77: ND Like Me with Frances
My guest today is content creator, Frances, from TikTok. She most often covers topics related to Black maternal health and mental health, but today we venture into her personal experience in being a neurodivergent Black woman. Join us!
Show Highlights:
● How Frances is affected by neurodivergent issues like dyslexia, sensory processing disorder, and stimming (There is much more to neurodivergence beyond ADHD and autism!)
● How a knowledgeable teacher caught Frances’ problems early in elementary school
● How differences in cultures play out in the ways neurodivergence might be manifested
● Why there are many shortfalls in identifying learning disabilities because too many teachers assume the problems are behavioral
● Why it is difficult as the parent of a neurodivergent child to find balance in privacy, protection, and sharing information with others
● Frances’ opinions on her childhood accommodations that were most impactful and least impactful for her
● How Frances functions with accommodations in the workplace as an adult
Resources and Links:
Connect with Frances: TikTok
Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook
Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning
We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.
-
KC 0:04
Hello, you sentient ball of stardust. Welcome to struggle care. I'm your host, KC Davis. And today we are talking with content creator, Francis. She usually talks about black maternal health and mental health on her page. But today we're going to talk about her personal experience with being neurodivergent. Francis, thank you so much for being here.
Frances 0:21
Thank you for having me, Casey.
KC 0:24
First off, if anybody wants to follow you and hear your awesome conversations about your experience with black maternal mental health, that's like such an alliteration term for me. So to like, slow down when I say Where can they follow you.
Frances 0:37
So she's having a baby on Tik Tok, and YouTube, Instagram, and she's having a baby everywhere. And I would love for you to come by and learn some more about that if you're interested.
KC 0:48
And not just mental health, but like physical health as well. You talk about maternal health, maternal
Frances 0:52
health, like prenatal labor and delivery, how to advocate for yourself for you and your infant, how to build community while you're pregnant. And then the disparities for black woman in particular. So it's good stuff over there.
KC 1:05
Okay. So I want to jump in by saying that when you and I first talked about, hey, let's talk about like my personal experience being neurodivergent. And I out the gate was like, So when did you get your ADHD diagnosis, which I think is funny because you don't have ADHD. And you're not autistic? Ah, but like, that's right, where our brains go. When we think neurodivergent when someone says neurodivergent, we automatically think of those two things, even though I know full well that there's more than just that, but that's still kind of where our minds go. So tell me what your diagnoses are.
Frances 1:38
Okay, so I have a couple. So I have dyslexia. And I would say, that impacts my daily life, the most having dyslexia. And then I have sensory processing disorder, which is had different names with that's what it's called. Now, those are the two that impacted me the most. And then I have, it's also my, it's a stem, so I stem a lot with my hands, but I have a lot of like loss in my fingertips, like feeling loss. And I've had that since I was an infant. And so I definitely it's feeling things and I'm very sensitive to certain like sensory, so a lot of like sensory processing, things I don't want there. But dyslexia is definitely the one that impacts my daily life the most.
KC 2:21
That's so interesting, because I also have dyslexia, most people know that I have ADHD, but a lot of people don't know that I also have dyslexia, dis calcula, and auditory processing disorder. And I would say that like of my little jumble bag, dyslexia probably affects me the least. So I just think it's interesting that people can be different, you know, if for like, their experience with whatever neurodivergent diagnosis they have. So tell me when you were diagnosed with all of those, I was
Frances 2:49
diagnosed, they the dyslexia was picked up, like officially with like an IEP. And like on paper in third grade. Again, it was so disabling for me and held me back so much in learning, they originally assumed that I couldn't see, like, she can see, I literally cannot process the information from paper in my head, and then put it back on paper, like that just wasn't working at all. And when you are in elementary school, that's pretty much all you're doing is you're copying you're reading, and then you're like putting it in your brain, and then you're putting it back down on paper. So I got that diagnosis, and third grade, and sixth grade, I got the sensory processing disorder, like written into the IEP, which obviously also affects like how I'm getting the information, like if the teacher is talking, how I'm consuming the information and kind of having let the readers rotate it back out that I cannot do that. If words are involved. It has to be one or the other. So I have to either be able to see the person's mouth, and listen to what they're saying. Or I can be reading on the paper, but I cannot do both like that fill in the blank. Nope. Not gonna happen. And
KC 3:58
so they picked up on those things. It's interesting. Those were the early ones. For me, it was the dyslexia, disk calculation and auditory processing disorder. Those were the ones that were caught in early elementary school for me too, because they are so directly related to your like immediate performance and writing and reading and all those sorts of things. So what kind of, well, you have a kind of an interesting story, I think about how they got caught, because it's just sort of known if you look at some of the research and things that young black children are less likely to have their learning disabilities caught and are more likely to get labeled with behavioral disorders, right. And so whether they have ADHD or they have autism, or they have dysgraphia, dyslexia, all those like they are less likely to be accurately identified as having those diagnoses when they do often get slammed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder, or some other conduct disorder.
