Neurodivergence and Chinese Culture with Sharen Lui

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Michelle and I met at work and bonded over a shared love of feminism and yoga. We saw the need to provide a free resource to adult neurodivergent women and so the neurodivergent woman podcast was born. This is a podcast where we centre and showcase neurodivergent women from all walks of life, bringing clinical expertise and lived experience to the topics we explore. Covering autism to ADHD and everything in between, we aim to educate and inspire women who think differently. Sharon Lui is a neurodivergent, educational and developmental psychologist and the director of Sprout Psychology in Melbourne. Sharon specialises in neurodivergence within Asian communities. She supports families with assessments, therapy and culturally responsive mental health support. So Sharon, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. I'm so really happy to have you and just an FYI for our listeners, we're not able to do the interview today because Michelle and I are in Brisbane and we're in the aftermath of cyclone Alfred which was luckily downgraded to a tropical low when it hit the coast of Brisbane. But yeah, we have been dealing with a little bit of uncertainty and we're just glad that it all worked out today to be able to have you on Sharon. Yes and thank you for having me today. It's a pleasure to be on. Oh, thank you. All right, so let's dive in. As usual, the first question that we ask is what does neurodivergence mean to you? I think to me neurodivercity is beautiful. In Sprout Psychology, we have a statement more like a motel. Every plant is unique, flourishing in its own way. It's always every person. From tenders past to deeply rooted trees, we all have our own path. We need nourishment, sunlight and the right environment to grow. And some of ours may need extra care or support to truly blossom. Just as we all have unique needs and strengths that's human. So at Sprout Psychology, we see the strength and the resilience within the person, just like a plant weathering life-stormed. So to me neurodivercity, it's beautiful. It's essential for human advancement. Where would we even be without the unique perspectives and contributions of neurodivergent individuals without history, in politics, science, the true art and social movements, those who challenge norms and even pushing their boundaries? My journey with Asian neurodivergians started with my work with adults. I've seen the harm caused by non-affirming practices that prioritise conformity, control and suppress autonomy. This along with my past 10 years of experience, understanding the origins of mental health challenges, many rooted in unacknowledged neurodivercity, deeply shaped my establishment of Sprout Psychology Melbourne. Hence our efforts and mission as we prevent harm through impactful therapy and cycle education because the end product of non-affirming practices can be devastating. Well, thank you for sharing Sharon. It's really powerful and I love the motto on your practice's website. I think that's really beautiful. So when did you first realise that you were neurodivergent and what was that like for you? So when I was proficient in the registered decade and more ago, I was sitting in many of my supervisors sessions with adults. So that's where I started in the adult space. And back then it was more on self-discovery for people. And I remember one day sitting there looking quite blank as one of the stories and reflection of the person's past resonates almost fully to mine. What was it like for you as a psychologist in training a provisional psychologist when you really resonated with that person's story and thought for the first time, oh, I might be neurodivergent. My initial reaction would obviously be speaking to my supervisor about I see those traits in me, but that was really back in 11 years ago, I think. These clients, I actually work in non-Asian-specific populations first. So for me to realise that is a very slow progress. The first reaction is obviously to reflect these with the supervisor, but my initial response was did not think that I am neurodivergent. And I think that's still the case when you speak to many people and they do not think that you're neurodivergent because you manage so many things, you present yourself well, you have a clinic with 13 psychologists now. So it's not possible that this could relate. So my initial response was they don't think I'm neurodivergent. And I was back in that phase that I'm not sure whether I'm neurodivergent's work would at least five years. And then you become more experienced, you see more, you practice more, you work with families more. It's a very interesting journey, what shapes it into now. There is yet still a lot to learn about neurodivergent itself. And the current understanding in our clinical population, as Asian communities and those who are practicing in CLLD, LD, Cald communities, themselves might still be learning. So for our listeners, the term Cald, C-A-L-D that Sharon just shared with us means culturally and linguistically diverse. And just pulling some threads of things that you shared Sharon, it sounds like it was quite an internal journey. And I know for a lot of neurodivergent people, but particularly women and those people who were assigned female at birth, that it can be a very internal long journey, getting to the point of, you know, realization and feeling settled within that. There can be a long period of going back and forth, like am I neurodivergent