bottom of the well the permanence of racism.

i am an adult services librarian at the free public library. before we begin i would like to thank my department for your support especially adult services supervisor seth godfrey and my programming partner who is also doing tech support for us behind the scenes today as well as our public servicee administrator for her constant support and mentoring. today we are joined by two incredible authors and activists. the founder of the neuro- diversity project and also a journalist producer and speaker and author of the book that we are here for today which is

divergent mind thriving in a world that wasn't designed for you. melody is an activist attorney professor and award-winning author and also has written a series of very fun titles. her latest book the prescription how a poet changed my manic life. you should pick up. that's a good one. to the viewers, if you have questions during today's v discussion, feel free to enter them in the chat and you can also put them in the button at the bottom of the screen to ensure they don't get lost in the full. if you are watching on the live stream leave a comment and we will try to get those answered as well and without further ado i will let you take it away

thank you so much for having us. i'm so excited to be here to talk about this book, divergent mind is in a world of that that wasn'tdesigned for you beca person i thriving in a world tht wasn't designed for me. when i saw this book, it just screamed out to me. i have bipolar disorder, i'm a minority american living in america during what is now thankfully over known as the trump era, so that's when this book came out. in the middle of all of that during a pandemic. i just want to start off saying how are you doing. how has that gone for you? >> thank you. i'm so happy to be here talking with you and thank you to the library for having us.

i'm doing okay. now we are sort of emerging out of the whole pandemic phase. we still have a way to go. it was an interesting year and i think for many neuro divergent people, the year was mixed. sort of this quiet solitude. it was an interesting time for many of us. i'm really glad that the book reached so many readers. today we are celebrating the paperback. it came out in hardcover a year ago. the book is making its way and i'm so glad. >> i think the work that you do with the project with the interracial project is something i just want to start off for those who might not be interested or knowledgeable, might be interested in the work that you're doing with both of

the projects you could tell us a little bit about the projects and how the reader can connect thas well. >> thanks for asking. the diversity project started about four years ago at berkeley california, and it was sort of the nexus of personal and professional. i am a journalist and i was kind of figuring out what was going on with me and my sort of mental makeup. i started getting groups together to talk about the neuro- diversity and then i started inviting all the news to share their research from different perspectives and angles and it grew so we had evens in san francisco and a conference and now we are doing it a lot of it on instagram for anyone who wants to follow along. and then last year at the start of the pandemic before the

incident with george floyd, i sat down with my family, we are in interracial family and i grew up in an interracial family in a very multiracial setting. my neighborhood in my school and i was like i think this is an interesting sort of nexus, the interracial life. i started reaching out to other writers like should we talk about this, so we are doing that on instagram as well. we have a lot of filmmakers and writers and actors who are unpacking. it's something that doesn't get talked about as much so we are at the beginning of that as well for anyone who wants to check out those works.

>> you were talking about the idea of media representation of neuro divergence and mental health conditions and as you know i just wanted to ask do you see that changing and if so, who is leading that change and how do you see it getting better because it is still y pretty ba. >> i'm so intrigued by this topic of media representation and how mental illness and neuro divergence and disability more broadly. i have a long-standing interest in film and theater and things like this, so i think you see this with many different groups like marginalized groups. what happens is there are

stereotypes in the public imagination that have to do with social norms and then the same stereotypes depicted on screen and this constant conversation between what's happening on the ground and then what's happening in the media so something like neuro divergence is no exception. i've been digging into this research and it turns out it tends to be more intent on characters that have mental illness, depicted as mentally ill are way more likely to be depicted as violent more so than actual occurrences in real life. so i think it's something that we need too work against and i don't know your work is such an amazing contribution to all of

this. i didn't get into that too much in the book. the book is all about reframing what it means to be mentally different so whether it is adhd or bipolar, how can we take ownership of the narrative again and a ultimately change the pubc conversation? >> one of the things i wanted to bring up is i have 61 highlights but the ending there's this pressing moment where you talk about the field of medicine needs an overhaul. this is on page 212 with people experiencing loneliness on the rise. more people are ill and it's in the position of meeting to

figure out social lives. the doctors are getting burned out and also need support and the cycle goes on without being able to open up, nothing will change and youut go on and talk about in terms of you didn't know this was coming out that was part of having read it initially that i found comforting in terms of the reminder i found there was a lot of this that i felt was really spiritually connected and now i feel like i know that comes from somewhere but i read so much of that and thought of the more healthier and connected we are so having been so disconnected for so long, how you see that

