Uncover the hidden layers of neurodivergence as we explore unmasking, breaking free from childhood conditioning, and navigating burnout with real-life strategies for grounding and self-care—including how cannabis can play a role. Tune in to gain insights on embracing your true self, reparenting, and finding calm amidst the chaos
In this episode, we dive into the journey of unmasking neurodivergence, exploring the process of breaking free from childhood conditioning, and understanding the true roots of burnout. From real-life strategies for self-care and grounding to navigating the ups and downs of neurodivergent life, this conversation opens the door to discovering what healing and authenticity look like. Plus, we discuss how cannabis can play a role in managing overwhelm, grounding, and finding moments of calm in a busy mind.
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Reflect & Engage:
Monica Olano [00:00:01]:
Welcome back to this week's magical edition of Cali Sober Mom. This is Monica and I am here with my co host, Ms. Brittany Brown. And hello, friends. We were giggling because I needed to make sure she had all of her emotional support beverages before we got started.
Britney Brown [00:00:19]:
That is correct. I often have several. That's actually a great question for you, my friend. How many emotional support beverages do you generally have in front of you at any given time? Not just you, Monica, but the human that is also listening to this.
Monica Olano [00:00:31]:
I have two today. I have two today. I always have water and coffee at any given moment.
Britney Brown [00:00:38]:
I usually have Diet Mountain Dew, sometimes water if my partner has made me a giant thing of water. Otherwise I do not. And usually additional beverages that are of various types. Today it is a chocolate shake from Bebops. So that's what I have.
Monica Olano [00:00:55]:
Okay. I have a serious question for you though. When you go to restaurants, how many beverages do you order and do you do it all at once?
Britney Brown [00:01:02]:
Usually just one. Usually just one. I don't drink super duper fast, so I don't typically get through all of a beverage if I'm sitting at a dinner type of thing. That being said, I have absolutely ordered more than one on more occasions than I care to count. But yeah, usually I have water and then typically a cocktail because I just don't really drink at home ever. So I'll grab one there. But yeah, and they have the bougie stuff to make good ones usually.
Monica Olano [00:01:33]:
So as soon as I said the beverages, there was this time in New Orleans and brunch is like a big thing here. I don't know. Well, I don't even know if it was back then. This is like 2009, 2010. And we partied all night. We were so hungover. We went to this all you can drink brunch as I think I was 23. My friend was 27 and our two guy friends were with us and she ordered a water, a coffee, a juice and a mimosa.
Monica Olano [00:02:01]:
She ordered.
Britney Brown [00:02:02]:
That's incredible.
Monica Olano [00:02:03]:
Four drinks. But the most incredible part of it is the waitress gave her so much shit. The waitress like those three year olds over there that just destroy my table easier than you. I love it. So I would never let her live down ordering more than one beverage since then. So, Lauren, if you're listening, stop ordering four beverages at brunch.
Britney Brown [00:02:24]:
Don't you dare, Lauren. Keep doing it. Fight the good neurodivergent fight. I don't even know if you are, but you should.
Monica Olano [00:02:32]:
All right, so speaking of difference, in ordering and beverages and all things neurodivergent. What is the weirdest thing you got supported for at home growing up? That might seem weird to the rest of our listeners in your neurodivergent capabilities.
Britney Brown [00:02:54]:
All right, so I have to premise this first with the fact that my mom is neurodivergent. I do not believe my dad is. I think he has a fair amount of trauma stuff that does present some things, as we know those can be very similar. But my mom is. She is diagnosed adhd, and I will eat this microphone. If she's not autistic, I will eat the microphone right now.
Monica Olano [00:03:22]:
So has she just not been tested for it, or does she just not want to know?
Britney Brown [00:03:26]:
Honestly, there's not. So the trick with autism testing and diagnosis in your adult years, outside of additional support or resources, a lot of the time nowadays, there's not really a lot of point to it outside of just knowledge for yourself. And at this point, ultimately, the Internet makes it easy to find communities and to find resources and to find things. It's honestly hella harder to get a diagnosis than it is to get help. So it's one of those where ultimately typically therapy and different types of occupational therapy or different types of movement or different types of. Of coping mechanisms or processes are going to. A diagnosis doesn't do anything, unfortunately. So it's one of those where it's almost like a waste of time and resources and energy and drama.