and being like, yes, I am. And then going, oh no, like, what about this or this or this, maybe I'm not. And that can take a lot of energy and be quite unsettling, you know, sitting with that ambivalent, so over a long period of time and just like the different conflicting, I guess, messages and stereotypes of the different forms of neurodivergence, sometimes also impact people on that journey of self-realisation too. So thank you for sharing about your realization journey. How does being neurodivergent impact the different areas of your life? As an Asian woman, I think it impacted my interpersonal relationship. Navigating them is very hard. Never getting roles such as a daughter, a wife, a friend and a mum were very, very hard. Being recognised in these roles seems almost impossible in today's standard as a woman and as an Asian woman, even more so. I don't think there are anyone around that specifically have the awareness or knowledge or experience of how this interplay. So I think that constitutes to why it was most difficult in that journey at the beginning? Yeah, I think that's a really good point, Sharon, because when we look at intersectionality and that's something that we have talked about on the podcast before I believe in season two with page Wilcox. When we talk about intersectionality of identities and social roles and culture, the more minority status that you belong to. So particularly in Australia, we are quite a Caucasian, white-dominated country. So if you fall within identifying as Asian or some other minority, there really isn't much supervisors or resources or guidance on at that time and it's a bit better today, but neurodivergence in adults generally and being more affirming. But then as you go into looking at neurodivergence in Asian culture and then again zooming into Chinese culture, like every time you kind of add another layer of identity to that, the resources are fewer and fewer. It's not something that gets talked about as much. You don't see people like yourself, you know, being represented in, you know, podcasts and books and TV shows. So it can be quite isolating and that's part of the reason why, you know, we wanted to get people on who have that lived experience of being neurodivergent and having different cultural identities so that they can share this information because it's still not really talked about, you know, and there's not much guidance for people. Yes, very true. And, you know, part of my work is advocating, but also starting on this journey or ideas to support people, to let them know that they're not alone. It sounds like, you know, identifying with your cultural identity, like being an Asian woman has really impacted, you know, your navigation of realizing that you were neurodivergent and then, you know, how it has impact different parts of your life. So I think it would be really important for us to go through what is the perception in terms of Chinese culture around neurodivergence, like what are some of the norms within Chinese culture around it and do the different social norms in that culture vary around the different types of neurodivergence as well. I think it would be great for us to unpack that. Yes. So autism is a widely not fake, but it's that term autism means seclusion and this interest in the world. So first of all, the term itself was quite misguiding. When I first worked in clinical population for some years, there were many people from the population that presented with neurodivergent traits, autism traits. And when I started as an early career, I used to tell them, I think I know what you've got, but it's not that simple. And this is a story I tell my registrars and students that people could simply withdraw from their sessions. They cannot accept it or hear it. Now, we're gaining momentum now with social media in China and in Asian countries this days. There's more awareness to ADHD, but there's also still a very narrow understanding of autism, although I see hope that we are raising the awareness. So Sharon, it sounds like there is a bit more awareness through social media and different avenues and if we just as an example, I can think of on Netflix, there was a show called Something like Special Attorney Wu, which is about it's like a South Korean K-drama about an attorney who is autistic. And I really loved that show. I thought it was fantastic. But yeah, it sounds like for quite a long time, there probably wasn't much society level awareness of neurodivergencies. And like I know in a lot of other societies or cultures, like the English culture, there can be like negative perceptions or stigma around being different or not doing things a certain way. Has that been part of some of the different Chinese culture, cultural perceptions around neurodivergences in the past? So we don't have a lot of options around the usage of words, whereas if autism, we can use autistic and autism itself doesn't seem to have a negative connotation around it, whereas we do not today have words that could describe it and deviate from what we call it as, if I say it in Chinese, it's a bi-jung is a self-enclosed disease or the disease of loneliness. It's there's no, you know, the disease or that this auto part could be manipulated, but not the loneliness and seclusion and you know, withdrawal and disinterest. These parts is not available for us to change and also understanding unlike English words, they are formed, you know, to individualies, in letters, but Chinese words are more like character base that carries the meaning. So it's