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All right, Mia, we're here. Welcome to the Exhomeschoolers Club. Hi. Thank you
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for having me. Uh, it is it is a pleasure to have you. Oh my gosh, it has been we were talking before we hit
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record. It has been a number of years since I've seen you. You for for audience members who don't know, you are
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the younger sister of Derry, who was like my third interview on this or my third episode on this podcast and like
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my best friend growing up. Um, and then your mom has also been on the podcast and uh, and now I get to talk to you and
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I'm so stoked because I we haven't talked in like a decade. So, I'm I'm
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pumped to get your experience. Yeah, it's super cool to be here. I love it's really cool to see the like very
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very varied experiences from people where I'm like I thought I had a pretty similar experience to certain people but
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then I hear their point of view and I'm like oh we had an entirely different
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like experience with this. Yeah. No, that's been the coolest part about this
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show is like getting to chat with all of you and and learning about all these like behind the-scen things that were
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happening and how they shape like whether you think of it as like good or bad or like just overall your
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experience. So, so with that, I'm going to turn it over to you for a few minutes
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and kind of walk me through like a day in the life of Beia Brooks growing up in the Brooks household of like what was a
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day in the life of homeschool looking like? Well, I feel like for if you asked any of my other siblings, like each of
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us would have a very different telling of it, I think, because most we're I think about each
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like two or to three years apart. So, kind of each of us had a different like era of parenting. Yeah. Um definitely my
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older siblings experiences were very different from mine. Um, but our homeschooling was a little bit less
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structured than a lot of the people in our like homeschooling community that I knew. Um, I know a lot of kids had like
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certain programs or like a certain curriculum that they like did everything from one. I know my mom talked about
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that a little bit already. Um, but we kind of switched between stuff a lot and so my older siblings had
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certain curriculums that like by the time it got to me where I was taking that subject, it was like we're not
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using that anymore. Yeah. Um, it but it was very um self-paced. I think because I'm the
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youngest, I kind of got kind of the less structured like the we're almost done.
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we just got to finish with this last kid. Kind of a little bit less structured stuff. Um which I think kind
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of worked to my advantage. I was very um kind of just like show me how to do something and I'm going to get it done
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so I can be done with it. Yeah, exactly. It's kind of that whole like mentality.
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I just interviewed someone earlier this week who was talking about they did a semester in high school back in like a
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private or public school and they were talking about how they were like it was it wasn't that the teaching was bad but
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the the waste of time they're like I could have done everything that I needed
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to do for the day in two to three hours and so I felt just like trapped in this space and I wanted to like go play
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sports and I wanted to go do other stuff and I think that can it can be one of the strengths of homeschooling is that
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ability right to kind of be like, I set my own pace. Yeah. So, yeah, mom and dad
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hand over the textbooks and boom, I'm like, I'm off to the races. Let's go. I
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know. That was like that was a really crazy thing as a kid seeing like my public school friends. It basically is
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like having a full-time job as a kid. Yes. Like, it's really takes so much of
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your time for something that is so like I don't know. I feel like learning really isn't something where you can be
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like, "Okay, we're going to be in this building and learn for eight hours." I'm
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like I think most people, obviously this is coming from me not having a great attention span, but like I think for a
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lot of people after a few hours there's like a certain cap where it's like it's
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probably not beneficial that we're still trying to like cram more information in
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our brains where it just I don't know. It's so crazy like seeing that because
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that was so opposite from what I had. No, I I 100% agree with you. It's it's
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one of those things that's interesting even like working for myself because it's like homechool in a lot of ways
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where like I get to set the hours there. There's there's good and bads to it
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where it's like I set the hours for like what when I get to do stuff and when I
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work on projects and whatever, but I can if I'm feeling motivated to do it at
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midnight, I'll do it at midnight, you know? Um, but yeah, but we hit that slump like you were talking about that
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like kind of like you look at something for so long and then you're just like I
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even if your brain is like I don't want to say wired normally, but like that
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like if you don't have a neurode divergent brain, you like you you still after a couple hours are like I'm
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burning out of this thing, you know? Um, I need like a break kind of a thing. So,
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I do want to kind of touch on cuz like you obviously like thrived to some degree like having that
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unstructured feeling, work at my own pace because by 14 you were already like going to college level classes and doing
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that. So, talk to me about that and talk to me about like how that kind of came to be of like, okay, like mom and dad
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are ready to not ship me off to college, but like I'm going to community college.