haevolving. >> you mean how we are going to emerge from the pandemic? >> neuro divergent people have been good at this in terms of being familiar with a kind of disconnection that may be people who don't have that kind of makeup were not so familiar and i think we've been forced to be connected because we are in a world that wasn't built for us and structured for us and in some ways i found the pandemic wasn't quite as hard on me as it may have been on some typical people because for them it was a shock and for me it was like i'm alone. okay. i've experienced this. i've been here. nice to meet you. not my first rodeo on this. but certain lessons neuro divergent people have been able

to teach those going through the pandemic and for whom it was a shock. i know you had a great response since the release. have you heard from people like me who are incredibly grateful that this came out and in the perfect moment that it needed to come out because i think it helped not just to those of us dealing with neuro divergence but those that were thrown into this loneliness and disconnectedness inadvertently had no control over that. >> an interesting point you are making i think a lot of people are finding the book because maybe they've read articles and they've seen other research about how women are being left out and how research providing neuro diversity. it's interesting i don't know if

the pandemic is allowing more people to dive into this because like you are saying, so many of us lived this way anyway and are sort of outside all the time. like yourself, i'm a writer and i'm in my head and always thinking and that's kind of the new normal for me. so, i do think what you're saying about people who are neuro divergent are finding much more understanding about their family members and colleagues indicates and parents. i'm hearing from a lot of people saying tears are streaming down their faces because in hindsight they are realizing one of their parents is no longer alive and

it's a healing experience to put a name to that. i do hope all of us are able to take some of the lessons and things we've learned around what it means to live more quiet i wrote something in the book and i couldn't believe how much it captured this moment and i'm going to paraphrase my own quote that i wrote something like i look forward to the day when

it's considered. we didn't anticipate this happening in the context of a pandemic but i think many were hoping that the world would one day quiet down. here it is. i look forward to the day when what is a current hidden sensory world for many people becomes the global norm what are labeled as sensory ailments actually hold promise for feeling a fractured and traumatized world in desperate need of repair.

perhaps it has people thinking. we need to start reconsidering what it means to be human which drew me in really quickly we may be looking at a different compass so that is so exciting to me. i feel like the different context you're speaking for so many people.

what door does that c open for people who have been shut out before. >> i've been thinking about this a lot lately. it's interesting because the deeper you get into the research i don't know if it's just me because i see everything through that kind of color but it actually becomes more difficult to see because also the more you talk to people and people open up with you and remove all those layers you start realizing some of these things are very

universal. people are not encouraged to talk about their mental health or their emotional health or challenges or needing to see the doctor for something or we just don't have it in our culture but imagine if it was more open would we be at a point we wouldn't even need this kind of terminology of normal or abnormal so i believe that is the direction we are heading in and we will get there someday. a lot of us that are activists and advocates in some ways are kind of in the early thinking. >> itth makes me think about the labeling. there's a part of the book where

you know being able to give the name to the experience at the beginning and then towards the end of with the identifications, truly to embrace them it is exactly what my experience has been to find the labels incredibly liberating at first and then to be like what does this mean. i think you are providing a different outlet for other people, not just through your experience but the incredible research that you do to put this

together which is based on your ability to hyperfocus risk. i'm so grateful for your ability because you managed to put all this material together in a way that wasn't just easily digestible but entertaining so i'm curious about this idea of labels and how much it is liberating. and whether it's no longer necessary and how the readers have responded. >> it's cool to hear how it resonates for you and everyone watching and listening. i described this as the labels are entry points and entryways.

i find that so healing just to grab onto something and be like okay i got it so for many people discovering the aspects of themselves and maybe jumping into some of the advocacy and activism in the movement it's something very exciting and it's important work and then like the quote youu are reading once it gets integrated into your lifes and your family and work and sense of identity it's just something that doesn't even need to be said as much because it is just a part of you and people know it and it's worded like integration so it's not to say that those are not important.

some people continue on to find a new line of work and for other people justgn get integrated and they continue living their lives and have a different perspective. i think for me personally it was a journey of narrow diversity and i've been thinking about this kind of approach and philosophy and learning about how women were left out of the research on autism and adhd and then focusing on this trade

sensitivity prevalent for people no matter what your diagnosis was and then talking about anesthesia and sentences getting crossed. then there was a process of opening up about this to my family and people i worked with and then certainly the book coming out was very healing like a relief for them releasing it into the world. it's awesome seeing how people responded. everyone has a different story to the book. for themselves or their parents or siblings. i hear from a lot of therapists who are seeing how much it's impacting their practice and they recommend it to their clients which is exciting because they want to see change in the therapeutics industry and

