Can Adrienne Hill's Experience Help You Understand Tourette's Better?

Abhijit: Hey everyone, welcome back to Rationable Conversations. Today, I have got Adrienne Hill and we're going to be talking about a whole bunch of stuff, especially neurodivergence and a lot of the intricacies involved in that term etc. Adrienne has been doing a lot of work in that field and educating parents, educating students.

Teachers even, and she's been a quite a, an active member of the skeptics community in the US and Canada. So welcome on board.

Adrienne: Thank you so much, Abhijit. It's so great to see you. It's been a while since we've talked in person.

Abhijit: It has been a while, unfortunately, but hopefully I'll be coming to Saikon this year and then we'll get to meet again, but it's always delightful to talk to you.

So I'm really glad. And I'm with, this has been in the offing for quite a while. So I'm really glad that we're finally getting down to this and it should be so much fun. I can't wait to get on with it. So therefore I couldn't possibly rattle off all your qualifications and all the things that you do.

So why don't you tell us.

Adrienne: Yeah, I'm pretty, pretty busy. When, yeah, I'm pretty busy.

Abhijit: Evidently.

Adrienne: I am a high school math teacher, a retired high school math teacher. And in fact, just prior to getting online with you, I was tutoring students because it's our year and we have final exams happening.

So it's really crazy. And I also am a reporter for the Skeptic Zone podcast.

Abhijit: Aha, which I've been on a couple of times. Fantastic. Richard Saunders.

Adrienne: Yeah. Yeah, I've interviewed you for the show once before. Richard has interviewed you. So I'm fairly regular on that show. The other work that I do is I'm a girl of skepticism on Wikipedia I'm a project editor, so I edit Wikipedia, and that's headed under Susan Gerbic, my friend Susan Gerbic from California.

And I'm a board member of her non profit, which is the About Time. nonprofit that encompasses some of the psychic work she does as well as the Wikipedia work. And I'm also a board member of the Tourette OCD Alberta network and have board since its inception, which I believe is 2019 or 2020. It's all about now.

And before then, I was an active volunteer for Tourette Canada, where I would, as you say, educate people, Educators, students about Tourette's syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorder, ADHD, differences and how to deal with it in the classroom and even at work. We've even had workplace people who are not sure what the best thing to do for their employee is.

So we've even done that kind of work.

Abhijit: Oh, wonderful. You've really, you've, you've, I don't think there's any stone unturned when it comes to the things that you can and do and, in life. But I, so I really want to get it. This is because this is very interesting. And of course, we were last time when we were, you were interviewing me, then we, After the interview, we figured out that we both have ADHD which is another reason why we are probably all, we're both doing a whole bunch of different things in life and kind of, trying to do as many, as many things as we possibly can.

Adrienne: Yeah, we can focus on a lot of different things. Yeah. And even keep track of them to some extent.

Abhijit: I won't go that far myself.

But but let's start off with Tourette's though, because it's a very it's a very unique disorder. And would you call it a disorder? But could you just take us through what exactly that involves? What are the different aspects of Tourette's?

Adrienne: Yeah, it is a neurological disorder. That's what they classify it as.

And it is, you have to have had at least two motor tics. And a motor tic can essentially be anything. It can be eye blinking. In fact, I quite often have a little eye blinking tic, nose twitching facial grimaces. It can be your fingers doing stuff like this. A tic can be, a motor tic can be anything that involves your muscles, etc.

You have to have at least two of those, as well as a, what they call a verbal tic, and that doesn't have to be a word. It could be clearing throats, sniffing, like that would be, and we all do that, obviously, but someone with Tourette's Syndrome just doesn't. Quite constantly throughout the day, it may wax and wane throughout the day, but it is something that happens over and over again.

And they have to have that for at least a year and they have to have the onset before the age of 18 and they have to rule out all other possibilities because there's other movement disorders as well. And things can be triggered by like a car accident, for example. You might have a Tourette like condition at that point, but Tourette syndrome is something that people are born with, and it tends to run in families, not always, but I was told it was a dominant recessive gene at the, by, early on when I found out that my kids had this disorder, so it comes from both sides of the family, usually, it's not always that, obviously, but that's what they're generally finding.

And there's lots of myths about it. And one of them is that everybody with Tourette's syndrome swears. And it's actually, oh, there's my dog. Hopefully you didn't hear that. Oh, that's fine.

Abhijit: Good thing I don't have my cat in the room because then he'd be screaming up a ruckus.

Adrienne: So yeah, that's probably the biggest myth that people have is that with Tourette's syndrome, they're going to swear.

And only between 7 and 10 percent, so less than 10 percent of people with Tourette's syndrome will have a swearing tick. And The other big issue that people aren't aware of is that the tacks, the tics, the tic tacs, so that the tics stay the same. And one of the big issues with Tourette's syndrome is the symptoms are constantly changing.

Yes, they can have a tic for a fairly long period of time, but they may have other tics that come and go, and the swearing tic can be replaced with something else. So they, even if you have the swearing ticket doesn't mean you're going to have it all your life. It might mean you have it for a long time, but they do come and go and they wax and wane.

So there's times where you're going to tick more. There's going to be times when you tick less to the point where you hardly tick at all. So it does tend to go up and down all the time. Oh,

Abhijit: I see. And does it get triggered a lot by when you're nervous or when you have a high stress level or something of that sort?

Adrienne: Yeah, that's one of the big things is stress and that's good stress or bad stress. So if you're really excited about going to an event, say a holiday, the tics will get worse as you're planning and getting ready for it and about to leave. bad stress, such as having to take an exam or an interview, like a job interview, or situations where you're angry, the tics will get worse for sure.

And yeah, lack of sleep. So if you're not getting a good night's sleep, that can make the tics worse. So there's lots of things that can make it worse. And what makes it better is like ADHD. You know how with ADHD, you can be hyper focused on something? Huh. That you love to do. Yeah. And, that's one of the mis, the misinformation about ADHD is that you can't pay attention to anything.

No, that's not what it is. We hyper focus really well on things but we can change our focus very quickly. Huh. And So if a bee goes by, we're going to hyper focus now on that bee instead of working. Yes, squirrel. Exactly. So that same thing, when you're doing something you really love to do, people with Tourette's syndrome, their tics completely disappear when that happens. Yeah. You can go through large periods of time where you don't have the annoying tics, but they can also be very dangerous. I have a friend who has a tic, he grabbed this pen, that he did have a tic. I don't know if he still does, where he would grab, he'd have to hit his forehead. So if he had a fork in his hand and he had It'd be quite dangerous, right?

