Podcast 9: Queer ADHD with Sarah Dopp

Our CEO Jennie Williams, welcomes Sarah Dopp, founder of Queer ADHD for this week's podcast. 
Based in California, Sarah has set up her website offering coaching for the worldwide LGBTQIA+ community who also have ADHD. 
This insightful and warm chat discusses the supportive, informative platform she has created for the community.  This podcast looks at self discovery, what diagnosis means for an individual and how the ADHD journey and the 'coming-out' journey have many parallels.

To contact Sarah Dopp, visit https:/queeradhd.com
or join our Undressing Disability Hub where you can connect with her and other professionals in the field of sex and disability. https://undressing.enhancetheuk.org/

Transcript

Audio recording: 0:09

Welcome to Enhance the UK's Undressing Disability podcast where we strip back all things taboo on sex and disability.

Jennie Williams: 0:19

Today I am talking to Sarah Dopp from queer ADHD. And before we carry on actually, Sarah, where are you? Because you're not based in the UK are you?

Sarah Dopp: 0:30

No, I'm in California.

Jennie Williams: 0:32

You're the second person today that I've spoken to that it's in America and I have to ask a very British question. What is the weather like Sarah?

Sarah Dopp: 0:42

Oh, it is gorgeous. It's like 75 degrees and sunny right now. I really enjoy the Bay Area. I'm in San Francisco Bay Area.

Jennie Williams: 0:49

No one likes a show off! We want to hear about how amazing it is. Actually I have got a little bit of sun but it's not like what you're experiencing right now. So just to introduce her a little bit more, and Sarah has set up Coaching Practice and Resource Centre, for LBGTQIA+ community? I got it all out. Are you proud of me?

Sarah Dopp: 1:18

I'm so proud of you.

Jennie Williams: 1:20

Thank you very much. So I really want to han it over to you, Sarah. Can you just tell us a little bit abo t about yourself and explain a l ttle about ADHD in a bit mor detail.

Sarah Dopp: 1:33

Sure. So I'm Sarah Dopp, founder of Queer ADHD, which is at queeradhd.com. I did a recent career pivot into ADHD coaching. It's actually new this year. And what I found immediately was that the community I wanted to serve - the queer, LGBTQIA+ community was really underserved on this topic. And so as soon as I put this domain name out there into the world, people started contacting me immediately for services. Even though I made it very clear on the website that I was brand new and didn't have a lot of experience. People were wanting to work with a queer person on this topic, even though this topic isn't inherently about being queer. But it does have some interesting parallels. One of the simplest ways I've heard ADHD put, is that your brain is wired for interest rather than importance. So if you could assume that a neurotypical person is going to respond really well to what is important right now and go do it. An ADHD person needs that to be interesting before they can do it. If it's important to their boss, or their teacher, or their parent or their spouse, but not interesting to them, it feels almost impossible to do the thing. And so what we do in ADHD coaching is help people become more aware of how their brain works, come up with strategies to make sure that the important things do get done, make them interesting, or find a way to create more support around them, and help people generally just understand and accept themselves better. And that last part is so parallel to the experience of coming out as queer. So what I found in queer ADHD is that ADHD isn't really that different for queer people. But the context around it is different. The needs are different in terms of how you want to get support. And it's really beautiful to see the parallels in experience and honestly, I think it gives us superpowers in dealing with ADHD because we can apply what we've already learned about accepting ourselves, advocating for ourselves, to this new lens of our neurodivergent brains.

Jennie Williams: 3:30

That is probably one of the best descriptions I've ever heard about describing ADHD. Because this is the thing you know, certainly here, when people talk about ADHD, their mind goes to the naughty kid in the class, really hyperactive. And that's the only impression that people have about ADHD. And of course, it's like a vastly complex thing. It can be different for many, many people. And people find that really confusing. Have you known for a long time that you've got ADHD?

