry at the end.
So just just, you know, know that going into things before we
get into the episode itself, I want to let you know that the
announcements here at the top of the show.
Might get a little long, but that's because I have quite a
bit to update. You on first, we want to say
thank you so much for supporting us and supporting infinite
Quest. I know that I say it every
single week, but it is because I mean, it every single week, We
would not be here if it weren't for all of you and we are so, so
thankful and so, so grateful for the support of this community.
Last week, infinite Quest, hit the top 100 podcast in America
for mental health. And we are floored and honored
and absolutely overwhelmed with what that means for us.
And what that means for infinite Quest.
What it means is that we are finding an audience who sees the
value and importance and the necessity in what we do in
spreading education and advocacy.
Casilla about ADHD and depression and mental illness
and that is a profound gift. We are so lucky to be where we
are, however, 99.3 percent of our audience across Tick-Tock
and twitch and YouTube and here on the podcast listens and Views
and enjoys our content for absolutely free.
And I know that it sucks to have to listen to me, say, hey, we
have a patreon every single week, but the fact of the matter
is, is that Eric and I both lost our jobs during the Endemic and
right now, especially on the verge of Eric's move, things are
not exactly what we would call financially soluble right now.
Supporting us on patreon.com infinite Quest or subscribing to
either myself or Eric or both over on the twitch or
subscribing to my only fans. Quite frankly is a really great
way that you can help support the mission of infinite quest
for just a couple of bucks a month.
You know, that's super annoying Trope, where they go through.
Just the price of a cup of coffee, you can save an orphaned
puppy dolphin or whatever. Eric.
And I actually sat down and we ran the numbers.
And if just one in three of our listeners, donated a dollar a
month over on the patreon, we would have more than enough to
not only finance, Eric's move but make this soluble make this
viable and quite frankly be able to bring you so much more
education and so much more content.
We also want to stress that I know for a lot of our listeners
having a few extra bucks a month, is sometimes a luxury
that you just don't have and quite frankly, right.
Now we find ourselves in that same boat.
That's why we just want to remind you that if our
tick-tocks have helped you in any way.
If our podcast has helped broaden your horizon or your
understanding of yourself or your partner or anybody that,
you know, with ADHD the best way that you can support us, is just
go, leave us a review, put us share us around on your social
media on Tick-Tock on Instagram on Reddit on Facebook, send it
to your grandma. But the more people that we can
bring to infinite quest in the more that we can show that there
is a need and a value to the work that we're doing.
The more that we can create infinite, Quest is a sustainable
viable, medium for spreading awareness and advocacy about
ADHD and depression, and mental health.
Again, we just want to stress that there is absolutely no
pressure, no expectation and absolutely, no obligation, Want
to keep infinite Quest as free and accessible to anybody and
everybody who might need us. And so that's really really
important to us as well again though we just want to close on
a moment of sincere gratitude as much as I make jokes about you
know fruit snack nation and Eric makes jokes about hey boots.
Heroes we really hope that you understand that we view infinite
Quest as a family and a community and in particular this
week we want to Extend our sincere gratitude to Eric and
moon and scribbles and an for everything that they have done
for us this week and and Beyond we would not be here if it were
not for all of you. And we are just so so grateful
to each and every one of you. I wish that I had the words in
the Gratitude but I've been talking for like five minutes.
So I'm going to shut up. So yeah this is our educational
episode hard switch into show mode.
This is our educational episode. We'll be back next week with
some more exciting and cool content.
So um, here we go. Transition.
That's nice. Okay.
You want to do the thing? Yeah, give me a second.
All right, one, I'm the preacher wore buttless chaps the but it's
far. The children.
So the children I'm trying to do that joke without being too loud
Anchorman Anchorman, I'm aware. I'd like her man, topically
relevant, hit summer block. So relevant term Anchor Man will
never not be Anchorman stepbrothers.
Pineapple Express will never not be relevant.
Those movies can be referenced till the end of time and they
will always be relevant. And and what's that was Electric
Boogaloo. Is it?
There's a show? Anyways.
Alright, that was terrible. All right, so we're going to
clap. We do a little clapping clap for
for my making my life easier. Oh this is all.
So everybody's seen the sausage gets made, you know, they are
there's this is what this is. This is not like, oh, we're
performing because we're on the twitch now.
Like, I want to be very clear, this is actually how we make our
podcast. Yeah.
We just bullshit for like 25 minutes and then we're like, oh
fuck. Guess we should make a podcast.
We accidentally made a podcast that way.
One time we didn't talk for a whole, like, hour and a half
accidentally. That was the system.
Like, this is the way that episode is gonna go.
But we should, at least do the intro.
Do you want to okay? Hi everybody.
It's me. Katie asaurus and it's me.
Hey, dude. Nailed this.
Let's so good. You want to tell you?
It'll take that. Let's take that again.
I'm going to say, I'm going to say.
Hey everybody it's me. Hey good and you get a sort of
first. This is the first time.
First I'm gonna get top billing this time.
This is what's gonna happen? I'm not.
I promise I'm not. Her about it, but this time I'm
taking it. All right, ready?
Okay. Hi everybody.
It's me. Hey dude, and I'm Tia source.
That was weird. Right?
Weird. I wouldn't first weird.
Huh? I'm so today is our first live
podcast recording on Twitch. If you'd like to hang out for
our live podcast, reporting's follow twitch.tv/simpleflips
Quest and switched out TV / KD Soros with an O instead of a
zero or and sort of a. No, I mean, zero instead of a
know I was almost close to being right.
And also twitch.tv slash, hey dude, what are you?
Filmmaking stuff. Also I really want mr.
Nichols to do a voiceover for us.
Where it's like, I know this ode of infinite Quest was recorded
in front of a live twitch audience.
I bet he wanted. Yes we can do that before
Thursday to I think that would be cool.
Yeah, maybe so everyone that right here, yeah, right here.
How dare you, I'm not a sexy or sensual voice for you to use at
your whims which reminds me. Thank you for listening to
infinite Quest. If you've enjoyed this podcast,
be sure to like rate and subscribe on your favorite part.
Cast app and if your app doesn't let you do that.
Why are you using it? Find a better one.
One that deserves you. Yeah, that feels good, doesn't
it? Oh no.
I followed into your trap. This episode of infinite Quest
was taped in front of a live, twitch studio audience.
That was so cool, wasn't it? Oh man.
It's your nickel. That was awesome.
Now, I got out if he doesn't do it, so, it's just us doing
stupid this awkwardly father. So the, the topic we're going to
talk about this week is something that Katie and I
talked about to each other like a lot.
And we've, I do want to say, we've been putting off the
subject, but it's a really big one.
And so we didn't really know how to approach it.
And so, this is likely going to be either part.
Of a series or we're going to get more granular with it as
time goes on. But today, we're just going to
take the big whale of a topic of ADHD in school or ADHD and
academics. However, you want to think about
it because Katie and I both had very I think we had similar
brains in school but we responded to them in very, very
different ways which I think is fascinating.
This is true. So the first, the first
question, I wanted to ask to sort of start things well,
Unless unless of course, Katie you want to have any, you know,
say or you know, you just let me talk for the next hour.
Um, I mean actually I want to preface this because one of the
things that I think is really important is that it is never
Our intention on infinite, quest to exclude.
And one of the things that I have found really frustrating is
that my experience, is that of a like gifted programs, like, just
gifted programs. My Life.