So I try to grab it like this and, do this or have a pillow handy so we could have a pillow there so it wouldn't hurt. So there's crazy ticks that people can have and there can be very mild. It's a spectrum disorder, just like autism. People have little bits of it all the way up to very severe.

So the people are in the middle if they have the diagnosis.

Abhijit: Oh my goodness. Yeah, that can be quite, and the good thing is, I think there's, thanks to social media, there's a lot of people who are talking about Tourette's now, and the understanding of it is improving significantly. For example, I think on YouTube and there's a lady called, with the name of Sweet Anita, I think it was.

I'm not sure exactly. Is it Sweet Anita? Are you familiar with her?

Adrienne: I think I've heard of her. There's another one called something hippie. I'm just trying to, of course, ADHD, we can't remember names, right?

Abhijit: Oh my goodness. Is that a thing? I didn't know that was a thing.

Adrienne: My oldest son told me about that.

And I've struggled with names all my life. And people are saying, Oh, we'll just use this trick. I try using that trick. It doesn't work. And apparently it's a thing. And I was, do you know James Spell by any chance? No. No.

Abhijit: No.

Adrienne: He's the sweary historian and he's sold a lot of books. He's from Calgary and he has been in the newspaper partly because of the books he's sold.

written, but also because he has ADHD. And that's one of the things he says is, people will ask him about a historical fact or a name or something. And you go, Oh, I don't remember the name of that guy. And that's my ADHD. And so I didn't know that even though I've been immersed in this world with specialists, that's one of the symptoms that you can have.

Abhijit: Oh my god, this is blowing my mind right now. This is this is why I sucked at history. This is history all the way through school. Dates and names is everything when it comes to history. And those are the things I could never remember. But

Adrienne: you didn't remember the story around it. Oh, I remember the guy went to here and he did this and that and everything, but you can't remember the guy's name, right?

Or you can't remember the date.

Abhijit: Guy, like the 1700s who had a like a war with someone. We're not going to get you marks.

Adrienne: Exactly. This is

Abhijit: absolute, oh, no wonder, oh my goodness, which brings me to a good place to go into neurodivergence as a general kind of thing. So what exactly, how would one describe neurodivergence?

Adrienne: That's a good question, because that's not a term that I was really familiar with until just a few years ago. And it, I think it's a fairly, new one. But I can quote Wikipedia, I just it just I

Abhijit: get it because even I'm having a lot of trouble trying to figure out exactly what neurodivergence is.

But if there's anyone who can explain it, I'm sure it's you.

Adrienne: Yeah, I've always associated that neurodivergence and I think a lot of people do with autism. And I think that's where we first started hearing about it was with regards to people with autism. But now I think it's Banned it out to just be more of, more disability rights.

If that makes sense. And when we're talking about the brain, there's so many different disorders of the brain. I just listed three, the Tourette syndrome, OCD, ADHD, and then a fourth one, which was autism spectrum disorder. And there's so many more, right? There's a lot more generalized anxiety disorder, mood disorders.

There's so many different kinds of disorder out there. And so I think that definition of, and this is just me, I'm blowing steam right now, so I may be totally wrong with

Abhijit: this because it's been a

Adrienne: while since I've looked it up, but yeah, it's, I think it has expanded to include all of those things. And so I hear people talking quite often about their neurodivergent children and then You just don't know what that means.

Is it autism spectrum? Is it obsessive compulsive? Is it phobias? Is it, generalized anxiety or usually it's a combination. It's not usually just one diagnosis, right? So there's a lot of interweaving. And I was just looking here quickly on Wikipedia, and it does say that the first time it was found in a publication was actually 1998, so it goes back quite a long time.

And it does actually say here that in the late, the movement actually started in the 80s and 90s, and it did start with autism. I guess I was on the right track with that.

Abhijit: Oh, wonderful. Okay.

Adrienne: If Wikipedia is correct.

Abhijit: That is between you and Susan Glowick and the entire Wikipedia people.

Adrienne: Something like this I probably wouldn't want to really tackle because this is getting into what I would call medical issues, and they're very strict with Wikipedia and medical medical you have to use very Very good resources, they're very picky, you can't just use a newspaper article, it has to be like a textbook or a book written by an expert, but it can't be, this is something that people just don't understand, it can't be a primary source, so you can't go to an original study if you're going to publish or if you're going to write.

Get a good source on Wikipedia. It has to be a secondary source. So somebody has to write about a paper, essentially, or it can make it onto Wikipedia. Now you can use a primary source for little bits of information that aren't that significant, but if there's too many of them, the article or the page will probably get deleted.

So you have to be really careful about the sources you use. The rules are strict. Wow. Despite what people think.

Abhijit: Man, we could dive into Wikipedia and guerrilla skeptics of Wikipedia for a whole other show. Exactly. We can do a full on show about just that. But I think I'll have you and Susan on for that.

That would be

Adrienne: fun. Yes, it would be really good. Yeah she's an expert. I'm I guess since 2018, I've been editing. So it's been a few years. She's done though.

Abhijit: Oh, yeah, she's fully on full on into it. So I, we can't even compare it. But anyway but coming back to that, it first of all, it's very reassuring that, Wikipedia has these strict rules, so that, we to get the facts straight as much as we possibly can.

But secondly, so neurodivergence, it almost feels it's such a broad term that almost everyone would possibly be, involved in it. Because then where do you draw the line as to who is neurotypical, so to speak, because I think a vast majority of people have something going on, whether it's some side of the spectrum of diversity, something to do with even whether it's an acute or a temporary mental disorder, or even a chronic one.

There are so many people who are affected by something or the other, that it almost feels like we're all a little neurodivergent.

Adrienne: I think that's very true. And like I say, they're all spectrum disorders. So there's people who have a little bit of it. And I used to teach that having a little bit of obsessive compulsive disorder, so you're not disorder, just so those tendencies, some of those perfectionist tendencies, we would call it, those are good because you want to create a good product, whether it be at work or a dance recital, you want to become a better dancer or golfer or sports athlete.

Anything like that, a little bit of that. To make you repeat and practice something is not a bad thing. Absolutely. Where the disorder comes in, and this is what people don't understand because that obsessive compulsive disorder thing has been thrown out. Oh, I've got OCD. I like my house neat.

