Yasemin Bahar: Intersex, ADHD & life outside the binary

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“One of the great things about being neurodivergent is thinking outside the box and questioning things. When you're told ’2 + 2 = 4,’ you ask why. Why is it not 5?”

Yasemin is a female-assigned intersex person living in Turkey. They have their BA & MA in psychology, and they co-founded the İnter Dayanışma Türkiye (Inter Solidarity Turkey) initiative, which focuses on personal empowerment and professional development for intersex individuals in Turkey.

We talk about the high rate of ADHD among intersex adults, and we discuss some of the commonalities of feeling “othered” and living outside of societal norms. We also discuss our theories as to why neurodivergent thinkers tend to think outside the box and how this may or may not relate to the prevalence of co-occurring mood disorders and gender nonconformity.

Website: interdayanisma.org

Instagram: @interdayanisma

Links & Resources:

Mental Health of a Large Group of Adults With Disorders of Sex Development in Six European Countries

Enjoy!

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Yasemin Bahar 0:00
I think for me being feeling invisible is connected to feeling alone. So when I said like felt a sense of community and belonging, I also didn't feel lonely or alone, so I didn't feel invisible anymore because I felt that I was being seen by other people who had come on experiences to me.

Katy Weber 0:27
Hello, and welcome to the women and ADHD podcast. I'm your host, Katy Weber. I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 45. And it completely turned my world upside down. I've been looking back at so much of my life, school, jobs, my relationships, all of it with this new lens and it has been nothing short of overwhelming. I quickly discovered I was not the only woman to have this experience. And now I interview other women who like me discovered in adulthood they have ADHD and are finally feeling like they understand who they are and how to best lean into their strengths, both professionally and personally. Hello there we are going to jump right in this week with episode 174. In which I interview Yasmine Bahar yes mean is a female assigned intersex person living in Turkey. They have their master's in psychology and they co founded the inter solidarity Turkey initiative, which focuses on personal empowerment and professional development for intersex individuals in Turkey. We talk about the high rate of ADHD among intersex adults, and we discuss some of the commonalities of feeling othered and living outside of societal norms. We also discuss our theories as to why neuro divergent thinkers tend to think outside the box and how this may or may not relate to the high rate of comorbidities like mood disorders, and gender nonconformity. I found this to be a really fascinating conversation. So I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Here is my interview with Yasmine. Hello. Yes, Lee, thank you for joining me.

Yasemin Bahar 2:10
Hi, thank you so much for having me.

Katy Weber 2:13
I love getting to interview guests from all over the world and find out how similar our experiences are, but also learn about some of the differences. So I am super excited to hear your story. Now. I guess let's start with the ADHD diagnosis. How long ago were you diagnosed? And what were some of the signs that led you to think that this could be ADHD?

Yasemin Bahar 2:37
So I was diagnosed about three years ago, but if you take it a lot, like back abruptly, my school counselor told my parents that I could have some sort of neuro divergence and my parents said, probably not I didn't get an official diagnosis. But looking back, I can see that half my family is potentially your divergent. And when I was in reading an article in 2019, about basically intersex people, especially in specific like conditions of intersex, intersex people being much more like common having ADHD sorry, like they had much more high comorbidity or however you want to phrase that with ADHD and intersex and I was falling into one of those intersex conditions. I was curious, I wanted to look up the symptoms of having ADHD because I do have a psychology, bachelor's and master's degrees, but we only talked about like autism and ADHD in children. And I was in my mid 20s at that point. So I have never thought of like myself as possibly having ADHD, or autism. And then a year later I mustered the courage up to go talk to a psychiatrist and say, Hey, I think I may have ADHD, can you help me out? And that's when the process started.

Katy Weber 4:07
Wow. And how was that diagnosis process? Was that fairly easy?