Frances 4:54
Absolutely. I would not have gotten diagnosed if my teacher specifically one was in getting her master's in identifying and treating learning disabilities and neurodivergent disorders that fall under the neurodivergent umbrella. So I could have gotten our school separated you by teacher by last name, so I could have got any teacher, but I happen to get a teacher who was actually actively studying that was interested in that and caught it. So it wasn't a parent, it wasn't like anything like that it wasn't like a pediatrician. Or it was literally like I was in the right class at the right time with the right teacher getting her master's and as a millennial look goal for at least in my experience, as a black child with learning disabilities, the goal seems to be passing and disciplining us, like, okay, like, You're not acting like all the other kids like you're not acting like all the other kids in class, this has to be behavioral. This has to because your home life this has to be because you don't understand. There's no way that your brain works differently. And so I'm very lucky. And I've never actually met another black neurodivergent person that was diagnosed before they hit puberty. So normally, it's like, oh, I got a diagnosis at 15. Or I got a diagnosis at 14, I got a diagnosis at 30. But I've never met a nother dark skinned black female that was diagnosed so young. I've never,
KC 6:24
it's scary to think how much of your childhood your future like comes down to the luck of coming across someone that knows what that looks like. Like, that's not something that is like well baked into our school system. That's not like like the school that my kid goes to. There's like a screening process that all the kindergarteners go through for I know at least for like gifted and talented where they're trying to go through and go like, okay, these kids need to be in gifted and talented, these kids might need something remedial. And then they kind of drill down on are they're learning disorders, or they're like there's a process there. Right? When you go to the pediatrician, at least for autism, there's a process baked in, you have a certain screening every child at 18 months gets a screening with their pediatrician. I mean, it's just it's baked in there are so many of these things that are like I think about like fishing nets, basically, like we just drag the whole population and see who we catch. But there are so many, I think, because of the history of learning about certain neurodivergent sees and how we've so historically concentrated on what they look like in white males. And to a slightly lesser degree, but more than everybody else, white females, you know, we don't have good system wide approaches for actually identifying children of color. No.
Frances 7:43
And I think sometimes people will think that they have like an expertise in treating or cues for every race when it's really just a race. So it's like maybe you studied in a certain region of the United States, and you grew up in a Korean neighborhood, and you also speak Korean, and you're married to someone who's Korean. So like, you know, the nuances of the language and the culture, but then that person might try to get a job and a historical black neighborhood and a predominantly black elementary school and think they're equipped. And knowing all the nuances in the black culture. And I see that a lot. And educators who diagnose learning disabilities under an emergency, it's like, it's not a catch all. Like there's so many diverse, so different. And I think there's just like, just with diagnosing lots of times, just like boxes that they're checking, it's like, okay, when you're talking about diagnosing and treating and noticing neurodivergent see in others, that can also look different, because our cultures are different.