Yeah, that's not OCD. People with OCD are going, what are you saying? Come on. This is not what OCD is. Obsessive compulsive disorder would be if you want your house neat, you're going to clean it 10 times, 20 times, 30 times in a day. You wash your hands to the point where you they're raw. You hit golf balls until your hands bleed, right?

And you won't, don't get anything else accomplished. So it interferes with your life and you get There's sometimes nothing done because of fear. So sometimes you don't even see it. So yeah, let me get back to what you were get me off on a tangent and I'll go. Going down that rabbit hole of obsessive compulsive disorder.

But yeah, we all have a little bits of these things. They're normal behaviors. Obtention, deficit disorder, hyperactivity. Tension, deficit, hyperactivity disorder, same thing. Having that ability to switch focus really quickly can be beneficial depending on what you are trying to do. And for example, I always.

This is me talking, not a specialist I'm not a doctor. So I just want to get that out there too, that I have a lot of lived experience with my kids, and I have a lot, I've been working with some of the top neurologists in the field of obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette's syndrome, and ADHD for a very long time.

But see, here's ADHD happening. Okay. Where was I going? Oh yeah.

There's a train of thought switching directions. So I've often thought that being a teacher, which I was, suited my brain really well because I'll be in the middle of teaching something and a kid will put their hand up and I'll see it right away and I can immediately go and say, okay, what's your question?

And I answer, the question gets asked, I answer the question, and then I have to step back and go, okay, where was I? Oh, yes. And then I switch back. So I have that ability to I have always said that this is my joke, teachers should all have ADHD and engineers should also all be obsessive-compulsive, not fully disordered on that spectrum, because you don't want people to be making mistakes.

You want people to double check their work. Not to check it a hundred times, but check it multiple times, make sure it's correct because they're the ones building the buildings and the airplanes and the trains and the cars and we want those things to be safe. So we want that tendency to be there.

So yeah, they find their slot in life and we all have elements of these things. That doesn't mean you have it, if that makes sense.

Abhijit: That's totally true. And for example, like, when it comes to ADHD, and once I got diagnosed, I started noticing a lot of other people with ADHD tendencies. So for example, my brother, One could say that he's hyperactive, but it's not to the point of being dysfunctional.

It's just that he gets a lot done. And even though he's very, otherwise, very relaxed, he drinks a large amount of coffee. But he

Adrienne: That's called self medication when you have ADHD.

Abhijit: Exactly. Yes, exactly. I got mine. I got high on my own supply. Thank you very much. But but it's even, and, but he's, and he's, but he gets, he can hyper focus on something and he can get stuff done, but it's not to a point where it is becoming a detriment to his life where, because he has the ability to be able to focus on one thing at a time.

Time without getting easily distracted and just get, getting stuff done. So it's, so I've noticed that in him, I've noticed things in my father, like he's very forgetful. He is very absent-minded. He he goes off in his own zone when there's a conversation happening. 'cause he's thinking about something else and they'd be like, and . And then which is something like, which I, which happens to me as well. . For him, that's just, that's, those are aspects of it that's on the spectrum of ADHD, but at the same time, it hasn't been detrimental to his life, or he's managed to cope with it extremely well, and managed to get a lot of things done.

Even then, and he's extremely organized, which I think is probably a masking technique because he's just he has to be organized so that he keeps things in order, but with me, these same traits have gone to the point of dysfunction. And that's something that I have a lot of trouble explaining to people because I was just the other day I was trying to explain to a friend, why I'm ADHD.

And I started explaining that, okay it's very hard for me to stay focused on things that I'm not interested in. I tend to hyper focus on things I am interested in. I tend to completely get overwhelmed by complex tasks and large things, large things to deal with. And I was going off on this and he was like, dude, but everybody gets that, it's totally normal. You don't beat yourself up about it. I'm like, I'm not beating myself up about it. I'm being realistic. This is ADHD. But then I was like, what is it? Where do you cross the line from just being a regular, slightly scattered person? And you just can't get involved in things that you're not interested in?

And how do you—where do you draw the line between that and being? ADHD. And I just said, the best I can say is it's where it starts becoming a serious detriment to your quality of life.

Adrienne: And even a little bit of a detriment to the quality of your life. That could be that slope because things can change in your life.

And yeah, happened with me. I didn't actually get a diagnosis of ADHD. ADHD, until it did impact my life. I was working full, not full-time, but I worked full-time for a long time, and then I worked part-time, but I may as well have been working full-time because I was working part-time as a teacher and part-time as this volunteer, so I, I did, I was working full time, but just with two different things, one of them being paid and one of them being a volunteer.

I was very efficient with it until I hit heading into menopause and all of a sudden it was taking me, instead of being able to create a test for my class the next, in a couple of days, it would take me a couple of hours, started taking me three hours, then four hours, then two days and to do marking, I used to be able to do it in a night and week to do that same amount of work.

Now it's becoming problematic. So you see what I'm saying? Like I actually saw the difference between how I was before where I had the tendency to crossing that line to it impacting my life. And it's, that's when I actually went through the process of the diagnosis and filling out all those forms and seeing a psychiatrist and seeing a psychologist and and now I'm on medication as well and it's life changing.

I'm sorry.

Abhijit: Oh yes.

Adrienne: I feel like I'm, do I have bad days where, I'm still like that? Yes, but not to that extent, not to that extent. And so I think that's what people need to understand is that if there has been a diagnosis, most likely it's impacting their life to the point where they can't get stuff done either like they used to, or maybe they've never.

And all of a sudden they can.

Abhijit: Absolutely.

Adrienne: It's important for people to recognize that. For me, it was real easy because I'm going, okay, this used to take me, a couple hours, now it's taking me days. What's going on? I don't understand. And they're like, yeah, you're heading into menopause. This is what ADHD does, or can do.

It doesn't always do it to everybody, but it's really doing it to

Abhijit: me. And that's, there can be these triggering incidences. Like for example When I was doing my M. A. in writing, I did very well in the first trimester. It was, I managed to learn a lot. I managed to get a lot of stuff done.

I would obviously procrastinate until the last minute, but I still managed to get stuff done. And the strange thing was that once I broke my leg and I went on to an I went down to opioid painkillers for a couple of months. First month was just for the leg. And then the next month was because my hobbling around made my back hurt.

hurt like hell. So I would be on that. And then everything went absolutely pear shaped. Not that pear shapes are bad. I'm just saying. But the basic thing was that after that, I just could not concentrate in class. I couldn't focus on anything that was being said. I wasn't being able to retain any information.