Yasemin Bahar 4:13
Well, I think for me, the most difficult part was me not being believed at first, like they were like, you are able to speak forever. Really? You seem not to hyper you seem fine. You're like, in your mid 20s. You have been through school. You

Katy Weber 4:31
had a master's in higher education. Yeah. high

Yasemin Bahar 4:34
education. Yeah, no way. You could have an ADHD or autism. And so I said, Look, you know, like, there's this letter of my, like, school counselor from back in middle school, like, maybe you can check that out because there's a tendency to believe other medical professionals more easily than ourselves. And then they said, Oh, okay, let me you know, check with my supervisor and then I've got to meet they're like, so supervisor who was a professor in psychiatry, and then we had some meetings across, I guess three to four months throughout. We had some questions, some questions, some tests, like it was funny day one appointment, they kept the door open, just to see if I would get distracted, which I don't know if that's like this. And stuff like that. And I feel like questionnaires and then I filled out like is it the Minnesota Personality Questionnaire like 500 Plus question? questionnaire. They said, Okay, we believe you, you're probably not lying, because there's also this fear of like people, abusing, like ADHD medication. And my point of wanting to get a diagnosis wasn't even necessarily like getting the medication, but feeling like the sort of relief that I wasn't, I don't know about or incompetence person, I was just different. Because I felt shamed and competent, and I don't know, late, insufficient, and I just wanted to see if that could be related to ADHD not to use it as an excuse, but to see if, you know, there were some reasons that I was different, and not necessarily insufficient, incompetent. So it took a while. But then, at the end, I had to sit in front of like, Council of doctors, of like six doctors, and they ended up believing me and gave me an ADHD diagnosis. I also wanted to get, like autism testing, but that has even been more difficult. But yeah, now for the past, I guess. Three years, I've had the diagnosis.

Katy Weber 6:48
Wow, that's so fascinating. And you know, it's one of the only studies that references the comorbidity of gender dysphoria and ADHD is actually a study out of Turkey in 2017, which I've seen that study it just I'd never realized it was out of Turkey until I was doing a little background research for this episode, which is, I think, was so fascinating, because, you know, one of the things I we talk about a lot on this podcast is discerning when you're diagnosed in adulthood, whether or not you know, the ADHD symptoms are actually ADHD or if they're exacerbated by trauma symptoms of living a life undiagnosed. It must have been very fascinating to look over the course of your life through this new lens. also dealing with some of the pathologize ation of being intersex. And also, like you had mentioned, when you had reached out to me the commonalities of feeling other right, like feeling like you're outside of what is normal. And sometimes we like, you know, what is so wonderful about a neurodivergent diagnosis is just like you said, like that feeling of the why the explanation behind that feeling of difference that so many of us had. So I'm curious for your perspective, what was it like after the diagnosis, looking back over the course of your life? I know that's a huge question. Especially with a psychology background. Like I'm very curious to see were there any interesting epiphanies in terms of your own life,

Yasemin Bahar 8:26
the one thing that came to mind was, so in primary school, I was called the Istanbul dumpster which is the city I live in. So because my desk was so basically unorganized, it's not funny, I guess being called a dumpster. But I mean, I get it like papers were just like flowing out of my desk and stuff like that. And one of my teachers said, I'm gonna make you like the class captain and you your sole job was going to be at the end of the day, making sure that everyone's cubbies are organized before they leave and suddenly I was so good at it my desk was so tidy the cubbies my cubby was the tightest everyone's was like we all got like small like coffee and everything was tidy now because at the end of the day, if I did my job my basically teacher would go sticker right? So I'm being told that I should keep a tidy desk right but I still can't like or won't do it most days properly, like I keep losing papers my papers keep getting crumbled and stuff like that can keep track of stuff and once I had like a different type of incentive, I was not only be able to be on top of my like, organization and clearness I was also able to like help others and stuff like that. So looking back, it was so interesting technology because like for almost two years, my desk was the standard dumpster basic. It was just in the middle of class papers would just fall out of my desk. So it's weird that how, I don't know, my brain worked, I guess differently, and had to have that like, different incentive or different motivation? Because it's not like I didn't want to have a tidy desk, right? Because I've been told almost every day your desk is a disaster inside, and I still couldn't. Yeah, I was thinking of that I was thinking of being bored in class and coming up with my own questions. Like, I would be done early with some of the questions and just come up with my own, like, alternate questions. And that made everyone think, Oh, they're super genius. But no, I was just trying to make sure that I didn't drift off and was able to, like continue to focus on the topic and stuff like that. I have funny instances, mostly over school. And I guess in friendships, I was not the best in waiting my terms, when waiting my turn, when we were playing board games or speaking, I would just cut off people and they were speaking a lot. Like someone would finish the letter. And my mind would be like, Oh, I guess it must be my turn and just pick up the dice with, like two other people that have to come before you. And things like that, that seem funny to me. Now, looking back.