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I'm going to start taking higher level education classes. Like what did that
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look like? Well, a few of my older siblings had done some they didn't do as much um like
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while they were still in high school, but all of my siblings had gone to BC. Um and so I
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already I already knew of people doing it. I don't I don't I'm like trying to
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remember now if it was even my like it wasn't really my mom. She didn't really
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have that as the plan for me to do that. I think it just kind of came about that
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I happened to. Um, the first class I took was like one of the combined classes where it was like
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two semesters in one. So, it was like a longer class and I think it was like three days a week or something. Um, but
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it was I think algebra 1 and algebra 2 together. Um, and at the time, which of course
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they change all the requirements of stuff at community college as soon as you leave. So like now it's not a
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prerequisite, but back then it was a prerequisite. Like you had to take it no matter what if you were going to take
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any other advanced math. So Calie was taking at the time for her like she was already out of high school. She was like
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actually doing it for her college degree. Um, and that was like about the time I would have been taking algebra 1
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and two anyways. So, I did that class with her and that was a semester and it definitely was
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very I don't know, it definitely was hard because it was an advanced class. Um, it was definitely helpful being in
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the class with a sibling, but honestly, my reaction at the time going into community college was just
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like everyone was so immature where I was like, this is like not serious at all. Like the teachers at
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in my classes took stuff way less seriously than like some of the teachers at Group Solutions did who like most
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most of them weren't even actual teachers. Right. There there was a I don't know. It was
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interesting because I had obviously had like the social dynamics of a classroom before, but only with other
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homeschoolers, right? Which like we're a bunch of weird to Yeah. To a certain degree it is a lot of strange
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people. So, like you kind of don't have to be you're not as aware of being
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different or being weird or anything when you are used to being around a lot of weird people, but um it was
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definitely very interesting. I thought I was going to feel very like young and like be able to
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kind of not keep up or that. But I really had like the opposite experience where I was like a lot of these college
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age students that I'm interacting with are like really not even in the same phase
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of life as me when they're like full adults already. The the college thing is
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so interesting because I immediate I didn't ever do classes at VC. I just immediately went to college, like
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four-year university. And so it was it was interesting, but my sister did community college and and
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things like that. And so, but it was interesting to compare notes with her on like the difference in the way
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classrooms are run because like four-year universities 10 or at least the one I went to, everyone who was in
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the classroom was like 18 to 22ish. There was a few master students who would have been older and there was a
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few people who were coming back and getting their degrees as like 30 year old adults and things like that, but for
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the majority of the students, it was all like that 18 to 22 year range. Um, and then my sister would talk about going to
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college and she would be like, "Oh yeah, we've got people from the age of 16 all
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the way into like their 50s because community college obviously is a lot more accessible to more people." Um, but
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even for someone who like like she would work with people in their 50s, but right
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who were like, I never got a degree. It's just something I've always wanted
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to do. I'm going back and getting it now. Right. And so you've got that weird
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it is a very wide mix of people who are on all different walks of life. But to your point, you kind of are all in the
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same place to some degree because you're like, I got to do algebra 1 or, you
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know, whatever this class is. like I need this information to get, you know, the next step in my career. Um it's just
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an it's so wild to me how community college operates and like looking at it and like especially you being 14 being
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in the classroom. If I was 18 going to I'd be like what this kid is a genius.
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I know. I like I think at the time I really I know it's a definitely a common
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experience for a lot of like neurody divergent kids where you kind of feel older than you are at a young age
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because you're kind of sensing the differences in yourself. Um but really it's not necessarily a sign of maturity
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because I I really don't think I was much more mature than my peers. I think
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maybe I just had a certain understanding of being different from people and usually that doesn't come till you're
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older, I guess. I don't know. Um, but like I look back and I remember at the
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time being like, "Yeah, these guys sitting next to me probably think that I'm 18 and I'm the same age as them."
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But then I like look I look at pictures of myself when I was 14. I was like, "Oh
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my word." Like I was a little kid very obviously. And I'm very grateful that
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like for the most part people did like notice that I was young and they like didn't talk to me because they didn't
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want to seem weird which honestly I was grateful for but there was you know there was other high school students
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too. So did you do uh VC classes all through I guess I mean 14 to 18 would be your high school years but were you
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doing VC classes that entire time? Yeah, I started with just the one the first semester I just did that one. Um, and
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then the next year I did maybe like one or two, but then like the last two years
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of high school I pretty much was only doing BC because it was counting for my like towards my high school diploma and
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towards like my associates um at the same time. So I pretty much was only and at that point I was the
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youngest kid. So, it was kind of like all of my other siblings were already graduated. My mom like I don't know. It
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just seems kind of like I'm already doing classes. I might as well just finish. So, I did Yeah. The last two
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years I basically was mainly doing that. Um, and I took like about like three classes a semester, I think. And then I
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ended up only having one more semester after I gradu after I graduated. to uh finish my associates. Okay. Well,
