27. From Me-search To Research: How I Turned My Lived Experience Into An Independent Research Project

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to a chat with Uma, with me, your host, Uma R. Chatterjee. On this podcast, I bring together all of my roles as a neuroscientist, researcher, board certified mental health peer specialist, mental health advocate, community builder, and a survivor with lived experience to bring you honest and unfiltered conversations exploring our true human experiences in their fullest form. Every week, I'm bringing you conversations bridging the gap on all things neuroscience, psychology, mental health, lived experience, advocacy, psychedelics, and more. This is a space for raw unfiltered truth to truly explore ourselves for who we are and how we are. I cannot wait to connect with you, answer all of your questions and co-create this with you. Welcome to a chat with Uma. Hello beautiful humans and welcome back to another episode of a chat with Uma. I just have to take a hot second to check in with everyone because we definitely don't do that enough as people. And as much as I'm so excited for this episode and all that I'm gonna be sharing and hopefully the support it'll provide to people who need what I'm gonna share, the ethos of this show for everyone who's been here this whole time knows. And if you're just joining in, welcome. I say that because it has been a wild few weeks and months of so many new people finding this show, joining this community. And so if you're new here, a huge welcome. And thank you so much for being here. And to just really get into how we do this here and what the show's all about, there is so much value, yes, and a lot of sharing the conversations and sharing the ideas and the experiences that are the point of the episodes and what the title says, right? But at the core of everything I do and why I'm here is to create a really honest, safe, transparent, vulnerable, true space of being full, full humans. And there is always a human being having a full blown human experience behind all that is shared, whether it's research or lived experience or advocacy or ideas or anything. Like there is a full human who's sharing all that, the lenses matter so much. And especially when it's me holding that space as either the person holding that interview and asking the questions or just being the person sharing my perspectives and my lived experience, which is so often, more often than I expected on this show, but that is what you all have wanted and has meant so much to me to make the space. But all that being said, for me, what's so important beyond what's being shared is how we are, how we truly are and normalizing the human experience so that everything that comes forth from there is coming from a place of understanding and nuance and just really, really connecting to each other as humans because we are all going through it. So I would be remiss to not model that as I have done in the past. And so just a quick check in, 'cause this is not a check in episode, that's definitely coming and also part of the ethos of the show too, especially because of the amount of care that you all show in my experience and how I'm doing. So I promise full blown check in coming soon 'cause life has been wild. There is so much to check in on, but right in this moment, what encapsulates so much of the season of my life is a lot of change and adjustment and overwhelm, which honestly, the path that I chose for myself, overwhelm feels like a work on conclusion for the significant future, not just because of everything I'm doing, but like where I am in my recovery and evolution as a human and kind of learning how to human honestly, and then in combination with just a fuck ton of responsibilities and circumstances and being in environments of so much development and change constantly, it's just all adding up to everything being a cluster fuck. And what my work really has been on top of just navigating the cluster fuck and adjusting to the cluster fuck is accepting the cluster fuck and in a very tangible way, especially related to this podcast, that has meant throwing out all conceptions of what my time is supposed to look like out the window and really taking things day by day and learning or at least attempting to learn how to prioritize and really being okay with not getting it right. And so a very small but to me, an important example of that is this podcast. The fact that I was on a roll, I had episodes coming out every single week. I was for the most part on top of it. I never was like really ahead. And what I mean by ahead is like having a bunch of episodes like fully edited, uploaded and ready to go. Coming out each week, like I never got to that point because of I'm doing this all by myself and I live a very full life, but for a while, I was able to have the bandwidth to make an episode come out every single week. They were doing really well. I even got a fuck ton of interviews and amazing conversations with humans like recorded and done. But then so much all started at once for me of moving across the country, all of the responsibilities and weight that comes with that, especially as someone in recovery and treatment for many conditions to which change is not necessarily the easiest thing to handle. And then on top of that, just still being in a constant state of instability in this first semester of my PhD, I don't need to ramble too much about it. There's a lot of details I could share, but it's just the nature of what I chose to do and being in different labs every four weeks and being in classes with different professors every few weeks. And that's just my full-time job. That's not accounting for like everything else that has changed in my life, all the new responsibilities I've taken on, the opportunities I've had, which I'm so, so, so grateful for. But what I'm really trying to say is that I have just been in a state of just like disarray and taking things day by day, minute by minute, never, ever feeling like anything is complete, never feeling like I am at a place where I can breathe, but like forcing myself to anyway, because that's just kind of what is going on. And also not falling into the trap of like, okay, it's not going perfectly, I'm not able to do this the way I thought, so therefore I should just drop it, which there's definitely a time and place for boundaries and overwhelm for sure. But for me, I've had the tendency to feel like if I'm not, like for example, with this podcast, like consistently putting out the episodes every single week then I should just stop, or I should just take a long break. And I have done that before and I'm not pathologizing doing that, but I just, for me at this point, that's not what I need, I just need grace and flexibility to have enough, care for myself to take the time and put them out when I can and also be okay with not being able to do that every week and doing my best and doing it when I can. And that's all of that to say, that life is a lot and I'm grateful for it, but it's a lot and if nothing else, it's just an exercise of self-compassion and adjustment and evolving with life and at least I am living life enough to be evolving. And I hope that you can see that in yourself too and give yourself grace and compassion for things when they're a lot and even when they're not a lot and just being okay with showing up as you are and that being enough because that's the energy I have to come to this with otherwise, I would just cry and not do this. So that's just a little check in, especially if you've been around this episode or this podcast for a while and you were like, wow, this came out every week and now it's not like what's going on. Now you know and I'm still here and I'm not gonna stop because there are way too many conversations that I need to be had and this gives me life. It's just sometimes I need a little more time to edit them and to put them out and sometimes it's the choice between like getting the sleep I need or you know having a full blown brain break and coloring which is something I've gone into or hammering at the episode. And I do value discipline, I do value my commitment and sometimes I have to value my well-being especially because I'm doing this all alone. There's a dream where this show could get to a place where I would have support to be able to be the one like generating the conversations and then someone else is doing all the work to edit an upload and that day will be beautiful and it's kind of a dance of like when you know we're hard enough to get to that place and also like don't burn out in the process. So anyway, I'll start rambling about that but that is just a wrap. real life example of self-compassion and overwhelm and many things being sure at once. And so if you're going through any of that too, I'm sending you love so much love. And with that, let's just get into this episode because I'm so, so, so excited for this topic today. Today's episode is another installment in the series that I intentionally but unintentionally started a few episodes ago on the podcast. So whether you are listening to this in real time or you are tuning in after this came out, just scroll back a few episodes if you want to hear the whole thing or also these will all be linked in the show notes to kind of put them all together. But this season of the year plus what I'm going through now kind of on the other side of getting into grad school times two I guess. Well times three, but you'll know that if you heard past episodes. But anyway, this season really inspired me to and made me feel compelled to put out episodes touching on everything related to being a non-traditional student, navigating academia, particularly episode one of the series was called non-traditional students. My experiences, advice and reflections from my non-traditional academic path. That's episode 24 of the show. 25 is called from college dropout to graduate student, navigating graduate school admissions and applications as a non-traditional student. And so what you can hear from those titles is very much the theme of really taking the black box of academia that anyone in general who's trying to navigate a professional or academic path beyond undergrad or even even undergraduate degrees. Like there is so much that is in general like not fully conceptualized or understood or known. And yes, the internet's available, but like how many of us even know