Episode 20 - Brandi Borsten-

Brandy, at 19 years old, or not too late after that, you were diagnosed with, and you just mentioned it, ADHD.

dyslexia, and a math disorder.

How did that shape your self-perception growing up? Like when you're seeing, and I can so relate to this because I know what you're going to say because I felt the same.

When you're looking at the others who seem to understand and thrive into, you know, classroom and learning environment, and it's like, Not me.

Like, I don't get this.

Like, how did that shape, you know, your self-perception growing up?

Um, so that's a great question.

And unfortunately it came out in shame.

I was, I felt shame.

I felt, um, that I was so different, um, already just because of my birth, you know, being half Lebanese and half Dutch, you don't meet a whole lot of people.

Uh, in my lifetime, I had met one other person who was, um, Australian and Lebanese.

And you just, I just don't, you don't meet that many people.

Anyhow, I haven't in my lifetime.

So for me, it really came out in, um, in wanting to hide actually and to mask and to be a people pleaser really.

And so, you know, I excelled in sports.

I loved being active.

I loved playing on teams.

Leadership was a word I remember hearing at 12 years old and it just super resonated with me.

And so I gravitated towards those kinds of things.

And, you know, I really enjoyed interacting with my teachers in school.

personally like talking and chatting, but when it came down to doing the work or understanding how to read a clock at a certain age, like I really struggled and I really took that in as though I was really stupid.

And that was the word that unfortunately followed me through my, definitely onto my teens and early twenties.

And it was, as you mentioned, it was, yeah, it was, I think I was 23 when I had myself diagnosed and Um, it was such, it was actually such an emotional response that I had when I discovered because I had a huge cry and a huge release because I was like, Oh, there's a names for this.

And I'm not actually dumb because I think I excel in other areas, but in this realm, this academic world that I was trying to fit myself into, um, I just didn't understand it.

I didn't sit well.