And I've started talking a lot more about that because, like,
as I've been sort of like learning more about myself and
like researching and all of the stuff, I'm realizing like, how
much of my sort of trauma or the things that I deal with are, are
very much based in that experience.
But the problem is that, every time I post on Tic Tac about it
or I make a video about it, or whatever.
There's always at least like five or six people in the
comments. You go.
Well, what about the kids who did bad in school and And and I
never know how to navigate it because like that wasn't my
experience. It just, it just wasn't.
And so like I want to be very clear that as we go into this
week's episode, this is not to say that every person with ADHD
is a gifted and talented kid, nor am I saying that if your
experience is different than mine or if you, you know, you
struggled in school, like there's something inherently
more wrong with you or you are more or less ADHD.
We just wanted to talk about Our experience, because our
experiences with school and particularly me, like in
Academia, like getting master's degrees, and that kind of thing
really informed, how, how I live my life, and how I teach.
And so I just want to be very clear that we are doing.
We think it's really, really important to not exclude in this
conversation. We are just talking simply about
our own experiences. Is that an okay way to start
that? Yeah, I think so.
I mean, ultimately, I think it would be More of a disservice to
our listeners, if we pretended that that was arts or pretended
to have experiences that were other than our own, which is
something that we try to do in every regard and this is just
one of them. You know, we had a particular
experience in school which we can speak to and we had we
didn't have others that we can't speak to that.
We are immensely curious about which is why I really enjoy
hearing other people's experiences in school.
Because frankly I can't imagine having any other one than the
one that I had. That's the one that I had.
Yeah, I mean I mean, I can imagine about them in sort of a
wistful, what if way, but I don't know what they were like,
you know. So I think that is, yeah, I
think it's a really good point. We're not trying to exclude.
We're just trying to only speak to the things that we actually
know and and frankly, I And frankly, I want to put also for
the idea that Katie and I even when we're just talking to each
other, it's really hard for us to say anything.
Positive about ourselves without apologizing for it as if to say,
I'm not trying to be arrogant. I'm not trying to be whatever
but like you know and we qualify it for like a minute and a half
before. Just saying a very simple thing
that happened and so I am to stop doing that as much in my
everyday life and I'm I'm trying to get K today.
I'm just stop doing that in her everyday.
Left. But I think certainly, I think
on a podcast it's sometimes I'll be listening to the podcast and
like, wow, I just apologize for something.
I haven't said yet for like three minutes so because like I
mean I think that's a really good place to start the
conversation because like that's something that I learned in my
academic experience like that idea of like having to
constantly apologize. A lot of that is rooted in my
Variants in school and it's like weird because like Tick-Tock is
by hell or high water. Tick-Tock is convinced to make
me a more mentally sound person and I'm just constantly getting
called out all the time on Mental Health, Tick Tock but
realizing that has been has been really interesting.
Like how much of that like need to apologize and how much of
that need to like over-explain and and over apologize and be
like, oh I sure hope. I don't offend anybody by
talking about my own experience and like how that experience has
affected? And me a lot of that comes out
of my experience in school. Huh.
That's interesting. And what Realms would you say
was it like a very an immediate realm like you the people you're
in class with or was it sort of a grander you didn't want to put
yourself above or below anybody else.
I mean, it was it's a lot. Like, I think it's like year
like years and it showed up in different ways and like, like,
this is like a weird place to start the like education
conversation. But when I was in kindergarten,
like, I remember this, I remember this very specifically.
I I taught myself how to read Um, and I taught myself how to
read like at my grandma's house when I was like real real little
and so when I went to kindergarten, I got in trouble
for knowing how to read. And I like, I don't think my
teacher meant for it to be like a know you're in trouble but
like, I was a kid. I didn't I didn't know like any
better but basically like I remember I was sitting there and
I was very quiet like this is like such like a like specific
memory from my life but it was like, I I was sitting there, I
was reading a book and she came over, she pulled the book out of
my hands and she's like, what are you doing?
And I was like, I'm reading a book.
She like you don't know how to read and I was like, no, I do.
And she was like, no, you don't. And I was like yeah I do.
It was like weird, right. She was like accusing me of
lying and so then she like put the book she gives me back the
book and she's like well then read it to me and then I started
reading it to her and she was like why why do you like what do
you like? Well, great.
But that's She said, she's like, she's like, well, great.
Like I don't know what I'm supposed to teach you now and so
I felt like I had done something wrong because I knew how to
read. And so like that was like, my
first experience like this was like, I want to be very clear.
It was like the second day of school ever.
Like, that was my second day was that.
And I remember that, I remember that.
Like, I was still there. I remember the rug that I was
sitting on. I remember the book.
I remember, like, with the width like the sun, coming through the
window. And like, I remember what I was
wearing. And like I remember that and I
remember that moment of like you are bad and you are wrong for
knowing something that somebody else doesn't.
And so like, I pretended that I didn't know how to read for a
really long time, because I didn't want to hurt the other
kids feelings. Wow.
That's that's such a Good Will Hunting kind of moment not to
immediately start drawing. Genius analogies.
Hello. Kitty hear you're quite up there
but you're drawn on the chalkboard in your in your
custodian Garb. You know and and and Alexander.
Big from The Avengers comes up and goes like goes like, what
are you doing? And you just gotta sorry, and
they looks up in my God. It's right.
You got to just grab that book and read it that teacher.
I love that that happened. I am honestly going to sleep
better at night knowing that that's how you responded.
You were just like, oh yeah. I'll read it.
I'm give a shit. It's sort of, like, when a
teacher would think you're not paying attention in class
because you're doodling, or you're looking out the window or
something. And they'll say Eric, like pay
attention, I'm like, oh, I was. And they're like, oh yeah well
what did I just say? The amount of times I've heard
that and I was stoked every single time because I did know
what they said and they were about to look real fucking
stupid in front of the whole class.
Mmm, I love it. But what so, how long after do
you think they did it? Take until you were comfortable
like reading in front of everybody and not only that, but
like being comfortable knowing how to do that in light of other
people. Perhaps not being so good at it.
I mean, it was weird because my mom pulled me out of that
school. Like after that happens, like my
mom. Moved me to a different school
because she was so upset at the teacher for like, what the
teacher because my mom was like, I remember like I came home and
I like cried and I was like, like I got in trouble for
reading and my mom was like, I'm sorry what now, so I moved to a
different school for first grade.
And then I was in that school for like the rest of like I went
first through eighth grade with like this and it was a very,
very small school. So I went to school with the
same 18 kids. There were 18 kids in my class.
Class from first grade to 8th grade, which was a very weird
experience, because when you only know 18, people from grade
1 to grade 8, everybody knows the situation.
Everybody knows who the smart kid.
Is everybody knows who like, you know, the kid who struggles is,
everybody knows everybody's business, it was a whole thing.
And so like my school experience is really, really weird because
like, I was mercilessly Fond of I was mercilessly bullied from
like first second and third grade.
I was I was horribly bullied because I was like weird looking
and I had dumb hair and I knew how to read and I was really
smart and I loved Reading Rainbow and so my parents used
to tape Reading Rainbow off of off of the TV on to like VHS
tapes and they would like bring in like five VHS tapes, a week
and my class would watch Reading Rainbow because my parents have
cable. We were like, the only people in
my class who had cable at the The time.
So my parents were, like, bootlegging Reading Rainbow for
the kids in my class, but they used to make fun of me for it.
They're like, ah, ha ha, you like Reading Rainbow, like all
you're such a nerd, all, you know, how to read and whatever.