Katy Weber 11:22
Have you talked about the diagnosis with your family or with your parents?

Yasemin Bahar 11:28
I have?

Katy Weber 11:29
Have they come around?

Yasemin Bahar 11:31
Well, yes, they do. Acknowledge and believe me that I do have ADHD, mostly, I think because a medical professional has told them that I do have ADHD. And I realized when I was talking with them was one of the main reasons they were so like, closed off to going down the road of like, seeing if I was neurodivergent, if I had ADHD back when I was younger was because they believed ADHD to be something negative or like a disease disorder and stuff like that. And they had already had this difficulty of having a child who was intersex. And they were already afraid of me being accepted by society and fitting in with the norms, and they just didn't want me to be any different than I already was, I guess. Now looking back and talking with them, I understand where their various are coming from, because it's not like being ADHD is always fully embraced by the rest of the society, or even medical professionals or institutions. But now they understand that it is not necessarily a deficit, or a disease or a disorder, even if it's like diagnosis, because they understand that differences can exist without one being better or worse than the other. I think that was what made them come around, basically.

Katy Weber 13:05
Oh, that's lovely. Well, and I think also a lot of the time, with a family situation, they're seeing the positive side of ADHD, and they're mostly looking at it as like, well, this is how our family is right? I don't think they look at it as being a disorder. Why would they? Is it even a disorder? Right? I mean, a lot of this stuff is just kind of how we think and so usually your family members are the ones who don't see anything wrong with who you are, because you're very much like they are and there is nothing wrong with that. Right. So I think, uh, you know, we have as parents, there's that understanding that ADHD, like you said, is a negative thing. It's something you know, maybe even I think a lot of parents sometimes feel threatened that this is a reflection of their parenting that they you know, because a lot of the time it feels like ADHD characteristics are just a result of poor parenting. Right. So they kind of blame themselves and yeah, so it is always nice when I hear parents kind of coming around to like, Oh, yes, okay, fine neuro divergence. That's the thing. That's just who we are. But it's interesting that they wanted to protect you too. I think that's that's a very real experience. Just speaking as a parent of two children who have been diagnosed with ADHD. I do want to protect them from the label and the stigma of people assuming that they are one thing because ADHD is so misunderstood. Now, another thing I was fascinated by when I was doing a little bit of background research was that 2% of people around the world are intersex, which is, you know, like one in 50 That's was really surprising to me. And so, you were female assigned at birth. Did you always know that you were intersex?

Yasemin Bahar 14:47
No, I did not. I found some medical reports in late middle school, I guess when I was 13 or so that talked about some surgeries I had had and When I had had, and I looked up the words, my English was not that good at that time. So I was using Google Translate, which also wasn't that great. That's, like 15 years ago, Google Translate didn't exist, but not very well. So I was trying to understand what all that meant. And and then I found out that I had something called like mosaic Turner Syndrome or whatever, which is one of the conditions under the intersex umbrella. And only like five or six years later did I actually hear the word intersex because previously, I had only come across medical like documentation, and intersex is mostly a term used by like intersex actors or intersex people who wanted to have a vert to describe them that isn't necessarily coming from a medical like approach or medicalized approach. I do feel like both intersex and differences in sexual development are great, but at the time, we also didn't have differences in sexual development. So I understand why intersex people felt the need to come up with a different wording because at the time, we were called, like, deficient or like, disorders in sexual development. So it wasn't a very positive terminology. And once I found out I was into snakes, I, I kind of went down the rabbit hole of doing research. And in 2013, I found the first intersex blog in Turkish, which is like my main language, my mother fine. And from then on, I became a part of, I guess, the initiative who's founded started that book. And it's interesting because so as you said, it's around 2% of people are born intersex that we know of could be more because we don't all have our hormone levels or chromosomes, check that. But it's basically the same as the ratio of people with green eyes. So it's not something that isn't uncommon. It's not something that we don't come across. So that was really an interesting journey from I think now I'm 28, almost 29 And it's still a journey ever since I was 13. Understanding what intersex is and what it means to me. Yeah,