very challenging just from the terms and I love to include these because I've been having chats with international alliances. I've been having a chat with other, you know, people on social media and I met this person from Canada who we have these discussions around the terminologies, the difficulties of translating these more westernized ideas or social movement with the new diversity affirming paradigm to the Chinese or called community and I think she reminded me that it's not that easy, it's not that we could take these ideologies or these ideas that we know of and dump it right onto our own culture. So it's important that how we balance that between good and harmful and that brings back to us practitioners that are learning these things in a western culture. We are the breaches of these knowledge to our own culture and we are only, the only people that could do it. I think going back to when I initially started introducing the idea very early on in my career to families that, you know, with all honesty, I do think that person or that child is presenting as autistic and ADHD. I remind my registrars and students that what is better is that better to scare them away and they don't look at this idea for the next five or ten years, which I've seen those people in five or ten years or is it better to just be where they are at? Understand how much of an acceptance can they tolerate? And obviously that my teaching is to go with them, even though you personally might not think that it's helpful, do what is helpful to the family now at this current page. And it's so hard and I emphasise on flexibility in the way you work with clients but also how you adjust yourself to be at where they are at. So Sharon, what would be the terminology for ADHD within the Chinese culture and language? So there are a few in Mandarin Chinese. They actually call it "dottomten", so that actually just focuses on the hyperactive subtype. So there's not, then you could see that there might not have been that much understanding of the inattentive subtype. There might be more understanding with the combined and the impositivity of the hyperactive subtype, but it's not really in that Mandarin term. So in other places, they're like Singapore and Hong Kong, they might be, they might use the term inattention as well. So it's a very, very lengthy word, "Junjuliksatiu, go to the word yutzing". That's how long it is. And that's I just spoke in Cantonese. So then everything translates to the linguistic first. How do people communicate these things to the community if there are so many complexities around terminology and an application and an even accuracy of dynases there? Because when we talk about these safety things, we're still basing it on the assumption that that they are accurately diagnosed, which is not really the case in a lot of Asian countries. - In a way, it is a little bit ironic. Just from an outsider point of view, that the kind of phrase for inattentive that you demonstrated is so long. (laughs) It's just like, yeah, so. - The Chinese menu is speaking family, which makes up like 80% of the Chinese population here actually refer to the impulsive subtype. So when we raise that in the actual sessions and say, "Hey, I'm the good one." It's very lengthy and they believe in the shorter version, which only depicts the hyperactivity. So they don't actually think that, oh, I don't think I have it. I don't think much of it. And all of that. It's just so many barriers and layers mean to our practices. There's practitioner knowledge. There is community knowledge. There's terminologies. There is even accuracy of diagnosis. - Yeah, and translation of concepts between different cultures and language. It's so complex. (upbeat music) So if we are thinking about neurodivergence through the social model of disability, so within the neurodiversity affirming movement, rather than the medical model, which is often what a lot of psychologists and health professionals are trained within, it's important to also expand this to include the cultural model of disability. That is exploring cross-cultural differences in what is considered, quote unquote, normative behavior or normal behavior. Because this shows us where the potential friction points might be for neurodivergent people. For example, in Western culture, we tend to be very individualist focused with the perception that everyone should be able to function completely independently and to a, quote unquote, normative point. And this can be really challenging for a lot of neurodivergent folk. So I'm wondering, are there any cultural norms in Chinese culture that you see affecting neurodivergent folk? - That is a very great question, Monique. Like how does it differentiate? What is the deviation even? And like you said, Western culture no focus is on individualism, self-expression, whereas us in Asian culture, we start with withdrawal from families, and not understanding or actively applying the traditional concepts and theories of moral righteousness. And I would talk about them bit by bit in the next, concepts such as, not concepts like culture actually, of philopiety, the virtues, make up a large part of the differences. So authoritarian parenting has only just begun to fade a little in from the wide generational width. So philopiety is the virtue of exhibiting love and respect for once. Parents, elderly and sisters, and particularly within the context of confusion theories. We are talking about these traditional theories that has the age of two and a half millennial before today. So