And so is this weird thing where starting in fourth grade, they
bumped me to like a made-up, it didn't exist.
Like the, like my it was just like my fourth grade teacher
realized that like, I was so bored.
I was just so bored all the time.
She like started giving me like harder books to read, but it was
like that was the narrative like like for a really long time was
just like I was made fun of her, knowing how to read.
I was constantly told like I got told by the school librarian
that I couldn't check out books from the big kids section
because they were too hard for me.
And so like I just kept getting told over and over and over that
I was like wrong and bad and I shouldn't know the things that I
did and then I was like, I don't know, I don't know where I'm
going with this but that's the story.
So there you go. Well, I want to Wondering at
what point at what point did all that bullshit ariki sort of
stop? I mean I know it probably never
stopped but at what point was it like okay did the teachers not
feel so freaking insecure about the fact that you knew things
that they didn't teach you I suppose.
I mean that's what's ringing pretty strikingly.
Clear here. Is that eighth grade eighth
grade, my eighth grade teacher. Her name was Connie or tell and
she was just an extraordinary teacher.
She Was so good. I still remember her.
I still remember everything that she did for me and basically she
was the first person who looked at me and said like you are not
bad and wrong for being smart like you would like there is
nothing wrong with being intelligent and that was kind of
a turning point for me. Because like for a really long
time, like I was like, I was Hermione Granger like, you know,
like I was a kid, like I always answer the question like
whatever but at this Point there was 18 of us.
Like everybody knew that I was a fucking nerd.
Like they weren't like so you know they weren't surprised and
so like I just kind of gotten used to like being the nerdy kid
who always knew the answer. And so it was funny because like
I posted that video about you know like raising your hand in
class like what do you do for kids, who like always know the
answer and how do you take you know, how do you take turns that
wasn't my experience until high school because all through grade
school everybody would just look at me and Me to know the answer,
like, if nobody knew the answer my teacher.
Well, Katie, what's the answer? And I'd be like, X or Y, or you
know, whatever. And so, yeah, like so that was
like, it was like weird. It's like weirdly backwards and
then I got to high school and I was like and I had new teachers
and new people who like didn't know me didn't know that.
That was like, I was the kid who knew the answer?
It was weird. I feel like I'm talking a lot
about myself. What about you, Eric?
Tell me about your it. See what I did?
I awkwardly dodged feeling feelings.
Ha, ha. Take that.
Don't worry, I'll bring you back. well, I my experience was
basically I from as early as I can remember, probably I would
say like an early phase school. So when I was, when I was a kid,
I lived in Connecticut till I was 12.
I moved to Michigan when I was 12 and I went to public Michigan
high school. So, I was 16, when I was 16, I
went to a boarding school, which is sort of like, an Arts
Conservatory for. I played, I was a musician who.
And so, for my Junior and senior year in high school, I was at
this this board School for music.
I mean it wasn't a conservatory like actually.
So we still had actual classes with math and physics and all
that kind of stuff and then I graduated that and then didn't
go to college. And so that first period that
the pre 12. I suppose I Was way more
interested in the social workings of how the school's
social whatever is work. The hierarchies how those worked
which isn't to say just that I like wanted to be like, what of
a popular I mean, on some level, I like I did because I don't
know, I was trained to want that perhaps but I was fascinated by
how people interacted. Like, I noticed that the people
that one would call quote unquote popular.
They were just the best at insulting, people, that was the
only thing that made them popular.
It didn't necessarily have to do with how they looked or how much
money they had or whether or not they played Sports, it was
strictly that they were the best insulting people.
And so if you went up against them about something they could
cause you to back down by insulting you.
Yeah, and you would back down from that.
But there were also a whole class of people that you were
better at insulting people, then, and you were quote
unquote, more popular. I was, I was third tier.
I don't want to say these peoples names, but, I mean, I
worked it all out in my head, it was fascinating to me.
There was all use their first name.
Their was h, m + m, two M's different names, and they were
immensely. Nobody, nobody mess with them.
And then they each had their, like, sort of right-hand person.
And then below that, anyways, that was all deeply.
Fascinating to me because every grade also had that hierarchy,
which I also figured out because I had a brother who was a few
grades above me. And so I was sort of familiar.
What was going on up there? So, there was this whole Game of
Thrones thing going on and I was a very quiet kid, believe it or
not. Well, I was, I was either very
quiet or either, very not quiet. But anyways, I was very, very
concerned and fascinated by how those things work.
So, whenever I was in class, I was more interested in whether
or not like I know that the most popular kid, quote-unquote
popular knows the answer to this because I just know that he
does. Like, I he's a smart kid and I
know he knows the answer, I wonder whether or not he raises
his hand. And he either would or wouldn't,
and I would be like, hmm, interesting, I'm not laughing at
you. But I think this is fascinating
the way that you approach this is just like, fascinating to me.
Well, it was just so good at the time.
It was so much more interesting than most of the stuff we were
learning about because either they were teaching us about
something very interesting that they assumed was to way over our
heads. So they had to sort of dumb it
down in which case it was sort of like frustrating.
Like, I know that's not the full story, that's not.
What is like that? Be all in his xylem does.
But or there were classes that did end up being very
interesting in which case I ended up being very I would I
don't want to say I hyper-focused on it but
everything else sort of faded away and I was just like, oh my
God, what you're telling me that there's an electron thing in the
world? You know, they're microscopic
little things. And so I was either very
concerned with either found the social machinations of the
school to be much more interesting than the subjects.
Or very much vice versa. I am man that Fascinates me
because and I couldn't choose, which was which I couldn't
choose, which one was more interesting to me at a given
time. I can't make that, I can't
stress that enough because that sort of dichotomy stuck in my
head, like I can either focus on the social aspect of school, not
just in a, what's my place in it, but just in sort of a
anthropological sense of like what?
This is fastening? What's going on here?
Or I could focus on school. And so there was this sort of
Of, there's Mutual exclusivity to them.
That I think persisted for me, were you?
Were you a good student or were you a bad suit?
What a dreadful student. Always read on paper.
Yeah. Oh yeah.
Always garbage on paper on paper.
Like my teachers always liked me but I was terrible.
Well, so I suspect your initial question is actually about.
How is what was my relationship to a teach?
Do you know, all this, which I suppose like I just think
because I don't like, I don't know.
Like, I wasn't like, I was straight As until I wasn't and
then When I wasn't everybody treated it like it was a crisis
and then I was like, has it ever occurred to you that maybe I
just don't want to do stuff sometimes?
Yeah, I mean I had a moment in, it would have been fifth grade.
That is the more I unpack myself in the more that I sort of
observe myself, the more I'm realizing it was one of the more
influential in formative moment. My entire life.
It's easy to discredit things that happened before a certain
age because you like, I was a kid.
What the hell? Who cares what happened then?
I burped, but basically there's this program called academically
talented or 80 and my brother was in my.
I have a brother that was two grades above me.
He was in it and I was very aware of which students were in
it in which students were not. Because again, it played into
that social hierarchy, if somebody was in academically,
talented or not because there was a class during, there's a
period throughout the day. Academically talented was
happening and you were you either there or you were in LA
to language arts to where you just put the dumb kids,
basically, and the dumb kids, you should say kids.
I know it was good at school. Yeah, I don't want to social
construct. Oh, yeah, that's right.
