Host Amanda Werner shares why she is discussing her family’s diagnostic journey, describing years of feeling overwhelmed and not understanding why daily life felt so hard for her and her child. She explains pursuing evaluations through medical providers and insurance, how her child was diagnosed with ADHD and later autism, and how that helped their family understand needs, strengths, and challenges at school and home. Amanda then describes recognizing similar traits in herself, getting an ADHD diagnosis and finding stimulant medication helpful, and later completing an adult autism assessment that also identified OCD and alexithymia. She reflects on masking, skepticism and imposter syndrome, overlap among diagnoses, and her goal of helping teachers, parents, and students by sharing what she has learned.

00:00 Why Share This Story
03:54 Life Before Diagnosis
06:27 Journal Entry Meltdown
10:18 Starting Child Assessments
11:38 Kaiser Screening And Switch
16:21 Full Autism Evaluation Results
20:29 Lockdown Distance Learning Clues
24:17 Amanda Suspects ADHD
26:52 Medication Struggles And Stimulants
30:50 Adult Autism Assessment
36:59 Imposter Syndrome And Overlap
42:14 Closing Thoughts And Purpose

Transcript

Amanda: [00:00:00] Hi, this is the Empower Students Now Podcast. I’m Amanda Warner, your host, and today I am going to share my journey, uh, in the diagnostic process of getting diagnosed with A DHD and then autism. And I might. I’ll probably share a little bit about insurance too, and about my child’s diagnostic process and what that was like.

And I wanna start by talking about why, like why share this with. You, uh, and I’m guessing you are a teacher or a parent or maybe even a student, a young adult. I don’t know. I’m not quite sure who you are, but [00:01:00] I know there are people listening out there and appreciating the information that I’m sharing here.

And just like in my classroom, why was always a really important question to answer about everything we did every day. Why? Why, why? And I think that that, um, is a really important question to answer for. Autistic people. I mean, all people I think have that curiosity of why, why do we do this? Why are we doing this?

Why, why, why? But I do think that, uh, as an autistic person, this question is much more top of mind. And as a teacher, I do want to do an episode about what, what that experience. Was like for 16 years being a teacher, undiagnosed unaware of my, [00:02:00] my neurodivergence. I mean, very aware of my eccentricities and my differences and just how different I felt and, and I also think.

How different I felt that te students in particular, uh, acted around me because of my differences and, and how different I was from other teachers. I, I actually had students comment as well about that, uh, many times, like, you’re, I’ve never had a teacher like you before. And I think what they meant was a teacher who is sort of kid-like honestly.

But that’s for another episode. This episode is about the diagnostic journey. But I do think that it’s important and relevant to consider what it was like for me not being diagnosed [00:03:00] all those years. Um, and as I’m. Recording this again off the cuff. I have no notes. I’m just telling my story here. I’m realizing that it, that is an important element to this.

Why get diagnosed, why being diagnosed is relevant and meaningful and important. So we’ll probably get into that too today. Thanks for listening, and let’s go ahead and get started. Welcome to the Empower Students Now podcast. A podcast about equity, neurodiversity, mindfulness, and student engagement.

There’s a lot that needs to change in our education system. The good news is teachers have the power to make these changes now.

So I think that I wanna start with before the, before [00:04:00] the before being diagnosed and what was, what life was like. Uh, and I think I have to start with before my kid was diagnosed, because we. Had a lot of struggles. I had a lot of personal struggles and, and so did my kid. The day to day grind of getting up and getting ready and getting out the door and getting to school on time and getting my kid to school.

And balancing all of the things that need to happen in a household, in a family. I only have one child, and also being the ambitious person that I am trying to run a business and grow my business [00:05:00] and. Create products and curriculum for teachers, which is really a passion and a hobby of mine. All of that, just juggling all of that was extremely hard.

Uh, I look back at, my kid was born in 2014 and that really is when shit hit the fan, and I think that. A lot of adults that have been diagnosed in adulthood, the the expectations of our society on women and the expectations of going to work five days a week of. Doing what I, what, what, what was expected of me like, like [00:06:00] having all of those expectations from work and from my kids’ preschool and from myself.

It just, my capabilities, my abilities were. Really lacking. And I, I see that so much more clear now. I’d actually like to read a journal entry that I wrote. I found it because we’re moving, uh, very soon internationally. So, uh, and so I’ve been just going through our stuff and getting rid of a lot of things and I found some journals from.