I'll explain a little bit if we have Asian background families or listeners, philopiety is Xiao Shan, Hausan. In general term, it means, but now I'm going back to explaining this to our Western or English-speaking listeners, is to be good, is to take care of our parents, is to engage in good conduct, not just towards parents, but also outside of the homes, and show respect and love and wisdom. Now that is very hard if you can think about, these are more asking for unconditional following of these concepts here. So children are expected to be obedient, be respectful, be supportive, be understanding, and follow the broader family agenda. If you know about neurodiffergent people, these each of these are very hard to be followed. You know, the awareness, the application of these awareness to extend to different situations. These are one of some of the many unspoken norms to date. And they are concepts such as, philial morality comes first in a term, Beijing is always said. And there's even a law now. I think it was in 2013 to protect the elderly's, to carry on this virtue or philopiety. Now, there seem to be differences and also difficulties because not only if it's hard for the younger generations to understand and adapt, but it's also maintained by the older generations as it's linked even directly to the actual health and wellbeing. So that's one concept. In addition to philial piety concepts, historically and still to date, women have these specific expectations. And I'm giving a bit of a historical differences here. It's almost 2000 years ago where there were books on female conduct, lessons for women, Lu Jie, Lu Lian Yu, lessons outlines the virtues of women that they must abide with. And I can just give a basic sense, you know, these, their forefings, we have to, like that will not us now, but proper virtue, we have to demonstrate proper virtue, proper speech, proper facial expressions, or face, and proper conduct. There's an old saying that women are virtues if they are not talented. So my goodness. (laughs) It started to change when the more modern Chinese history, as we know, there's a mouse even fluent as well to date. There's a term that he kind of coined. Women can uphold half the sky. Nurendan Sermonshi Bantian. Interestingly, that movement coincides with another historical lesson. Only towards the end of 19th century is where women start to receive more formal education. We still influence by, you know, where they are at, democratically in China. It's very large. We have the city population. We also have the village population. But that's already where it's up to, you know, emerge more proper, you know, having that thinking that woman can be educated. And most modern women now obviously have the education and that way we influence by the idea of gender equality. But what's interesting is, you know, we talk about mouse, what he just said, that woman get up all half the sky. Thinking back then, it creates a lot of confusion because, you know, women still have the traditional roles of looking after the family, feeding, looking after the elderly, but they also kind of ask to work, to contribute. There was something that someone said, one of the scholars back then, you know, we know that, you know, this is the concept of new woman, that as a social economic trend and the reform, more linked to the political backgrounds and things like that. How do we actually do this? How do we actually achieve agenda equality? And this scholar coined it as, it seems to be in the parallel universe where, you know, we know these concepts and we are, you know, we're moving on and we, you know, improving, this is more than, well, now. The, the bridges are invincible, invisible. Now, the old and society gave woman the lower status and that is, you know, in addition to being exploited and oppressed by old Chinese history, imperialism, feudalism, but even now, as to how we achieve this balance, it links to these concepts that are embedded in our culture, two and a half million years ago. That's what we're talking about. So women, we talk about, um, our expectations, our general roles in our norms and we also talked about some of the, um, just broad overall concepts of filial piety and there is a strong emphasis of being sleek, Yuan Hua. And whenever I say these things, I know that it will resonate with our own culture because it's a good thing. This is so simply embedded. Just being smooth, just being go with the flow is seen as a form of maturity, is a scene as now you know how to live in this world, in this society. But again, that concept is more than difficult for neurodivergent people in general, in our culture. So I'm kind of going back and forth if not just woman in our culture, but our culture in neurodivergence. So this addition, additional layers and layers. Thank you so much for you know explaining all of those layers, Sharon, you know, I'm really here to listen and learn. And it sounds like there's a lot of intersecting expectations on neurodivergent people who are Chinese. And particularly if you're a woman, Chinese woman, and neurodivergent as well, and a lot of pressure like in terms of maybe performing and achieving the right things or doing things the right way to bring honor to your family and you know, be looking after your family and make sure your family has good face as well in your community. And that would create a lot of pressure for people, you know, especially if you are neurodivergent and you are born differently and it takes so much energy to try and achieve, you know, something