Brian King, MSW
@brianrking · 4:53
Who am I and why does it matter to you?
So I guess you could say I've been diagnosed with autism. ADHD dyslexia and dyscalcula. And I grew up not knowing any of this because I'm about 53 now. I grew up in the late seventies and 80s when these terms largely were not even recognized, let alone accommodated. So I grew up in school being told I was unmotivated, that I didn't care, that I wasn't self disciplined enough
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:58
But there are so many people here on Swell who really drop into their stories like you did, because why not A? And B, we can learn so much from each other by saying, hey, this is what I got. This is my diagnosis, this is what I'm doing about it. These are the emotional and physical challenges I've been dealing with and just sharing knowledge of
I was diagnosed one of many things, but it was diagnosed with undifferentiated excuse me, my mouth is not cooperating. Undifferentiated connective tissue disease. And so they never gave it an official name, but I highly suspect some form of a Stanlos. But at this point, I don't know
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:11
And as we project out and talk about it, I think it's not just about, hey, this is who I am and what I've learned about myself, but it's always that link to changing someone else's life. Because they heard your story. And that's really what fascinates me about this. So who am I, and why does it matter to you?
phil spade
@Phil · 1:05
As Deb said, you just never know who you might be touching, but you'll never know unless I communicate to you. So I definitely wanted to respond and apologies for being so late
Brian King, MSW
@brianrking · 4:45
And the more we can talk about our mental health challenges, family of orders, origin issues, our own insecurities, and talk about it like we would talk about the weather so that people can really bond more authentically, see each other as humanity, because we're not hiding ourselves from each other. We realize that we're imperfect beings, and we're just trying to figure this all out, and we do so much better as a community than as competing individuals
Brian King, MSW
@brianrking · 2:02
Because the more you can understand all of your little nuances and idiosyncrosti's, the better it's able you will be to show up in your own unique way in life fully. And then people get to truly experience you for the gift you are. Because the masking gets to fade away and be replaced by confidence. So, thank you again and I'm really looking forward to seeing what else happens on this beautiful platform
Brian King, MSW
@brianrking · 3:00
If you have some kind of suffering that's part of being human, there's somebody out there that needs to hear it so that they at least know they're not alone. And when you know at least that, you have hope
Brian King, MSW
@brianrking · 0:46
And as far as we know, we're just throwing spaghetti at the wall unless someone gives us feedback. So thank you for knowing that and seeing that and taking the time to let me know because that is really, really helpful and very validating for me. So thank you