This time period. And uh, I’d like to read one of those to you now because it really captures just. How incredibly hard it was back then, and [00:07:00] not knowing why not, not understanding why does this seem so much easier for everyone else, and I’m sure it’s not, you know, but to me it all seemed really extreme.

My feelings, and just every morning. And afternoon. Um, just coming home from that long day, my child and I, and, and my husband and just what we needed to do to survive. And usually it was unhealthy, you know, like, um, not eating very well. Not sleeping very well, not probably communicating enough, trying to push it all down resulted in a lot of of meltdown.

So that’s what this, this journal entry is about. So let me get that for you and read it now. I. [00:08:00] I exploded at this morning. We were late and she was going on and on about having to wear socks, saying how uncomfortable they were. We changed them. And I took them off multiple times to see why, and as we started driving down the street towards school, she was crying and squirming in her seat and I couldn’t take it anymore and screamed, I do everything for you.

I can’t take this anymore. What the hell do you want from me? It was awful. She was so upset. Eventually she calmed down and I apologized and told her how much I love her. That’s it. It makes me emotional thinking about it and thinking about how we didn’t understand.

And how just challenging it is to [00:09:00] not know why, and that is my why. That’s, that’s my why in recording these episodes for you and sharing this publicly, is I feel like there are so many families out there. Who have so many challenges and there’s a reason for it. It’s not because you know you’re a bad mom, which is what I used to think about myself, or that you’re, you have a bad kid, which is what I questioned a lot about my own kid.

Like why do they have to be so picky and upset over the smallest things and. So getting that diagnosis, it really, it, it really helps to understand why, why is life so hard? Why does it seem like so much more of a [00:10:00] struggle to get myself to do the things that I know I need to do, and to get my own kid to do the things that they need to do that everyone else seems to do.

From my vantage point so much more easily than we can. And so all of these challenges, they just kept adding up and adding up and adding up, and it just became unbearable. And it became just more and more clear that we were different. And that’s when we started the assessment process. Uh, so as you know, if you’re a teacher, listening to this, getting assessed through school doesn’t necessarily lead to a specific diagnosis because schools can’t diagnose a DHD or autism.

They can only [00:11:00] assess things like IQ and processing speed, and they can. Labels kids with certain, uh, terms like learning disability, but they can’t like diagnose dyslexia. It’s, it’s really strange to me the difference between like a school psychologist versus a psychiatrist and what a psychiatrist can diagnose versus what a school psychologist can diagnose.

So instead of going through the school, we decided to go through our medical, uh, providers and through our insurance. And when we started the journey of the process, we had Kaiser, which is an [00:12:00] HMO, and it’s sort of an all in one type of, uh. Medical provider, which makes it really efficient and fast. But when it comes to diagnosing things like autism, it’s.

It’s a long drawn out process. So the first thing that we had to do was a screening. So you first get screened and we had to have teachers, both my husband and I had to fill out a, a lot of forms and a lot of assessments. Um, so we had a teacher. A couple of teachers fill out these assessments, uh, and then I filled them out and so did my husband.

And then we had the assessor meet with my husband and I, [00:13:00] and they met with our kid as well, and. And then once you go through the screening, and that took, I think the appointment for the screening. It took a few months to even get the screening appointment and then, and fill out all the forms. And then once the screening happened, we were referred to the autism center, which they told us would.

Do the full formal diagnostic process, which would. Probably have been similar to the screening process, but much more in depth. And I say probably because we didn’t end up going to Kaiser. Uh, so we did the screening. We quote unquote passed the screening and we’re passed along to the autism center. But at this point we decided to change insurance ’cause we didn’t wanna go through Kaiser because I’d read a [00:14:00] lot about Kaiser not having the greatest mental health.

UH, programs and so we decided to go with another or a PPO insurance, which allows us more freedom to choose our medical providers. And so we got in contact. Once we changed insurance, we went through, um, Sutter Health in Palo Alto, and that took probably six months to get an appointment. With them. So it was, it was still a really long wait to be assessed.

And again, we had to fill out a lot of different forms and at this point we had already had the A DHD diagnosis because our pediatrician in, through Kaiser, I mean there was like one form that we had to fill out to get that, that diagnosis. It was fairly [00:15:00] straightforward and easy, which I think is really common.