that perhaps is desired in your culture. And I can imagine there would be, you know, quite a complex mental health journey for a lot of neurodivergent people in those positions. If you feel like you're constantly failing those expectations or you just can't meet them because of lots of different reasons, I think you've nailed it, Monique. And you know, sometimes people ask, where do this people end up? Almost always and I've been working with this client tell for the past at least 10 years, almost always the ones that actually has the opportunity to receive an assessment or get diagnosed and something the clinical population. I work with them with a lot of medicals who refer it for an assessment, only because of those psychological symptoms. A lot of them present with complex trauma and the core of these challenges come from these many, many of the central themes leading to exclusion being misunderstood, historically being boarded by peers at school, even by family members or the workforce, and a huge sense of abandonment as you could imagine in a collective society. These cultural norms shapes the, I guess the fundamental reason sometimes for the pathology to come out. And that's the only opportunity for them to really explore into neurodefrogens. Yeah, I could definitely see how those conflict points between the person's individual characteristics and neuro-type, you know, could conflict with a lot of the expectations and pressures and how that could create emotional distress and negative beliefs, you know, like you've described and how people may then end up seeking mental health help, which, you know, may be also stigmatized as well, which is really hard. And I was wondering too, like within a culture where you are representing your family and you kind of are expected to put on good faith, you know, for your family and your community, how does that then link in with maybe masking for your neurodivergent and you're trying to mask your neurodivergence? And then maybe you're also in a culture where it's not necessarily masking per se, but it's again presenting good faith. If that makes sense, we're not showing how you really feel about things because that might be inappropriate. That's a great question. Masking, you know, when we talk about, you know, wrestling culture, it's something that we realize it and we have the space and even the backups of a masking. But what about us in the Chinese and Asian collective culture? That's one of the questions I guess a lot of the supervisors come to me with, with the mind like being mindful that a masking could lead to exposure and masking is actually a protective mechanism. And this is something that we learn from adults. They have lived their whole life to protect themselves and they walk their path. Not necessarily teaching or even asking the person to unmask if they're uncomfortable with, just working with what they want. Again, goes back to, we can't just translate these concepts onto other cultures without understanding those implications of stress. And then it becomes really hard where a lot of the neurodiveristy affirming bilingual practitioners come to me and ask, well, what do we do? Like they want to learn how to mask. They want to be like you said, the face of the family. And they'll be talking about people that are sometimes, you know, they're different people. There are some people that are very successful with the family. But they're family and themselves do not want them to show the world who they really are. And for good reasons, I don't know if that answers your question, Monique, that is a very complex layer. And going back to individualizing the approach and actual person that you're working with is what I often refer to. Yeah, I think that's so important. And I think it is, you know, the right answer to be honest. In terms of there can be sometimes a very black and white view of what you shouldn't do in the neurodiveristy affirming movement. And like I second what you've said Sharon about, we really do need to keep in mind that unmasking and living as an unmasked person requires safety and privilege to be able to do that. And there are many complex layers in people's lives. And you know, one of them that we're speaking today about is things like culture. And it's not always safe for people, you know, to unmask per se. So I think just being able to not take an extreme view either way, but a more middle ground view and accepting that there is complexity in the world, there is complexity in people and their situations and their backgrounds. And being able to sit with that, you know, is the best way to show compassion and understanding to other people with where they're at, you know, and to practice as a clinician as well. And seeking supervision, although there's very, very scars, resourceful, fallible, but I think they are, I think they are peers that are trying in this space. And I'm really sitting here after working with my identity for the past 11 years. Before I have this confidence and support from my own neurodivergent peers, psychologists, that gives me strength to talk about these things. And I can understand that we are all at different pace, but we're all at different situations, whether we are ready to do this or not. And that's okay. Yeah, it often does take support to be able to, you know, come out publicly to unmask. Yeah. And again, the more intersectional, like the more minority you fall into within that context, the harder it is to sometimes find those supports that understand and get your specific identities