00:13:01
that's kind of nice. Done it like 18, 19 years old. That's like kind of nice. Did
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you have Associates degrees are kind of a um an enigma to me to some degree because
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like obviously like with a a bachelor's like you have a very like you have an I
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have a bachelor's I have a I have a bachelor of science in music in music business which so I I tell people I have
00:13:24
a BS degree. Um, but like is are AA degrees kind of similar where you set an emphasis of
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like, hey, I'm going I'm focusing on this area or are they more um I don't want to say generic, but like
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I know a lot of people use them to then go on to do like a four a bachelor's
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degree program. Um, mine so it's kind of either it's just kind of whatever what
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you want. Um, okay. Like you totally can do like a specific major where you are mainly doing classes in that and then
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that's like your major and it your degree will actually mean something kind of mine is just um associates of arts
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and science or arts and humanities which basically just means I have no clue why
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it's called that because I took two art classes in the entire time and it was
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because I was interested in it not even because I necessarily had to take And I don't think I took a single
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humanities class, so I'm not sure why it's called that, but uh yeah, associates of arts and
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humanities. I it basically was just all of the classes that I needed to graduate
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high school, and it's like all of the general ed that you need to like do any
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degree basically. So, I have like my AAT, which is like the associates and the stuff that you need to be able to
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transfer to a 4-year, which I never did, but I have it. Yeah, it's ready. It's
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locked and loaded if you if you choose to go that path, which is kind of nice. Um yeah,
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I it's so interesting because um in high school, I want to say I was 14 or whatever where I first started to learn
00:15:08
about like the dual credit kind of thing like you're talking about, right? It's
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like counts for high school, but it also can go count towards your college, which
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like made a lot of sense to me cuz I'm like why take a class twice if I can if
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I can only take it once and be done with it kind of a deal. But I never, like I said, I never took community college
00:15:25
classes. I but I tested out of a lot of stuff and so I did um club exams and that was super helpful when I got to
00:15:33
college because I ended up only needing to do three years of college because I just I was like I did a couple club
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exams. I worked all through the summer on school stuff like I I was just like I as soon as I got there I was like I want
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out of this. I don't school right I thrive in that environment but I also was just like I don't want to do this
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anymore. Like I I want a job. I want to like go make money. That kind of a thing. But
00:15:56
Um, yeah. So, anyway, not to not to harp too much on me because the show is not about me, it's about you. Um, but so,
00:16:05
okay, so we're talk So, you graduate you're 18ish, 18, 19. You've got your I
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actually, sorry, I actually was I graduated a year early technically for my like age. Um, I
00:16:21
skipped a grade at some point. I don't know what grade it was, but it was like
00:16:26
somewhere in the like second, third grade, I think. And I just like whatever the testing was at the time that you
00:16:33
like could do to test out of a grade or, you know, skip a grade or whatever. Um,
00:16:38
I skipped a grade. So, I was a year younger than like the class that I was in. So, I was 16 and a half or Oh my
00:16:47
gosh. Yeah. or Yeah. Yeah. I was almost 17 when I graduated or or I turned 17 right after I graduated and then I had
00:16:55
the one semester after. So I really was only almost 18 when I was done with high
00:17:02
school and college. Yeah. So what was So at that point I mean okay so you're 17
00:17:10
you're kind of like you said you're kind of done. What what is going through your
00:17:14
brain of like you know were you thinking about okay now I I want to go do a bigger degree or I want to get a job or
00:17:21
I want to like pursue creative passion like what was what was that what was going through your brain at that point
00:17:27
in love man I don't know I like I think for a lot of my schooling like both in college and
00:17:38
homeschooling I was always very aware of like I got to choose the thing that I want to do for
00:17:46
the rest of my life. Um, and I never really like had a specific thing that was very jobreated that I was interested
00:17:54
in. Um, right. I'd always been interested in music. Um, but even at that point, I still was
00:18:01
like I had done some stuff with music, but hadn't really like I didn't I didn't unlock it in my
00:18:10
brain as thinking it was like a real option, I guess, at the time. Yeah. So, I think I was pretty confused, honestly.
00:18:19
Um, and also like having the experience of only being homeschooled and then going
00:18:24
to college where it was just such a like big difference. I kind of was like experiencing what most kids experience
00:18:32
from a super young age for the first time as right like almost an adult. Um, so I think it was like I don't know.
00:18:43
I something I was thinking about a lot recently is like I always felt like I was very ahead as a kid. And I think
00:18:52
it's almost like kind of the mindset that a lot of homeschoolers have almost
00:18:56
like a little god complex of like we're so much better than the public schoolers. we're going to be so ahead so
00:19:03
we can do all these things and blah blah blah where it's like which you know is
00:19:07
great because you should be proud of yourself but I think I didn't have a very
00:19:14
accurate picture of the world because I really hadn't existed in society as it actually is. And it's very
00:19:24
interesting because I all of the things that I really value about homeschooling like kind of
00:19:33
are the things that made me unprepared which is like having a lot of flexibility and a lot of time to be able
00:19:39
to figure things out yourself and you know so much stuff of like what I think life should be but isn't really
00:19:47
realistic to how the world is set up and yeah it's It's just kind of crazy. I
00:19:53
always felt very ahead, but now as an adult or really at the time when I was like turning 18, I kind of was like
00:20:02
first existing actually, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So, it was kind of like the first
00:20:08
time I had to actually gauge what I would want out of a job or a career, you know, all of that.
00:20:16
I I think you make a great point there of like that kind of it it it's like a bubble. It's like
00:20:24
growing up in a bubble whether our parents intended that or not. Right. Yeah. Um I had I had a friend on Adam
00:20:30
Gaus. He was on the show. Him and I went to college together. He was also homeschooled and him and I talked about
00:20:36
the Christian bubble existing where like youth group was a big role in in our lives. I know your family, my family, we
00:20:43
all went to the same church at one point like and so church was big and then like
00:20:48
him and I chose a college that was a continuation of that bubble and while we were in that bubble it started to burst
00:20:55
um and we started to see the real world but it wasn't even until we got out of
00:20:58
it. So, we're 20. I graduated at 20, but like 20 20 21ish, that bubble is like
00:21:05
bursting for us where we're like, to your point, starting to see the world as
00:21:08
like, oh, there's like so much else out here. There's like the differing of
00:21:13
opinions and the like this is how jobs operate and this is, you know, all these things that we maybe had some
00:21:20
preparation for, but it just was it was a shaking. And I I think I don't know
00:21:25
that that's exclusively like a homeschool thing where like we get out in the world and like I don't know maybe
00:21:30
public school kids feel that way too but it is such a dramatic shift to go from like that
00:21:37
unstructured structure in a way like this is how the world operates inside of that bubble to like oh wow the the world
00:21:44
is just so vastly different than what I anticipated and I don't know how I don't
00:21:50
know if parents can even prepare you for Yeah. Right. Does that make sense? Yeah.