what to be looking up on the internet. In terms of career paths, especially people who have backgrounds that led them to places they never thought they'd be led to in terms of their interests, right? And that leads into especially like in general if academia is a black box, then being a non-traditional student takes that to like level 10 because I know that there are hardly any resources or you know paths that are laid out or experiences that are shared very often because of so much of the stigma and lack of representation and understanding of being a non-traditional student and they definitely exist. I'm one of them. I know there are others, but it's just so hard as a non-traditional student to find stories and resources and just like someone full blown talking about their experiences and the boundaries and roadblocks that come about and how to navigate them. And it is pretty hard to generalize everything about one's path because inherent in being a non-traditional student is having so many different life paths and experiences and ways that shape who you are but also like the things that one has to overcome in the system, the system that exists of evaluation and judgment and being compared to traditional students. That being said though, there are so many parts of my story that I have shared over the years that have been able to be generalized especially from the perspective of this may not be your exact experience but really like if you have been on a divergent path and you have faced this type of obstacle like there are ways to navigate it. It is more difficult sometimes and it's so worth it and possible. And so because of the resounding amount of just resonance that sharing my story has had over the years through different organizations and speaking engagements I've been invited to speak at and just like meeting people in general I felt really compelled to take up space on my own podcast and really go like full boss of the wall. Everything I share about this experience because as you either know or will find out if you're new here I don't hold anything back. I do not believe in filters. I do not believe in the censorship of things out of shame and out of stigma. I acknowledge they exist very clearly. That's kind of the point of me doing this and I choose to live my life openly so that other people never have to feel alone because I know what it feels like to feel so alone on these paths and being and feeling so different and also especially feeling less than and not included in spaces where people like us typically aren't or if they are we don't know because we are enshrouded in so much shame and just being conditioned to hide these parts of ourselves and our experiences or share them in a very specific way that I just don't subscribe to. So all of that being said that is what inspired the series of just both sharing my own story in a lot of detail but also like generalizing to takeaways and giving people examples of finding their path and forging their own path and doing more than what is told to them is possible because I have definitely been told as you can hear another episode that most of the things that I've done just like wouldn't be possible for me and well here I am doing them so that leads me into this particular episodes conversation which I'm so so excited about because this is something that I've sort of touched on through doing this project but being able to have a space to fully share the story from start to finish to provide an example of what's possible for other people is just so priceless to me to be in this place where I can do so. So today's episode is talking all about my experience developing and completely independent like completely like single first author independent research project from start to finish by myself how that happened why it happened how I did it believe me I did not know what I was doing or I didn't even know I was going to do it and I did and most importantly the reason I'm sharing how I did this is because this is largely what I attribute so much of my life now to like this project developing and executing an independent research project in conjunction with all of the work I was doing in a traditional lab environment in my degree etc like this has afforded me opportunities that are not given to people at my academic stage I have had so many professional opportunities that have developed me far beyond what is expected or possible typically at you know where I am and I'll get into all of that and also it has just expanded my life and my autonomy and my capabilities in so many ways and arguably most importantly at least of the people who are listening to this to be able to get into graduate school or professional degrees that you know are very difficult to get into this project really is what set me apart on top of everything that I did in a traditional way that really propelled me forward and expedited my timeline I truly believe in ways that without this project I would not be here doing what I do now at this stage in my life in the speed in which and the thoroughness in which I have been able to do and it was such a random occurrence it happened so organically and out of the blue with no plan I had no framework I didn't know what I was doing I didn't know I was doing an independent research project will get into all of that but because of how random it was and how there was no precedent for this and there were enough people to tell me that this wasn't normal but also because it was so abnormal there weren't enough people to tell me that this would never work because of that almost ignorance and in a blissful way like so much has happened for me that I just want other people to know what's possible so that they at least have that in mind if they ever have an idea and they want to pursue it and to be empowered to do so rather than discouraged out of shame and fear like this is something that's impossible because it is fully possible and I just want to provide an example of what that is and also give some tangible concrete tips so that if this is a part of you building your own path and exploring your own interests and expediting even your own timeline if that's something that resonates with you then I want you to have this story and this framework to expand you so that you don't have to be flailing around the way I did and to know that it is possible so here it goes here's my story of fully executing an independent research project based on my lived experiences that's a very important part of this and how that propelled me to where I am today professionally so just a few exciting announcements before we get into the episode first and foremost I had the absolute honor and privilege of co-presenting the keynote address at this years online OCD conference hosted by the International OCD Foundation at OCDF as well as OCD SoCal and I am so excited to share that the keynote and the replay of that as well as the entire conference is available now for the next 60 days on demand for anyone who registers for the conference it is just such an accessible robust way to learn about OCD if you're someone with OCD or related disorder, a loved one, someone that you know or even a researcher, a clinician, anybody who's interested in this extremely fascinating condition and family conditions. This is an amazing library of just hundreds and hundreds of hours of experts and lived experience and really everything under the sun related to OCD and related disorders. And then of course, my keynote with amazing co-presenters that just shared their incredible stories of resilience and lived experience with OCD. So if you are interested in watching any or all of that, especially the keynote, I would highly recommend either if you're already registered, then going and checking out the repository just to make sure that you know it's available again for the next 60 days, so to December-ish. And you can still register if you didn't get a chance to register, go ahead and do that. Everything will be linked in the show notes and I hope you love the keynote as well as everything that's available. Also in line with my keynote, I just wanted to remind everybody that I have a robust website page on my website with so many of the past events I've done. Anything that's recorded and available publicly is embedded on my features page, so I really highly recommend checking that out for anything that you've missed in the past. There are so many different ways that I've advocated and shared that are included there on so many different topics on top of this podcast, of course, so I would check that out if you're interested to Peru through different talks I've done on research, experience, disability, and so much more. That will of course also be linked in the show notes. And then there are a few exciting events that are coming up that I have the privilege of being a part of that I'd love to invite you to join if they are supportive to you at all. I'll start with an event that is very in line with what we're talking about on this episode in this series. So I, as many of you know, am a co-director of the Intercollegiate Psychedelics Network and amazing organization that provides so much professional development, community, and mentorship and support for anyone who wants to engage in psychedelics space as a professional, whether you are just starting out as an undergrad or even aspiring as, you know, someone in high school all the way to people who are non-traditional students who are completely pivoting their path and wanting to engage professionally in the field. So I will be co-presenting a panel all on personal statements for psychedelic programs, which will be on November 7th from 7 to 8 p.m. Eastern and you can attend for free just by joining IPN as a member for free, which is all linked in the show notes. It's so worth it you've joined you get so many resources at your disposal, workshops, mentorship opportunities, seminars, panels, community gatherings, everything related, everything you need to engage with the field and really be supported in your path. I am also really thrilled to share that I am going to be presenting on a panel at the Wonderland Miami Conference on November 11th, which is a Saturday. I am presenting with the Intercollegiate Psychedelics Network. We're going to be hosting a panel called, so you want to join the psychedelic field and we're all going to be talking about how to engage with the psychedelic