as well and your specific circumstances. I know, I know about my neurodivergent around five years ago as a former self-awareness after another five years before that. So it's a long journey. And for then the next five years then was I think a lot of internal ableism that you can't be both. You can't be both a successful practitioner, a leader, and having these differences in the brain. It's so strong and so hard to overcome. Yeah, honestly, I think it's pretty rare to find someone that hasn't gone through that internal battle with internalising the negative beliefs about, you know, for example, having any form of disability or being different. having a different neurotype like autism or ADHD or any of the other neurodivergencies like dyslexia. We internalise those negative stereotypes and stigmas. They become our own beliefs from a very young age and we learn them from our peers from how things are portrayed on TV and in the media who's in positions of power as well. It really does influence all of us, you know, because we're all in that social soup and it takes a lot of that internal work and connecting with safe supportive people to start to climb out of that soup and unpack those negative beliefs that we've internalised. Are there any specific barriers to accurate identification of neurodivergences amongst Chinese immigrants in Australia? And what about access to support services? So Monique, you know, we know about the social model of disability, but yet I don't think that has been very well translated yet to the COD community and the COD psychologist. So we still tend to only find resources on the medical disability model and it's hard when we assume that Western perspectives can just smoothly apply universally. So we've got, we develop some resources on the social disability model in Chinese available on our websites and it's a collective effort from my team. I want to emphasise that this is where bilingual and culturally competent practitioners are the essential breach, but first given that they are willing to learn about this context, this movement and the dynamics. Like I said earlier, this is the, this is pretty much the only chance to get this translated into our communities is via these practitioners and I mean I've worked with really well first allied health speech and auties that are keen in this area and I'm actually one of the founding members of the Australian Chinese Psychology Society. This is something that working on to help reach this gap and I'm very proud of being able to have this opportunity to do so. That's amazing. Thank you so much for all of your hard work in this area and wanting to help create resources and even just to know that something like the Australian Chinese Psychologist Association exists, it's really cool. And going back to any barriers of accurately identifying, I think, first of all, it becomes very complex when client presents in the clinical population. It could be a mixture of things and that overlap is where between complex trauma from the cultural experiences that we've discussed before complicates that accurate diagnosis and diagnoses. And so these symptoms presented can be deeply intertwined with trauma from again exclusion misunderstanding, historical bullying makes it very challenging to separate from neurodivergent traits and those effects of those experiences. So how can support services including psychology, support neurodivergent people whilst taking into account cultural and family experiences? I think if possible, finding supervision in this area and the points that do not force these affirmative practice and do more harm than good, and there are, I think maybe, I don't know if it's a profession thing, seems to be more resources available from speeches and OTs around services that are giving the best try in being more affirming so that you can find those services and that they are out there, these support services that the people are good at heart and they know where these movements are coming from. Many of which half of our lifetime, like myself, is living and raised in the Western culture. It's, I know it's harder with those that really just grow it up with the Asian backgrounds and families and they there's always a core occurrence almost with complex trauma or depression and anxiety. And I want to answer one thing and this is where a lot of people come and ask why is everyone coming through the door that I think they are neurodivergent? I think Monique UNI, you practice a long time as well, know that these differences form the foundation of having more adaptive patterns of coping leads to them seeking help later on in life with anxiety, depression, trauma. So I only want to get out there that it's not new that thinks, just having it in your head that why is everyone I'm seeing seem to be neurodivergent? Am I inaccurate? I can tell with 10 years of clinical experiences that because of the way that they interact with the world, expose them, expose us to these factors that constitute to the development of challenges in different world ramps, right? Psychologically, socially, at work and in educational systems, you are not hallucinating. Yeah, I definitely agree Sharon. I think the research is showing that autistic and ADHD people and particularly autistic and ADHD women are overrepresented in mental health services. So if you work in mental health services as a psychiatrist, as a psychologist or in another role, you will have a higher proportion of neurodivergent people within your client population than probably what you may