Katy Weber 17:24
I'm sure right and that feeling of other right that feeling of difference, I think is really interesting. So the study that I had referenced earlier that explored gender dysphoria that it was a small study, but it was an I'll reference it in the show notes but basically they there was a 75% of the subjects were had ADHD which is incredible comorbidity Have you done any research? Or do you why do you think there is such a high comorbidity with ADHD and gender dysphoria? And is there a difference between gender dysphoria and intersex? I mean, obviously, there's a difference, but would you consider intersex to be under the umbrella of gender dysphoria.

Yasemin Bahar 18:12
So, intersex is not completely irrelevant, but we describe intersex as being something about your sex characteristics such as your like secondary sex characteristics when you're like, how much hair you have, et cetera, or chromosomes, certain hormone levels and stuff like that. Gender dysphoria or gender identity is more about your understanding of your gender, or your feelings toward gender. So one of them is being intersex is more biological, usually than having gender dysphoria. But there are a lot of research and they do say pretty much the same thing that intersex people are five times more likely to describe themselves as trans or in the trans umbrella or has having gender dysphoria, then none in the intersex or intersex folks. So I think that's because of intersex people not already fitting into one of the two like gender categories under the gender binary, right? So if you're already not biologically physically not fitting into the two categories given to you, I do feel like it makes sense that you're more likely to feel gender dysphoria are beyond the trans umbrella. And there's also a 2019 research which are I can share with you that also showed high comorbidity with ADHD and intersex in six European countries which I think if I remember correctly, a few 100 participants and that was also really interesting to me because well be our small group of intersex activists in Turkey And a lot of us have been formally diagnosed with ADHD. So I was really curious into seeing, like, what that's about right. And then I came across a limited number of studies, but credible studies nonetheless. And the first question you asked like, Why do I think there's this comorbidity? That's such a difficult question to answer for me? I, I honestly don't know.

Katy Weber 20:28
I mean, these were just these are just theories more than anything else. Neither of us is deeply into the research. But I'm curious if you have theories. Yeah. Well,

Yasemin Bahar 20:37
I think one of the reasons may be because there are differences in our development and neural development included in from in Israel, so from a very early age. And that may be one of the reasons. And I think one of the other weird social reasons may be because both having intersex, being intersex, or you and having ADHD have in ADHD, come with a lot of shame and stigma. And that's also an interesting thing for me to realize, because oftentimes, is the intersex actors around me find that they have ADHD, because they know that they're intersex because they have similar feelings of shame and stigma. And somehow, they look at the comorbidities, or they hear other people with having the comorbidity and it's interesting for me to see such commonalities in our experiences in terms of like, shame, stigma and discrimination. Not like how, how funny but like, interesting.

Katy Weber 21:50
So I have a 16 year old and a 12 year old, both of them are would would consider themselves outside of the binary and it's so it's a conversation, we have a lot just gender as a generational difference. Because for me growing up, you know, my my 16 year old, my daughter's always says that she was like, Mom, if you were born today, you would be non binary. Because I really like reject a lot of gender norms, and always have and have always had to kind of, for me, I came from this, like feminist generation of having to expand my definition of what is feminine, because I didn't agree with a lot of the gender stereotypes that were placed on women, but I, it didn't occur to me that there might be a way to live outside of the binary back then. We didn't have that language. So I spent a lot of time just developing and expanding what is feminine, if that makes sense. And so it's a conversation I have a lot with her, which is like, Why live outside of the binary of gender when you can kind of expand it for yourself. And so there's a conversation we have a lot of the time. But one of the things I find interesting is that a lot of neuro divergence really reject anything that is expected of us, right? If there's not a real, like, logical reason. And so a lot of things that fall under tradition, are things that we rarely get we fight against, right? Because it's like this needs to fundamentally authentically make sense to me. And so when you take the vast majority of gender stereotypes, they don't make sense. They're ridiculous if and often, like, you know, go against reason for so many of us. And so that was always my theory about the overlap between neuro divergence, autism, ADHD and gender dysphoria is the fact that it's like so many of these social mores are put on us as children that are ridiculous. And we're just trying to like find our authentic way. So I was curious if that resonates with you, if that's a conversation you have at your age and activism, because these are the moments where I feel like such an old person. And I'm very grateful for my teenagers who are keeping me informed and Tiktok to