00:21:55
It's kind of like do you want to shelter your kid by teaching them these like
00:22:00
good principles and then later they have to have that earth shattered or do you want
00:22:06
to shatter their earth when they're young and potentially traumatized them more? It's like I don't know. There's
00:22:12
like it's such a balance and I'm like that's why I didn't I Yeah, that's such a weird thing to
00:22:25
think about of like how do you balance that as a parent? Like not even just a homeschool parent, but like how do you
00:22:30
balance that as a parent of like giving your kids the exposure to the outside world and
00:22:36
how it operates and how it looks and like you know some people would argue like the world is a cruel cruel place,
00:22:43
right? And it's, you know, there's all this stuff and it's like it's I don't
00:22:46
know. Like it's uh man, you got you put me in a thinker there for sure. I do want to kind of
00:22:56
like bounce to something else that you had brought up in like a chatting before the interview and that was and you even
00:23:03
brought it you had alluded to it a few times while we've been chatting too is
00:23:06
like being neurode divergent and so your brain being just wired differently than
00:23:12
others and when did that kind of start to play I mean that's probably played a role in
00:23:19
your life your entire life but like when did that really start to be like okay like something is different about me
00:23:25
more than just like I was raised a homeschool kid. So, I didn't I honestly had never thought about ADHD as
00:23:36
like something that could pertain to me at all. Like, I really didn't know anything about it growing up. Um, also
00:23:45
it's like a very interesting subset of people. the homeschoolers, not all of
00:23:51
them, but a lot of the homeschoolers I was raised around were very um homeopathic to the point where it was
00:23:59
kind of in denial of like mental health and differences existing. So there were a lot of like I grew up
00:24:08
with a lot of autistic kids who were not diagnosed or they were diagnosed but their parents were in denial or trying
00:24:15
to cure them somehow or you know so I was I I really didn't have any exposure
00:24:21
to knowing what it was. Um, so I basically how I found out, um, I started seeing this therapist
00:24:33
in I think 2021 and I was seeing her for about a year and it was honestly after like
00:24:41
almost an entire year of going to her. She was like, "Okay, I'm just going to
00:24:46
say this and I just want you to like hear me non-judgmentally. And I'm not saying anything negative about you, but
00:24:54
like from what I have witnessed basically being your therapist, you seem to have like a lot
00:25:01
of these traits. Um, and it would make a lot of sense if that were the case. And
00:25:08
I'm not diagnosing you or saying that, but if you're interested in that, we
00:25:12
could talk about it and you can get tested or whatever. Um, and so we talked about it a lot and it was very it was
00:25:20
pretty not earthshattering in a bad way, but pretty like just it was something where I had
00:25:26
never even thought about it. But then once I thought about it and she kind of described it to
00:25:33
me how I was appearing, you know, I was like, "Oh, that makes a lot of sense."
00:25:40
Um, so then I ended up doing like the official testing and I did I got diagnosed.
00:25:49
Um, but yeah, it definitely was like very very eye opening for me. [Music] Um cuz there was there was just so many
00:26:02
things that I was like how did I not see that this was like obviously something was different. I guess I like
00:26:13
I definitely like felt that I was different from a young age. Um, but especially like as a girl, it's
00:26:23
very common for people to kind of just see any kind of like bad behavior or differences as just like because you're
00:26:32
a girl and you're emotional or because you're a kid even. Um, where it's just
00:26:37
not taken very seriously, which, you know, to a certain degree it's like kids are going to be
00:26:44
all over the place. Um, but there really was a lot that once I got diagnosed I was like, "Okay, this was pretty
00:26:50
obvious." Well, it's someone as someone who grew up with a neuro neurode divergent
00:26:55
person, it was so interesting because like I think my mom realized pretty early on like my kids operate
00:27:04
differently and like I could I could read a book and just retain all of the information and my sister that was not
00:27:12
the way she learned and my mom was very confused by that because my mom and I are very we're we're very similar in the
00:27:18
way we think and the way we act and and just the way our brains work is very very similar and the way my dad and my
00:27:24
sister operate, they're very similar. And so we started to piece together these puzzle pieces of like, okay, like
00:27:32
you know, my my sister can't can't remember something unless like she's
00:27:37
doing jumping jacks and you tell her and then she's got it's locked in, right?
00:27:41
And so I'm thankful that my parents like were like, "Okay, we're going to like do
00:27:46
testing. We're going to figure out what the what what's the learning difference
00:27:48
here? what what are we doing wrong? How do we get, you know, cuz my mom was very
00:27:52
dedicated to like, you know, I want my kids to to have the best. Um, I think most parents are. Um, like to your
00:27:59
point, I think some of them exist in denial um over certain things, but um it was a challenge. It was like an
00:28:06
interesting kind of like puzzle to work out and and grow up with somebody like that because
00:28:12
there's so and everybody is uniquely different, right? Of like like my sister
00:28:17
has to jump on a a you know trampoline in order to like retain information in a certain way, you know? That's not
00:28:23
everybody who's neurody divergent. That's just her. That's the way her
00:28:25
brain operates. Mhm. And so, um, so I can imagine like getting diagnosed as an adult like and starting to realize that
00:28:34
and especially you you brought up too the the like the stigma around like that either not
00:28:40
being, you know, true or it's, hey, it's just like a kid thing, you know, she'll
00:28:45
grow out of it, you know, whatever. Like that that also plays kind of a role in that like how do you approach the next
00:28:53
steps of like, okay, now I have this information. What do I do with this now? Mhm. Now that you know, right? Now that
00:29:00
you have an understanding of how your brain operates, like what did what like what did educating yourself about it
00:29:07
like? How did that look for you? Like what I don't know, did you dive into books, podcasts, videos? Like how did
00:29:13
you learn? Because I don't want to call them coping mechanisms, but I know that
00:29:16
that's like something that you kind of have to figure out how to to work in life. And did you see like oh I've
00:29:23
already I'm already kind of doing these things to operate on this level like I'm
00:29:27
already implementing things. I don't know. That's there's a lot in that
00:29:30
question there, so I don't want to overwhelm you, but yeah. No, I I think honestly the biggest thing has just been
00:29:40
like a lot of reflection and seeing kind of being able to like think about a memory and seeing it through a whole
00:29:47
different lens now where you're like understanding behaviors. Um, I was always
00:29:56
very very emotional as a kid. Like my entire life I've always been like what other people I think
00:30:05
would describe as dramatic and definitely my siblings did describe as dramatic. We had this home video of I'm
00:30:14
like 2 years old or three or something and Derry is like recording. My mom is not even in the house. She's She was
00:30:23
tiling like this. There's like a little bit of floor in our garage and she was
00:30:28
tiling it or something. I don't know. Mo my brother was recording and I'm like
00:30:34
with my head in the cabinet in the like sitting on the counter like trying to hide and I'm just like screaming into
00:30:41
the cabinet because Derry is singing to the tune of like We Will Rock You by Queen. just Mia Mia's cranky over and
00:30:53
over and like which is just like classic tormenting your siblings but um I definitely was very emotional and
00:31:03
dramatic as a child where I didn't I like really never understood why because I could see that my emotions
00:31:13
were a lot more intense than the people around me would be in the same situation.