field, become a student, become a professional, how we have all done that in our own respective disciplines and it's going to be so much fun. Wonderland is a really cool interdisciplinary conference featuring so many people across different spaces and we are really excited to share IPN's work and share our journeys on that panel. So if you want to attend and you want a good primer for the psychedelic space, a way to enter or you're just already going to be there or planning to go there, then we have a code for you to get 20% off your ticket. It is IPN 2020 and this is all going to be linked in the show notes and we really hope to see you there at our panel. It's really, really exciting to share this on a new stage and to spread the word of IPN's mission. On top of that, I am also really, really excited that I'm going to be presenting at Abercrams. It's a conference for underrepresented biomedical scientists in America and that conference is going to be in Phoenix, Arizona and I'm going to be presenting specifically on living with disabilities, being disabled and navigating academia and graduate school. So I will be on a panel with some amazing advocates and our presentation is going to be, I believe, on Friday, November 17th at the 11/15 session. So I would love for you to come if you're going to be at that conference. Let me know. Reach out on social media. I'd love to meet you. I have never been a Phoenix and I also don't know many that people, I don't know that many people who are going to the conference. So I'd love to meet you there and be friends. So those are my upcoming events as of right now. Everything will be linked in the show notes. They're also all on my website. If you want to attend or engage with any of them and I really hope to see you there. Okay, so let's get into the episode. I thought about this for a second. Like how do I convey this information in the most articulate manner that makes the most sense and there's no perfect way to do it because again, it's so like unprecedented, such a strange topic to talk about. But I think the best way to do it is for me to just tell the story from start to finish because in there will be like a lot of clarifications and explanations of where it's diverging from the like normal trajectory of research projects. And at the end, I'll just have a lot of takeaways and ways to approach any possible path that you might take yourself. So to set the stage for where I was when all of this began, which will provide some context as to how this even came about. So I was a master's student in neuroscience and I had kind of just started. So the master's program was two years, four semesters plus the summers. So two years and I was coming out of actually I was still I was almost done with my first semester. And at that point, I was in the first semester and was looking to figure out what research lab I'd end up joining for the rest of my master's program to do all of my research, get my training, the stuff that like fully changed my life. And so the reason I bring that up is number one, like where I was in my trajectory for when this happened, which kind of matters and kind of doesn't. It matters in that I was definitely like not in a place where someone would be doing an independent research project or presenting anything as a sole or single offer, but that could also be if you're an undergrad or a post baccalaureate or you know, possibly even with a master's degree, I think it might have made slightly more sense if I had a master's degree, but honestly like people, even then, are not usually presenting their own research project at like a conference or doing anything in the fields that is like being shared as an actual you know, work of importance I guess. And so for me particularly, again, I'm an traditional student. I have a whole history, a whole background that is detailed at length in previous episodes for this to make sense, but the parts that you really need to know or that I was a master's student, I was in my first wet lab, I was joining my first wet lab. I had done psychological research before, but it was not like neuroscience, neurobiology, working with my hands really on anything. And so I was very ignorant to the traditional research process, especially that of you know, putting together a project and presentations and all of that and publishing. Like I had no experience with any of it at the time, and I share that because it kind of sort of informed my blissful ignorance if you call it that to pursue my independent work so aggressively. I mean, which worked out, but like had I known and had I been almost like conditioned with the rules and what's typical and what's you know, the norm. Maybe I still would have done it, but it might have been a bit harder to have to unlearn all of that and to overcome even more imposter syndrome than I already had in this process. So anyway, I am just about to start with the wet lab that I was in for two years. I had you know, not really been someone like who presented a whole bunch of research. At that point, I had one poster session under my belt and that was from my psychological research work. And it was a virtual one because it was during the pandemic. So it wasn't even like a in-person presentation and it also was at my own institutions undergraduate it research symposium. So it wasn't at a conference dedicated to a topic where external reviewers are accepting someone for a presentation. Not that the undergraduate research symposium wasn't valid. It's just that I was expected to and was automatically accepted due to the fact that I was a student doing research there. So basically I had no experience presenting or any of that. And what happened was I'm just, you know, hanging out, learning, doing my thing. And I'm not going to get into all the nuances of the actual research project in terms of what I-- my spiel because number one, that's on the internet. And it's linked on my website. You can find it too. I will definitely be doing a full-blown episode on the actual topic and the project. But what you do need to know is how it came about and what the question was. So I should also say there was no start of the research project in that I sat down and was like, I'm going to develop an independent research project. I genuinely had no concept of what a project was, what being independent was. That was not my intention. This all completely happened from happen scans. So what happened was I was just sitting as a person consuming the information on the fields of psychedelics and psychedelic assisted therapy and all the clinical data, the neurobiological data. Because, of course, I am interested in the intersection of the two. And I was consuming it because ultimately that is what I wanted to pursue my research in. And I was not doing that during my masters because where I was at, that wasn't a line of research that was being pursued. So the way I navigated choosing a lab and getting mentorship was really like, I just needed to learn how to do the research. And I really wanted a good environment with a good mentor. And I wanted to study regions of the brain that would probably be important to what I would be doing in the future regarding psychiatric research. And so I know the amygdala was really important. And so I found a really awesome lab that did really, really amazing, like a wide range of techniques did really awesome research on the central amygdala and its role in chronic bladder pain and comorbid psychiatric conditions. And what it really gave me was the capability to learn how to do research, how to do so many of the things in the wet lab to conduct my own experiments to become resource as a person as a student who learns how to learn. Because I really think that's what most of this training is. It's to learn how to learn. And so all of that being said, like I was doing research in my lab and at my institution, that was not exactly like what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, but was extremely, extremely important to my development. And I'm so grateful I did do it. And it was a very conscious decision to do so because that is what was available to me. The institution I was at was very, very resourced in doing pain research. And so I found a lab that was doing very unconventional relative to other pain labs research that's still related to what ultimately I wanted to look at. Because typically people aren't looking at the amygdala for research or for pain. So that is a conversation for another day. But that's just to illustrate that I was not really, I wasn't doing psychedelic research like in my lab. I wasn't getting formally trained on it. Norma's I doing really true psychiatric research either. That was all like what I wanted to do. And so I naturally as someone interested in that was keeping up with the papers, keeping up with what was coming out, learning in school how to consume said papers and then applying that to a field that I wasn't studying on my own so that I could just keep up with it and hope and dream and be ready for when I could do that in future endeavors. And so in the process of all of that and on top of that, like being a patient myself, like I kept up with the research because I was interested for myself. And what I could pursue was a patient given my diagnoses and what I've been going through. And I'm sure if you've listened to this podcast, you know that I have a pretty long psychedelic history of personal use and just overlaying that with the clinical applications and how I could resource myself. And again, those are all episodes that you can go listen to for all the contacts with that. But all of this to set the stage that here I am December of like 2021, just taking this all in really, really getting into the weeds of understanding MDMA assisted therapy for PTSD. And at the time, I was going through OCD treatment and PTSD treatment. And I was experiencing the unfortunate phenomenon of having this comorbidity of severe OCD and severe PTSD and how with that unique comorbidity, the treatments worked inversely a lot of the time to where OCD treatment made PTSD worse. And then my PTSD treatment made OCD worse. And it was really difficult to engage with either because of the other. And on top of that, my OCD and PTSD were what's known as their functionally dynamic in relationship. They were not separate and kind of just like treating when or treating the other. They latched on to each