And I wasn't being able to get any of the work that I was supposed to be doing done. So it just, turned the ADHD and depression up to a really high level when I was coming off the opioids. And that was extremely worrying. And that is what really triggered it. And I only realized this last year.

So you can imagine the absolute outburst of emotion that I had when I figured out that my entire second half or second Two thirds of my MA course was seriously hampered by this thing specially. And I had no idea that I had ADHD until last year. And then everything makes sense. And one more thing, which I wanted to get into was that I think that when it comes to the medication, a lot of people say that it's a night and day difference.

It's it's a life changing experience. And I agree to an extent, but at least in my experience, it is life changing in the way that it gets you from bad quality of life with those problems. to a decent quality of life with the same problems which are now in control, but you just have to figure out how to manage it on a day-to-day basis.

Adrienne: And it also can be, yeah, oh yes, definitely. And when I say that it was life changing for me it was also because like you, I was also going through depression. because my health, I have migraine headaches and I ended up with chronic migraines and cluster headaches. And so this the lack of being able to think and accomplish tasks.

So it all just piles on you, right? When you, my brain just was not happy about going through menopause. And so when you add all that in another complication is finding the right medication. So that can take, it took me two and a half years. to find the right medication that would work for the depression and the ADHD and and not impact my migraine headaches and make them worse.

So finding medications can be extremely complicated and that's something that I used to teach teachers as well as parents that when their kids are diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome, very rarely are they actually medicated for the tics. They're usually medicated for the comorbid disorders, which are the most common.

There's lots of them, but the most common are ADHD and OCD. And so that's usually what the medication does. is for and finding it for kids that are growing and developing and allowing them to function can be very complicated. So I already knew that heading into this. I've been teaching it and then I got to live it.

So was it hard for you to get the right medication or did they find it quite quickly?

Abhijit: Actually I started with the Concerta. Which was immediately what I was put on. But the thing is I have a family history of high blood pressure. So I, it kept, it kept me stressed out that, Oh my God, my blood pressure is through the roof.

And but fortunately with my recent surgery, I had the opportunity to wean myself off the Concerta. And then I just spoke to my doctor and I was like, listen, we got to do something about this. I cannot be on stimulant medication. I can take stimulants maybe once in a while when I really need to get something done, but I need to get off it on a regular basis.

So now I am on the ramp up with with a non medicine. stimulant medication and trying to see how that takes me where that takes me. I'm not up to full dosage yet. So I'm still a little scattered. But the thing is, I know now that if I take Concerta on a make like a particularly busy day, where I need to be at my best throughout for extremely long period of time, then that works.

incredibly well and for an extended period of time. Even if I'm taking like a quick release version, like I'm like, I'm wired to three in the morning and that's not always a good thing, but oh my God, I can do so

Adrienne: much. Some of those medications is you don't have to take them daily. You can just take them as needed.

Like you were doing, you're talking about, not all of them are like that. Obviously you need to get a doctor. Yeah,

Abhijit: exactly. And those are very strictly regulated and it is mind blowing how medication for people with ADHD is so non ADHD friendly. It's like you have to plan beforehand so that you don't run out.

You have to go to the doctor physically. This is which is the new regulation in India,

Adrienne: where you have

Abhijit: to go to the doctor physically, get a real get proper checkup, then you have to get one maximum two months of dosages in advance. And then you have to order the medication, not from your local But from the distributor, who is the one person who can give, who's the only person who can send it to you.

So you have to have the prescription handy. Don't lose the prescription. Send it to the right guy. And get it. And you can do all of these things in advance

Adrienne: when you're

Abhijit: planning ahead when ADHD is the like when you thinking in advance and planning ahead is like the two biggest problems with ADHD and just doing that it's come on dude like Not using the prescription, it's

Adrienne: not digital on your phone forget that if a piece of paper it's gone

Abhijit: Exactly.

I honestly, like the last couple of prescriptions, like, where did I put that? Will

Adrienne: they accept a picture of it? Or do you have to have the actual physical piece of paper?

Abhijit: You have to get the physical piece of paper, but then you have to take a picture of it and send it to the distributor who can then verify that and then send it.

Adrienne: To be honest, my, my doctor knows me really well. So she's so have you Booked your blood work yet? No. Oh man, I keep forgetting. Have you booked your blood work yet? No, I forgot. If I don't put it in my calendar, it doesn't exist.

Abhijit: Exactly.

Adrienne: You have to remember to put it in the calendar.

Abhijit: Yeah. And this is us on meds.

Adrienne: Yeah, that's right.

Abhijit: Guys, this is expectation management.

Adrienne: She's really good because she has ADHD too. So she says, okay, I'm going to sit in this room. You're going to pull up the lab work. You're going to book your appointment right here in front of me. It gets done. So you have to have somebody else managing your brain.

Exactly.

Abhijit: That's exactly it. Absolutely. Okay. Coming back to neurodivergence and it just sounds, it's a lovely word. I love that word. It just rolls off the tongue, but there in so I have a friend in Sweden and she told me something like, and I'm going to put you this and paraphrase it to almost non recognition is that in Sweden.

They basically treat people with mental disorders, mental disabilities, in a manner that you are a normal human being, and every normal human being has certain differences in the way that they think. And whether it's an acute problem, whether it's a chronic problem, whether it's, something that has just developed, whatever it is, there is zero distinction that the government, the Swedish government would have between the way they treat a neurotypical person, so to speak, or a mentally healthy person, so to speak, versus a person who is mentally unwell.

And it's basically it's just It's treated as an illness, and it's not treated as a disability or a disorder or anything of that sort, which is, which I found to be very profound as a perspective of looking at things, because that kind of has made me look at people in general, as well. Everyone thinks differently.

Everybody's going through many different things in their lives. And it's becoming harder and harder to really distinctly differentiate somebody who is quote, unquote, neurodivergent versus quote, unquote, neurotypical versus mentally healthy or unwell mentally. And because there is such a huge diversity of experiences and humanness that we're all going through every single day.

Like it's really, I don't know how anybody can differentiate. I think we're all In some way, shape or form, off the beaten path, so to speak, in some way. Would you agree with that? Or are there really neurotypical people around who are like totally normal and are like, I don't know what you're talking about, bro.