00:31:19
Um, but it was so confusing cuz a lot of the time it was like very shortlived kind of like I had a lot
00:31:28
of big emotions but I could get over it pretty quickly and then be fine again and Yeah. Yeah. Um, so it definitely
00:31:37
just put a lot of things in perspective where I was like, "Okay, that makes a
00:31:41
lot of sense." Um, I honestly have not read too much. I have like a long list
00:31:46
of books I want to read. Um, but honestly, just a lot of like internet stuff, honestly, YouTubers and just
00:31:55
random people online. Um, and then also I'm like seeing a different therapist
00:32:01
now cuz this was a few years back, but um also like definitely therapy and kind of being able to have someone who has a
00:32:12
similar well who has the same my therapist also has ADHD. So kind of, you know, having a sounding board who
00:32:23
understands not just like that you're struggling, but understands how it feels, you know? I
00:32:30
agree with you that it it's important to find those people who have that same
00:32:35
thing because I think some of the the stigma around neurode diverency, ADHD, dyslexia, like all of the autism, right?
00:32:46
It's like all of that stuff kind of I think tends to get lumped together unfortunately. Um,
00:32:54
and like I think a lot of the stigma around it is that like the the people who are in the families with those
00:33:02
people, they don't understand it and they don't take the time to understand
00:33:05
it and then so that person is an outsider and then they just can continue to be an outsider. But it's like once
00:33:11
you start to put people who are the same around each other, like they realize like, oh, I'm not so different after
00:33:18
all, right? It's like I I am different, but like, you know, somebody else gets
00:33:23
it, right? Somebody else cuz the way you maybe describe the world to me probably
00:33:28
won't make sense to me, right? It it just is like the way my sister describes
00:33:32
the way she like visualizes learning is like it makes no sense to me. It's just
00:33:36
it's a completely different language. Mhm. Um, but what's cool is like when you can
00:33:42
find those people, like I said, those people that are like in the same boat as you, they can give you the tools, the
00:33:47
tips, the whatever, so you guys can learn to like operate. And then for those people who don't have it, I think
00:33:54
it really comes down to learning how to be patient and also learning to try to like try to understand as best as you
00:34:00
can. we will never fully understand. But for for those of us who are not, patience has been the number one thing
00:34:06
that is very hard for me. But like I I I exist around a lot of people who are who
00:34:11
think very differently than me. And so just being able to take a breath and be like, "Okay, let me just ask questions."
00:34:18
And when when we're hitting walls and we can't like I don't know. I I don't know
00:34:21
if you've ever had this experience of like you feel like you're talking past
00:34:25
somebody like does that make sense what I'm saying of of ju just that like I'm
00:34:32
saying something to you and you're like your brain can't comprehend it but your
00:34:36
response to it my brain can't comprehend it. Right. Right. Yeah. What I what I've
00:34:42
learned is like I'm like I I have to take a breath and I have to rethink instead of just asking the same question
00:34:49
over and over. I have to rethink the way I'm asking the question and be like,
00:34:52
"Okay, let's just like can we refocus this on a different topic or whatever
00:34:57
and we'll get there eventually, but that's a whole that's a whole thing in
00:35:02
and of itself." Um definitely probably not as stressful as being neurody divergent, but
00:35:08
um how did like you've obviously learned I hate using the word cope, but like you've learned to operate inside of
00:35:21
that and like No, it is coping. Adam. Okay. I don't know why I view co I think I
00:35:27
view coping as like oh such a negative word and maybe it's maybe I should rethink that and maybe it's not a
00:35:32
negative word in a lot of instances but like how have you changed now that you like okay I've got this information
00:35:40
about myself. I've I'm learning these tools. I know how to cope with it now.
00:35:43
Like how has that changed you as a person? Has it made you more self- assured and like uh confident in
00:35:50
yourself or I don't know has anything changed for you? It's I It's interesting. There's a lot of things
00:35:57
that I've kind of like learned to like accommodate myself, but I already knew how to do
00:36:05
them. I just hadn't like made the connection in my brain that there was a reason I was like doing those things.