But the autism, uh, assessment was much more, it took a much longer time, and we filled out a lot of different forms. We didn’t do a screening because we’d already done the screening through Kaisers and I, I think, from what I remember, this was like 2020. Which is so crazy to say. ’cause on top of the whole world being shut down from the pandemic, we were going through this process, uh, it was so hard.

Um, I laugh now because we’re okay now, but um, back then it was very, very stressful and I was going through so much in terms of, um, just having these really. Crazy skin problems, um, which I’ve had my whole life, and they’re connected to [00:16:00] stress and an overactive, uh, immune system and probably my neurodivergence and just being super, super sensitive, um, to stress, to stressors.

But, uh, I, I was getting these really head, these terrible head to toe rashes at the time and it was bad. Um. But anyway, so we went and finally met with a psychiatrist at, in, at the Palo Alto, uh, Sutter Health Medical Center. And the assessment, I mean, we’d filled out a lot of forms and provided a lot of information, but then we had the in-person assessment and it lasted about like.

Three hours, I think. And they just did a whole bunch of things, like they talked to our whole family together. I say they, this was one doctor, a psychiatrist. He talked to our whole family. He observed behavior, he did a few academic tests with, um, he talked to my husband, uh, [00:17:00] separately, and then he talked to me separately.

So there were like multiple interviews and he actually. The, the whole meeting ended with a diagnosis, so we didn’t have to wait. He said, yes, this is autism. And he explained why. And we had a lot of questions. And um, of course, like skepticism and. Just wanting more information, which he did a wonderful job providing and he gave us a lot of resources.

Um, it was pretty overwhelming, but also I already knew, so it, part of it was sort, I felt really numb and um, and sad and. Felt grief, but I also felt relief. It was very complicated and strange and, [00:18:00] and it was hard because our kid was in, uh, first grade at the time. And so it was, it was like the whole thing was just so hard because we didn’t want our kid to feel like there was something wrong with them.

And at that point we hadn’t told them what was really going on. Um. Or even what, what autism was. But in the months following, we did, we, we got a lot of picture books and we tried to talk about the challenges and the strengths of it. Um, and, and also I think this is really important too, that this diagnosis is just, it’s just one aspect of you.

It’s not all of you. And if you don’t. If you don’t want anyone to know, you don’t have to. No one has to know. Um, this was years [00:19:00] ago and at this point I’ve, I’ve, I’ve come to the realization that if people don’t talk about being autistic. It’s gonna continue to be misunderstood. And so at this point, I’m comfortable talking about it, but at the time I did not feel comfortable about it.

And I gave my kid that option too. I said, you don’t, and, and you don’t even have to believe this if you don’t want, like I truly gave my kid the option to identify or not as that, and I still give my kid that option. Um. But I think they more and more they identify it and, and have learned a lot about the strengths and the challenges of it.

And I think it’s important not to approach it as like, this is, this is all wonderful, you know, because it’s not, it’s hard and I think that it’s hard, but it’s also. [00:20:00] It’s a relief to know the, the, the true reasons behind, you know, why they didn’t wanna wear socks and socks and shoes were required at school for good reason.

I mean, I understand why schools don’t want kids to get hurt. Um, but I think that. When you have a diagnosis, schools are more open to being flexible about that kind of thing. But at this point, you know, the, we were in lockdown and I was at home with my kid and, and this is, you know, all of that that happened was actually a gift to our family because it gave me the opportunity to see what all the teachers had been talking about for myself, because I was facilitating.

Distance learning, you know, with my kid and, and seeing the way that they were challenged by, um, [00:21:00] all of the work that was being expected and, and really being able to do the work, but refusing to do the work because they didn’t understand why, why do I have to do this math worksheet? You know, and really being upset about having to do a math worksheet for a very long time.

Like just arguing, crying, throwing papers, throwing pencils, these kinds of things. And then, and then when they finally, you know, like negotiating, well, okay, just do these problems. And then finally they do the problems, my kid, and they do them in a matter of like minutes because they knew how to do it, they just didn’t want to do it.

Um, so that was pretty common. [00:22:00] And we had a pod. So I was actually, uh, also helping two other of my kids’ classmates. So they were coming to our house and I was. You know, f facilitate, I say facilitating distance learning because the teachers were giving us the work, the teachers were telling us, you know, when to show up online on Zoom and, and just trying to get my kid to pay attention on Zoom was, was a very huge task and very hard.