Adrienne: Yeah, I'm not sure what is the purpose of that? Do they not seek, are they not given help if they have these issues?

Abhijit: No, it's not about that. It's about how people are treated and how the perspective that they're looking at people and treating the unwellness the disability or the disorder in a manner that is distinct, which is completely

Adrienne: Is it just accepting?

Abhijit: Exactly. It's a way of accepting people, neurodivergence and mental health. And they're

Adrienne: not, are they a bit anti label? Is that where they're going? They don't, they prefer not to have labels and they just want to accept everybody? Is that sort of

Abhijit: I'm not sure about that. In fact, I was hoping to meet this friend of mine.

In a couple of weeks, visa problems happening, but I'll see what I can do about that. But I'd

Adrienne: be interested to hear more about that because that's something that in my career as a teacher, as well as educating parents and teachers and community members is there's a fear of labels. I was told like my kids ended up with labels.

And before the labels, my son was a behavior problem. He was weird. He was he'd had some, some psycho ed tests done and he came out extremely high in some areas and extremely low in others. And which is typical of this type of child. Diagnosis.

Abhijit: Absolutely.

Adrienne: Yeah. Yeah. Very extreme in the results.

But so they were even saying to me things like, I don't believe he's reading at the level you're saying he is at home because he can't even complete this grade three book and answer the questions. And it was compulsive tendencies and all these things. So he went from this behavior problem child who was refusing to work, who was weird according to all his.

Other, the kids in his class, he was teased and to having a diagnosis. that was this long with many things and a direction. So all of a sudden there was a direction for teachers. So if you give teachers, okay this doesn't work with this kid. So let's try this over here. Let's try this over here.

Then we don't need. those labels. Then we just need to say, this didn't work, therefore this is what we need to try. But that's not how education, especially the traditional method, it's okay, everybody has to sit down, they're sitting in a straight row and we're going to do all this at the same time together.

And education has moved a long way from that, thank goodness. But some of those schools really do still exist. So I, if I'm understanding correctly, if they're trying to move away from those labels, but they're now saying, okay, this behavior for this person doesn't work, or this strategy or this workplace situation doesn't work for this person.

We have to try something different because it's not working. Fine. I have no trouble with that at all. But what it did for me is it gave me a means of communicating with teachers, And other parents, because, my kids would do some Interesting things because of the tics that they would come out of their mouth or their hand, they would have, my one son, my oldest had a, like a pretty major body shiver tic and at the very end of this very complicated tic, his arm would fly out, and he would do the best he can to move so that somebody wasn't in the way and he wouldn't hit them, but it would, it could happen. That's where that education needs to come in, so that we have a name for it, that it's not he's weird, he's not, they don't tease him, and my experience going into classrooms and teaching kids about Tourette Syndrome is bullying stopped. I would say like 99 percent of the time in my experience, bullying stopped.

I know of one case where one kid kept it up and they just removed the kid from the class because it was unacceptable and they dumped that kid. But all the other kids, I've had whole schools where they, I brought in just for a class, but they're in contact with the whole school. So they bring me in for the whole school.

And it's, and we teach differences. It's not just about Trout syndrome, OCD, ADHD. It's just about differences. Wearing glasses, for example. Exactly.

Abhijit: Exactly. It's about the differences. I have a feeling that is exactly what they're trying to promote. Everybody's different. Everybody is different in a unique way.

And we have to accept everyone as they are. And there's no reason why they would There's no reason why there wouldn't be a label assigned. Because we need to identify different conditions and treat them accordingly. But ,

Adrienne: Exactly. But what I like about what you're saying is maybe when you get into the workplace, in the classroom, we don't need those labels anymore and we're just going to try things until they work.

And that's where, that would be great. But then that would be wonderful. Still need, the teachers still need those strategies. Up here in Canada, at least, they're still not getting them, as far as I know, and most teachers are flying by the seat of their pants, doing the best they can. And especially in

Abhijit: India, it's mental health in general is so misunderstood and is so mischaracterized, even in regular conversation that, it's getting better now, but it's still, there are a lot of myths and lots of lots of misunderstandings and disinformation, which has crept into the talk, the conversations about mental health, because Even I like when I'm talking about, I'm in a depressive phase for, so many months and they say, Oh, come on, then, just don't get

Adrienne: off the couch.

You can do it.

Abhijit: Yeah. Get out, get some fresh

Adrienne: air

Abhijit: and Yeah, great. Fresh air works on a temporary basis. It can help from time to time, but it's not a solution. And they say, Oh, but what do you have to be depressed about? Everything is great in your life. You have a nice studio and you've got a YouTube channel and you've got friends all over the world, et cetera, et cetera.

I'm like, It doesn't make any difference whatsoever. Depression is indiscriminate when it comes to, how it works and why it works. It is not rational at all.

Adrienne: No, and I think that's what people are missing. Even with your ADHD story about you have to maintain that prescription. That's hard to do for people with ADHD.

You can't just say, don't lose it.

Abhijit: Exactly. It's just, it's completely counterintuitive.

Adrienne: Oh, come on, you've got all these things to look forward to. Just, you shouldn't be depressed. That's not how it works, right? That's not. And we if we had a choice to not be depressed, I think, I would guess that all depressives would say, yeah, it would be nice not to have these feelings.

Abhijit: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Adrienne: Those depression, Things that can run in cycles too. So people can seem fine for a year, two years, or six months, or whatever, and then suddenly end up in a depressive episode. And sometimes we don't know why. People are looking for why. I think that's where the wellness industry comes in.

They seem to have the solutions. They can give you a why, they can give you a how to fix it. And the why, sometimes there isn't a why.

Abhijit: Absolutely.

Adrienne: This happens.

Abhijit: And especially nowadays with the, with your Instagram and your TikTok and all sorts of nonsense that's going around and people are just saying there are horrendous things like something which I got very pissed off about is Jordan Peterson, who said that, yeah, I have the same expression for Jordan Peterson, and who said that, ADHD is basically because young boys are not going out to have rough and tumble play.

And I'm like, what kind of, I can't even think of a swear word bad enough to just describe how batshit crazy that entire perspective is. And he's a psychologist. I was

Adrienne: going to say, he's a psychologist. So He is supposedly an expert and that is just so wrong. And this, I'm going to give you an anecdote that has nothing to, obviously we know one case can't dispute what he's saying, but I just have to look at my family.