00:36:12
So, there's like a lot of different Yeah. a lot of different things going on
00:36:16
in my brain. I don't know. There's a lot of different I have a lot of different
00:36:19
like sensory things that bother me and I've like known my entire life that they
00:36:24
bothered me, but I didn't like I just couldn't connect that it was because of
00:36:30
something. So, I kind of was viewing it beforehand as like, oh, this thing bothers me so much. Why can't it just
00:36:37
not bother me? And now I'm like, oh, this thing bothers me because of this, like this reason. Like, this is the
00:36:42
reason this is bothering me. So, I'm just gonna like not do it or like, you know, find a different way to do things.
00:36:50
Um, like I think one of the things that was kind of hard for me as a kid with homeschooling before I
00:37:00
like was doing like before high school, so more like elementary school was I think I appeared
00:37:08
really like I was doing really well and definitely like an overachiever um like to my family and to like the
00:37:18
people in our community um where I definitely like took the flexibility to my advantage where I
00:37:27
would like work really ahead in a subject or something so that I could not have to do math the next day or like
00:37:34
that sort of thing where I would kind of just like cram all of my focus into this
00:37:39
much time so that I could not have to focus on anything for a long time. And I think it kind of
00:37:45
like my parents viewed that as like, oh, she's so efficient. She's like so good
00:37:50
at doing her school, blah, blah, blah. But really, it was like because I had such a poor attention span. It was like,
00:37:58
I cannot think about doing math for the next 3 days, so I'm going to do it all
00:38:04
today so that I don't have to do it the next two days. where it was like I was a
00:38:09
I was making it work and it did but I think I really experienced a lot of burnout once I was an adult and I
00:38:20
realized like I really wasn't flourishing I was just working way harder um and
00:38:28
something I um am on a medication now but like about a year or two year and a half ago ago.
00:38:38
Um when I was like in the process of trying to get on medication, I met with uh this psychiatrist before the previous
00:38:45
one that I am like working with now. Um because you can't like just get medication from a therapist. You have to
00:38:52
like actually do a whole, you know, the law and stuff, whatever. I met with this
00:38:57
guy and it was not a good experience. Um, but he like was asking me about my schooling and he was like, "So, you had
00:39:05
like a I think it's I had like a 3.85 GPA or something for high school." Um,
00:39:12
and he was like, this was when I was already diagnosed, by the way. He was like, "So, how do you have ADHD
00:39:19
then if you had a 3.8?" And I was like, right, the thing I realized is like I
00:39:26
really was not performing at that high of a level because I'm like so it's so
00:39:31
effortless and so easy for me. It's because I was like working twice as hard
00:39:37
as a lot of the people around me or at least from my perception how hard it seemed like they were working. Um, so
00:39:44
like I did really well in school, but it really was not. It was enjoyable for me in a lot of
00:39:51
ways, but it was very stressful. Yeah. And so, honestly, just now seeing like I I think I'm a I'm kind of at the
00:40:01
point where I'm getting past the burnout now, but I definitely was very burnt out
00:40:06
um after graduating and finishing college and kind of just being like I think there was a certain expectation
00:40:14
to overachieve as a homeschooler and I kind of had you know a little bit what I was saying earlier already but kind of
00:40:23
like oh I really didn't overachieve that much if now all the effort it took for
00:40:30
me to like get to this point now I don't have energy to like go to a four-year
00:40:35
college and get a like highpaying job or something like that where a lot of my peers who had a very similar path as me
00:40:43
did that. The way you framed that is really interesting because like the the whole idea of like cramming
00:40:52
everything really quickly to be like okay I just need this to be done so that I don't have to think about it because
00:40:58
you just knew that that's like that's how my brain operates. I just need this
00:41:01
to be done otherwise I'm going to be thinking about it or I can't perform at the level I need to or
00:41:07
you know whatever. are also like you have that expectation in your brain of like you know I need to be smarter, I
00:41:12
need to be whatever. It's kind of interesting because yeah, that does lead to the burnout. I I I know that feeling
00:41:20
as an entrepreneur. I know that feeling very very well. I'm coming out of that
00:41:23
season myself um of just that like I'm just it's too much. I'm just like I I I
00:41:30
lit the candle at both ends, right? And now I'm just done. Um, and that's a hard thing to come back
00:41:35
from and it could take a long time, take years sometimes for people to come back
00:41:38
from that. But as you've now started to like unpack, oh, this is how I was thinking,
00:41:45
are you able to communicate that now to like your family and your friends a lot better of like, hey, like this is why I
00:41:52
am the way I am. And like I I'm trying to think what my question is here, but like get them to
00:42:01
an understanding point of like, hey, like when you see this, these are maybe signs that like I'm not doing so hot or
00:42:08
I am do or I'm or I am thriving, right? You see me act like this, like I'm doing
00:42:12
really well, right? And like um but has it become easier to kind of I don't know, educate people, I guess, in in in
00:42:19
your life? That's a good question. I I think in a small way, yes, I like have obviously talked to my family about
00:42:30
it. I didn't I actually like full through the full process of getting diagnosed, I didn't tell my parents that
00:42:36
I was doing it or any of my family that I was doing it at first just cuz I kind of was like, what if it what if I do all
00:42:42
the testing and then they're like, you don't have ADHD. And then I'm
00:42:46
like all embarrassed, right? You're like, yeah. So, I didn't I didn't um
00:42:52
tell them at first, but no, once I did get diagnosed, I um talked to them about it. And I think I'm still
00:43:01
um still learning how to communicate a lot of that. Um it's kind of an interesting experience.