KC 8:49
Even just thinking about like autism and eye contact, and we know that not every autistic child avoids eye contact. But if you think about like, even with your example, like a lot of Asian cultures treat eye contact very differently. And so you can't just be looking for eye contact differences, right? You can't just be looking for, you know, does this person interrupt? Oh, that might be ADHD because certain cultures are more interrupting cultures, right. And I'm also thinking about like, one of the things that's really in the headlines right now is how far behind a lot of our kids in the US are in reading. I don't know if you've seen this is like news story after news story on like, okay, and they'll interview a teacher, like alive have fifth graders and they're reading a third grade level, and it's like, poised as this crisis. And I can imagine that if you're a teacher that teaches students and you're having a lot of them be behind in reading that it might be really difficult. Like if you're a kid that's dyslexic to slip through the cracks, because you just get lumped in with Oh, yeah, all these kids are behind these parents aren't reading to them that COVID really messed everything up and it's really easy to just go Oh, yeah, they can't read.
Frances 9:55
Absolutely. It also reminded me someone told me this and it's never left my brain. They were like White kids who are a homeschool get are easily getting diagnosed with nerd emergency than black kids in public school. And I never forgot that. And it just shows there's that assumption of like, you don't want to listen or aren't trying, or there's other factors that or contribute to this not like, you know what, let's go ahead and see if we can get an evaluation. And I just that's never left my head. And
KC 10:24
there's so much to be said about, like, the different ways that all of those like different neurodivergent diagnoses can express themselves. Like you can have a kid with ADHD that is really, really sensitive, that is maybe quiet, because there's a lot of daydreaming and distraction that maybe struggles with some perfectionism is really hard on themselves. And that is easier to see as something that needs help. Versus a kid who has ADHD is expressing, as you know, not paying attention and throwing spitballs and, you know, scribbling on their paper, and it's like, that's annoying, and so much of this, right. And not to mention that if you have a kid that can't read because of dyslexia, but they're a child, and they don't know that that's why they can't read, they just know they can't do it. And maybe that's embarrassing, or maybe that's frustrating. Nobody likes to do something they can't do. And they don't know why they can't do it. They just know they can't do it. So there might even be behavioral issues that come from that and being able to figure out, is the behavioral thing, the issue? Or is that just a child's reaction to a real and a learning disability? That's happening? Absolutely.
Frances 11:34
And I think this is a part also about getting a diagnosis young that can be that I don't really hear a lot of people talk about is, it can kind of feel embarrassing, because, you know, nowadays, I feel like there's a lot more sensitivity around just like privacy and not making kids feel singled out. But I remember like specific instances in school where they would have me sit at a different table by myself, because I was taking the test different. And I remember just feeling so bad about myself during those times it feeling like I was a bad kid. Because when do you normally have to sit by yourself
KC 12:13
when you're being bad? When you're being punished? Yeah, though,
Frances 12:16
I felt so bad about it. So now they're not really doing that anymore. They're not like, Okay, if you have dyslexia stand up.
KC 12:25
Give up got the weird brain, we're gonna put you in this other class. Yes.
Frances 12:29
So I'm so grateful that they're not doing that anymore. But I think sometimes with there's almost this like honor and pride in people who are like late diagnosed neurodivergent adults, it's like, like, the stars are lining. And I think for some of us that are adults who've been living with our diagnosis our whole life. There's an awful lot of trauma there. And I think sometimes parents and adults think, Oh, well, everything would have been great if I had this diagnosis early. Which Yes, there are so many tools, like your life could look very different. But there's so much trauma with that early diagnosis for Millennials and Boomers. Because it was during a time where there was no sense of autonomy and privacy and like gentleness to
KC 13:16
it. I'm so glad you said that. Because you're right. I talked to a lot of people who are late diagnosed, and I myself late diagnosed my ADHD and there is this grief of like, How could my life have been different if I had had the help I needed early? Right. And one of the things I did a lot of interviews of autistic adults. And at the end, I always asked them, you know, what would you tell a parent that feels hesitant about getting their child a diagnosis, and every single one of them said, Oh, my God, please get your child a diagnosis, please let them afford them a diagnosis like it would have changed everything for me, you know, I would have avoided so much trauma, if I had this diagnosis, I really appreciate you bringing up that point. Because that's something that I've thought about too, where it's like, you know, getting an early diagnosis doesn't necessarily mean you're not going to have trauma, it just means it's going to be different trauma. And not everybody who's neurodivergent is going to be traumatized by it, that we're not saying that. But like at the end of the day, I think sometimes it's easier to be angry that you could have had it different, you could have had a different than to sit with the real grief of actually no matter what, it's really hard to have a different brain in this society. It's like maybe would have struggled no matter what maybe you would have struggled worse, maybe better, maybe the same, but just in a different way. And that I think is hard.