other and they interacted with each other in its content and the functions of my safety behaviors. And so basically as a patient, I was living through the experience of going through both treatments and struggling because of their unique comorbidity and how they impede on each other. And so with that lived experience, I started thinking about the fact that MDMA assisted therapy for PTSD seems to be very hopeful in terms of its advocacy rates and the published data and the trials that are coming out. It's very hopeful, very novel, very amazing. But I started thinking as someone who has comorbid OCD, if I were to do MDMA assisted therapy for PTSD, given what I know about PTSD treatments effects on my OCD and vice versa, how would I fare? And how is this trial and how is this treatment considering that comorbidity? Because what I also knew, the retreatment and through being part of this community and going through decades of suffering and misdiagnosis is that most people don't know about this comorbidity. Most treatment providers don't know about what real OCD is. They don't know how to actually treat OCD. Oftentimes, OCD is misdiagnosis PTSD or if someone has both only the PTSD is seen and compulsions are missed very often, especially mental compulsions and finding the function of the safety behavior is almost impossible for someone who is not trained in the distinct nature of both of their disorder, of both of these disorders. So I'm taking all this information from my lived experience. And I'm putting myself in the question of if I were to do MDMA assisted therapy for PTSD, how would that account for my OCD? So that was a total research question. That was just me trying to figure out honestly, because of how much I was suffering, like, would this be a viable option for me? Should I try to pursue joining a clinical trial, but I even be eligible, given my comorbidities, all of these things? So that led me to go down a rabbit hole of trying to understand how this trial or how this treatment protocol that should be, should it be approved, which is very close to being approved, would be the protocol for how this is done. Professionally and clinically. So I went down a rabbit hole of how this protocol is done, how it accounts for my comorbid OCD, how would it screen out for it? Is it accounting for it? Is treatment tailored for it? All of the things. And also, like, how is it accounted for, like, to parse out which one is what? And, you know, if the OCD flares up during treatment, if it's, you know, accounted for, that PTSD treatment can make OCD worse, if done incorrectly, all of that to say, in a sense, well, mostly, unfortunately, in terms of, like, the good of humanity and, like, what I wish I had found, it could also be construed as, like, productively, because it's spawned on entire research project for me that did benefit me in some way. But I wish I had never had to have done it. So therefore, unfortunately, I ended up finding basically on my preliminary results and from everything I was finding that my worst fears were confirmed. And my comorbid OCD in that scenario would not be considered at all, that it was completely neglected as a possibility. People were not screened out. And the treatment reflected as such, the treatments would be hypothetically, if I were to be in that scenario, make my comorbid OCD worse. And that made me really upset. First, I was in disbelief because I was like, how is this even possible? Like, there must be something I'm missing. There's something wrong with me or the way I'm looking this up and I'm just ignorant and I don't know how to find all these resources. But then, like, for months, I just kept looking and looking and looking and starting to talk to people involved in the fields who were involved in these trials and realizing that Perhaps I was not wrong and that was just completely missed. And so what happened was, by complete happenstance, at this point, I had been reading paper, so I was aware of the fact that journals were a thing and publishing was a thing. Not that I had ever done it before and I had never been close to doing so because I had never done enough research to be published. I had just joined the sweat lab, but I knew journals were a thing. And so I was subscribed to a psychedelic research forum. I'll put it that way. I don't want to name names, but a research forum that sent out an email saying that there was a call for paper abstracts, which means like submitting a summary of a paper that could be approved or not approved. And if it was approved, then you had the ability to publish a peer-reviewed article in a journal. And so there was going to be a special journal, specifically for MDMA, assisted therapy for PTSD, and they were looking for papers from graduate students and established researchers and postdocs and people from different professional identities to publish in this journal. And so I read this and I was like, whoa, what if I wrote about what I found? And again, I did not know at this point what went into publishing a paper. And so I was like, oh, they say graduate student, I'm a master student. That means I'm eligible for this. And what I now know to be true is like, what people typically mean by graduate students, like yes, graduate students do publish. In fact, that's like usually how they can graduate, at least in biomedical sciences. But it's after doing years and years of research on a specific funded research project with a mentor, with a supervisor and collaborators also that like publish it with them. So I ignorantly saw that and was like, okay, I am seeing this thing that like about comorbid OCD that I think needs to be out there. So maybe I could write an abstract. And so literally just completely on my own randomly with no help, a little obviously thought 'cause I sat down and wrote it. I just like ignorantly, I googled how to write an abstract and I wrote an abstract and posed this as a systematic review because a systematic review is a review of the literature using a very specific format to be thorough and to adhere to, to potentially either summarize the state of the field, even come with novel conclusions based on summarizing the state of the field. But to me that felt like what I was doing, given what I knew at the time. And so I framed it as a systematic review. I wrote an abstract. I did not write my results inside abstract. I just wrote what I was going to do. And the abstract did not necessarily give away that like the answers were negative. It was just like a critical evaluation of the field with my question. And I just like submitted it and I was so proud of myself. I was like, wow, I can't believe I'm doing this. Like this is so cool. But it didn't, I didn't realize that what I was doing, number one was going to spur on a whole project that would change my life. But also that what I was doing was like completely unprecedented and not normal. So here I was like, it was the beginning of 2022. I submit this and I felt like I should tell people around me like my PI, my mentor in my lab as well as some professors who were teaching me classes. Specifically, I remember my neuropharmacology class professor I really wanted to tell him because you know, my research was related to drugs. And I just started telling them like, hey, I submitted this abstract to a journal and like I kept getting responses like, what? Like really? That's wild. And they asked me so many questions. I showed it to them, blah, blah, blah. But then, you know, they're kind of like, okay, cool. And like I didn't really realize at the time how odd that was. And you know, they didn't really know what to say. So that's not something that's like at all typical of someone in that position. And then around like two months later, I still remember this. I got an email saying that my abstract was accepted. I could submit a manuscript. And I was like, what? 'Cause that felt like a really big deal to me. Even though again, I still didn't realize that like, this was not normal. But the fact that I hadn't written a paper, that was enough for me to be like, okay, this is very, this just got real. Like that means like actually it was six people who I had followed in the field who were extremely, extremely prevalent and significant who read this abstract to determine that it should be in this journal. Like that just blew my mind. And of course I felt like very, like I didn't, I couldn't do it. And like I, like an imposter. But it was still from the place of like, given that I should be able to do this, I'm unworthy and incapable. What I was still missing was the context that like, this is not something to begin with that anyone in my position as a master student alone would be doing. But once I got that accepted, I went back to the people who I'd originally told, which were my API and some professors around me and I told them that like, look, this got accepted. Like, should I write this? Should I do it? And they all had ideas and they all wanted to support me and they wanted to connect with you with people who might be able to help me 'cause this was their field. But they were really, really supportive and they were encouraging and they were really proud of me, which was really, really kind. But it did start to seepin that like this was not normal. This was not like typical. And so as that happened that was like around, I think April of 2022, there was a call for a competition called Psychedelics. It's a international competition and conference virtually for students in the psychedelic space who have ideas that want to turn it into a compelling and accessible 20 minute talk. And that people can apply and then some I finalists were chosen. And then from there you go through like a whole mentorship incubator to refine the talk, develop the talk, make the actual talk happen, record the talk, then that is judged and preliminarily. And then a finalist were chosen and then some really important researchers across the world in the field evaluate the finalists to then pick winners. And then everybody gets featured in this conference and then it gets put on the internet forever. And so that call for abstract for that competition came out and I, there's a part of me that was like, okay, well maybe if I have this paper that I could write, like I could record a talk and I could apply for this thing to try to get some help for people who know what they're doing, who have done this before, who have