00:43:12
Like, this kind of relates to how I feel about homeschooling as well. I feel like as a kid I
00:43:20
like I was able to do a really good job without the structure, but it like wasn't because I
00:43:28
didn't need structure. And it was kind of like a self-p protection thing of like, oh, okay, I have to get this done
00:43:37
myself, so I'm going to learn how to do that. Like, but it wasn't necessarily
00:43:42
like a healthy way for me to be pushing myself. I guess. And so kind of with the same way that I relate to
00:43:52
like my difficulties, like I kind of had to for a long time learn how to take care of myself and
00:44:03
learn how to like try and thrive even though there was all of these things that felt like
00:44:10
they were holding me back. So, kind of now I'm at the point where I'm like,
00:44:14
okay, I can see what these things are. Um, it's like quite a process to get out
00:44:21
of the mindset of like this is a part of me and I can like accept that and expect people to be understanding
00:44:31
about it, you know? I feel like I kind of have had a mindset for a long time of like shame about having struggles, you
00:44:40
know, and I think that's like a pretty common experience of a lot of kids raised in
00:44:50
honestly just in general like evangelical circles is just kind of having like a lot of shame for the
00:44:57
things that you struggle with regardless of if it's related to like a disability
00:45:02
or or just like anything, you know, where you kind of just like it takes a while to get to the point from like
00:45:10
realizing that there's these things about yourself that you can feel okay about it and actually getting to the
00:45:15
point where you're like, I can expect other people to be okay with it, too. You know, you Yeah, you are preacher to
00:45:21
the choir. Um, shame is a very powerful thing inside of like the evangelical circles. Big very powerful thing inside
00:45:28
of like our homeschool community as well because that was very religious as well. Um, and yeah, it
00:45:37
it's Hey, like I'm I'm in the same boat as you. I'm 28. I'm still dealing with
00:45:41
like shame and that like has been bubbling under the surface. So, I definitely I I feel you on that. And
00:45:50
it's a it's an interesting one to kind of like work through that process of
00:45:55
like I don't this is who I am. This is me as a person, right? And like there is
00:46:00
no shame in that. I am who I am. I think as we know I like to ask people a little
00:46:09
bit about like their homeschool experience like you know I don't want to say good bad
00:46:16
like but like based on your homeschool experience when people come to you if people come to you and they're like hey
00:46:23
like I'm thinking about homeschooling my kids right what do you tell them or what do
00:46:28
you encourage people to kind of like look at and go okay like these are maybe the good things. Here's the bad
00:46:35
that like we got to address this over here and like focus in on this a little bit because like you know um I don't
00:46:42
know. I I I'm trying to think what my question is here. But like when when people come to you and they're asking
00:46:46
you about you know I want to homeschool my kids, what are you what are you telling them? Are you telling them gay
00:46:52
nay think about these things? You know what what are you thinking? Honestly, I think it the biggest thing I
00:47:01
would think in the first place is just like what are your intentions? Like what is the reasoning? like what's the
00:47:08
reasoning behind wanting to because I think it um there's a lot of overlap with homeschoolers and
00:47:17
like sometimes the parents intentions are like I don't want my kid to learn that gay people exist so I'm going to
00:47:25
homeschool them so that they don't learn about it at public school. Um, and I
00:47:30
feel like if you're coming from a place of like wanting to shelter your kid from
00:47:34
finding things out, it's not going to work cuz they're just going to find out anyways or
00:47:40
they're going to find out later. I don't know. I think I would just say it could be a really great thing and
00:47:52
I really really like it in the sense of I don't think any kid really should be
00:47:57
at school for that long. Um but the way our society is set up, it basically forces parents to send their kids to
00:48:06
school. Um, like I was very lucky to be able to be homeschooled because my mom like my
00:48:13
parents could afford my mom staying home and just my dad working and yeah, there's a lot of kids especially now.
00:48:21
Um, that like their parents can't afford one of the parents to stay home. Um, so
00:48:28
like in a perfect world I I do think it is a great option. I would just say like
00:48:38
accept help from other people. Don't try to be like the sole source of education
00:48:43
for your kids. So, I feel like doing like a lot of community stuff and being in like co-ops and that kind of stuff is
00:48:51
definitely a good thing. Um, and also just like h letting your kids trying to get them some normal
00:49:01
experiences in there, you know, uh, and make sure they're socializing and, you
00:49:07
know, all that. I I like what you said about intentions. I think the intentions are everything. I've said on this
00:49:15
podcast before, like in my op in my opinion, religion is not a good enough intention to homeschool your kid. Yeah.
00:49:22
And and like and you said it too, the sheltering is not a you know protecting my kid from this that and the other.
00:49:28
They're going to learn about it eventually, right? And so it's like, you
00:49:31
know, I would rather see parents take a role in like I want to help. I obviously
00:49:38
I think parents should should play a role in like what their kids learn and things like that. But I think you can do
00:49:42
it in a controlled environment where you are able to address and have open communication about those
00:49:48
things in a safe environment in in an at home environment and and you know expose
00:49:53
them to whether it's LGBT or whether it's you know uh whether it's like
00:49:59
learning about ADHD and dyslexia and autism and things like that or you know or other world religions whatever it is
00:50:06
like you know you still have control over that but it's definitely like It's
00:50:11
a it's a necessary thing for people to learn because they're going to learn it
00:50:15
eventually. Um to your point. So with that, I I guess I haven't we haven't touched on this yet, but like
00:50:23
what are you doing now, right? Like I know I I I see your music stuff pop up for me, but like what are you doing now?