We lived outside growing up. We had a free for all playing. We did not grow up in this overprotective era of parents not letting their kids go out to play like they used to. I'm sorry, my brother and I think, I don't think my brother's been diagnosed, but when you look back, he struggled in school and he's smart.

He's a smart guy and he's highly successful. He found his, he landed on his feet, but it took him a while. And I have had, I've been diagnosed now. And that's anecdotal, but it just, it flies in the face of studies. I don't, is it good for kids to go out and play? Sure.

Abhijit: Absolutely.

Adrienne: I'm not saying that's not what it is, but I don't think you can say ADHD is because we didn't go out and play.

I think that's very true.

Abhijit: And on top of that, he just completely discounts the, that ADHD happens to the female gender. It's just like completely Oh, it's about boys who don't get rough and tumble play. But what about the women?

Adrienne: Yeah,

Abhijit: what about the girls who have grown up with ADHD and they've done well for example Jessica, what's her name again, the name slips by from how to ADHD, Jessica from how to ADHD.

Adrienne: Oh, I don't know her.

Abhijit: She's got a fantastic channel. I met her when I was doing a workshop in science communication. And she's fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And she did very well in school.

Adrienne: Oh, okay. McCabe. Yes. Jessica McCabe. McCabe. Yes. And,

Abhijit: yeah, so she's a very powerful voice in the in the movement to, raise awareness about ADHD.

And she has been, she did very well in school. She's been quite accomplished in a lot of things that she's done, including, doing this YouTube channel and her science communication. But she is still somebody who suffers with ADHD and has been since he was a kid. And this Jordan Peterson person just completely discounts that.

And then you have other people who are, who come on, And start saying that, Oh, this is because there's a nutritional deficiency in this kind of stuff that they're having. And you should feed them more of that kind of food and more

Adrienne: That's that wellness thing again, right? Exactly.

Abhijit: More high fat, low carbs, because carbs mess with your brain in this way.

And it's just No

Adrienne: sugar. Exactly. Sugar and hyperactive meth.

Abhijit: Exactly, which is completely correct me if I'm wrong, but there is no connection between sugar and hyperactivity, is there? No.

Adrienne: And do you know what? I remember as a young teacher, and I had a grade eight class right after lunch. And every time after when I have them, if I had them in the morning my our schedules rotated.

And so sometimes you have the morning, sometimes you have them after lunch in last period. But every time I had them right after lunch, they just were bonkers. They were nuts. They were so energetic. And it was hard to get them settled back down to focus on. So I had to plan accordingly. And I remember thinking then because everyone say, Oh it's the sugar they're having at lunch.

Look at the sugar they're having. And I remember thinking, I'm not sure about that. I could it be that you see what they're doing right now. They're running around on the playground. They're playing soccer. And it just takes them a little bit of time to Calm down. Calm down. Exactly. And so guess what?

That's, I believe the studies show that there's no difference in their behavior.

Abhijit: And why do kids go nuts when they're at another kid's birthday party and they're eating all sorts of candy and cake? Because they're at another kid's birthday party! And

Adrienne: there's presents! And there's goodie bags! And there's games! And there's activities!

Abhijit: Exactly! It's just you're running around like a crazy person.

Not because of the sugar, but because of that. But yes, sugar is a good source of energy, but it doesn't increase your energy levels to that extent. Unless, of course, your kids are having coffee. Which I would not recommend.

Adrienne: I wouldn't recommend caffeine. But that whole sugar thing, I've seen that in the Tourette community.

I'm not giving my kids sugar because it, it increases their tics. As far as I know, no evidence for that. ADHD. I've never heard anybody say Though for obsessive compulsive disorder, but who knows, there might be somebody out there that said, yeah, his LCD is broken.

Abhijit: Probably, but I do want to touch on autism before it gets too late for you.

Now I've I've spoken to a few people and I have a good friend, a good couple of friends. It's a. Friends who are a couple and their son is autistic, and I wanted to understand from your perspective and how you teach people about these conditions on what exactly is autism and how does it affect kids and their speech and learning, learning how to converse.

Adrienne: To be honest, I do not have a lot of expertise in autism spectrum disorder. I certainly have taught a lot of kids on that spectrum. And, but for, as a clinical diagnosis, That would not, I think I, what I can say is that Tourette Canada used to have a brochure that had the differences between autism and Tourette syndrome.

And there's a lot of overlap between them. There can be a lot of overlap between them and very similar, you know how you say, how do you tease it out, very similar symptoms. And one of the big differences between Trett syndrome and autism spectrum disorder, based on that brochure, as well as what the kid psychiatrist told me many years ago, and you know how brains can remember wrong, so take this for what it's worth.

But that people with Tourette's syndrome will miss social cues because they're in a, they're ticking, they might have an obsessive thoughts going on in their head. They may have ADHD and they're looking at the bee that's flying around the ceiling. But if they see a social cue, they will understand it.

Whereas someone with autism has that difficulty and they have to learn. Social cues. Does that make sense? It's a very subtle trend. But I've known of kids who have a dual diagnosis of Tourette and autism spectrum disorder. And of course, just like any disorder, it is a spectrum and language development is obviously an early indication of the possibility of autism.

All the students that I had in my class, because I was in an academic stream, had no issues with speech. However, they tended, just like people with Tourette's syndrome tend to have difficulty with they call it dysgraphia, written work.

This is again, memory. I believe almost all of the kids that I had difficulty writing. And so assistive technology was very helpful for some of these, or could be helpful. So remind me where I need to be going here.

Abhijit: No, I was just trying to, I just wanted to understand from your perspective and to a lay person, what exactly, how to help them understand what autism is and how it affects a child.

Just from a very simple layperson. Like I didn't, I don't need like a clinical diagnosis or anything of that sort.

Adrienne: Yeah. That's a really tough question for me to answer, to be honest.

Abhijit: That's why we ask all the tough questions on this channel.

Adrienne: If you're, how old is their child?

Abhijit: I think he's close to around 10 now.

Adrienne: Okay. I was going to say, any issues that you see, differences early on, early intervention, from my understanding, is extremely important. Getting help early on with speech, with dysgraphia, with whatever it may be, anxiety is huge. Usually, anxiety is a really big problem. They tend to have obsessive compulsive disorder.

type behaviors. And quite often, like the stimming can be something that's very common, but it can also be very tick right? So there's that difficulty easing them apart. And it's really important to have that early intervention. I think being open to any suggestion from experts, make sure they're experts.