It was not the dumb kids class. I'm trying to make a joke
because I was in that class. And so it was not the dumb kids
class. There were plenty, plenty of
brilliant kids in that class. However, you want to measure
Brilliance, they really are brilliant because Cuz they could
do math really well or they were brilliant because they could
make you stop crying when you were crying like whatever,
whatever their skill set was. So, yeah, I actually I do feel
really bad about calling it the dumb kids.
Thought it was nothing, but we didn't get tested for
academically, talented or screen for academically, talented until
fifth grade. So all up until then, I was
like, you're going to get in, you're not going to get any,
you're going to get it, you're not gonna get in and then that
Jake the day came. I took the test and I didn't get
in. And I was put in LA to and from
then on it was like the game became.
How do I prove to these people that I'm smart which is out.
I'm going to call you out because we were friends and I
can that's like that is a thing that you do still to this day.
Absolutely. Oh yeah.
I mean we're like really got to know you.
I was always like this pretentious motherfucker, like I
get it, you're Smart. And then like one day, you told
me that story and I was like, oh oh I get it now I understand why
Eric does this and it's a, but it's like and then I get like
upset for you. And then I was like, first that
I feel bad for like passing that judgment on you because I was
just like, I had no idea. But then also like, then I'm
like that is so upsetting that something as like, frankly
trivial as like what language arts class.
You got put into based on some arbitrary system of testing and
measuring intelligence profoundly affected.
Not only your experience in school, but also like how you
see yourself as like a grown-ass man?
And it's like, and it's weird because like it's another one of
those. Like I don't take care of myself
but I take care of you and like because it's like it's the same
thing for me. But like I get mad about you,
but I'm just like my, I'm just like, Ava, Katie, like it.
It's fine, it doesn't matter. But yeah, I get I get really
frustrated whatever I think about that, because I wonder how
many other kids are like didn't get into the program and have
like completely made that they're like wrap that up into
their self-worth or like vice versa like were and you know in
the pressure and the expectations and like all of
that stuff. Like I really think a lot of
those programs do more harm than good because we're Not thinking
about the psychological impact that telling kids over and over
and over that they're gifted and they're special and whatever has
in the long run. When all the sudden grades don't
matter. Yeah.
Like what do you do when you graduate school and you're not
getting graded on how you know how good your book reports are?
You're just have to live your life and file your taxes?
Yeah, the solution. Eric is you go back to school
four separate times. That's right.
Yeah, That's the best. This that's strategy.
That's right. Well, I think the idea of I do
want to call them gifted programs but having specific
programs for specific kids having a more tailored academic
experience for students, I think is a good idea.
In theory, I think the way that we're implementing it though,
focuses much more on this concept of there being a linear
scale of intelligence and we so we focus more on sort of
magnitude and hierarchy, like, you are smart enough, or you
aren't smart enough or I think the approach Be much more
lateral. Like, oh, you are inclined to do
this sort of thinking or making or whatever, you know, you're
very tactically intelligent. Like, when you hold stuff, you
can sort of feel how they work and make things and you're very,
you know, confident when it comes to cars or something like
that. I mean honestly, like I feel
like my like real, this is a thing that I've actually thought
about like I really genuinely think that like if I were ever
to have kids I would send them to Montessori school for that
purpose. Which is weird.
What is Montessori school? So Montessori school is like
this sort of like different approach to teaching that is
more based on like the kid follows their own interests and
their own passions like within the context of like a lesson
plan. But it's like it's based on like
what the kid is good at and like, rather than just saying,
like, every kid has to learn history in the same exact way,
because I like one of the, one of the things that I really
think about is there's there's a kid in my class and I won't say
their name will call him. Steve, Steve Was a horrible
reader. Like Steve just could not read
well but Steve. Was it like fucking brilliant at
Art? Like just like even as a kid
like just could draw you. Anything was so good at.
It was like, whatever but was not a gifted reader and so Steve
like you got left out of the gifted program because like, you
know, the structures of the gifted program said that Steve
wasn't Gifted because he couldn't read well aloud.
Now, Steve makes like a fucking five million dollars a year as
an architect because he's brilliant and so talented and so
smart at other things. And so like that's like, that's
the thing is like, I was very traditional, like, traditionally
gifted. I was an excellent reader, I was
an excellent writer like that's that's that was my skill set?
And not only that. And I want to be very clear.
I'm just really good at Tests. Like one of my shitty
superpowers is like I'm very, very good at taking standardized
tests that doesn't make me smart or intelligent any more than the
next person. It just means that like I have a
weird talent and skill in terms of like understanding how to
efficiently, take a standardized test.
And so like, I get mad sometimes about the kids that, you know,
for as much as I talk about being, you know, like a burnt
out gifted and talented kid. I get really Be upset about the
kids who are left out of these programs because their talents
are different because their interests are different like
being an incredibly talented artist is just as important as
being a really good biologist or chemist or whatever.
But it's we're only recognizing like one specific type of
intelligence in one in specific type type of like academic
success and it just Frustrates me.
You know, it does and to sort of Bring It kind of back to ADHD, I
think not only do we value certain forms of intelligence
more than others so much so that we don't even call those other
forms of intelligence intelligence.
A lot of the time I think we also value certain, I would say
intellectual dispositions or mental dispositions.
More than others. Speaking.
Nothing. Of the, of the concept of a
disorder. But just the idea that
everybody's brain has a disposition, it has a way that
it behaves. Sometimes it behaves in a way
that makes you quote, unquote, a good student, or obedient
student and sometimes it makes you an obnoxious little little
whatever the hell. But both of those dispositions,
all dispositions that a brain can come in are useful in some
ways by useful. I don't mean how much can they
produce for society, but how much can they create a healthy
and satisfying? Iron meant for the person whose
mind it is and I think by seeing certain kids like me with ADHD
and thinking, and trying to get him to not, have any trying to
get him to behave in every way as if he didn't is really
harmful and it produces a lot of Shame which is not to say that.
I mean ADHD is, is very frequently, not useful in a in
an academic environment and it's understandable that a teacher
would want to help us. Sort of quell, those less
convenient things. But oftentimes that's at the
expense of the things that thinking of ADHD, not
necessarily as a disorder, but just, as a disposition that
someone can have the ability to think of many things at once and
have them all rub together and mushed together.
And so, you can think of new creative ideas.
I think often time that gets the value of that gets reduced and
gets in gets written off in attempts, to help the more
Deleterious effects of of ADHD and that I think I thinkwell.
So when I said before that, my mission became to prove that I
was smart which is certainly true.
My, an equally necessary thing to bring up is it wasn't just a
proof that I was smart. It was to prove that they fucked
up by not putting me in academically talented, so I
didn't want to be put in academically talented.
I didn't want their approval. I wanted them to Admit.
They were wrong. And so from then on, I always
felt like traditional academic success academic success on
paper. Getting the Praises of my
teachers or the other people who are evaluating me, I always felt
like that was was sort of letting it was letting them win
doing well, because that's what they wanted.
What I wanted to do, was for them to look at me.
See that? I was smart, see that I was
failing and think, wow, we really failed this kid.
And that always prevented me from that would.
Well that was one of the factors that prevented me from actually
trying. The the story I tell is like if
you're going into class and you were supposed to have done some
amount of reading from a book, Let's it like it's a it's a
literature class and you sit down and the class starts
discussing the book. Well, I didn't do the reading.
So the game became how well, can I do in this class having not
done the reading in most of the time, I could pull my weight.
Edge's. That's that's a mood.