Yasemin Bahar 24:07
that, actually, yes, that definitely hasn't be 100% it makes a lot of sense because I feel like one of the great things about being neurodivergent is that you are always are a lot of times thinking outside the box. And also you're open to question things like, even when you're told like two plus two is four, you are eager to ask why why is it not fine? Why is it not zero? So I think that makes a lot of sense. We often I in my personal experience as like a person with ADHD and like interacting with other people. For neurodivergent I see that we often don't like being contained in boxes and we also often don't like like binaries dichotomies like black and white. For a lot of things. So I think what you said makes a lot of sense for me and for my age group, at least in Turkey, as well. It's definitely a great I think, like property of having ADHD, it's, it makes life fun for me. Right? Well, I

Katy Weber 25:19
think it also kind of falls into the same category with many of us having difficulty with humor, or social niceties, right, like taking things literally a lot of the time that ends up getting me for one in trouble. A lot of the time when it comes to social interactions, and a lot of that rigid thinking to I think also comes from like you said, like the why, right like this, I need this to make sense to me, I need to really understand I can't just accept something because you told me to. And now I'm going to be oppositional as a result. Like, it all kind of falls back into that category of like, this overwhelming drive for authenticity, which I guess also explains why I think so many of us turn to activism and social justice, right?

Yasemin Bahar 26:06
Yeah, very much so.

Katy Weber 26:11
So tell me more about the inter solidarity Turkey initiative, right organization initiative, you co founded that, and what is the inter solidarity Turkey? And what what do you guys do so I

Yasemin Bahar 26:23
just wanted to Turkey right now focuses mostly on personal empowerment of intersex individuals living in Turkey and around Turkey. And it also focuses on professional development of legal, medical and psychological psychosocial like workers in terms of having the relevant information and language to help support intersex people. It did originally come about in 2009. But as I said, it started as a blog. And then we turned into an initiative years later, there were quite a few iterations of the same initiative in different names. Because most of us have ADHD. And we want to try new names sometimes. And right now, we have more or less of a focus on like, political, institutional change, because it is getting more difficult in Turkey, but we have a larger focus on providing like peer support, legal support, and psychosocial support to individuals who are intersex who live in Turkey or around Turkey, because some of our neighboring countries also don't have any intersex organizations or initiatives. And we also focus on collaborating with and doing trainings with medical professionals, legal judicial professionals and psychosocial workers in giving them the support they need so that they can fully support intersex people when they're working with them, or when they provided care to them.

Katy Weber 28:03
That's amazing. That's wonderful. So how does your ADHD contribute to I guess some of the activism work you're doing? What do you love about your ADHD? Well,

Yasemin Bahar 28:17
the one of the things that it contributes is, like, I think my ADHD is playing a big part in me, deciding to go full time into activism, right and seeking like this justice for all mentality. It also helps you think creatively or differently. So for example, we in Turkey, intersex rights, or the situation of intersex people, or LGBT people in Turkey, in general, is not the same as back in, say, 2013 When we were like doing different types of activism. So in some ways, we have difficulties, but in other ways, there's new sorts of arenas that we could explore right? There are new types of activism that are emerging that we could do that we could try. So it's, I think my ADHD helps in thinking of the changes not as a negative, but as new opportunities to explore new ideas and new like types of activism that may work now that maybe didn't work before. couldn't work before. Didn't have you didn't have the resources to try before. So I think it's interesting to have a differently thinking brain I guess, because it helps you navigate the changing like political atmosphere, and it also helps you try to be a bit. This may be viewed to save, but try to be a bit more selfless and like give me all your energy to helping other like people who are maybe intersex LGBTI have ADHD or who are families and parents of people who are intersex.