And to see the way that the other two kids were able to pay attention, whereas my kid. Really struggled to pay attention. Not because they couldn’t understand what was happening, but because they had better things they, they wanted to do. You know, like they, they had other things they wanted to do, like go outside and identify birds or find [00:23:00] Rollie pollies, you know, and it is very kid-like, right?

Like, it’s kind of shocking how. Adult we’d treat children. Um, and it’s understandable, you know, that, that my kid would wanna do that versus sit on a Zoom call and do worksheets, which was what a lot of the pandemic teaching was, uh, for elementary school kids. Anyways, but. Yeah, we got the diagnosis, it was relief, but also there was grief.

There was a lot of, um, just adjusting our expectations. A lot of compassion for my kids’ experience and a lot of research. And I mentioned this in my last episode, but as I started to deep dive into what autism is, I learned about the, um. The bias of the DSM five towards boys, white boys, [00:24:00] uh, and that they were diagnosed so much in far greater numbers.

And that even at one point it was thought that autism was a male. Um. Disorder. Uh, and now we know that it’s not, and that females present differently. And so once I started learning that, once I started learning about masking, that’s when I started. I mean, and I, I, I started to think maybe I was too, uh, around probably 2022.

But I didn’t believe it. I was so skeptical, you know, because there were so many things that I just was like, well, but how did I do so well in school? Um, you know, I, I, I graduated high school. I had a pretty decent GPAI did terribly on the SATs. That was one thing that was really hard for me [00:25:00] was, uh, standardized tests.

Um, and so I just, the holes like I did fine in school, really got in the way of me seeing the challenges that I did have, uh, beyond school and even because of school, just this tendency to overwork and overachieve. But also, you know, I started to just catalog all of the social issues that I had growing up.

And as a teacher and just what being a teacher was like, and just, yeah, there were a lot of things. So, uh, and then I, I really started to see a lot of people online, uh, on YouTube, on Substack, on Medium. You know, these platforms talking about their experience being a DHD [00:26:00] autistic and um, and A DHD and I did, it was fairly easy for me to get an A.

So I did first think a D, just a DHD. So after it was diagnosed, I began to suspect A DHD first for me, because I’m very. Uh, fidgety, hyperactive can’t sit down. It’s hard for me to relax that, those types of things. And it, I have a hard time with impulse control and talking too much. And so I really that, and that was fairly easy to get a diagnosis of A DHD.

And at this point we had our PPO. So I just, you know, picked a psychiatrist. Um. And she diagnosed me. I, there were a few forms, a few conversations with combination type A DHD. And I did have some issues with this psychiatrist, and I will, uh, I guess I’m telling you a lot of [00:27:00] things, a lot of personal things.

So I might as well tell you this, this, um, psychiatrist would not prescribe me stimulants and what, from what I had read, stimulant medication was the very best, like the gold standard for. Treating A DHD and she wouldn’t do it. And so she had me go on a few other medications and I, I hated them. I, I just, I tried them and I, I couldn’t do it.

And they were like antidepressant type medications and. So eventually I changed, uh, psychiatrists because this, this, this one wouldn’t. She just was so anti stimulants, which is I think very problematic. And the main reason she did have a reason was because of my binge eating [00:28:00] tendencies and. I mean, throughout my life I’ve definitely struggled with binge eating.

Um, and so she wouldn’t, she wouldn’t prescribe me stimulants because she thought that I was just trying to, um, ’cause stimulants suppress your hunger, your, and, um, and it, it actually is kind of hard throughout the day to know when you’re hungry. I think a lot of medications do that, but, uh, I, I eventually found another psychiatrist who had to go through the diagnostic process again with me.

Um, and then I was diagnosed again with combination Type A, DHD, and then was given stimulants, thank goodness, because they help so incredibly much with my ability to feel calm throughout the day, to feel like. And just to, to deal with the overwhelm that exists within my head. And when I first started taking them, I was just like, wow, this is a [00:29:00] miracle drug.

Because it just, it got rid of the overwhelm. I felt a lot more calm and peaceful and like I knew what was most important to do. Uh, one moment. Another, whereas before I had a really hard time prioritizing things in my life. Like everyone’s, everything seemed extremely important to me. Um, and I didn’t, I, I just had a very hard time figuring out how to use my time, how?