Britney Brown [00:04:19]:
And I. I've watched friends not so much like, Ado, my mom's 58, so. But if it were older or, I mean, younger friends that maybe needed an accommodation for work or something or whatever, maybe. Maybe it would be worth it. But for the most part, for most adults, it's just not. But.
Monica Olano [00:04:38]:
Okay, so preference, preface stated. What's the weirdest thing you got praised for?
Britney Brown [00:04:47]:
Okay, so there are a lot of things, like, a lot. I. My mom is an artist. She is actually helping me teach art class tonight. My very first art class is happening tonight, which is super duper exciting. It's literally kind of my biggest life dream come true today, which is wild. So there's that. But congrats.
Britney Brown [00:05:08]:
Thank you. It is exciting and not terrifying because I'm not teaching anything hard, but just also like, oh, God, I did it. Oh, dear, I've done the thing. Now what do I.
Monica Olano [00:05:17]:
Now what?
Britney Brown [00:05:17]:
Yeah, don't worry. I've got plenty of things to do. But let's be real. I was taught to draw upside down because we. When we draw, our eye sees what our Brain sees, which is not always the same thing. We learned this in science in high school when like, you can look at your nose, but you never see your nose when you're just looking like it's there, but you ignore it.
Monica Olano [00:05:45]:
Okay, I cannot be the only one listening to this right now that is not trying to stare at their nose. So if you're dry.
Britney Brown [00:05:50]:
Oh, I literally did it. Keep look at the video. Yeah, you can't, you can't. Your eyes, your brain tricks your eyes into not seeing it anymore because it's just there all the time so you don't pay any attention. The same thing exists when you're trying to draw something. Like say I'm trying to draw the couch. I will draw the couch as I see it in my brain, not as it exists. Most people don't.
Britney Brown [00:06:11]:
But if you flip it upside down, you actually see shapes and proportions much more appropriately. And that's how I learned how to draw shapes and proportions. So I, I was applauded for drawing upside down sometimes.
Monica Olano [00:06:23]:
Meanwhile, I'm asking, do you taught how to draw? I need to go, like, go back.
Britney Brown [00:06:31]:
To Sarah's art school. Good times. Okay.
Monica Olano [00:06:33]:
So I asked this question because in my therapy session, you know, as most have known, I'm very deep in a therapy healing. It's not just getting off alcohol, it was the why I was drinking alcohol at the rate I was. And that's taking a lot of healing. And I've really come to question, like, am I normal? Do most people think this way? Is this happening? And my therapist said today, she asked me what I was encouraged for growing up or what kind of feedback I got. And I just, I was like, what do you mean? And I never sat there and thought like, oh, I wasn't encouraged. But I realized like, unless I was doing something to provoke, I just had to not provoke enough and not cause any issues. And other than that, it was just follow what you were supposed to do. And I didn't have a lot of encouragement and neurodivergency.
Monica Olano [00:07:26]:
And all of that realm that it brings had to be toned down at all times without me even realizing that that was what was happening. And it just made me think back. Like, man, I remember Brittany telling me about her mom. And it seems like she had a very different childhood growing up with some of the similar thought processes and patterns that we have. But you've been able to lean in and embrace yours. And I had to go through this weird 25 year filter through life. And I'm figuring it out now.
Britney Brown [00:08:04]:
So what you're doing right now in the neurodivergent world is called unmasking. It's a process where you basically are going through picking out all of the things that you lie is the wrong word, but that you present to the world that you are and figuring out what of those are actually true and which ones you've just said so that you don't ruffle any feathers or change anything or you know, rock the boat in any way, shape or form. What is a little bit interesting is that my upbringing, while incredibly supportive neurodivergently, I grew up with a terminally ill brother. And when you have a kid that's dying and you have four other kids for years and years and years, he was very sick for a very long time. I too had to not make any waves and not be problematic and not whatever. So I chose to. I chose high achieving as my attention getter, which I know you also did, or very similarly, that is how it played out for you. And we got there different ways.
Britney Brown [00:09:08]:
But I wonder if that is a little bit how and why our mindsets ended up aligning whether I mean, I had a very different upbringing but also a lot of the same things applied to my world. So I was supported neurodivergently, but not in the realm of achievement or attention getting or any of that. Like, nope, I assume I can do anything because my mom told me I could do anything, literally anything I wanted to do. But also, don't make a mess, don't get in the way, help around. And like it was, it was both. It's both.