then it's also allowed me to move on to other things. i'm a journalist and we've got the project going so no matter what i do in my life and professionally the narrow diversity work is such a huge part, but it just gets integrated. for everyone to know when you're watching and listening, in your own life you will have different periods of discovery and feintegration and so that's oka. it's okay for this to become part of your larger story, and you're not going to leave it behind. some people feel like they have to keep sticking with this one movement. i feel that way completely and

that definition of that diagnosis and label and what it means later on for somebody like you that's written about it. you're already out and owning it and helping other people. and again we don't share the same diagnosis but i'm so grateful to what you did because it's the best book i've read in all of 2020 and i'm so grateful to you o for it because it wasnt just that the book it was every other book i read because of the book. the other writers, often women and you dig into that research

in a way that is much easier to get a broad descendents of what's happening in the movement that i've been in for so long. the chat is blowing up so i'm going s to ask some of the questions. what are some of the ways neuro divergent people can engage in these practices to the internal sensory experiences i recall you naming the mindfulness and internal awareness are often accessible and i'm curious about the new approaches. i don't focus on meditation a lot in this book and in my own

life, the type that i've been drawn to are more like tai chi. for me all of that is far more healing than planting myself and sitting and i hear this all the time from other people so i don't know how to totally answer the question but i would say i would encourage you to not feel you have to stay inside the box of what you think it has to be because so many things don't work for us and so -- >> that's a great answer. there's another question that says a lot of teachers like parents and professionals tell

me i'm wrong when i speak about my own autistic experience because they learned in a different way. how would you suggest responding in those situations handle the research in the world? >> that makes a lot of sense and i hear that all the time. we are in the beginning of a lot of this especially in the representation of women and girls and so this is why i think it's important to sort of take the narrative into your own hands for one and second i don't believe the formal diagnosis is necessary or even important to be honest. if we are working with a medical

industry based on research that is literally 30-years-old and takes 20 to 30 years for the research to get integrated into practice how can you let those people tell you who you are or sewho you aren't? you will find many people out there that are self identified. i didn't go the diagnostic route because of what i'm talking about. that being said for some people it's usually important and you needed for accommodations in the classroom so it depends on your particular individual situation. we are just at the beginning but for the person that asked the question,he just know there areo many people out there like us. >> great answer. there's another question for

both of us. what helps you integrate your label? do you have recommendations for supporting someone beginning the process of integrating the different aspects of neuro divergence? .. >> and i remember i did this

research that was popping up about being left out and then i read these things and it captured me to t14 or how come i never heard of this so those initial moments of oh my gosh. and then being a very serious person and a journalist and you have that set let me dive into this what is this all about? so there is that initial period of discovery and then to go one step at a time opening up to family and friends and getting more serious about it so that's how the book was born they verge mind came out of this whole process of discovery and then

you just get more and more comfortable like we were saying a few minutes ago so the more you can stay grounded in your own knowledge of who you are and then present that phase too the world and it will naturally be integrated. >> so what about gaining accommodations that educating doctors what diversity is like but that's far more complex. >> yes i think accommodation on an interesting topic in the

book i focushe on the topic of work a lot because it's such an important site in places like agency year in the world and how you take care of yourself and your family everybody should look at margot who was that verizon now but then we talk about things the usual things like where to sit in the office and having headphones and things like that that more importantly and then making sure that and then for what you can or can't do so to me that seems like the really important piece because then

youie feel able to be yourself and ask for what you need and then another thing i talk about in the book and elsewhere is the importance of accepting if those who are artistic one —- artistic and those whoho feel accepted the levels of depression and anxiety go way down so that often means you can just do your work better so that communicationn pieces important i would love to see workplaces have neuro- diversity training and i think it requires that much people just need to be educated and it just needs to be out there so i recommend that some are doing that to the bigger companies but it

needs to be more commonplace. >> and then the better that becomes i provide accommodations for all students maybe they don't want to go to the disability resource center can you provide this accommodation? think they find otherer professors are willing to have accommodations they don't have to go that specific route. so there is another question hear from sarah who says what is your vision for their narrow diverse community? >> so the word treatment is tricky because we don't want to get into fixing talk so if we are talking about practices

that support well-being that's a great conversation to have. so in terms of the evolution interviewed a lot of therapist for the book so grace who was here in california is great and she make sure there is no food in the office for example. she even makes sure the fan and the ventilation are not too loud and then she also keeps materials so she is very attentive to what would feel therapeutic. a lot of conversation is so encouraging now that we have practitioners who really see the adult population so