And stimulants have helped with that, and they’ve also helped with the binge eating. Like that’s the truth. They, they have helped me so much with my ability to control myself around food. That’s a fact. It just is. Um, I think a lot of people with A DHD have food issues and stimulants help with that, and so I just think it’s ridiculous the stigma.

Of stimulants, and it has been a very huge challenge getting them just, [00:30:00] they’re outta stock a lot. It, it’s just ridiculous. And it makes me very angry because when you don’t have them and it, it’s just like, I’m actually, this is happening right now. I’m pretty sure my, my, um, my pharmacy is outta stock and so I’m gonna have to go a couple weeks without taking stimulants and.

It’s really hard to have to go through that all the time, um, to have them and then to not have them. And I think parents that have kids with a DHD go through the same thing. I have a parent friend who she has to stockpile it and her son does not take it on the weekends. And I did that for a while too.

Um, but it was, it was too hard. Um, it’s just all really hard, but. Now I wanna get to the part about my autism diagnosis. So eventually, as I’ve said, I’ve, I did a lot of research and I just was just, [00:31:00] it just was becoming more and more apparent to me that I was autistic too. And so I, um, I started.

Researching psychiatrist who could assess me. Uh, and this was in, I think, 2024, and I reached out to my kid’s doctor, and I, I also asked my own psychiatrist, the one who diagnosed me with a DHD, um, do you diagnose and do, do you assess, um, autism? Neither one of them did in adults. And so I was kind of like, what?

Why, I mean, I didn’t ask them that, but it, it was really frustrating. Um, and so then I started researching, uh, and I found Embrace autism and that website has been such, such a huge resource for me. There’s so much on there. [00:32:00] There’s so many tests for free that people can take, and there’s just a lot of articles about topics that.

Aren’t really, I mean, they’re like a one of a kind type of website. So I went ahead and I made an appointment. So the way that the process worked was I had to pay $500. It was very expensive for the screening. And the screening involved taking a lot of tests. Um, I think there were like 10 or 15 psychometric tests that I had to take.

And then the, the doctor, um, I didn’t actually meet with the doctor for the screening. It was just tests. And then they took many months, like three months. ’cause I think they get a lot of, uh, they have a lot of patients probably. And, uh, so the wait time is pretty long, but it took a few months and then I [00:33:00] got the results of the screening back and the results were.

Uh, that it was recommended that I do a full neuropsych evaluation like that. Autism is definitely a possibility, and so then that led me to go to the next step, which was the full. Autism, but not just autism. There were a lot of other things that were assessed as well. Like I was assessed for alexathymia, uh, OCDA, DHD again, uh, depression.

I mean, this doctor doesn’t just assess for autism, they assess everything. Um, and that process was really long. It involved a lot of tests, more tests, um, but also. A lot of written like, open, like, uh, open response questions, uh, about my childhood, about, [00:34:00] about why I was seeking a diagnosis. And actually I have this short answer questionnaire in front of me and it’s pretty interesting.

So it’s, the first question is, what is your primary reason for seeking an autism assessment? And I, my answer was my child was diagnosed at the age of seven. They are now 11. I want to better understand myself and my family so I can better support myself and them. As a former public school teacher, I also wanna help students and teachers.

I wanna be as informed as possible about my own neurodivergence, which will enable me to support others. Um. So they ask about like, social interactions. How do I know when a person, um, what do I do if a person that I know is upset? Um, I mean, there’s a lot of questions here. It’s a lot. Um. So it, it was like I had to write [00:35:00] a, like an essay, you know?

Um, and there was a questionnaire that basically point by point, uh, took every single element in the DSM five and asked about it, um, and my history with the different parts of the DSM five. And, and then it took, you know, I, once I submitted all the forms, it took a while. Get everything put together. But thankfully my hyper fo focus, uh, took control and I got it all done.

I mean, I think I did it over the course of like two full days, you know, like 16 hours or something of, of really thinking deeply about everything. Trying my best to answer the question, the, the diagnostic tests to the best of my ability, trying not to be biased. Um, but this time it was only me. Uh, there were [00:36:00] no questionnaires for family members to, to fill out.