Monica Olano [00:09:50]:
And see, mine was so different because I never meant to be high achieving. Like I've never. In terms like, I totally understand the masking thing and I think you're right. But what I did, instead of like presenting differently necessarily, I just kept internally so I knew what could or couldn't be said in a scenario. So I wasn't necessarily changing who I was, but I was changing the amount of me. You were going to get a C without even knowing that I was doing that. And I look back now and it's like I just had to get like certain grades, right? Don't get below an A or B. You have to play sports.
Monica Olano [00:10:30]:
And I always wanted to stay home. Like I wanted to be at home reading books, but there was something wrong with me if I did that. So if I didn't go out on a Friday night and I didn't go out on Saturday night and it's like, don't go drink and do drugs, but you're not allowed to be home type of thing. It was very weird. And so I got, like, I don't know, caught up in that. But I had a few teachers and a few counselors that caught on to what I was doing and how I can phone in just about anything. Like, I got my MBA going to class one day a week. I, like, give me something, give me an hour with it, and I can learn it.
Monica Olano [00:11:10]:
Like, my brain just works faster than I realized. And so I was able to, like, phone it in and then escape. And I was just so alone. I didn't know that. But a lot of reasons I look high achieving is because other people were like, okay, we're not going to let you get away with that. We're going to push you over here. And so I would do just enough to get them quiet. But I didn't realize I didn't have any support at home until I started having this therapy session.
Monica Olano [00:11:40]:
And I remember, like, I have different religious beliefs than a lot of people. And I remember trying to talk about that one time, and I was told, we don't talk about that. If you didn't agree, you just don't talk about it. And we weren't allowed to talk politics. I was never. That was never allowed to be discussed. Wages were never allowed to be discussed. I, again, I have very, very deep thoughts on religion in general.
Monica Olano [00:12:07]:
And one of my biggest things is like, well, man, how can anybody pick a religion and say they're a religion if they haven't studied all of the religions? Correct. Was a very big thing of mine. And so, you know, I started actuarial science for school. And I came home one, like, one summer, I was like, I'm going to study theology. That's it. This is where. Oh, my gosh, that was, like, the biggest reaction I've ever had from anybody. And not even because it was theology, because it doesn't make enough money to pay the bills.
Britney Brown [00:12:39]:
So, interestingly, similarly, I wasn't allowed to go to hair school for the same thing. Yeah, my mom said, that is not a real profession. You're going to college the regular way. So I went to art school. It was just, like, not any better. And fucking hair school would have been hella cheaper. But whatever, it's fine.
Monica Olano [00:12:59]:
My favorite person back in Des Moines, my. Okay, I have an aunt that's nine months younger than me.
Britney Brown [00:13:04]:
Oh, excited.
Monica Olano [00:13:05]:
My mom's half sister. It's a whole story. I could do three podcasts on my family tree alone, but same thing, like we had very much like you just on that side of the family, you follow the pattern. Like, you just.
Britney Brown [00:13:18]:
You do what's done.
Monica Olano [00:13:18]:
You do what's done. And it's not like they were mean about it or it wasn't like an uncomfortable abuse childhood. It was very much just like, don't step out of the line. Like, don't make waves. Just keep it easy. And Whitney, that's her name, she went. She played softball for college. So I mean, that's a big reason behind that too.
Monica Olano [00:13:40]:
And she went for. She has a graphic design degree. As soon as that bitch graduated, she went to hair school.
Britney Brown [00:13:48]:
I love that. Shoot. I would probably be besties because that.
Monica Olano [00:13:52]:
She owns her own hair salon. She has her own, like, T shirt company. She makes cups, does custom design.
Britney Brown [00:14:03]:
Oh, man, we are soul sisters. She's a permanent side hustler, like I am.
Monica Olano [00:14:08]:
She's a mom of five.
Britney Brown [00:14:11]:
Is she me?
Monica Olano [00:14:13]:
Is that why we're so connected? How have I not introduced you to yet?
Britney Brown [00:14:16]:
Brittany Whitney, she's also me.