I don't know if that's like a relatable grade but like I would
do that shit all the time because I know your doubt that I
could just be like, well I just really feel like the author is,
you know, really trying to say the thing that he's not like it
because it's so easy. It's so yeah.
Easy to do and then I would start feeling guilty about that.
Like did you ever feel bad because like I was start feeling
bad that I could just sit there and bullshit and bullshit.
So effectively that my teacher be like that is an amazing but
everybody. Should make points like Katie
and I'm like, nothing. And you didn't notice like, I
think guilty. Yeah.
I think I felt guilty. Sometimes seeing I got well, it
wasn't guilt. I would say I mean, guilt was
part of it, I think. But I think it was fear was the
thing that I was mainly feeling. I mean, I didn't know it at the
time but years and years later after dissecting all of it, I
think I felt fear If I had done the reading, if I was on an even
playing field with everybody else that I wouldn't be as
genius as I thought I would be. So I was constantly limiting
Myself by not doing the reading by putting the essay off until
the very last minute by, you know, not doing all of my
homework and seeing if I could convince the teacher to let me
turn it in months, late. I was constantly holding myself
back because I was worried that if I didn't then I wouldn't be
as smart as I thought I was that it wasn't the fact that these
people fuck me over. I just didn't have the stuff.
And Incredibly astute self-observation.
Yeah, well, I mean, it Factor. That's that the factors into
everything that I do. I mean you are my business
partner. I think you see that in me that
like I don't start if I started editing every podcast,
immediately after we recorded it, that would give me a whole
week to make it the most excellent podcast and make it
amazing. But I always wait until like,
maybe the day before. So, that way, as I have
thoughts, I think well, I just don't have time to spend an hour
and a half making Bit out of this 5 Second clip.
And I think part of that is I'm worried that if I put everything
into it, then the product won't be as good as I imagined it to
be and I'd have to deal with that reality.
I will confess to you here and now that I have two masters
degrees and Shakespeare, I have never once.
Read two Noble Kinsmen, I just haven't, do you know how many
classes I've been required to read two Noble Kinsmen in at
least seven that come to mind. I just I two Noble Kinsmen
sucks, its that's shitty fucking play and so like, but that's the
thing. It's like I was in graduate
school. I was in graduate school sitting
in the back of the room going. Well, the intersectionality of
this chapter is very interesting when combined with the character
development that scene. Act three and then in it's the
same thing and so like yeah I mean I have that same thing too
because I'm like, what if I'm not as smart as I think I am,
I've just been an incredibly good bullshit artist, my old,
which is not a negligible skill, that's for sure.
Not a negligible scale. Hey everybody.
You did it. You made it to the middle of the
episode. Congratulations.
We're really proud of you. You should probably go drink
some water in celebration of this momentous occasion.
So, listen, we know that we talked about the patreon quite a
bit at the beginning of the episode.
So I'm going to skip that this time in the middle.
And we just want to remind you that this week's episode is
brought to you by Z lulu.com. That Ze l o0 l.com.
They so glad I always forget to say that they sell glasses.
It's for you guys. They sell glasses Z little, they
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So go check them out. That's it short.
Sweet. And to the point, you're welcome
and now here's the part where Katie cries.
Okay, bye. I know I said I wasn't gonna do
this but I want to do this because I think it's really good
in the chat. We got a really good question
that I think is an excellent segue to a really good topic.
Yeah, fantastic homework. Oh boy homework with ADHD
because like home where I have a weird relationship to homework
like I have a really, really weird relationship and I like I
And I had my answer is very quick.
My answer is what I was like until maybe High School
specifically until High School. Homework wasn't a thing for me.
Like I would the teacher would assign the homework usually like
in the 10 minutes before class ended and by the time class was
over, I would have the homework done because the homework that
they were assigning was so easy for me.
Then when I got to high school and we haven't even, we haven't
even talked about my secret double life.
In high school, we haven't even touched this story yet, which we
need to get to because I feel like it's a very important
contextualizing story for my high school experience.
But in high school, like there were some classes were like I
just was like, I mean, I don't have to do the homework, the
teacher knows that I'm smart, the teacher like whatever.
And so, like, I can just not do the homework and I'll be fine.
And so yeah, like homework. I've really weird relationship
with homework because I never I never learned anything from
home. Homework was never anything
useful. Homework was never anything
helpful. It never reinforced anything
because the way that my brain works is once I have learned,
something I have learned it. I either understand it or I do
not understand it. And once I understand it, like,
great now, I know. And so like, I don't need to do
fifteen fucking chemistry problems to understand, like,
whatever conversion, whatever. And so like, I would get really
frustrated with homework because I didn't see the point.
What like I already know this. I have shown you that I know
this because I'm able to confidently, talk about it in
class. Why do I have to go home and do
80 fucking math problems? Yeah.
So yeah. I that's what I was sort of
frustrated. Me is the point of homework
always seem to not be to not be helping you learn the thing,
it's just proof that you've learned it for the, for the
teacher. Which from a from a from a you
know, a working person's perspective.
Like it being a teacher is a job and part of that person's job is
having a specific way that they can explain to their bosses, how
they're grading their students. It's this percent homework, it's
this percent test, its this percent that.
So it's really a way of the teacher doing their job, which
is to, you know, measure how well these students are learning
the things that it's their job to teach them.
And so, I always sort of resented that we're like, you
know, the in my head it was like the fact that you're giving Me
homework to do over. And over a thing that you know,
I know because I was very active, in class is an insult,
like it's that's you're wasting my time.
I don't do it that way now because I'm not as cynical but
at the time I absolutely was I was like to homework was always
the thing that revealed me. It was always the, the it was
the thing that pulled back the the cover on the smart kid thing
that I did in class especially math class that was always very
good at math. And I love math.
And so, I was, I would in class. I would be, you know, the
student that the teacher would have to say, you know, anybody,
but Eric, like, does anybody want?
Eric one answer? This question?
Um, this is actually a mood and if Katie anybody, all right,
Katie. Sorry.
I can remember, several occasions, usually towards the
end of a semester where the teacher would hold me after
class, and say, like, Eric, what are you doing and say, well,
what do you You mean? I know what they mean?
But there was like, well, what do you mean they're like, Eric,
I had a teacher come up to me and said you, my God will see
here. This one, I will apologize for
before I say, because this is very pretentious, but this is
also the best example of the things I'm talking about.
She said, Eric, you're one of the best mathematicians taking
this class. She said, you're the one of the
best students taking this clash and then corrected herself.
And she said, Eric, you're one of the best mathematicians
taking school? Well, I got called a
mathematician goodness you sir. This woman literally, wrote the
book, we were studying out of She wrote The Textbook.
We're starting out. And she said, why haven't you
done any of your homework? Like if you don't do, if you
don't do this, then you're going to fail this class and I was
just like, I had no excuses. I knew what I was doing was just
like, yeah, sure, still trying to stick it to those people that
didn't put me in academically, talented, and so she would
strike me a deal. She was like, if you can give me
the entire semesters worth of homework by Saturday, I'll give
you 75 percent credit on it and so then the game was on and I
would just Just hyper focus and just go.
Okay, here we go. Then it was a game.
And I would do that. And, you know, it was so
homework was the thing that always revealed how shitty of a
student actually was. And I think all of the all the
thoughts that I'm espousing now and the thoughts that I was
having at the time, a lot of them were to bring it back to
the thing that we're supposed to be talking about.
A lot of those things were me, trying to escape the fact that
my ADHD was much more of a factor in my life.