Frances 14:30
It is. And I think also when we look at when people are like, Oh, my life could have been better. It could have been different, especially when you're talking to someone who doesn't have a diagnosis or isn't neurodivergent at all, like you know, it doesn't make sense to me when parents don't get a diagnosis or like it doesn't make sense. It's like okay, you're also assuming that your parent is going to accept your diagnosis my family didn't accept might still have it still has not accept that my brain works differently and I'm a grown up with children and several college degrees. And still, I'm having the conversation of like, that doesn't work for me what you want me to do, my brain cannot do that in the speed in which you want me to do it. I'm sorry, it's not going to work. So it's not to take away I do believe in early diagnosing. I think it's really important. I do also think we make this assumption that parents are going to accept that early diagnosis. And when I say except, I mean, not try to cure you, because that's the other end of it, right? So you get early diagnosis, and your parents may say, Okay, I want to get my child accommodated. I want to make sure that I take classes and I see you, and I give you all the things and do all the things right. I'm your number one cheerleader, we're number one advocate. And then you have premarital go the other way that are like, Okay, well, then I want to share this, I need them to stop swimming. I just want them to stop doing what they're doing with their hands be normal. Yes. And then you have other parents who are just like, that's a school problem. I'm gonna feed you, I don't want to mess anything up. So I just want everyone to just take it easy on themselves. Like, just try to take it easy. I think
KC 16:02
there's some relief in you know, maybe you weren't, maybe you weren't robbed of some better life. Like maybe life is just hard sometimes. And you know, it's that's like sad and relieving. Sometimes weirdly, at the same time. And I think like as a parent of neurodivergent children, like, even when you're trying to do it, right, there is no handbook because like, what I find myself in this situation, it's like, okay, I hear autistic adults, and adult ADHD or like talk about, I wish that my parents would have recognized that I was different. And so that I didn't feel weird and sort of like hidden and that I didn't understand, like, I wish that it would have just, it wouldn't have been like a dirty word, it wouldn't been talking to whisper. So it's like, oh, okay, so we want to be open about this, we want to talk about this from a young age, we want to recognize that you are different and bring in those accommodations, at the same time you're going okay, but like, I also don't want to create this situation where a child feels like they're everything is about their diagnosis, or that mom has to tell every passerby on the street about their diagnosis. You know what I mean? Like, even with babysitters, here's like a good example. So like, my children are three and five. And my daughter, many people who interact with her for a couple of hours, especially if they're not super knowledgeable about autism may not pick up that she's autistic people that know about autism do but like, you're gonna get what I'm saying. And so, when we get a new babysitter, especially one that maybe is just going to be there for a couple of hours, while I'm home, there's always this like, do I tell them because on one hand, I want them to know that she's autistic. And so you know, if she seems like she's not responding to you in the way that you're used to? That's what that is, on the other hand, is that like, what is the impact of that, where it's like, this is my daughter, she's autistic. This is my daughter, she's autistic, like this needs to be front and center all the time, all the time, all the time. And so as a parent, like finding that balance of like, it's not hidden. It's not a bad word, we celebrate this thing about you and sort of this, what can be like this icky? Let me tell everybody your medical information. There's no guidebook to how to do that, right.
Frances 18:08
It's hard because especially in the age of, and I was actually really grateful. I had one of my followers on Tiktok messaged me, and she has a son who is an adult with autism, and he's nonverbal. And she was like, I really want to share my story, but I don't want to overshare and she sent me this, like a novel about like, her concerns and everything. And I said, Okay, do you want me to respond to you this as a fellow content creator? Or do you want me to respond to this as like a very protective parent? Like, how do you want me to receive this? And she's like, Oh, well, that was like, Oh, okay. I said, I'm gonna be honest with you. There is not a lack of information on autism on the internet. I do not think you sharing videos of how your adult child processes the day I go, but one thing I do know is that now everyone is seeing their moment everyone is seeing their story. I said, I don't think there's anything wrong. If you want to share how you organize doctor appointments, or maybe how like you spend time alone to decompress that night like that is I would love to know how you decompress that night. Like that is fine. And I think that's the tricky part, especially as millennials is that we're having this very real conversation about privacy for ourselves and for our children. But then at the same time, you want to make sure that you're protecting them and you almost don't want to feel like you're setting your child up like Well, Mom, why didn't you mom? Right?