Don't go onto Google and say, what is going to help my kid?

Abhijit: Oh God, no.

Adrienne: You have to be careful with some experts too, because as we just talked, Jordan Peterson is supposedly an expert. And

Abhijit: he is not the kind of person you want to listen to.

Adrienne: No, we need to find good experts, the consent, not consensus, but the majority of.

people who say this is what is a good thing to do for this. And it can be a whole team of people and they hopefully they're open to that. And they also are involved with that. They go to the appointments, both parents going to the appointments is very helpful. So they can all be on the same track.

Consistency is very important. Like with all kids is important. And then when you get someone, kids with Tourette's syndrome or Autism, it becomes even more important that consistency is there and just seeking help from experts and making sure, if something's not working, that there's a lot of different possibilities and I think that one of the problems with all of these is as they grow, they continue to change.

So what worked last year may suddenly not work in a year, this year. And so that consistency with an expert is really important. And I, I'm guessing that, I don't know what it's like in the US, but in Canada, that would look like a psychiatrist and a psychologist and an occupational therapist think I got them all.

Abhijit: All right. Yeah. I was just wondering, what are the biggest mis I would say, what are the biggest myths and misinformation that surrounds autism and ADHD? Let's just stick to autism for now that you have encountered.

Adrienne: I can give you an example. My last, yeah, I think people have something in their minds that it's somebody who doesn't talk and they rock all the time and they hit their heads.

But there's an awful lot of people with the autistic spectrum and they used to be called Asperger's. Remember Asperger's? Yeah. Yeah, they took that out of the DSM, whenever the last one DSM 5 came out, and they just made it more like a spectrum so they just have milder version of autism, which is called Asperger's.

So people on that side. Yeah. part of the spectrum are highly functional and do very well and can do well. On obviously the more serious, if you're not verbal, et cetera, that's going to be another story. But I had, when I was working in the last few years of my job, I was working in adult upgrade.

So we tended to get students that were they didn't graduate for whatever reason, many of them because of things like undiagnosed A DHD, undiagnosed anxiety undiagnosed whatever. And I've had cancer survivors, so kids who had cancer who couldn't complete their schooling and were coming back, kids hit by cars in crosswalks.

I had two of those in one class one year. That was crazy. Wow. And yeah so lots of different reasons for. These young adults have to go and upgrade and when they do come, quite often they don't have any diagnosis. And then we actually at that school, we had set funds and I would say, Hey, I think this kid needs to have a diagnosis so that we can get them the aids that they need to succeed.

Absolutely. And, and people that's a myth actually, that they won't have those accommodations through university. They do. All three of my kids, I have one kid who got a PhD. He used accommodations in his PhD program. So if you have the paperwork and the diagnosis, at least in Canada and the U S.

Yeah, you can still get those accommodations. So there's one myth that does occur. However, this student, quite often the students think, Oh, I don't need accommodations anymore. I'm, I'm out of high school, even though they're still in high school, they're 18, 19, 20, 21 years of age. And so they don't tell us and they don't tell us, we don't know.

Abhijit: Until

Adrienne: quite often I'd pull them aside and say I noticed you're having trouble finishing this test. Did you used to get extra time? And they go, yeah. And then we have to go through the process of getting the records and all this sort of thing. But so quite often that happens. We had this young lad in class.

And he was in my math class, brilliant in mathematics, and the very first thing he did was he moved his chair, his, the table and chair that was in my classroom, behind my desk. filing cabinets at the front of the class so he couldn't see the rest of the class. And I have them grouped, I used to have, do a lot of group work, I was a math teacher, I was weird, and lots of group work and stuff in my class so they were Ordered in groups.

And my first thing was, I'm not supposed to diagnose. So I'm diagnosing. But my guess was that this kid was on the spectrum of something. And like what you're talking about for Sweden. I have no idea what this kid has, but there's definitely something where he's uncomfortable because he doesn't want to be in with a group.

And he's hidden himself behind my, my my,

And then all of a sudden one day, like this is like day two or day three of classes, he starts rapping a rap.

Abhijit: Oh wow. Okay. Oh

Adrienne: yeah. And okay. This is unusual behavior. So I have some choices. Shut up. Get out of the class. Or my choice was to start dancing to it.

Abhijit: I wish I'd be just like you back in school, man, seriously.

Adrienne: And of course the kids are all starting to laugh, right? Because me, so the attention is no longer, sorry, no longer on this kid, but they're looking at me laughing, goofily dancing. And then he stopped and we get back to math and away we go. Yeah. Yeah. I get a frantic note from the counselor of the school saying such and such has been known to break out.

Rapping and singing during class. We think he's schizophrenic. Anybody else have this? I'm like, this is not schizophrenia.

Abhijit: No way, man.

Adrienne: No. So autistic spectrum possibly could have been on the Tourette scale. It could have been, I've had kids who break out in song, and my kids, not my kids, but other kids I know of, one kid would break out in opera in his class, in grade six, and that was his trick.

So what could this be? It could have been many things. I know that it's not schizophrenia, most likely, because this kid is The rest of the time, doing amazing in my class. I run down to the counselor's office and say, Oh no, this is, I don't think this is schizophrenia. I think you're on the wrong track.

And there's a lot of, these teachers are fearful, right? I don't know why they're fearful of schizophrenia, but they were fearful of this kid. And anyway They wanted to, there was no official diagnosis, partly due to cultural, familial, lack of understanding. Like what you're talking about from India.

And it was a real shame because we gave him, we put him in his own room for all his diploma exams for his big tests because we knew he would do better in those situations. That's wonderful. And yeah, but you know what? If you don't have the paperwork, it doesn't happen. Later on, he was, I think, if I remember correctly, this kid ended up being the top in my class at the end of that.

If not, he was like in the top two or three. He was amazing. However, if I had said, no, you have to go and sit with the group. No, shut up, stop singing, get out of my classroom. Those types of things. You need to go, you need to be admitted to the hospital because maybe you're schizophrenic. All those things. So there's an example of my colleagues not understanding what it is. I'm lucky in some ways because I have lived experience with not autism, but I guess you could say the neurodiversity. And, Because of that familiarity, I was able to try strategies that were a little out of the box of the norm, not the normal things.

But I, I really hope that teachers, teachers are pretty amazing. I've run across some pretty amazing teachers with no background in this who just try stuff. And they're so creative and they're so good. So those are the teachers. Thank you, teachers, if you're listening, thank you for doing that.