Than it actually was all of those things were try to
convince to try to convince me that I was in fact, in control
of whether or not I did all this work.
I've I was actively deciding not to when the fact of the matter
was a lot of the time I genuinely wanted to whether it's
homework or an essay, a lot of times I'd be assigned an essay
and as soon as we got the assignment might have brain lit
up and went. Oh my gosh.
That's so interesting. I could write a book about that
but I just couldn't get started. Because every time I sat down, I
Got antsy or every time I sat down my head would start to
vibrate and so in order to try to not deal with the reality
that I wasn't in control of that, I convinced myself that it
was out of all of these decisions I had made regarding
my resentment towards, you know, the academic establishment and I
think those things were there, but I don't think my my not
doing the work was a conscious decision, a lot of the time.
Yeah. I mean, I had This.
I totally forgot what I was gonna say, hold on, I had like a
whole point that I was going to make it everything and then I
got distracted because I read the chat keep doing it.
I saw you put something in the chat and I was like, oh, we got,
we've started. Oh, I know what it was.
Um, so one of the things though that I think also for me, that I
like just very recently have realized is how kind of like
what you were saying? Like your ADHD was impacting.
It like for me, just like in general having a nun.
I know it's neurodiversity was like, that was really big.
There's wonderful video that I saw on Tick-Tock about like,
what something that like you like the neurotypical?
People don't understand. And it was this girl and she was
talking about like, the why, the why of things like, you can
teach me something all day. But if you can't explain to me
the why, then, like, I don't care and I don't know if I have
ever felt. So personally called out by
Tick-Tock video, because for anybody who was there, the night
that Eric tried to teach me math, on tick tock.
Live, you will remember this but that was the thing is like I
found that my whole whole life, especially like when I was like,
like young younger like and less like high-concept stuff.
No one could ever answer? The, why for me, nobody could
ever answer the like, why do I care?
Why does this work? How does it work?
Like, what's going on? It's just like, well, one plus,
one is two right. But why, why is one like Hank
Green? I'm not trolling you.
I genuinely want to know. Answer to that question Hank,
Green, true story of Easter story.
And so like that was thing as like and realizing like how much
that lack of explanation and that lack of like the why
impacted how I think about learning and approach learning
is really interesting because it's like now and I always make
jokes about this but like I wanted to know how big the
turkey was in A Christmas. Carol well why?
Because fuck you is why I like I want I I wanted to know, I want
to know because I think that's really fantastically
interesting. And three days later of like
quite frankly, exhaustive academic research.
Like I found that answer and it's the same reason why.
I like, I decided I wanted to get multiple masters degrees in
a subject that I was passionate about because I wanted to know
the wise. I wanted to talk to somebody
about like well why why I'm a pentameter why, why Shakespeare
why the you know whatever and what I found out is that It
doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're a
kindergarten, it doesn't matter if you're working your way
through a PhD, there are a lot of people who have never asked
the, why question, there are a lot of people in a lot of
different areas of study and walks of life and all of this
thing who just never ask the why?
And that baffles me that absolutely baffles me.
And it and it and it's like, I don't to say it's like upsetting
but like getting a master's, like, my master's degree is Like
I don't feel like I tried very hard.
I really don't like I don't feel like I tried and I thought like
getting master's degrees was going to be like this crazy
intense constant like just like we're going to learn and we're
going to study and it was more of just like what Katie, what
are your thoughts on Hamlet? And I'd be like, well, it's good
I guess could be better in some places.
There's some plot holes, what about the Pirates?
What happened to the Pirates? And then be like, cool have a
degree and I'd be like oh that, that was it?
Okay. And that but the guilt but I
feel guilt about that like I feel genuine guilt for about
that because and I don't know why I like I don't know where it
comes from. I don't know why I particularly
think of it that way but like I feel really guilty sitting here
on my ADHD podcast knowing that there are people who are
passing, you know they're like freshman year English going like
oh it's so easy for me to get a masters degree.
Like I feel extreme guilt about that.
I feel extreme shame and embarrassment.
Harassment. And I feel like I can't talk
about it. Like, I can't, I feel like I
can't talk about the fact that, like, it has always been so easy
for me that I feel bad. I feel wrong.
I feel like I'm doing it wrong. I feel like I'm approaching it
wrong. I just, I don't know, like I
just I feel so strange about it. Like I'm literally getting
emotional about it right now because like I just I don't know
what to do. And no one has ever been able to
solve that. For me, nobody has ever been
able to like, figure out how to make it challenging enough to
where I feel like I'm deserving of the degree or the recognition
or anything and yeah. Like I don't really know what
I'm, I don't know why. I don't know.
Like I just, I don't know. I feel really guilty, I feel
really guilty all the time because I'm like, oh, I have two
masters degrees and I'm so fancy and I'm like and I built some
kind Students and was in some plays and they gave me a
master's degree. Like I didn't do anything
special. Like I'm still just me and it's
just, I don't know, it's just yeah.
If I think it was maybe like imposter syndrome or something,
but it's just, it's just weird and yeah, I don't know.
I don't know where I was going with that but there you go.
Well I'd say, you know, I've heard you expressed the
sentiment about a couple a number of things, and I think
the important thing for me to remind you of I'm not, these
things aren't true because I'm telling you them, they just are
true as you're not taking anything away from anybody else
by having these things. So, the concept of deserving
It's not that you're taking it away from somebody who is
perhaps more deserving, the concept of deserving is doesn't
really factor in and to, in terms of, you know, taking away
things implies giving things. The fact that you have those
master's degrees has enriched you as a person, Katie, and you
have made other people's lives, a lot better by being the person
that you are. And so frankly, let's say
deserving was a factor in it and let's just say you didn't
deserve them, you do. But let's say You didn't.
I'm still very glad that you do because you're the person that
you are and you make my life in a lot of people's lives a lot
better. So That Katie ha take the
compliment whether you want to or not, can we?
We should can so because it's got like weird and emotional and
heavy. Can I tell a hilarious story
about how I let a secret double life because I told my secret,
double life story. Yeah, sure.
But before you do that, I just want to point out to anybody
who's hearing this right now. If you have a Google phone, say
OK, Google. How big is the turkey from A
Christmas? Carol, just do that.
Just do that for me, please. Wherever you are.
Just Plus that out real quick. Thanks hurt.
You love it. So okay so this is and this is a
thing and I think part of this also like this is this is some
fun. I don't want to say childhood
trauma because it's honestly a very funny story, but I suppose
trauma can also be funny. But so one of the things that
happened to me was because I was good at school and I had kind of
figured out how to game the system.
I started taking college classes, Classes when I was in
high school and so like my first day of high school was also my
first day of college. And so I was 14 going to
college. Now, I also want to be very
clear that I have not grown since I was 12 years old.
Like I have been the same height.
I've been roughly the same weight and shape.
So like you look at your pal. Katie, and you're like, probably
an adult. So I lived this Weird secret
life where I was like 14 I was in college but I didn't want
anybody in college to know that I wasn't cool and I didn't want
anybody in college to know that I like you know got driven to
college by my mom and her purple minivan.
That's a true and specific reference from my own life.
And so like for a couple of years I like didn't tell anybody
like how old I was Like because I just, I just didn't, I would
never. And like, and so, like, in
college ice and I started doing this thing where I put I
pretended, like I was, I was not very good at school.
And so, I would, I like, I remember I took this class, it
was a, it was a Theater history class, and it was like a very
like 101 Theater history, but because I had already been, like
a theater kid, you know, I knew a lot about Theater history
because I just read. So, I would like, I had this
secret double life where I was a bad college student.