KC 19:38
I even feel weird like mentioning it right now. Like I don't know how she's gonna feel about her diagnosis her neurodiverse like do I like is it weird and then I would think about my other kid like is my other kids gonna grow up and read my content be like shit mom, you ever talked about me? Right? You always talked about the other one and I don't want the other one. Be like you only talked about me when you were saying I was autistic. It's like I'm sorry. I don't know, man. We're all doing the best. We You can, it's so tricky,
Frances 20:01
but the beautiful thing about it, and I will just like say this like off cuff. And this is what I ended what I told her, I said, I should not recognize your child in public, if you truly want it to be privacy if your concern is privacy, and I do think is also a little different. When you're talking about an adult who doesn't use the internet and can't verbally consent, I said, I should not recognize your child in public if the goal is ultimate privacy. And I was like, That's my rule of thumb. I didn't want anyone to be able to recognize my family and public, maybe me, but not my family. And that's just for safety. And I tell people, you have to do what everything is best for you and your family. But in the last five years, we've moved four times, we're a military family, I'm constantly moving, I don't have a big network and safety net where I physically AM. So for me, privacy is very important for also just my safety. So everyone has to do what's different for them. But I understand being diagnosed and being a parent of a child getting a diagnosis, especially when it's new. And at the beginning stages is the loneliest place on earth. It's lonely. So the instinct to want to reach out and build community or the instinct to be like, if I would have known this five years ago, what is like helped me so much. I want other parents to know, there is nothing wrong with that desire. That's called being a human being wanting to see other people when it's called being a human wanting to help someone avoid heartache is called being a human.
KC 21:27
You're right that like there are ways that we can do that locally. Yes, with families in our community. Even if it is online. Having a closed group of online mothers or fathers supporting each other is different than making tic tock videos that every Sam dick and Sally it can like scroll upon. Yeah, that's really good. I don't want to miss, I want to definitely get to these other questions that I have for you. Because I think it's interesting to hear, you know, it's not sorry, thing. Okay, I love the tangent. But I want to get into talking about the kinds of accommodations that you had as a child, because a lot of people, especially if they're later diagnosed, don't even know what kind of accommodations are out there. And I think also a lot of parents go, well, what's the point of this diagnosis? What are they going to do about it? Right? So tell me some of the accommodations that you had as a kid,
Frances 22:13
okay, I will tell you about go from most impactful to least impactful. You think that's okay, being able to walk. So I had a little book, little notebook, and all I had to do is raise my hand. And that just meant okay. She just needs gonna walk. So I would walk from one classroom to the other. So they had a teacher at one end of the hall that knew I was able to walk the hall, I would leave my class walk down the hall knock on the window of the other class. So then that that let the teacher know I did a three knock, then they Oh, okay, Francis is on a walk. She needs to she's overstimulated. She just needs to go on a stroll. That was huge. That was life changing tests. And quizzes for me, were very hard. When I was in it a timed environment with my dyslexia and trying to process information, I almost felt like the room was getting smaller and smaller and smaller when it was timed. And this also helped with I could never do Scantron. So that's the second thing. So the walks not having to use Scantrons. I think a lot of times people get scared when they hear there's something their child just can't do instead of okay, but what can you do, right? Like at the grand scheme of things doesn't matter if you can use a scantron like, does it really matter? Yeah, but that I didn't realize how for me disabling that was like, I'm looking at the tests. I'm looking at the quiz the answers A and having to keep my eyes level number one is a and keeping the lines in order. I was doing bad on exams when I did need to so that accommodation, if I didn't have that combination, I probably wouldn't have gotten a college that followed me even to the LSAT. And through college, I did not use Scantron test anything that had to take it from one paper to the other. I did not do
KC 24:05
so you just got to circle it on the paper itself on the paper.