And if you tend to be a little more rigid, just maybe try a few things. If you can, and see if it works. See if you get better results. I do.

Abhijit: I think that's probably the best part of our little conversation here because that really exemplifies how we're all in this together. We can all be different in our own unique ways, and we just need a different environment to thrive in.

I have, I've had nothing like that when I was growing up, when I was in school, and it's just, it's been the kind of diversity that I've seen in the, in young kids these days, like when my nephew with other kids, there's so much, they're so intelligent, they're so incredibly intelligent. And the schools, at least the ones that I've encountered, have become a lot more sensitive towards, different minds, which is, neurodivergence in a manner of speaking.

Adrienne: So a common question that I get asked, and this is about autism, this is about Tourette's syndrome. There's so much more of it now. Like, why is there so much? Is it something we're eating? Is it, something we're doing? Is it the

Abhijit: pesticides and the vaccines?

Adrienne: Oh, the vaccines for sure. At least when it comes to autism.

I'm surprised, actually, that we haven't heard, oh yeah vaccines, maybe I better not say it, vaccines cause other things, otherwise we'll go, somebody will grab it and go with it. Oh goodness. But, yeah, no it's, One of the, my favorite quotes is from Oliver Sacks and in his book oh boy, okay, here's that ADHD.

I know this book inside and out and yet here I The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.

Abhijit: Oh, I love that book. Yeah.

Adrienne: Wonderful book. And he describes his first encounter with a person with Tourette's syndrome. And I believe it was 1972. There's those dates. I might have that wrong. And yeah, he saw this person.

saw his tics, and then at that time it was thought to be one in a million, for Tourette's syndrome. And then he walked out onto the New York Street, and he's hey, but there's somebody ticking. There's somebody else ticking. Maybe this is a little more common than we know, and the current numbers are 1%.

Of children and adolescents. It's a little less when you're an adult because that there is about 33 percent that will, they'll just go away. They never come back. They don't have any tics anymore. But they have it all the way through the childhood and adolescence and into their early twenties sometimes.

And 1%. That's probably a hundred.

Abhijit: That's a lot. That's a lot.

Adrienne: And no, it's not the pesticides, et cetera. It's just, we now recognize it. We now know what it looks like. And even still, my oldest son was not diagnosed until he was 11 and he had severe tics from the age of four. And I'm talking vocal tics movement tics, and he was at specialists and nobody diagnosed him until we went to a Tourette clinic in Edmonton.

So it's still relatively unknown. Even autism, that's one thing, the autism education, I think it's better understood and better recognized by most of the the medical community. And that was another thing with autism in the DSM, they expanded the definition. So of course you're going to capture more people.

Abhijit: Exactly. And once people are more educated, once you get updated from the DSM, and people in general become more aware of autism and other conditions, they will obviously not only seek advice from a specialist, but specialists themselves will also be more liberal with their diagnosis and not liberal with their diagnosis, but at least they'll be more accurate with their diagnosis.

But at the same time, they'll, they won't be hesitant about their diagnosis, if they are quite sure about what they, what the patient is going through. Obviously we've got rising numbers, but then that's just because

Adrienne: we're getting

Abhijit: better at it. Exactly. Better education.

Adrienne: And one of the things that I kept hearing, and I haven't heard, I've been out of the education system for a little while now, since 2018 is when I retired.

And one of the things I heard a lot when I was teaching, probably my last five, 10 years Ah, ADHD is so overdiagnosed. Look at them and go, based on my classes, it's underdiagnosed. And if you actually speak to people in the profession, they will say it's underdiagnosed. At least they did then. I don't know if that's still the case at this point.

Does that mean that somebody misdiagnoses, that nobody misdiagnoses? Of course not. Some people who don't have ADHD are going to get that diagnosis. They might get it wrong. But still, I think it's underdiagnosed partly because of stigma. People don't want to, a bit of denial and they don't want the label.

Abhijit: Yeah, absolutely. And that's, that's something that I've encountered in India as well. It's the aid and the most difficult part of explaining, as I said before, about what a person with ADHD is going through is that it sounds so normal. They're like, yeah, of course, everybody's going through the same thing.

We're all, we all procrastinate. We all, don't give a damn about subjects that don't interest us. I'm like, yeah, but then you can still convince yourself to go ahead and do the work so that you can just get on with life. You can still get stuff done, but with ADHD, it's just a lot harder than that.

And it's very hard to really to convince people to be able to help people understand that nuance of pushing into that. And of course with Tourette's, with autism. With all the other conditions, there is still a huge amount of work that we have to do, especially in India, to be able to get people to a place where they're more understanding and more accepting of people instead of just calling some kids slow or yeah, he just didn't develop as quickly.

Adrienne: Oh, I've heard lazy so often. Oh,

Abhijit: I got lazy. I got, oh, he's just lazy and he doesn't do his work and he's just not applying himself, but he has a lot of potential. Yeah, I know. I've heard that before.

Adrienne: So you see that as a big problem still in India.

Abhijit: Oh yes, it's huge. And hopefully through conversations like this and helping people come to grips with so many different conditions that we are all encountering every single day, that we just involve a little bit more empathy and in people, based conditions and neurodivergence as a whole, which I think is what Sweden is really going for.

Adrienne: It took me a while to wrap my head around what you're saying. I think we got there.

Abhijit: Yeah, I think so. I think even I've understood what I was saying a little bit better than I was. But Adrian, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been a very interesting conversation indeed. And I'm sure we'll have many more.

Of course, we've all gone off on our bunny trails here and there. But guys, if you have any questions for Adrian, or about mental health in general, just write to me at abhijit at be rationable. com And I'll try and respond to you or try and get another episode on where we can discuss these things at length and get down to the answers that we need to find.

Adrienne: And again, I'm not a doctor. And I just do the best I can answering questions from a parent and teacher's perspective.

Abhijit: Exactly what we wanted to have on my have you on for exactly. That's my sentence construction's a little off right now. Maybe it's breakfast. I haven't had breakfast yet.

Adrienne: It's so fun chatting with you and I hope we do it again a little sooner this next time.

Abhijit: Absolutely. Absolutely. And hopefully I will see you at CSICon this year. So fingers crossed for everything.

Adrienne: Thank

Abhijit: you so much and have a wonderful night and a wonderful weekend ahead.

Adrienne: Thank you so much.

Abhijit: See ya. Bye. Oh, that was fun.