Monica Olano [00:14:18]:
Yeah. And also, like, she is leading a different life with her kids. And I love it, like, she does things with them we didn't get to do with our childhood. And I don't know, it's just mind boggling to me, the differences. And how many other women are probably sitting there either going through this right now or not even having enough calm in their life to get to this point, to get to try to address some of these things.
Britney Brown [00:14:49]:
Absolutely. I think that that's something I've struggled with a lot because I'm very, very used to bedlam. That's how I grew up. I grew up in a house with neurodivergent mom and then a sick brother. And then I went to college and that was a disaster. I was on academic probation almost the whole time. And it's wild, but. And then I met Jake while he was in Iraq.
Britney Brown [00:15:14]:
So I got married like a year after meeting a dude on the Internet who was in the military. My someday that autobiography is going to be wild.
Monica Olano [00:15:23]:
But do you think it's a neurodivergent thing to feed off chaos?
Britney Brown [00:15:29]:
I think that mine was probably more fueled by my upbringing more so than it was my actual neurodivergence because I've been able to curb it with therapy, basically. And I'm just as neurodivergent now as I was then. So I think that honestly, I have to. I have to check myself. I invite chaos. And my. Thankfully, I've never invited, like, drama chaos. That's not Something that I've ever been in the mode of.
Britney Brown [00:16:02]:
That's not something I do, but I absolutely take on too much. I do giant projects when I have 18 other things to do. And I think that my therapist many years ago said, brittany, you know, you use busyness as a coping mechanism, right? And I said, well, now I do rude. Like, I had no idea. No idea. And from that, I've learned that I actively have to work hard to allow times of calm and allow times of peace and not fill my schedule once things start to feel easy, because I don't know any other way. So it's super foreign to me. And then I feel like I'm being, you know, I'm.
Britney Brown [00:16:45]:
I'm not accomplishing anything, or I could be doing more, or there's this. That could be done, or blah, blah, blah. Yes, all the time. It's wild. And I think that I have improved a lot with it, and I've started to recognize it in really more tangible ways. My therapist required me to figure out, to actually build metrics, to pay attention.
Monica Olano [00:17:09]:
I'm laughing at the word required.
Britney Brown [00:17:12]:
That is a neurodivergent thing. Required to do it.
Monica Olano [00:17:18]:
Okay, sorry. So what did they require you to do, my friend?
Britney Brown [00:17:22]:
So, like, I. I'm not. My brain is not to be trusted in that I can call myself out if I'm overdoing it. I can't.
Monica Olano [00:17:31]:
Okay.
Britney Brown [00:17:31]:
I literally cannot see it. I can't feel it. I can't detect it. I'm getting a little better at it. But that's like, in the last year, like that. And I am 38. That's a lot of years of bedlam. So, yeah, it's.
Britney Brown [00:17:44]:
I have to look to my husband. I have to look to my kids and see how their reactions to me are. I ask my best friend, I ask people I work with. I ask literally, people not be like, okay, am I even making any sense right now? Or do I sound borderline manic and really, really off? Because I. I don't always notice, and I think that that's. That's something that a lot of. Not even just neurodivergent people, but adults in general who thrive kind of on that dopamine hit of accomplishment or achievement or finishing a thing. Finishing a thing can give you all the dopamine.
Britney Brown [00:18:24]:
Starting a thing, starting a thing gives me so much dopamine.
Monica Olano [00:18:29]:
It does, I'm sure.
Britney Brown [00:18:30]:
Very shocking. Very surprising.
Monica Olano [00:18:33]:
For a one time, I was really struggling, and I text Brittany, and I was like, brittany, I am really struggling with this. What do you do? And she says, I start a new dopamine project. I'm like, okay, well, I am struggling to finish what I've started. So that was no help. Thank you.
Britney Brown [00:18:51]:
I said it. Well, okay. This is the other thing that I do, and this is actually really valuable advice.
Monica Olano [00:18:55]:
Okay?
Britney Brown [00:18:56]:
I. If I need to finish something, I attach a deadline where I can be embarrassed if it's not done. So if I need to finish the floors in my house, I schedule a party and invite 50 people because it's gotta get done, because I get stressed out if anybody's gonna see it.