done this research, who could support me, and I could record a talk and this could be like something that helps me with this process. And so I was really scared and I remember as I do with most things, like I applied like literally right before the deadline, before midnight, like from my bed on my phone, I apply for way too many things on my phone. Like it's really bad, but it worked. I just, I mean, that was my form of avoidance and I did it and I applied, I didn't think there I would get in 'cause again, like who am I to get in, but I did get in. From there, I was chosen as a semi-finalist. I then brought this idea. I had like a whole list of things I wanted to say. It was pretty discombobulated 'cause I just had so much, I was so emotionally charged and I got to work with my amazing mentor through the psychedelics incubator and I really refined it into a talk and got clear on what I wanted to communicate. There was also like a time limit of 20 minutes. So like I really had to synthesize this and get it as clear and accessible as possible enough to where a layman could like understand my point, but then experts in the field felt like I was speaking validly and accurately without giving up some of the integrity of what I'm trying to say. So really striking that balance was so difficult and then I ended up recording the actual talk and I figured this process was really helpful because it's gonna help me form this into a paper and what I didn't expect to happen was that not only did I, end up getting into this thing in the first place and being a semi-finalist, but then I was picked as a finalist and then it got really real because then many top researchers in the field like PIs at the top institutions who've been doing this for decades, they were judging my talk and the other finalists talks and I didn't do this for like a winning purpose. I didn't do this for like, you know, proving that, you know, I'm better or anything like that. It was literally just to get some support on this and to get feedback, but then I got the ultimate feedback and somehow on top of the ultimate feedback, I also ended up winning this entire global competition which was it literally felt like a haze, like a complete, like what is even going on because I was participating in a sense competing against people who were under mentors doing legitimate, when I say legitimate, I mean like original research, the top grade, research, like funded fully just the traditional full blown way and they had the coolest ideas, the coolest results they were far more qualified in my mind than me and yet I was chosen as a winner. And again, it didn't inherently matter that I was the winner to me, but the fact that given the fact that I did this completely by myself with no help on my own just out of my mind, like from my lived experience inspiring me to ask questions and then start finding answers. Like it wasn't a project in my mind. It was just me talking about something I was passionate about that really spearheaded what came next. So I got this sense of accomplishment and in a sense like validation from people. It was like in a way like a version of peer review, except it wasn't peers. It was people that were you know way not my peers way above me, but in terms of academic legitimacy. But nonetheless like with this sense of the sort of validation, I was like, what if I start sharing this at conferences like in person and getting feedback from people who actually know what they're doing. So for me, I just I didn't really know much again about conferences and presentations and like what that entailed, but with my with the same blissful ignorance that I had about publishing, the same blissful ignorance I had about doing a global competition for people who are getting supervised. And then like me somehow coming out of it as a winner without any of the traditional background that people had or like structure to their project. I was like, okay, so I guess to in order to go to conferences and to share my research, I have to apply to present a poster, which I again had never done outside of a one virtual poster. So that entails typically like you know finding the conference and conference every conference is different, but they usually have either a research symposium or it's just an entire research conference. So they have a poster session. And so you apply and it's a pretty long extensive application where you write an abstract, you have to write all your affiliations and justify whatever and like all these things. It's very intense. And different poster sessions, or a different conference has some like different levels of competition, I should say. Like so some, you know, they really just want people like they need people to come present so they can fill up spots and so they'll kind of accept everybody. And then there's and because it's not that attended of conference and then there's other conferences that are extremely competitive and they only pick like the top one or five or 10% of people that apply. And so what you should know about what I'm about to say is on top of the fact that there are some poster sessions that are extremely, extremely competitive. Typically the most preferred form of presenting research is original research. And again, what I mean by original research is that you are collecting data and you are performing experiments or surveys qualitative or quantitative research directly supervised by your team, by your mentor, by that's affiliated with the university. That is overseen by legislative bodies that are applicable, whether that's ethics or you know, institutional review boards or animal handling protocols or whatever. Like it's fully supported and done in a traditional manner. That is the that is like what the if like if they're going to get a bunch of applications, they're going to take everything that is that put it at the top. Like irrespective of even reading them and determining the value of them. And then by definition and most research symposium, the symposia or poster sessions like say this is caveats like if you're going to present a or if you're going to submit like a review, a literature review, a systematic review, whatever it's going to be like of the lowest consideration and priority. So I already had a stack that stacked against me like from everything I just said about like without realizing I didn't know this at the time, but like I'm applying by myself as a single author with not a master degree like I'm a student. I have no affiliation. I mean I have an affiliation, but the project is not affiliated with a university or a center or a mentor or like literally anybody. And then on top of that, I also am the lowest priority type of research because it's a systematic review. So with all that being said, like I knew the first part or sorry I didn't know the first part. I didn't know like how absurd it was that I was submitting this without basically like a team or a mentor. I was doing this as a single author from now on. I'm going to call it single author and I'm afraid to that concept. So I didn't know how bizarre it was on a single author aspect, but because of reading through like the application of the first conference I applied to, which was the International OCD Foundation Conference in 2022, the research symposium, which is so full circle now given where I am with my involvement with the foundation and the work and the research. But anyway, it literally said spelled out like reviews of the lowest priority or like we won't be accepted. And on top of that, because that was the first one that like I applied to and went to, or actually the first one I went to, I applied to another and we'll get to that. On top of that, I also missed the deadline. I found this after the deadline and then I messaged two different emails to ask if I could still apply. One said no, the other one said yes, I manually sent in my application and I'm like, okay, there was just being nice because I said I also have OCD and I just, like, there's no way I'm going to get in because I am a systematic review and lo and behold, what do you know? I get in. So I'm like, okay, I somehow have to make this happen and I had to make sure I could get funding and award and the scholarship and all of that, but I ended up going and I don't want to skip. Okay, I'm trying to talk, I'm trying to talk through one conference at a time, but also like I applied to multiple at a time. So let me back up. I also had applied, like I just said, that was a second conference I applied to, but the first one I heard back from at that time, I had also applied to a conference. So this one was in July. I applied to another one in August called Psychedemia. So my thought process behind those two conferences plus society for neuroscience because I just was like, I want to get out there and try to do this was I was trying to find different fields and different spaces that would be able to understand different aspects of my research project to give me more feedback on like individual parts. So the International OCD Foundation Research Symposium would be the people who understand OCD and it's novel therapeutics the best and possibly even comorbidities. Psychedemia was a conference on psychedelic research with academic institutions which was in August of 2022 and that one was obviously from the psychedelic aspect and understanding like the parts related to the psychedelic trials and the exclusion criteria, the psychological and psychiatric effects, etc. And society for neuroscience was to really challenge myself and validate the whole aspect of my review that was neurobiologically related because I was like really on my own with that one and fully did that like completely just off of my own understanding and had no idea if I was on pace or not. So that's how I approached applying to those three. First I heard back from IOCDF and I ended up going to that then I ended up hearing back from Psychedemia also getting a travel grant award from Surace Research Foundation which was an added level of what the fuck and just so much support and legitimacy because again they're typically giving awards to research presenters who have a much more traditional background and project than me and it was very obvious to my abstract and yet they still gave me a very sizable award to make it financially possible for me to go because these all cost a lot of money. So I had those two experiences and then I was accepted