00:50:30
What are you pursuing? What are you enjoying? Like if you've got music out that you want to share with the
00:50:34
audience, like you know, I'd love to push people that way. Yeah. Um, I'm just
00:50:40
working and kind of trying to make the music stuff take off to be able to hopefully do that, you know, and
00:50:48
actually make some money from it. Um, right. I know. I uh recorded and like produced an or well not just me I
00:50:58
produced it with um this guy Derek Ted um an album last year and then I put it out in November of last year and yeah
00:51:08
I've been kind of like this is kind of like the after period of like kind of
00:51:12
taking a break a little bit but I've been writing a lot and hopefully we'll
00:51:18
be releasing new stuff soon but yeah if people want to check it out it's Um,
00:51:24
baby with an IBA manity on wherever you want to listen to music or just Instagram if you don't
00:51:32
want to listen and you just want to stalk me. Hey, you got any I I don't know like are you are you doing live
00:51:38
shows at all or like do you have anything on the books for for those of those folks who maybe are in uh Ventura
00:51:43
County want to come support? I don't have anything planned right now but hopefully soon. And if you're
00:51:50
interested, you know, you should look at my Instagram. Hopefully, it will be there. Yeah. I've listened to a couple
00:51:55
of your songs and they're they're amazing. I I love them. They're they
00:51:59
they sound great. Um yeah, for people like what kind of is there a particular style you go for or is there like um are
00:52:08
you flexible? I know some artists are like, I'm pretty I'm pretty locked into
00:52:12
like I do this. Uh where other people are like no, it's like anything that comes out of my brain. Let's let's make
00:52:17
it. It could be anything from rap to hard rock to country music to whatever. I feel like I always just tell people
00:52:25
that I make like indie music because I feel like at this point that kind of just encapsulates like anything that
00:52:35
is not too rock but not too folk. I don't know. Okay. Um it's that mix. It's
00:52:42
that healthy mix in between. It's a mix of stuff. Yeah. And we'll see. I don't
00:52:46
think like I I'm sure my the music I will be making this year will be different from what I have out and
00:52:54
hopefully that will keep continuing forever. Hey, no, keep at it. I think the creativity thing
00:53:00
is it's so important. I lost my creativity for a while and I'm getting it back. And like it's so much fun to
00:53:08
watch people like make stuff and like and that's why I tell people like put it
00:53:15
out just like put it out to the world cuz like you don't know who it's going
00:53:19
to resonate with. It might resonate with nobody. This podcast is example of that.
00:53:23
When I started this, I was like, I'm going to have 10 people listen to this thing. And here we are. And like
00:53:28
thousands of people have listened to this podcast at this point. And that's like it it blows my mind sometimes how
00:53:36
like when you do the creative act and you actually have some kind of like passion behind it and it's evident in
00:53:42
your in your creativity, people will show up for it, you know? It's crazy. I don't know. It's
00:53:48
just I don't know. It's fun. No, I really resonate with that. Don't let
00:53:53
like the embarrassment stop you from stuff cuz there's lots of even like some
00:53:58
of the older music I have released I'm like embarrassed of and I cringe a little bit at it but there's people who
00:54:06
like have messaged me and they're like I love this song so much it like makes me
00:54:09
feel so sane where it's like even if it's something that you're not going to
00:54:13
like look at and be like that represents me currently it's like it's going to
00:54:18
resonate with someone and you know yeah that's the same thing you're with
00:54:23
podcast and everything. Yeah, it's a process, too. And I think what's cool is
00:54:28
like hopefully um you know in a decade from now we can look back and we can go like we can look at the first song or
00:54:36
the first podcast we put out, right? And we can go and we can cringe a little about it because we just like ah but I
00:54:41
you've learned so much. So to go from that to whatever you're then currently
00:54:45
putting out at even a year later, two years later, 10 years later, right? like you you look at it and you go, "Oh my
00:54:52
gosh, like I've gotten so much better." And I think that's the great thing about
00:54:56
the creative journey is that like it's just that. And when you document it, you
00:55:02
have the entire journey that you can share with people. I went from this and not knowing how to do this to like look
00:55:08
at me now, you know? It's it's a very And it's like a a time capsule
00:55:14
exactly of where you were at that point regardless of if it's good or bad. Yeah, exactly. It could get worse. Who
00:55:22
knows? Yeah, true. It could always be worse. It could always be worse. Yeah, but Mia, I really do I appreciate you
00:55:31
coming on the show. This has been a lot of fun. It's been a lot of fun catching
00:55:33
up, getting to know you as the person you are today and not, you know, I knew you as a kid. I knew you as as a little
00:55:40
kid and Yeah, exactly. Um, and so it it's fun to like actually like see who you are today and get to
00:55:48
know that person and that version of you. And so, thank you for coming on and and sharing your story and being
00:55:53
vulnerable with us, which is it's awesome. I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. It was really fun. And uh, for all
00:55:58
the listeners, like like we said, go go stream, listen to Mia's album, follow
00:56:03
her on Instagram, do all the things. All that's going to be in the show notes
00:56:06
below. And uh if you made it this far, leave a like, leave a subscribe, do all of the things that you know, make the
00:56:13
algorithm happy. We appreciate it. Um and go get on my newsletter because and I'm just going to keep pushing that cuz
00:56:19
that's that's the place to be right now. So newsletter link is in the description. Sign up. It's free. It
00:56:25
costs you nothing. Um and uh yeah, until next week. All right. Peace. [Music] [Music]