honestly i feel like a lot of narrow divergent people find their own hodgepodge of wellness to put something together it sounds like we both love dance and movement that helps us feel grounded and regulated but again for me , i spent a lot of time in nature always going on walks and hikes so classic therapist can be helpful that then there will be limitations. i am intrigued by some of

those practitioners out there but then again i feel that they don't know much about that neuro- diversity perspective is something i'm very cautious about is there is an element people want to pin everything to trauma or just say you have this because ofy ask. this needs to be looked at. i really disagree with that and i think it's horrible but there is kind of a resistance in the therapeutic community because they have been trained only to see things through the lives of trauma. i think that's dangerous. i really do i want to caution people that if you encounter that, to know that is a bit extremist and we want to push

against some in the book divergent mind wee look at the history of psychiatry and psychology in all the errors made when people did become so fundamentalist wanting to pin everything on one aspect and that's what we really want to get away from also why i feel so strongly individuals and those that they truly find helpful and not just submit. i this make sense. >> it makes so much sense but you creating that narrative for yourself that some people benefit from cognitive therapy

that now the staff that things that we t do to learn about ourselves sometimes they say don't google ad. but read a book this book was so therapeutic and people forget that. so what is therapeutic to you? >> i think so. i was just speaking the other day the author of narrow tribes and with my journey and how writing this book was like an investigative journey. i'm a journalist so this is my chance to dive in so it very much was a simultaneous process of i i am on the journey of discovery i will figure out

what i need to know what's empowering for me and what is the story i need to be claim and how does this information help everyone else out there who was on the same journey because there is so many out there? so that is what came out is this personal story. with a real hope for other people define their own healing journey. >> do you have any other recommendations that are up to date to reflect more accurately the experience to be narrow divergent man a psychological textbook or something more scientific.

>> yes you can actually go to my twitter feed that there has been a very stellar list that answers that question. >> it is true i do often in shout out other books i put together a list and people seem to appreciate it this book came out in 2020 alone written my narrow divergent authors in different fields and that's what we love to see we want this information yes in the realm of psychology but there is a chef on there and academic a virtual reality expert, that's what we want to see is neuro- diversity

integrated into the wider world so in terms of my recommendations what i have shared on top of twitter and the book about gender bias or immunene issues but it's really important work and i always recommend nick walker who has done a lot of pieces around neuro- diversity terminology and changing perspective and then i recommend narrow tribes. there is a lot.

>> you can pick one to start. >> there is here however it feels like i'm becoming more of a target. it doesn't help of increasing drugs as a fix how do i avoid the target. >> that is very interesting and i don't have all the information to know exactly what it means to be a target and enough you mean workplace bullying using a person as a

scapegoat. if you are able to try different psychiatrist, that would make all the difference. and again unfortunately census information is so new and not integrated it can be helpful to do your own research. even medical papers are available online and i know people who literally have to do that. it can be helpful to literally take divergent lines with you to say there is research behind all of this or know what this is about. so that's a hard and tricky

question without having all of thee information that check out different psychiatrist in terms of the workplace question to bring it to work. >> they have the list you can put it in psychiatrist. to see how much they are getting from big pharma. there's a great question if you offer training sessions or have a group you word recommend withh diversity training? >> there are different kinds of neuro- diversity training so it depends on the specifics i will give props and do events like this i have offered a few classes in the past. it depends that people can

reach me on my website and i have a contact there i heard from someone this morning he wants me to share more add a more academic conference which is exciting i would love for this information to penetrate different fields. so feel free to reach out me on my website i pasted the piece i was referring to into the chat. it is there. so many questions. any plans to create a workbook with either of your books and then will you be publishing a

pdf of resources with an audiobook for download quick. >> the audiobook is available. i haven't thought about a pdf together resources it does appear in the back and in the feedback and that - - an e-book that's a great option to download so all the resources are out there it's just a matter of finding the right one but so it is a interesting mix but it's also very practical so for dave

urgent mind so on its own so putting together the farsi app and translating into farsi that's the closest thing i've got but i would love to do something together and i would love you at some point to do those trainings and i know you speak at conferences all the time that my dream is for you to go to every university. [laughter] because if you think of a simple training like white guy giving me diversity training. [laughter]

but i feel the people who are doing the training to frequently it's one thing to be well-versed it's another to identify in relation to race or neuro- diversity and i just cannot buy in if they are not from that community you read a lot of books but you have not lived that and so for me what came through you can read plenty of textbooks just don't integrate so much material to give you that in one place but it just it doesn't give you that perspective that's something that you figure out later and why women are not

part of that so anything other than to? be apologizing is hysterical there is into space to say maybe i interpret the world t differently maybe that's a gift and i can figure out how to navigate the world. >> and that is what makes this book so special to come from that perspective not just from the outside. >> like we said before representation is huge. and that's also like wire issue i would love to see more that might more divergent but to see hollywood and media and filmo.