Monica Olano [00:19:17]:
You know what I've learned? I can't remember when I heard this, but it was in, like, my own healing journey, like, some of the stuff I watched. But it said, don't tell anyone what you're doing until it's done, because as soon as you say what you're going to do, your mind got that dopamine. It's been put out into the world. And so getting that dopamine back is so much harder because you've already been flooded with that dopamine without even doing the thing. And so that's one thing I've tried to work on really hard, is like, okay, let me do this, and then slowly trickle it out to the world and get my dopamine from finishing it. But then sometimes I don't know how to finish it, but that's a whole other story. So, yeah, there's so many tips and tricks. But I also, with my kids, I do something very similar.
Monica Olano [00:20:06]:
If I notice major changes in their behavior.
Britney Brown [00:20:09]:
There's a fly. It's fine. Do you see them floating around?
Monica Olano [00:20:21]:
No. I'll notice, like, all of a sudden, you know, when there's like, a change in their behavior. I'm like, okay, am I pulling inwards too much? Because that's kind of what I do. And that's the only way I knew how to heal and cope, is everything was brought inwards. And I realized that when I'm in words, I'm in my office more, I'm shut down more, I'm on my phone more. And so I've tried, like, really hard to be present. And cannabis has helped with that, surprisingly enough. And at first I thought that was.
Monica Olano [00:20:51]:
I remember my husband said one time, and he's like, it seems like sometimes you have to take an edible to, like, enjoy time together. And I told him, like, that's not a him thing. It's nothing at all to do with him. But if I don't take that, then I am in my brain and I am everywhere but with him. And so for me to be that free, it would be him or anybody. Like, I, I need that help. And I'm hoping that they're scientists that get to study more and it's not just trial and error. But do you ever use cannabis for that?
Britney Brown [00:21:28]:
I do. I think grounding is something that a lot of neurodivergent folks struggle with because we are so bing bang, boom, boom, like just bounce all around the world kind of thing. And I've talked about this a little bit, but one of the things that I do, especially if I'm struggling, is I will tuck the kiddos. So our bedtime right now, my kids are between 13 and 7, so our bedtime is 9, which it was 8:30 until very recently. But the, when I tuck the kids, they all get a melatonin gummy because they all crazy and they got to go to bed too. But I will take an edible at the same time. So then everybody's tucked, everybody's situated. I have a good 30 minutes or so to gather my wares, pick up a little bit tidy so the house doesn't look like, like a bomb has gone off.
Britney Brown [00:22:22]:
And then I can kind of settle down for the night and actually enjoy myself instead of stressing about all the things that I didn't get done at work or why the carpets need to be cleaned, or the fact that we haven't called the dishwasher fixer guy yet and there's still dishes on my goddamn counter.
Monica Olano [00:22:40]:
And like, meanwhile I'm like, how do we burn the government down? Here's how the system screw you up. Let me do a five page essay on conditioning by the media. Like, I don't want to live in that. Like, I don't want to see all that either. Like, let me get out of it a little bit.
Britney Brown [00:22:55]:
I know, and it's important. Burnout happens when you're not taking breaks from your brain on these fixated objects. People think that it's working too hard. It's not actually, it's not allowing yourself to experience other things. And you become so burdened by the exact same thing over and over and over again. And there's. It's almost like a long sustained anxiety attack that just is constantly running in your brain. And I think that that's one of those things that we assume a burnout is going to be.
Britney Brown [00:23:26]:
Like, okay, I'm just buried in bed, dude. My burnout looks like staying up for 16 hours and designing content stuff to go out for My new business that I started because I'm stressed out about X, Y and Z. Like, it is wild. The amount of things that I've had to unlearn and relearn because I made assumptions about what my brain was doing. And when I finally treated it, both with cannabis and with. I mean, I take a handful of meds every day. I take a lot of things. So it is one of those things where I'm finally on a really steady medical and personal treatment journey.
Britney Brown [00:24:05]:
And so I'm discovering new chunks of things that I didn't even know were there. And that is unsavory. Sometimes.
Monica Olano [00:24:14]:
I know I text someone. The other day I was like, my brain is a scary place to be an unhinged. But I think, like, that you had touched on something that, at least for me, is very important because burnout can look different for everybody. And burnout for me used to look like the depressive episodes in bed, like, I would pull off. And it can crazy things. And then I want to get out of bed for days. Like, I anyhow, so depressed. I think it's important to learn, like, we all handle ADHD differently.