to Society for neuroscience which that was like that I was like there's no way this is happening because of their extremely stringent rules and the fact that it's like so institutionally driven and it's there's such a systematic way of picking people and yet I still made it through that which really surprised the people around me and not to bore you with like a recap of every single conference but basically just what happened at those three was that I just kept getting faced with so much support and validation and each time I got asked questions these were from the experts in the fields that I knew of and luckily I'm really bad at faces so sometimes I would like not realize who was talking to me until they were talking to me and like until they left did I realized or saw their badge at the end or whatever like I was just met with so much support and understanding and questions and excitement and interest and then even more so like people like top investigators in the field like commenting on the fact that I was a single author presenter and really you know giving me props for that which is kind of the way I started realizing that what I was doing was really weird because number one nobody else around me was like physically I could see on the posters that was in the case but then also people who I really respected would also give me compliments and affirmation about the fact that I did this by myself, which then I started realizing was really weird because like the fact that they kept pointing out that was so odd was probably because it was so odd. But they also just started really extending me a lot of invitations of future collaboration and support. And I started building connections and meeting people on Zoom and talking about admissions to programs and next steps and just being connected to people and research in ways I never would have otherwise at that stage in my life without this project and that really set the stage for so much of what came after. So what's important to kind of get and synthesize from those experiences because there were so many because I did those three conferences, I did a few more, I did some online presentations and in the process of that I ended up winning a few awards from these conferences for outstanding presentations, best poster, etc. and my CV started really stacking up in a way that was so beyond what I felt like I looked like on paper from a traditional standpoint because again, this is all happening outside of what I'm doing in my lab, all of the you know wet lab original research work I'm doing, the training I'm getting and like obviously I have not produced enough data to have presented at conferences at this point yet or I hadn't at the time I have now and you know to then have even like one awards and given an international talk and all of those things right. So on the one hand, the training I had within the my institution, like the very traditional like the typical training if anyone like reflected that I was involved, I was learning and I was doing research but not to the point where I had been doing it for years and I had I had lots of presentation and communication experience. I had been peer reviewed that I had been awarded for my work like I that that's not where my wet lab work was at which is fine and it's completely valid it's where I was at and that's perfectly normal but then I had this other side of my work in life that was unrelated to my traditional work other than the fact that I did have I was a student at the university but like I had all of this stuff on my CV like in my repertoire that was reflective of someone who has been like out there presenting my research, my findings being awarded and validated by numerous institutions and organizations and being given money for these things, being given scholarships and grants and awards and it just really didn't compute for a while to me because I was really only seeing myself from the traditional lens and it felt like this alternate reality that I was living in that like did it feel like what translate to getting me where I wanted to go because ultimately all of this only matters to be able to further me as a researcher right and so what that means in tangible words is like either graduating ultimately with my masters and then going and pursuing some sort of job that with industry or organization to do research in that fashion or to go get a PhD to get the highest degree that exists academically and to continue to do academic research and that is also a job it's also a degree though and either way I had no idea how this like alternate world that I was living in would at all plug into getting me to where I wanted to go if at all and so there's a part of me because of how strange and uncharted and bizarre this whole experience was the fact that again like for the pillion of time like I had no mentor on this like I was single author that was pointed out to me a million and ten times though it never excluded me too much because I got into what I applied for and what I also found out is that the things I applied for were extremely competitive I forgot to mention that part so I kind of assumed that because I got into these conferences that like these were just the type of conferences that except at E1 and then I would go there and talk to people who had been coming for years who'd been who would say that people who had been previously accepted were rejected and that this was an extremely competitive cycle and I was like wow so somehow I and my project was able to not only get past the like competitive barrier but then also on top of that being like being at the lowest end of the pile still making it through like they must see something in this project and so I have this whole you know world going outside of my very humble normal like typical and very important regular quote unquote work and I just I consider not even thinking about my independent work I didn't even at the point like have the words research project like it felt so almost wrong or just like it just didn't compute to me that this is a project but it was a project because I was doing legitimate research field work with it and presenting it and even getting published abstracts out of it like literal publications from this work like it was a project but it was so hard to compute that and then when it came to so for timeline wise again started this the end of 2021 beginning of 2022 presented it one awards at all the things like through 2022 and then I was faced at the last quarter 2022 of like because I was going into my final year of my masters and I didn't know what I was going to do from there I was faced with potentially like do I apply to PhD programs and what's really important to note about this and I talk at length about this in other episodes so please go listen to them about my experience with graduate school and applying and my stats and like all of the things but what's important for this story to note is that I on paper with just what I was doing in my lab in my institution with my degree completely without this project on paper compared to the rest of people applying in this cycle I was not the most competitive candidate I was probably not even close I there's there's two bear there's two levels of evaluating this at least in my perspective there's having enough and then being competitive so I had enough in that I had the qualifications to be considered like versus being thrown out because like I don't even have research experience or because I don't have the grades or whatever like I had enough but then when you then people who make it to the enough pile then get evaluated on like competitiveness pile it's really based on how you compare it to other candidates and so frankly like I did not have much compared to other people because I have a very nautical path I came in very quote-unquote late whatever that means this was very new to me I did have time under my belt but it was not as much or with as much diversity as other people and in terms of experiences I did not have publications like from my lab and I was just greener and so just off of like basically if you erase my independent project I would not likely have been competitive or gotten into any institution like and not to not to necessarily be in rankings just to make a point like I wouldn't have gotten into any institution let alone you know elite institutions like the one I'm in right now and like that just simply would not have happened and I completely own that and that is what makes this so mind blowing to me because like had I not done this project I would not be doing a PhD I wouldn't have gotten into like a safety school I wouldn't have gotten into anything and I would likely either have had a job or I would if you I was really you know just committed to doing this PhD I would probably have to have done multiple years more of research outside of my masters not like one more year like multiple years more in different labs to become competitive I with that reality with thinking about that and at the point I can say this now like looking back contrasts the tube in my mind at the time like I wasn't fully considering that there was an alternate possibility that had I have had I then like counted everything I did outside in my independent project and had I shared that in my application like there would be a chance I was just thinking like oh there's just I don't have a chance like I'm not competitive I suck blah blah and then I have this other stuff that like makes me look weird but the only thing that really changed anything for me and like even considering that I may have a delusional chance and again this stuff is like there's so much more to this analysis especially as an architectural student that does not belong this episode so I'm not going to go in depth this has been recorded in previous episodes please listen to that if you're interested in the full story because there's a lot of value outside of the independent project. to. But what really changed for me to even consider applying, let alone the way I ended up applying only to like seven programs and they were seven of the hard programs I planted earth to get into was like I told you at these conferences I started going to and presenting these posters I would meet these PIs who were like my heroes, the people who did the work I wanted to do that were the people that would ultimately be picking me for a PhD program and they were