Where Would purposely like fail tests and I would purposely get
the answer wrong and I would purposely like, be like, oh
yeah, that's like, I'd very confidently, be like Henrik
Ibsen, and then they'd be like, no, that was a checkoff play.
And I'd be like, oops. And it was like, so I could
like, it was like, I was doing this like weird.
It wasn't even like a social experiment, but it was like this
weird thing where I like I wanted the experience of being a
bad student so I like manufactured it.
And then finally like one of my teachers like called me out and
she was like, I've seen your papers.
I've seen your tests. I know that, you know, this, I
know that, you know, this material.
I don't know what is going on with you, but like stop it, like
just own the fact that like, you know, this and so then like the
next day in class, she like, basically, outed me and was just
like, well, Katie, like you're 15, like what I like, you know,
you're still in high school and I still remembered like
everybody just Like turned around and was like cause like,
you know, it was also, that was the weekend that a lot of the
guys in the class stop hitting on me as well.
They had been just want to make that that part of the story.
Very abundantly clear. I was so confused whilst why so
many people weren't as nice to me as they had that.
And then my teacher going to be like, well here's the water.
What were some of the differences that you noticed
going from the high school World immediately to the college
world? I mean, honestly, like I thought
it was super novel that I didn't have to wear a school uniform
that was like, that was like my number one impression was.
I was like, I didn't have to wear a knee socks and culotte to
school every day. I thought that was cool but I
also have very fond memories of like frantically changing my
clothes in the bag was playing say yeah because like I would
leave from high school and go to to the college classes, but like
I don't know. Like it was like it was really
weird because like, I what was nice is that because The way
that I was doing it was I was just kind of taking classes like
whatever. I thought was interesting at the
time, so I took a lot of, like, Theater history, I took like
stage makeup, I took like stage combat, like I did a lot of
theater classes and that kind of thing.
I took some English classes. I took, you know, like just kind
of it was thing. But by the time I graduated high
school, I had also graduated college already.
Like I had enough credits to have a college degree and so I
remember like my, like, my parents looked at me and they're
like, well, do you want to go like what are you gonna do?
Because like, you have a degree. Three.
And I was like, well, I want to do college for real and I
remember that was like very specifically like how I thought
about it is like I had not done College.
I adjust, I faked College. It was pretend College, it
wasn't real. It wasn't those hundred and
twenty credits weren't real because I had had fun, you know,
I just like I had had fun, learning them and whatever.
And so, yeah. And so then I went, I guess I
went back to college or I went to college for real that time
and so, yeah, But yeah, it was just like this weird trivia fact
from my life of like my secret double life as a college
student. I was wondering my honest.
Question is, what did your mom think of the fact that you
wanted that? You, you felt the need to change
out of your high school uniform to go to college classes?
I'm just curious. Did she notice what she like are
you embarrassed, was she like? Because my mom would at least
want to know, like, I don't know.
Never thought about it. Like honestly, like I think she
just got it was like, oh, that makes sense like, you know,
because she's not going to to school, she's going to college
you know, so like I don't think she ever like, she never really
liked made a thing out of it, you know what I mean?
But it was like, I was also like in every fucking activity in
high school because that's a let's we still haven't touched
on that part of ADHD where she said, oh you're gonna be
involved in every activity and you're gonna completely
overextend yourself and burn yourself out.
That's that's definitely a normal thing that normal people
do but you I would change for basketball practice and I would
change for volleyball practice and I would I would change for
Honor Society meetings and I would, you know, so it was like
just the changing of the clothes in the back seat was a very like
normative thing in my house that makes sense.
I'm knowing what your car looks like.
It's just now making a lot of sense.
At any given time you have like 15 different changes of clothes
in your car, which is not which Kitty.
I don't mean to like out you as having a car with a bunch of
stuff in it, I think. Incredibly useful like that one
time. When you, when we went to the
Renaissance fair for you, to check your mail and I was
because of covid. It was like not going to go in.
I was just waiting outside in the car.
I wasn't bored at all. I was like, oh my gosh, there
was the complete works of Shakespeare in there.
That was pretty cool. I found a really good pair of
needle, nose, pliers, that I needed to use later.
It was awesome. There is a, I would say a group
of about 150 people in Georgia who old and with no irony or You
know, hyperbole they literally call My Car.
The room of requirement it's just - because it's a real
thing. Like oh you need a pirate sword.
I think I've got one of my car like oh you need I don't know
like a bottle of wine. I think I got one in my car like
it's a real thing in my life. It's just it's just I think I
don't know if it's like an ADHD thing but I feel like it's I've
made enough jokes about like show me the backseat of your car
on Tick Tock to where I feel like maybe that's like less of
a. It's a it's a shared experience.
Audience. Well, I think the thing about
is, whenever I see something that could be useful in a
project at some point, like a build project, I have to hold on
to it. And just often enough, one of
those things will end up being exactly the thing that I need,
and that just perpetuates it for the next year, basically.
So I think, if this is ADHD related, it's certainly not part
of the diagnostic criteria, but if keeping things seemingly
useless things around, or at least not, obviously useful
things around. Is part of ADHD.
I think it's because of the whole prospecting thing that we
think of so many different possibilities for how everything
can play out. We inevitably see the one where
this thing is exactly what we need at the time and in which
case we want to have it, right. So that's so hard to get rid of
stuff to my gosh. I'm just like, well, yeah, I
could get rid of the seven yards of silk, that has been sitting
in my closet for five years and I haven't even ever cut into.
But what if I need to make a teal silk doublet sometime?
Like, And that feeling of like working on something and
realizing that you need a very specific thing and the moment
you realize that you have it, oh gosh, I would live in that
moment for the rest of my life. So good.
I jump out of my chair, I bang my knees on my desk because I
roughed from the chair. It's incredible.
Well Kitty. Let's so we've been recording
for about an hour now and we've been giving sort of backstories
on our schooling experience. Look, this has to be a part.
Now, because I think has talked a lot about, like, here's like
where we come from but we haven't really offered any like
solutions to problems were just like, yeah.
Well, so what I was sucked. I don't know.
Let's I'm also asking the the chat, this hello chat.
Hi everybody. Sorry.
We haven't been paying very much attention to you.
I feel bad. But if you're down in Katie, if
you're down, we could take a break cap.
This episode off. People can ask questions in the
chat and then do you want to do like a school?
You a while. We're all set up based on the
questions that they ask, it's okay, you been streaming for a
while now, Katie. So nobody will hold it against
you. If you need to, if you need to,
if you need to stop right, everybody.
All right, everybody. We won't hold it against Katie
if she needs to stop. I think maybe a better idea.
I like that that, um, my thought is what if we have them email,
their questions to us at infinite cost podcast at
gmail.com and then that way, if they've like, Awesome questions.
We can also, we can make a list of like the most common ones and
then that way also people who are listening to this later
after the fact can also send us their questions about school and
then that way we can do a part 2.
That's more about like just questions about like because I
have a lot of like good school advice like that's things like
it sounds like it. Yeah.
Complained about school for like the past hour but like really
and truly like like Cuz I lived with undiagnosed ADHD for so
long. I have a lot of like really good
and really effective systems for like oh you need to write a
history paper but you left it for like an hour before.
It's due. I got you fam.
Here's how to write. Yeah, our before history paper,
your saturated day before history paper.