There was nothing like that. Um, and then I had an hour long meeting with the doctor. Now she’s in Canada, so. It was on a Zoom call and, uh, that was this, this was after she had reviewed all of my information. And then after the meeting she wrote up a very long report and diagnosed me with autism. So that’s, and among other things as well.

Um. I have mild to moderate OCD and mild to moderate alexathymia. So those were the three big diagnoses and a DHD. So she was the third doctor to diagnose me with a DHD. Um, but I knew, I, I already knew, and even after all of this. I [00:37:00] still have, I guess, what they call imposter syndrome. When I tell people about being autistic, I feel tense.

I feel scared that they’re not gonna believe me because I seem so normal. Um, most people have been very accepting. And kind about it, but I, I understand the skepticism. I really do, because I’ve been skeptical too all these years and still question it. And still, I mean, at this point, after being formally diagnosed, after reading all the books I’ve read and there have been a lot after.

Interacting with so many autistic people through my [00:38:00] child and getting to know my kids’ friends and their parents and, and just, there’s still this feeling of being misunderstood and feeling like I don’t truly still understand myself or autism, I mean. That’s pretty shocking after everything I’ve been through to admit to you.

And so I do understand the skepticism and I do understand the resistance to a diagnosis, but for me it’s been incredibly helpful. It’s felt like I finally have a full puzzle, like it’s all put together and all the pieces. Fit. It makes so much sense to me. Um, but there are times, you know, when I, [00:39:00] especially when I read about trauma and PTSD and I think about, um, you know, this whole neurodivergence movement and, and just wondering, ’cause there’s a lot of symptoms of trauma and PTSD that are similar to.

The symptoms or traits of autism, like for example, um, just be, you know, like not being able to make eye contact. Like that could be A-P-T-S-D response too. Uh, but I don’t know, sometimes it’s hard to parse all of these things out. Um, and there’s so many facets to it. Um, someone on another episode asked me on YouTube, what’s the difference between A DHD and autism?

And [00:40:00] the more, the more that I think about it, the more that I think, well, I think A DHD is autism and I don’t think very many people out there are saying that, but like. I don’t know, like I’m really open to expanding these words, these terms, and, and maybe even changing them, um, because there’s so much overlap with all of these things with OCD, with depression, with PTSD and autism and A DHD, and I mean, I can see why some people just, you know.

Decide not to get a diagnosis and just embrace the term neurodivergent. I’m neurodivergent. And like some people might say, well, aren’t we all neurodivergent? Like who’s actually normal? Like does normal even exist? And my opinion is, yeah, it definitely exists. I think there are people out there that [00:41:00] are doing just fine.

You know, like that they can go to work and they can be happy there. They can go to staff meetings, they can pick their kids up and they make dinner and they’re like, just fine. And then they go and relax on the couch with their Netflix and like, life is okay. You know, like all of that sounds very normal.

Um, and I’m not, you know, like my inner world. It’s very extreme. I live in extremes. I can be extremely happy and euphoric one moment, and then just needing to cry the next. I mean, that’s just my experience and it’s more challenging than having more like that kind of stability within your own. Mind. Um, so I do think normal exists.

I do think [00:42:00] neurotypical exists. Um, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing to be neurotypical. I think it’s, I’m kind of jealous. So, honestly, uh, okay. This episode is pretty long. Um, it’s for anyone who wants to know more about this. Anyone who might be considering it for themselves. I really hope that someone has benefited from this because that’s why I’m doing it.

I’m not doing it to make money. I’m not doing it to. I don’t know, be overdramatic. I’m, I’m not doing it to get attention. I’m not trying to be an influencer. Honestly. It’s really, really hard for me on, on social media. I don’t, I don’t like social media. Podcasting is wonderful because it’s very one sided.

[00:43:00] Um, I’m doing it because I have this. This strong desire, and I always have my whole life. And I do think it’s associated with autism. I think it’s associated with my, my neurodivergence, um, to help. I just, it’s in me. It’s always been in me. It’s why I chose to be a teacher because of something called justice sensitivity.

I. I really have so much empathy for kids and for teachers, and I just wanna help and parents. Um, so if you found this helpful, please share it with someone you know, because. When you do that, you’re helping me and you’re helping this podcast get seen by more people, even though that’s scary. I do do scary things and I am in a place at this point where [00:44:00] I have more capacity and more time to speak my truth.

So thanks for listening and uh, I’ll see you next time. [00:45:00] Bye.