Frances 24:09
If there was something where they were like, Oh, you got an essay, you got to write it in a blue book. I did not do that either. I verbal it I did it verbally to the professors. At the end of it like end of the day. So I had a scheduled time with my professors where I would go there was the like secretary for the different departments. They would give me my exams in college and I would verbally give them the answer. That's so cool. No writing, couldn't do it. Never got to do it. Couldn't do it. Couldn't do it. At its second grade. Couldn't do it in sixth grade. Couldn't do it in eighth grade. I have my bachelor's in history. I spent an hour verbalizing my thesis wasn't going to happen. It wasn't gonna happen. So those two modifications changed my life.
KC 24:51
That's so cool. There was a girl so I had dyslexia and I ended up being in like a summer remedial program. Okay, where You know, you go and you have to do like a lot of workbooks with one on one with like this person, and then you get like points and then you get stuffed animals for like doing this schoolwork in the summer, whatever. That was really revolutionary for me. But I remember there was this other girl in my class that has dyslexia. And I mean, you have to remember, for those of you listening, this was maybe early 90s, right? Like early to mid 90s. Okay, so like laptops are not a thing, right? That's not a thing. Okay? The internet has not been invented yet. Now, don't get me wrong, laptops exist. But it's like a very rare thing to see one. They're a very like, expensive thing. However, the one girl in my class that had dyslexia, they would always bring in a laptop for her for tests, because her accommodation was that if there was writing, she got to type it. Because when she wrote there was a you know, like, the actual letters and flipping and all this stuff. And so, but they didn't show up when she was typing. And I mean, they were so rare to see that that's why it like stuck in my head, because everyone was like, Why do you have a computer?
Frances 26:03
Right? What is it? That's it's modifications are good thing. accommodations, and modifications are a good thing. And I wish more people understood that. Did
KC 26:11
you get moved? Like did you have like a special seat in class at all?
Frances 26:16
No, if there was a class that I had teasing in, I do remember a few times where I would be to use for like doing things different. And I noticed that when that would happen, they would move me towards the back. And like the teaser towards the front. And I think that was just because I least Millennials well done, they can't see you. Yeah, we can't see what I'm doing. Got it. And then also, I think for like millennials, at least for us, the teacher's desk was typically in the front of the class. And so the back is kind of like where you got to like kick it and like pass notes and eat candy. It was kind of like a punishment to be in the front. So if I was like, teased, or whatever, they would move the dish like the whoever was teasing me towards the front of the class, which was in my IEP, that I have very real emotional reactions to being singled out and teasing. So that is something that was in my IEP by fourth grade, which I'm very grateful for, because I thought it's amazing. I spent almost all the third grade not talking because I got teased for writing my I wrote my name, I misspelled my name, I was so distracted by like this exam I was doing and I was like, so nervous about messing things up. I like, forgot the arm like it was I spelled my name wrong. And I was teased for it. And I was like, done, not talking, not participating, not trying, I just destroyed me. So have there's nothing wrong with recognizing that your child has big feelings when it comes to their diagnosis. And just like think about it, there are adults who can't go through the workday if their phone dies, or they leave their phone at home. So do expect your child to be at school for eight hours, and feel different, and then have to have the maturity to handle feeling different. And also people sing that they're different is a lot to put on just like a little heart and a little brain. So I would encourage anyone that if you are getting modifications and accommodations to your child's IEP, the goal should just be educational, and be just for them to assimilate, I definitely encourage you to just make sure that you're checking for their mental well being as well. And that can simply look like okay, if there is a disruption in class, my child doesn't like to be stood up for in front of an audience. So if there's, if they're getting picked on because of their neurodivergent, see, or whatever it is, it's better. If you talk to this student, that's being mean to my child, talk to them in private, but if you stop the whole class to be like, No, don't make fun of Francis, like that is going to cause a lot of emotional distress. That should be an IEP that should be
KC 28:53
in there. Yeah, for sure. Did you have did your school do a lot of reading out loud, like, you know, when they call I think they call it like popcorn reading where each kid would have to like read. And then you didn't have to do that I