Like I've got a lot of stuff like that but like I kind of
want to know like what people want to know and I also kind of
want to like make sure that like I think about the answer to my
question because I feel really awkward about this episode Eric,
I feel like I did that cool thing where like, where we had a
really good conversation but I'm really embarrassed and I don't
want you to put it on the internet.
Oh, Katie booty, booty. Booty boo-boo.
There's a very good episode. You were very in her very
interesting. A feel like I just bragged about
how good I was at school for like an hour.
And I feel like I'm going to hurt a lot of people's feelings
because I know there's a lot of people with ADHD who struggle
with school and I feel really, really bad and really guilty
about it and I'm going to cry because I'm almost on my period.
It's fine. Well, you know, Cody I mean So,
I'm a person who struggled with school, like always always,
every, whether it was elementary school, or the, you know,
quarter semesters of Community College that ended up doing.
And the feeling that I'm feeling is not judgment or oh, my gosh.
This person is just been bragging for an hour.
My feeling is curiosity, how the fuck did you do it?
I mean, I do not like I I'm curious I have questions
basically and so we don't questions because we still have
like hysterically speaking, we bullshit.
Round for the first like 20 minutes.
So we still have a little bit of time.
That's what's your, what's your question?
I want to know. What are your questions?
Well so my my main question is just what was the worst part
about having ADHD in that experience?
Like knowing what you know. Now about yourself and about
ADHD, where did ADHD rear its head during those times?
When did you have to deal with it and how did you deal with it?
That's a really good question, I think.
For me, it was the dichotomy of being incredibly good at school
but like not being able to do things like, stay organized
because like on, like, novel, vulnerable time.
Going to cry, it's fine. Um, but like I've told the story
before, but like, I had my desk dumped repeatedly in school,
like, my teacher would literally come over to my little, like,
you know, little square desk with like the little cubby and
pick it up and just throw all of my shit.
The floor and just make me like sit on the floor and gather up
all of my stuff and like, organize it.
But my system was my system and like that happened.
Probably Twice a month for like, at least my entire third grade
year, which all the way also like this doesn't matter but
like I'm not going to say her name.
But if she's listening to my podcast, fuck you fuck you for
doing that. Fuck you for calling me.
Four Eyes, fuck you for dumping my desk.
I was a child and you were an adult and you mercilessly
bullied me for that. Entire school year, for no good
goddamn Breeze, and under the guise of it was super funny.
Fuck you. And that time that you saw me in
the Free store and you are like, oh my God you were always my
favorite student, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you forever.
Thank you, I'm fine. I've got that out.
But yeah, like so about that was like formula tip for me was like
the the desk dumping thing because like I learned that
like, I could be as good as I wanted in school.
I could be as great at school as I wanted.
And I was like, I was, I was very good at school and I'm a
very talented writer like and I think some of that comes from my
ADHD. Because I tend to like kind of
go like big brain and I can like just think of a story on the
spot, you know, that kind of thing but at the same time like
I would I was always getting screamed at for like my room not
being as clean as my mom wanted it to be.
I was always getting screamed at for having a messy Locker.
I was always getting in trouble for having a messy desk like and
so yeah like for me it was it was the dichotomy, it was the
dichotomy of being so successful and so good and honestly
sometimes being proud of that like that, That pride of like I
got the best grade in the class or I know that I know the
answer, but then looking in my locker looking at my backpack or
looking in the backseat of my car and going like I'm never
gonna have my life together, like I've never gonna be, I'm
never gonna be able to do it all, but I would just keep
trying because like maybe if I was president of the Honor
Society that would fix my problem, maybe if I was the star
of the softball team that would be that would solve my problem.
Maybe, if I was a star of the musical that would solve my
problem and so Everything that I ever did, I was very, very
successful at but my room is so messy and my locker was still
dirty and I would still, you know, lose the permission slips,
and the homework and all of that stuff.
And so yeah, it was that that I think is my answer is just
living with that absolute painful dichotomy of being told
over and over and over that I'm special and I'm brilliant and
I'm whatever. But at the same time, feeling
like an abject, fuck up, because the adult authority figures in
my life. Conflated.
Things like my lack of focus and my disorganization.
And my like constant talking in class as like, I was bad.
I was a bad kid, was bad kid. I was a bad student.
She's great. She's assured.
Her papers are so good and she researches so well, but she
can't focus. She can't, she can't, you know,
she talks over other kids in class like you have to do
something. Hmm, that's it.
Well, Katie, I'm sorry. I won't apologize in advance for
the question about to ask you, but I want you to answer
honestly, if you can, okay, what would you say to that Katie?
Now. Oh, God.
Fuck you. You made me cry when you cry.
I cry. K a credible.
It's okay. I would tell that Katie that you
are fuck you for making me cry. I would tell that Katie that you
are enough. You are enough, as you are.
You don't have to keep trying, so fucking hard to prove that
you are worthy of love that you deserve love.
Like, I would tell her that the life that you are about to lead
is extraordinary and it is Full of incredible people and
incredible experiences and everything.
Everything, you choose everything that you focus on for
two days or two weeks, or two months, like, at some point in
your life, you're going to look back and you go up that Egypt
phase panned out for me. And now I know a lot about Egypt
and I can talk about this Egypt with this hot archaeologist,
shouldn't have a really interesting night together,
everything everything that you do.
It is, it's worth it. It's worth it for the
experiences that you get for the, for the for just like the
passion that you have never apologize for your passion,
never apologize for being excited or interested.
And for all of the people who criticize you and tell you that
you are not enough or that you are bad and you are wrong, they
are wrong, they're wrong, they're wrong, they will
continue to be wrong and it's weird.
It's weird realizing that the Grown-ups in your life or wrong,
it's realizing it's weird. Realizing the grown-ups in your
life are treating you poorly but you'll get through it and you
wind up with a podcast where you get to tell other people that
they're not broken and they're not wrong.
And so all that hurt, all that shame, all that anger works out
in the end. Just not in the way you expect.
You're still not Comic-Con famous though.
So how was Brendan Fraser by the way?
I'll burn it for ages. Fuck great school.
Just want to check, and I haven't seen you in a while.
Run. Run my best friend forever.
That's what I call him. It's fine.
This is just amazing. Thanks for this, man.
What was that? So those are those are good into
the podcast. Thanks for answering my
question. I'm sorry to spring it on you,
and I didn't think of it. You've tuned in to infinite
Quest the podcast. Of course you didn't tune in,
you've selected it from your digital device and hit play
intentionally. He can't tune in anymore.
That's old people talk. And we're hip and with-it.
We are young, and so, it's all right, mr.
Nichols, I can take it from here, it's because wants to
thank mr. Nichols, for a being such a good
sport this week because you guys mr.
Nichols is just such a cool person and I'm really glad that
I get to know him so well, thanks for being our prop to
guest star this week, mr. Nichols.
Before we go, we just want to give a big infinite quest to
thank you to our newest patrons. We have been absolutely
overwhelmed by your support and really and truly, I know I say
this every single week but it is because of your support that we
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and all of the other fun stuff that we're doing.
And we are just so, so grateful for all of you.
So this week, a big infinite Quest.
Shout out, goes to Daniela and Crystal and Elaine.
Lane and Megan and Rachel and clue and Judith and Jenny and
Keith. And the water is blue.
Thank you all so much for becoming part of the infinite
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Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you so much for your support.
Remember to drink some water. Remember to take your meds.
Remember to be kind to yourself and we'll see you next week from
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Thank you. And we love you.