previously realized. When we're talking about mental health and things like that with the interlink between neurodivergence and belonging to Asian culture, Chinese background, I did want to let our listeners know that I've talked about my husband a lot on the podcast before and I do have his permission to share his story and things like that. But my husband is actually biracial as well as being autistic and ADHD and my husband is half Chinese, half English. So all my in-laws on his mum's side are all Chinese and it's interesting because of different circumstances that they went through. They are part of ethnically Chinese and appear Chinese, but they've had a separation from their Chinese culture because my husband's grandmother left South China due to internal conflict and moved to South Africa. And yeah, because of being in South Africa and they were actually in South Africa at the time of the apartheid, my mother and law grew up without as much exposure to Chinese culture and language. And so there's been some unique, I guess, effects of that. And so yeah, my husband is biracial but he doesn't have as much connection to Chinese culture and it's been interesting because he is autistic and ADHD and he doesn't have as much of that familial cultural pressure, I think, as someone who is maybe raised more in that cultural identity and a lot of those factors that you share, Sharon. And he's very unmasked as an autistic and ADHD person, which has been quite interesting. So I think it's good to raise up the point too that sometimes if you are biracial, that can impact identity and culture and throwing neurodivergence into the mix. Again, that can bring a lot of complexity as well as how much connection and exposure you have to your culture too. Absolutely. There are many, many different types of Asians. Yes. Definitely. So yeah, I just wanted to share that little story as well and you know, again, I think it's so important that we learn about other cultures and neurodivergence within other cultures. So yeah, it's been really good to hear you share your valuable insights and experience. So as we come towards the end of the episode today, I wanted to ask you one final question, which is what strengths and challenges has your brain given you? I think my brain has shifted me with intense thoughts, ability to connect. seemingly irrelevant information to form insight and neurodivergent processing, but it also presented the challenges of massive overload, which I have definitely experienced when brainstorming for the podcast. I don't expect overnight changes or not universal agreement to a yellow's credit, or I can do with plant seeds. If even one germinates, that's wonderful. To market, I'm content with the gradual progress, turning one C shell at the shore at the time. And to my coach Andrew, thank you for reminding me why I'm doing this, grounding me and reminding me of the purpose, especially when I felt so vulnerable. This is my first disclosure of neurodivergence. Yes, thank you so much for coming on, and yeah, we really appreciate your vulnerability and courage in sharing your realisation of neurodivergence, particularly with explaining the framework of Chinese culture. We really applaud you for being able to do what you're doing. One last thing I wanted to just ask is you did mention a Yale-Lal Clark? Yes, and the leak of autistic psychologist and affirming colleagues is a low pack. I think I do want to thank her specifically for providing the space for all of us to support each other in these different journeys and different extent of challenges that we might be facing. Beautiful, thank you so much for coming on today, Sharon. And where can our listeners find you? You can find me at Sprub Psychology Melbourne. We have clinics in Bowwood and Hallforn in Melbourne. I am an EMDR and Art Therapist, key assessor and educational developmental psychologist. So when you're looking for support or supervision or just listeners just that are interested, you could explore a range of professionals who could support you. You don't always have to look exclusively for specific types that, like, such as clinical psychologists or neuropsychologists, and be mindful for any updated theories and applications of these interventions or so-called interventions. So I'm open to providing talks and sharing my knowledge with practices interested in knowing more. Usually very happy to prove, read anything that has been translated. So this is part of what my role now as a director could enable me to have time to look into these things more. And it's more from this year on as I step into self-disclosure today with Monique. Awesome. Well thank you so much. And yeah, it's been a wonderful episode. Thank you Monique. Hello and thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode and want to support us further, you can do so by subscribing to our Patreon community. Patreon subscribers get a bunch of bonus content and access to our monthly Zoom Hangouts, a place to virtually meet up with the community, explore topics and share experiences. Head over to patreon.com/ndwomenpod to get all the details. We really appreciate your support as we aim to make quality healthcare information accessible to everyone. Thanks for listening to this episode of the neurodivergent woman podcast. If you have a question or would like to contact us, you can do so through our Facebook and Instagram at the handle, the neurodivergent woman podcast. Or our website, andewomenpod.com. You can also email us directly at [email protected]. Bye for now.