reaching out to me to want to talk to me and to want to mentor me and recruit me to their program and they were the ones who were looking at what I was doing and using that as a reason why I was qualified or more qualified or desirable as a candidate which was really a mind-fuck because like they could clearly see it and we had conversations about the history and backstory behind this project and the fact that it was completely alone which again was completely just they so many of them said the same thing to me they were like I've never seen a single offer poster before that wasn't like a PI and they were just really impressed by my independence and what I actually like my actual project and like the result and just they interpreted what I was doing as you know novelty perseverance like being unique and being uniquely qualified to do research because I showed what it takes to do research in their mind and so because I kept having these conversations over and over and being asked to apply and being told that they would vouch for me in application cycles and you know I could put their name down on my application and blah blah blah and then following up with me and meeting people over and over I was in I was caught in this delusion between two worlds of like on the one hand with like all of my normal stuff I don't stand a chance on the other hand I'm in this like warp of all these people telling me that they're gonna take me on so like I should apply and so thank goodness I ended up just doing it I just ended up applying to again full story previous episodes you can hear all about that but I applied and then like I wrote about this in my personal statements and obviously my CV I included everything I had done and then at that point when I applied I had even more to include it wasn't just the posters I had then been accepted to present at international conference I was invited to in Europe to present later in 2023 which I included in my CV is like forthcoming I also received a sizable amount of funding for my project a lot of things were happening it was just really blowing up and like all that was included at the time lucky me and more awards and whatever and so I had no precedent for how to communicate this in my application because again nobody does this so I didn't have anyone to ask on like how do I talk about this and why I did this and this very structured way of applying to graduate school like and I had to completely chart my own path and doing that and basically I risked everything and yeah I had some people look at it like some of my peers some of my mentors but none of them had anything concrete and definite definitive to say to me other than how they would interpret it themselves because they have never done this they don't evaluate people who do this so this is just like completely doing something and talking about things that people don't talk about in their personal statements and again if you listen to my previous episodes you can hear about how I did that also regarding my disclosure as an optional student and my lived experience and a lot of things I did everything differently and that's typically not received very well in academia but I did it and I communicated it basically like I gave an outline of everything I had done traditionally and then I ended my experience with this all led me to a pursue my this independent project that has resulted in blah blah blah blah and explain the part like you know how whatever you say in a personal statement and so submitted all of this didn't know if I would be taken seriously and what side of either like I had no chance or I had a pretty decent chance if I were to get interview with one of these institutions and then got the interviews and from there it became then having to convey this verbally in interviews to multiple people who were evaluating me and like really balancing like this is explaining my traditional background and like what sets me up as a wet lab scientist like the very tangible like mentorship and work that I received and done and then also adding all of the presentation experience all of the independent work and really framing it like I was empowered to use my training and my skills to do something completely on my own outside of my wheelhouse that's out of my institution that is yielded very positive results and it worked out because I am now at the PhD program that I never ever thought I would have a chance of getting into in the next like three to five years let alone now and it was about how I framed it and so from there I mean the magic happened I feel like it really like opened up so many doors for me mentally and also in my life to see that something I started completely, inherently completely on my own led me to this very there were many tangible outcomes right like every presentation every acceptance every award every fund every grant like everything was a tangible outcome I could though attribute that to luck in a way I mean I guess you could attribute anything to luck if you think hard enough but there was such a rigorous process of getting into an elite PhD program that fully considered every aspect of me that was shared including this project and then chose to bring me in because of it amongst people that had so much more traditional experience in me like that really just opened something for me of what is possible to do and forage fourth in one's life if you just do stuff like if you just do things and you break rules and you just ignorantly try and do things differently and I wasn't trying to do anything differently I didn't know it was different I was just doing and it happened to be different and when I found out it was different it did scare the shit out of me but I remember when I was far I was already too in and I was so passionate about what I was doing because of the lived experience component especially because I cared so much about what I was talking about that I did it anyway if nothing else then for just personal experience even if it meant nothing to my CV or worked against me later but then it like it led to this impossibility which was so wild because it wasn't just me who thought it was impossible like if you'll listen to my other episodes you will hear in detail like the people around me my mentors like program heads who were unfamiliar with my work like just on paper my traditional experience and the way I disclose like was not in my favor to work out and yet it did with just doing things differently and like putting my hands up and I think it's even more special that it wasn't just independent it wasn't just like random it was also completely rooted in my lived experience and coming full circle to the beginning of my story like this all came from because I live with this comorbidity so I started thinking about how as a patient I would experience this line of research how it would affect me as a person which then led me to put my researcher hat on and just explore it and go down so many different rabbit holes and then it just turned into a project like I didn't really turn it into a project it turned into a project on its own and because of how much it expanded me like it took me to even further even further places like the ability to mentor other people in pursuing their own independent project themselves like I was able to full circle coach some participants through psychedelics and all of my mentees and that being finalists one of them was a winner and her project was also completely independent very very similar to my different topic but based on her lived experience and then asking questions based on the current state of research and being able to pay that forward was something that I don't think I would have ever had the courage to do had I not had the proof in a sense that like it could be done in a way that worked for me and not against me in terms of what I very much wanted to do in this world with my research and with academia and it's led me to just keep reaching for different pursuits and heights like again presenting across the world at the largest psychedelic conference in Europe as a not even master's holder at the time receiving a very supportive financial award to go do that from source research foundation again you know like soliciting collaborators for future directions of this project to actually publish it not in the journal that I had initially submitted it to because that's another conversation for another day but a better journal a more robust and journal with integrity let's just put that way grateful for the experience though and just so many possibilities and it just it's also a project that lets me advocate so strongly for OCD because in order to explain the research, I have to explain what OCD is and how it's actually treated. And so that has inadvertently led me to advocating to and educating thousands, thousands of clinicians, psychiatrists, therapists, researchers, and humans, so just regular humans who don't do those things on what real OCD is and that's not counting the people that are able to now watch my conference talks on the internet or hear me on podcasts, but just in person, the number of conversations, like truly thousands of conversations and people have been able to educate on real OCD and also the comorbid day of OCD and PTSD would never have been possible without this project. And it really changed me and my advocacy and realizing like how much my advocacy, like my values lead me to advocate outside of the OCD community so I can reach people who don't know about it because it keeps me constantly involved with the vast majority of people in our fields who don't know what it is and to really be at that edge of educating and advocating to people who need to learn about it rather than the people who already know. And it also really empowered me to live at the intersection of lived experience and research because I was here presenting this research and I got asked so many times by some of my heroes, these top researchers and clinicians and also people that were like a lot of people ask me 'cause the way I presented it kind of seems obvious at the end that this is a question that should be asked or like how did you come up with this question? Like how did you come up with this project, especially 'cause single offer? And so the answer is because I have it myself. So I asked this question for myself and everybody who lives at the like I do and to be and the way I presented this research at like professional conferences is always with the timeline of my own mental illness to take my story to illustrate the patient who would potentially be harmed by this treatment. And so it's completely shaped the way I show up as a researcher and an advocate and has given me a platform and a capability to be completely out of the closet in every sense of the word. Like in terms of my lived experiences and identities that you can hear in previous episodes me rant about like the compartmentalization and the stigma against people who live with different illnesses and conditions and I've just like blown that disclosure door out of the water. Okay, that metaphor didn't make sense, but you get what I'm saying. It's just it is just completely redefined the way I show up and I'm just paving my own path as an advocate, as a researcher, as someone pursuing this project as all of it. And I'm also doing the traditional stuff clearly within a PhD, within my training and all of this too. And there's, that's exactly the reason why I wanted to share this with you today. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - So the tangible parts of my story that I really, really want to get across that can truly be taken by anyone and can be run with. And however that looks like is, let's start with the fact that number one, you can pursue your own research project. Now granted, there are so many limitations to that. Like I was doing a systematic review. I was analyzing data that currently exists from many different domains and doing it in a systematic manner that I decided. And I then came to novel conclusions based on putting all those pieces together. So I guess to make it a metaphor. Like I didn't generate the puzzle pieces. I didn't like physically draw anything or like design it or generate the cardboard. But I did put the pieces together in a way that turned into my puzzle. So with that, you can also do that. There is, if you have a question and you want to assess something, you can do that. And you can do that by yourself. Now you also probably should consider your level of training and the integrity and merit of what you're actually studying. And which is a question that I had and continue to still have 'cause I'm always checking myself, 'cause I'm a scientist with healthy doubt and also pathological doubt for Moisee D, but I'm joking. I'm not joking, anyway. So you definitely should check yourself, but it is possible and the way to check yourself is to do it and then to get feedback whether it is by presentations, by just reaching out to people, by sharing, by networking, anyway. And get it from your peers, get it from the people you respect from the leaders in your field and get their opinions. And also if they want to collaborate with you as a result, that's amazing. But even more so that leads me to my next point in order to get feedback and opinions, push yourself out there and apply to different places to present, different conferences, different symposia, different events, even science communication events. There are so many places you can be sharing this. Of course, be mindful if it's a science communication event of the audience and making sure that you are including your references and caveats and being very clear with an audience who may not know how to consume research and may not know that you are putting out information that is not fully vetted or understood, right? So just make it very clear that these are just ideas and your perspective and your current project that's in progress, but all that to say, like apply to things and my biggest advice is apply to everything and you, it's fine if you get rejected, but you never know if you're gonna get a yes and you're gonna get a, you're gonna get an acceptance and how much that could change your life. And, you know, there's countless resources if you haven't done this already, if you haven't presented a poster or a talk. Typically, you're probably not gonna get a talk super quickly. It means you need to be more established to get a talk, but like, even so, for both things, you can figure out how to do them on the internet. I mean, I learned most of what I did via the internet, but also like there wasn't really a framework to do what I did. Like, I didn't never, I didn't know how to make a systematic review poster, so it was a lot of like, iterating over time and just like learning from experience and doing what made sense for me. But yeah, just like teach yourself and apply to things and rejections are fine. They teach you how to write better and submit abstracts and get experience putting yourself out there, but the best thing that can happen is that you get acceptances and you're able to share. And now you have a precedent via me that you can do it as a single author and you can have original ideas from data and from literature that exists out there. And it is valid and it can be accepted to be presented at very respectable institutions and conferences with people who are the best sources of review. By that same token, apply that logic to awards as well. Apply for awards, apply for travel awards, for research awards. And I guess when I say apply, I mean, these are the kinds of awards that you get prior to the actual presentation to support you in that presentation. But then also inadvertently for the most part by putting yourself into a situation where you're getting evaluated such as a research symposium, they're going to then on their own assess for best presentation and whatnot through the abstracts and also through presentations. So both apply for awards and then just know that there is possible to also win awards by getting in the door and doing the work and being evaluated. Like I was mind blown oddly enough. Like I had won the virtual award, but then to do my presentation at Psychedemia and win an outstanding presentation award. Like I didn't even know awards were happening. I didn't know that they were evaluating at the very end. They announced like two poster awards. And I was one of them. Like that would never have happened had I not applied and gotten in and showed up and done the thing. And I couldn't have applied for it. It just happened by doing so. So just know that so much as possible. And whenever you can apply when it's a travel grant or a scholarship or even awards, there could be awards for projects in general. Like apply for them. There is no harm applying. And if you get rejected, you get rejected. It's fine. There's so much, there's so many other awesome people cheer them on. But like you could also get it and it could change your life. So just the bigger takeaway from all of that is just put yourself out there and give yourself an opportunity. And if you think it's not possible, do it anyway. Unless like there's explicit rule saying like, you need to be this or that or have this thing you don't. And then maybe email them and ask them if there's an exception. But because there's no harm in that too. But really truly like the world is your oyster. Much more as possible than we're told as possible. And had I listened to the conventions and followed the guidelines and rules of what should be done, I would not be here doing what I'm doing. I would be on a such a different timeline. I'm not going to say it's like less than or worse. But it's certainly not what I'm doing now. And what I'm doing now, I am in such awe and gratitude and joy for. So I attribute so much of that to look and to just being in the right place at the right time. It did though come from decisions. I didn't realize what would come from those decisions. But it came from decisions of just fucking Fuck around and find out. out and find out and try and just do it. And blissful ignorance helped but given the fact that you probably don't have the blissful ignorance I do let this instead expand you to do it anyway, even with the knowing that it's not typical because now you know that you don't need to be typical to get what you need. So, I will end my soap box there. But if anyone has any more questions, if you want to know more about any part of the story, about specifically applying for things, I'm happy to send my materials to you, happy to do more episodes. Like these solo episodes are hugely coming from questions I get from y'all. Otherwise, I just be putting interviews out. And I live for being able to support you all and sharing my experience and making sure that you don't feel alone and you feel supported and like you have a confidante and a mentor to encourage you to do things differently if that is what your life looks like. If that's your identity looks like and just know that you're not alone and I'm here to pump you up every single time and to tell you everything I know because I experience it so that I can share. And that is my ethos. That's why I have this space, why I ramble on here for hours and hours and so I will stop here. But thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for supporting the show. Thank you to so many of the new people who have tuned in. Like so many new listeners have joined in in the last several weeks probably because of being able to interact with me at other events and finding the podcast. I'm so so excited to have you. So thank you for joining this community. I'm so so excited to have you here and for you to experience just the connection and validation and honesty and openness that this entire beautiful community brings together and I can't wait to keep talking to you on future episodes. As always, if you loved this episode, if you're loving this show, then please support me in a few ways. That would mean the world to me. So number one, if you can just take five seconds to subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening, that way you will get episodes first and it really, really supports this show to be able to be shown to more people so that more people can join our community in our space. 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And most importantly, just thank you for being here and thank you for receiving me with so much love and just know I am sending all of that love and care right back to you. I'm so grateful and honored every single week to hold space with you and to just witness you and all of your magic and just know that you are not alone and we are all here to better doing things. So thank you for being here. I can't wait to see you next time on the Acceptive Shout With Booba. Have a beautiful day.