Katy Weber 29:59
Hmm, I think that makes sense, right? I mean, I think I feel like we, many of us have a very heightened sense of empathy in terms of wanting to save other people from a struggle that we ourselves experienced. Right. And so I think that sort of leads to a heightened sense of empathy and many of us, which is always tragic that so many of us are mistaken as being self centered, right, and being selfish and immature, because I think the vast majority of us try so hard to help others. And that kind of leads to the that trauma of feeling so misunderstood and so rejected and most of it in our lives. Well, that's, that's incredible. You had also mentioned about the sense of invisibility, can you tell me more about that is that in reference to the invisibility of the diagnoses, and the communities, so

Yasemin Bahar 31:05
we are taught in school or by our societies, most of the time that they're like to biological or physical like genders, or six, or whatever. But in my case, I wasn't fitting neatly into either of those like, boxes right? Now, in terms of like, just like, how I identified myself, but also, me physically and biologically, I didn't fit in this, like, gender binary that was, like socially constructed. So that made me feel invisible. For sure. And the commonality here, I think, is that because I was female assigned, I had a much more difficult time getting accepted or seen as ADHD because I do think that there's still an issue of female ADHD being less accepted. And Lessing, even though, like, in the past years, I think there's been a great there's been great efforts to challenge that that have been very, like, emotional for me and making me really happy. But I think we still have some ways to go in terms of showing that ADHD doesn't necessarily need to present in one single way, or that it's not only the boys who have ADHD.

Katy Weber 32:24
Has your ADHD diagnosis helped you in terms of feeling less invisible? I guess? Yes,

Yasemin Bahar 32:33
I think it definitely has. Because it was only after my diagnosis that I felt comfortable enough to be a part of like neurodivergent, or ADHD communities and support groups and online groups and communities. So I think it really gave me a sense of like, belonging. And also, I think, for me, being feeling invisible is connected to feeling alone. So when I said like, felt a sense of community and belonging, I also didn't feel lonely or alone. So I didn't feel invisible anymore, because I felt that I was being seen by other people who had come on experiences to me.

Katy Weber 33:21
Yeah, it is, I think experience for many of us, how you know, for many of us, who really struggled with friendships and relationships, and feeling connected to people to suddenly find this community of neurodivergent people who you feel so deeply connected to, and there's such I mean, one of the things I love about the neurodivergent online community is just the overwhelming sense of acceptance, and feeling like you've been embraced, in a way that is life changing it for so many of us. So, yeah, well said. Now from I'm curious, with your psychology background, too, do you? How do you sort through what is ADHD and what might particularly be a trauma symptom from childhood? Because that's something that's talked about a lot in terms of the diet, you know, the diagnosis process, and also like, you know, maybe this is an ADHD, maybe you're being misdiagnosed with something else. And often, trauma is one of the ones that comes up, right? There's such such overlap with trauma symptoms, how do you sort that out in your own brain in terms of feeling like you've had to sort of live outside of the norm? And are you able to sort through those because I find it really difficult to sort through

Yasemin Bahar 34:38
to some degree I feel like we are like whole complete individuals. And we can't really go pick apart these things, right? We can. I don't know if I can look at anyone including myself and say, this is trauma, for sure. This is ADHD and stuff like that. So for me, I think The best option for everyone is having access to resources to be able to get the diagnosis that would help them the most. And that would be most authentic to them and authentic to them. So I don't know if I can ever go, oh, no, this is 100% accurate diagnosis, this is 100%. Not the diagnosis, or this is a symptom of this. And this is a symptom of something different. I don't think I can do that. Because all my experiences and my being is like tied up with each other. So I think as long as the diagnosis is, with the current available information and resources, the best option? Who cares? Kind of I don't know if it's rude to say that but like, if it works, why not right? I'm not going to go to a person and say, No, I ban you from saying you have ADHD, I take your ADHD card away from you, you do not have ADHD or anything like that. That's

Katy Weber 36:05
actually a really helpful answer. Because I think, you know, it speaks to the complications around pathologizing neuro divergence, and the fact that this is even a diagnosis and a disorder and all of the frustrating labels that are applied to this, when really we are, you know, acknowledging neurological characteristics and traits. And so do you think that the ADHD diagnosis will still even exist in 50 years?