>> you said earlier you are staying a little later. is that still the case? maybe we can do a couple more questions. >> yes. i can take a few more. >> i am great. >> also what melody just said i totally agree and we talked about this before we went by that i really love this book it may be one of my favorite books of all time now i've never felt so understood or acknowledged or validated. i had a sense i'm not alone and then by professionals in the field and its so different of another woman diagnosed

late and when you're narrow divergenteu and you don't know that you are and that you it is not a deficiency, it's a gift. >> so i had a hard time accepting it at first because everything i have read it implied it was a deficit. and now i am very proud. i'm so glad you wrote this book so they don't realize. >> thank you.

>> i have a question here from anonymous have you heard about color spectrum and a bunch of us celebrities it's blowing up on autistic twitter like so many nonprofits for narrow divergent communities have a lot of controversy in problems and those are typically in which are formed by neuro- divergence? >> so like a cause would be

taken up and it gets a little controversial like a fundraising effort or a film so goes back to what we were talking about representation is so huge and people in the wider world need to take that seriously and and i have seen a little bit of this recently but it spoke speaks to as much as possible to put the's efforts in two those with lived experience. and that would just take time

the twitter community narrow divergent community at large is very good at being vocal so i think a lot about history and how they are integrated into the world so i think we will see it soon i think we will reach a turning point melody and i have connected recently multiple times there is a lot of other narrow divergent filmmakers and producers so it will keep pushing so i would encourage

everyone to keep going. >> you write about masking and as an unconscious reaction to patriarchy that narrow divergent or not i think it happens all the time especially i wonder how much farther out we can take that? >> that's a great question. so in the narrow divergent community what does a person have to do to get on in the

world and what do we have to hide to appear normal? and it can really take a toll on someone after a while and that pressure builds up to follow part or shutdown and then many of us reach a point we will not do this anymore is not working for me and i totally agree there's something and put in the afterwords the way of normal activity so what we think of as normal is dictated by whiteness so this excessively

detachedro closed not real energy to interact with people as many different words for this but i find it important and critical because our country is reconciling with this and with the neuro- diversity community so why do we expect people to act a certain way and who decides what is normal is it patriarchy white supremacy? i'm excited for that to be out there more i'm really trying

to see where to go with that i think artist will be important in this process the more that creative people integrate these perspectives like film and media even like social media the more they are unpacked and the more they will devolve. >> and if you can answer this but i love your book i totally agree with you with media representation with a better future for humanity how would

you find otherso- to collaborate with and develop the script? >> that's a great question. i am thinking about this a lot. i have friends who are mostly friends of color who are collaborating with hollywood to change the narrative around race and representation which is a loss on so were looking at how to do this narrow divergent representation so that is something i am actively thinking about and i'm excited to follow up on think it would be a gradual process like finding people to

better skills together what would this look like to have an incubator were to talk about pipeline creators or how we make the pathway easier for people to go from story idea so people who are watching or listening feel free to reach out and for anyone who's ready to jump in right now there's always fellowships and like the incubators they are so extremely competitive usually

you have to know someone or something that puts in our recommendation so that can be tricky so we will see if we can build something. >> i want to be respectful of your time one more question maybe and then we can wrap that up. >> i'm not particularly interested in the diagnosis but i do want to learn more about myself but you help me to realize the panic attacks and the social confusion with my narrow divergent but i'm not sure about the next step i don't need work accommodations i have amo great work set up but

what should i do to figure out my neuro- divergence? >> that's a great question. what do you need to do? it depends on the individual is someone seeking to be better understood? to be seen or to have a name and a label for your own self-knowledge? and there is a lot out there. there's my book which just gives a lot of information sharing stories, or are you looking for therapeutic approach certain the sun people turn to a therapist again i really encourage every

individual to do what works for them. it sounds like something you're seeking that let's get clear do you need help with something if you are just wanting more knowledge for yourself and pick up a couple of books then it depends but i think divergent mind is great for this kind of reader who wants to figure stuff out and doesn't need to have exact medical thing because we're challenging the notion. so yes. thank you for all the questions this is great.

>> if you choose to research the origins of a topic discussed frequently in the united states called critical race theory you will find the name derek bell law professor bell who died 2011 was one of the principal originators of the much discussed subject in november 1982 he appeared on book notes to discuss his book faces at the bottom of the well the

permanence for racism