Monica Olano [00:24:47]:
We might not even be addressing it yet. Burnout can look differently for everyone, and resources can look differently.
Britney Brown [00:24:55]:
And there's a huge sensory piece there, too. So making sure that you're taking care of your sensory needs a lot of the time. If honestly, my kids immediately, frankly, and my husband, if I'm noticing that they are being a bit much more so than just a usual affect. Have you eaten anything? Are you thirsty? Do you have to go to the bathroom? How much did you sleep? If those four things are not answered in an appropriate manner, I don't even want to speak to you until you fix them, because at that point, you're just not even yourself like you are. And that is so indicative of ADHD friends that like man.
Monica Olano [00:25:36]:
Yes.
Britney Brown [00:25:37]:
Yeah.
Monica Olano [00:25:38]:
Okay, so that was a lot. That was more than I meant to uncover. Oh, that was great. But so my ask for you, the listener on the other side would be, I want to know what your experience was. Was your home accommodating to this, and you kind of learned about it a little bit growing up, or are you in the throes of learning now about yourself and then, ergo, trying to parent with what you've learned about yourself? What. What's your take on it? Is what I want to know. What do you want to know?
Britney Brown [00:26:13]:
Absolutely. And even outside of that, which things did you keep from your childhood versus which ones did you determine were actually really problematic. But they were maybe like core values of yours for a long time or tenants of how you did manage your anxiety or stress. And then you come to find out, oh, my God, that was literally making it worse. And I think that there are those. There are a fair few of those.
Monica Olano [00:26:40]:
Alcohol, dopamine, and ADHD are not best friends, FYI. But alas, if you are a cannabis product that helps people with this, or you use a cannabis product that really helps you with this exact thing at night or during the day, or helps you let us know which one it is, because we're all learning this together. So share your faves, people.
Britney Brown [00:27:03]:
Well, especially the people that are smart and know about the cannabinoids and all of these things. Which ones specifically are targeting anxiety? Which ones are specifically targeting overwhelm? Which ones are targeting sensory struggles? Because I know this exists, and I can't wait to see more science on it as it continues to develop and grow. But we love learning that stuff. There's just so much information that I almost have to have somebody dumb it down for me because it's wild to sift through. It's. There's just so much. So much. But, yeah.
Monica Olano [00:27:36]:
All right, well, thank you all. How do we want to end this? John, you can cut this out. What's a good ending? How do we want to end? We still have two minutes. We can end any way we want to so we don't have to force it, because John can cut it.
Britney Brown [00:27:50]:
I don't know. I don't know what to say.
Monica Olano [00:27:54]:
I would like to end this episode holding myself accountable. And by doing that, I'm going to hold myself accountable by realizing when I am having my next burnout, per se, or I'm having a really hard time, I want to hold myself accountable. To take a step back and think, if I would have gotten taught through this as a child, what would this look like?
Britney Brown [00:28:26]:
So reparenting. It's an absolute thing.
Monica Olano [00:28:28]:
Yeah.
Britney Brown [00:28:29]:
Reparenting is something that I have to do. Pretty. I literally just thought this today, that sometimes I will get obsessed with something being very, very specific or particular. And I literally have to say out loud to myself, brittany, this is done. It doesn't matter. Walk away. And I have to do it, because otherwise I will sit and I will just rifle over and over and over again.
Monica Olano [00:28:51]:
That's.
Britney Brown [00:28:52]:
There's nothing productive about that. And I think that that's something that we do in our heads a lot. I think that that's almost the parent, like, Monica, you're safe. You're happy, you're healthy, you're all right. Take a step back. You can come back to it tomorrow. I think that is a solid way to start.
Monica Olano [00:29:09]:
I'm going to download that transcript, print it and put it on my mirror. Thank you.
Britney Brown [00:29:13]:
Maybe I'll write it out for you and then you can put it on.
Monica Olano [00:29:15]:
Your mirror in pretty script.
Britney Brown [00:29:17]:
Yeah, it does.
Monica Olano [00:29:19]:
All right. Well, who knows what unhinged behavior we will have next week or what topic will be driving our passions, but you'll find out if you tune in.
Britney Brown [00:29:28]:
Have an awesome week. Chat later.
Monica Olano [00:29:30]:
All right, bye.