Frances 29:02
didn't have to do that they for what winds up happening is third, fourth and fifth grade. They tried to make me and then I got to sixth grade. And I just had a conference. And I just broke down and I was like I can't we had a substitute teacher. I'll never forget it. I refused to read. So she made me stand for the rest of the class. And I was so traumatized. And I was so embarrassed. I just stopped doing schoolwork at school like I just refused to participate at like in that class. And then it finally came out in a little like conference meeting and I just started and my teacher was surprised like I've never seen you cry before and I was just like so excited like she made me stand. Oh, and I'm so grateful because this teacher took it seriously that substitute teacher was no longer allowed to substitute any classes I was in they took it very seriously and yeah, I just they were like, once they got to the root Why didn't want to read out loud. They also came to the conclusion once I did aren't reading out loud. All I was doing was causing me pain and embarrassment. And it wasn't learning anything. Like, we can just get her she can just read to herself or by herself or read at home, there's really not what is a 10 year old really learning from reading out loud. with dyslexia, with such a strong emotional reaction to being embarrassed while reading out loud. I knew the words, I was passing my spelling test, I was at the appropriate reading level. So this was just an exercise that was causing me trauma. So they stopped making me do it. And you know, I can read, I'm fine. I made it through.
KC 30:37
Okay, so moving past school age, what kind of accommodations did you get when you moved into a professional workplace,
Frances 30:44
I would say probably the biggest accommodations? Well, we'll get to that. If you do have a diagnosis. If you go to your state vocational rehabilitation, voc rehab, they will give you a letter. And that letter says that you have a recognize disability under the ADEA. What that does, is you don't have to give to your employee for don't want to. But what that does is it meets the criteria for hiring disabled people's for your employer, and then also kind of non verbally gives that signal, I might be needing some modifications without having to be like, Hey, I have the it's not always comfortable to talk about what you have going on. So one big thing for me in the professional world is I get asked for all deadlines to be given to me in written form. If you see me walking to get a cup of coffee, and you go, Hey, I need that, you know, a day early, I'm not going to remember that I need changes and deadlines to be in written form as they should be. I've also noticed that most of the modifications I have in the professional world are just common courtesy, but verbal or written form changes in deadlights. That's very important. Another modification because I know for me, I have a very emotional reaction to being singled out as well as because of the IEPs. At such a young age, I do think there's like regular reviews, and like sitting down I kind of get into that like IEP spit headspace, like health focusing on me, and it can make me really nervous. So something I asked for is at least two business days of what we're going to discuss in any performance reviews, it is not helpful to go in because one, I'm dyslexic, so sometimes a lot of times of performance review. So like Okay, now let's go to this slide. But oh my god. So if you give it to me two days ahead, I can read what the performance review says. And I can more easily concentrate. Because in performance reviews, typically they're doing two things telling you how you're doing. And they're kind of like either aggressively or passively tell you what you need to change. That is a lot when you have any type of neurodivergent T to handle. And I don't care what it is, it's just a lot. So that is something that has been very helpful is I needed a writing. Like if we're going to talk about my performance, if we're going to have a whole meeting, and you're going to hand me a piece of paper, I needed to see it beforehand. If you want me to actively verbally participate, if you just want me to sit there and be quiet fine. If I need to participate in a meeting, whether it's a business meeting, peer review, I need the content at Advanced and writing not bulletins of what we might go. If you need me to verbally participate. I need the subjects in writing that has been an accommodation that people don't necessarily love, but it's also the law. So
KC 33:32
get over it. I love that. Well, Francis, thank you so much. We're out of time but I really appreciate our conversation and it's always really a delight to talk to you when you tell people one more time where they can find you online if they want to follow you.
Frances 33:45
You go find me at she's having a baby on Tik Tok and on YouTube and all the things and Casey I adore. You can also see me in cases comment section all the time. Hopefully Casey, you're doing such great work. I love your podcast. So this is really fun. Thank you
Transcribed by https://otter.ai