Yasemin Bahar 36:38
I don't know. I mean, 50 years is a lot in some sense. But I also feel like whether diagnosis exists or not, has a lot to do with how the hot industry works right now. So like, or how insurance works right now. So

Katy Weber 36:57
true. That's true, a very good point.

Yasemin Bahar 37:02
And I also feel like, it's not maybe the worst thing in the world, because I feel like, there is no two people who have the same neurology, right. But it's, it's not the worst thing maybe to acknowledge that some people have been facing more difficulty than others, may be mostly due to have the world setup. But either way, still, it's not the worst thing in the world to me to acknowledge that some people may need additional, like, accommodations.

Katy Weber 37:33
Why does it matter? And I'm like, I don't know. It just does. Yeah, I've always I've always grateful for anybody who's willing to engage in the in the conversation with me, and that's what they got very grateful for with neuro divergence is we're always willing to engage in the conversation. Like, that's interesting. So, so thank you for that. Now, do you have a name for ADHD? Would you call it something else? If you could? It's

Yasemin Bahar 38:00
not like my condition. It's not the most original, but I do often call it being your spicy. I don't know. It just sounds really to me.

Katy Weber 38:08
It's, it is it is a great word, less boring,

Yasemin Bahar 38:11
and it's less, I guess, pathologizing. And it's more fun and accurate. Like they are a bit spicy. I feel like when looking at the rest of it, no, no shade, or the love to neurotypical people but like we do tend to come out as more spicy and different.

Katy Weber 38:32
Right. And I think that kind of I think that falls in line with what we were talking about being outside of the norm. And also questioning, questioning traditions and questioning. Anything that doesn't have a real authentic meaning is that we're going to get a little spicy, we're gonna get a little I like to say we're gonna get a little salty. Whatever, somebody expects me to do something just because they said so. And I definitely was when I was a kid. That's one of those things that I looked back at. And I was like, Oh, yeah. Anytime somebody told me to do something, just because that was when I would immediately start to rebel. So yeah, I think that's definitely the spiciness is for sure. There. I love that. So now do you have a website for it your solidarity turkey? Where can people find you if they want to learn more about you or the work you're doing?

Yasemin Bahar 39:17
Yes, we do have a website. And it does have English pages with beads in it. But the URL is in Turkey. So it is inside the on the schema.org where maybe we can maybe people can find it through show notes. It is entirely on the smart that orc.

Katy Weber 39:34
Okay, awesome. Yeah, I'll definitely have all of those links in the show notes. So thank you so much.

Yasemin Bahar 39:39
Oh, thank you so much. It was a really interesting conversation. And I just encourage everyone to who feels outside of the norm to I guess, continue to find community may. That may be just my last comment, and I really wanted to thank you and the podcast for allow Knowing that sense of exploration and that saltiness and also that sense of community.

Katy Weber 40:08
Yeah, right now I'm starting to think maybe we, the word ADHD could just be replaced by the spice rack of neuro divergences. That's a lovely thought. And really, yes, I wholeheartedly endorse that. Well, thank you Yasmine for talking to me. It's been really lovely.

There you have it. Thank you for listening. And I really hope you enjoyed this episode of the women in ADHD podcast. If you'd like to find out more about me and my coaching programs, head over to women and adhd.com If you're a woman who was diagnosed with ADHD and you'd like to apply to be a guest on this podcast, visit women and adhd.com/podcast guest and you can find that link in the episode show notes. Also, you know, we ADHD ears crave feedback. And I would really appreciate hearing from you the listener, please take a moment to leave me a review on Apple podcasts or audible. And if that feels like too much, and I totally get it. Please just take a few seconds right now to give me a five star rating or share this episode on your own social media to help reach more women who maybe have yet to discover and lean into this gift of nerd of urgency, and they may be struggling and they don't even know why. I'll see you next week when I interview another amazing woman who discovered she's not lazy or crazy or broken. But she has ADHD and she's now on the path to understanding her neuro divergent mind and finally using this gift to her advantage. Take care till then