Sarah Dopp: 4:08

No, because my brother was the naughty kid in the class. And we knew he did. So I couldn't possibly have it because I wasn't just like him. There has been a shift in the understanding of ADHD. In the last 10, 15, 20 years. It's been a gradual shift. But when I was growing up, I'm 37, it was assumed to be just for children, and probably just for boys, and probably just for white boys, honestly, because we've prioritised certain groups in our culture. So there's been a shift toward understanding that it doesn't just go away when you turn 18. It stays with you in your life. And there's been a shift toward understanding that people who were socialised as girls represented it differently. We were taught to behave differently. We were given less permission to act out, we had more programming to be people pleasers, and so it just presented differently. And when I got formally diagnosed, there are three types of recognised ADHD in the DSM, which is an American diagnostic manual. I'm not actually sure how that manual is used in other countries. So my lens is is entirely American. I need to preface that. There's inattentive type, there's hyperactive type, and there's both combined and most people are combined. And when I got diagnosed, I thought I was inattentive and he said, No, you're combined. And I was shocked because I didn't act like my brother. But he pointed out all of these stories that I told about impulse control and needing to move around. And it was clear, yeah, okay, I'm combined. I'm both. I've lost track of the original question that where was

Jennie Williams: 5:42

That's absolutely fine. I was so intently listening! No, I asked about when you actually got diagnosed, because interestingly, for me, three of my friends recently, and I'm 42 now, so my friends are in the same kind of age bracket have been diagnosed in their late 30s, early 40s. And it's quite an emotional thing to go through for all of them.

Sarah Dopp: 6:10

Yeah. So I can speak a little more to the timeline. So I was informally diagnosed in my early 20s. And then I was formally diagnosed in the last year, because of the pandemic. And the informal diagnosis was a therapist and a learning disability specialist, I actually went to get tested to see if I was dyslexic, because I difficulty reading, and the specialist that I went to see said I don't think you have dyslexia because you're able to read when you're focused and interested. But your eyes are bouncing all over the page if you're not engaged, and you're struggling. And so we figured out that that was probably ADHD. And it became just a thing that I was aware of in my life, but wasn't a really big issue. And then the pandemic hit. And it became a really big issue for me, and I needed to get more professional support. And I needed to get a diagnosis on record. And so I went to get formally diagnosed, I was like, I'm inattentive, I'm not combined, and then we catch up to that story.

Jennie Williams: 7:04

yeah, Has it made any difference, you having a formal diagnosis? What's the benefit of that being a grown up?

Sarah Dopp: 7:13

Yeah, absolutely. It gives me an explanation and a framework and a set of resources to understand myself better. And this is, again, another parallel with coming out queer -when you are isolated and alone and don't have models for other people being like you, you think there's something really, really wrong with you. And when you find out, oh, no, you're just gay and then here's what that looks like and can look like and here's how it can be celebrated. Then all of a sudden, there's this big sigh of relief, there's this moment of just , okay, I belong, I just might not belong in the same model that I was told I was supposed to belong in. And it's okay to change the model of your life. I'm gonna apologise again, I've got no working memory and I forgotten where I started in this question. That is, by the way in ADHD symptom!

Jennie Williams: 8:04

Well, no, no, it's absolutely fine. Again, I'm just doing what I did before. I'm just listening to your answer. I think that it's really interesting, because a lot of the people like I said, have had this diagnosis. And I think my question was, what's the benefit of that, and I guess it's this sense of understanding your brain, why it works in a different way. And I think certainly, from my point of view, growing up, I always felt like (I haven't got ADHD), but it's only very recently, I was diagnosed with dyslexia. Even even at the age of I think, 42, because I said, I was reading about dyscalculia. And I was like, that's me. 100% That's me. But growing up in the in the 80s, there just wasn't the resources I don't believe. I think I would have been treated very differently going to school if I was going now. Just his real sense of feeling stupid and thinking academia equals intelligent equals being able to understand x, y, and z. It's certainly something I've battled with all of my life. And understanding what that feels like comparing yourself constantly. I think it's this sense of belonging. So for you, you talked about then identifying as queer. Is that another kind of journey that you had to kind of go through?

Sarah Dopp: 9:38

Yeah, definitely. And let's see my full list of identities in that space are - androgynous, bisexual, queer, I am not a lesbian and I am not currently non identifying as non binary, although that may change, and I'm not trans. So you know, when I look at the acronym, B has always been in there. And I've always struggled with whether or not I'm queer enough to be in queer spaces. But my presentation has always been queer. And that has helped me feel more like myself. I was raised in a family that believed that gay and lesbian was fine, but bisexual didn't exist. So I really struggled with understanding my attractions and my internal sense of self. And it didn't really make sense until I got to college and saw that bisexuality was pretty freakin normal. And that it didn't have to be considered a phase. And also with my gender presentation, I have a shaved head and I have always preferred to express my gender androgynously. So, prior to QueerADHD, one of the projects I'm most known for was a blog called gender fork. And I created a photo a day blog to explore androgyny because I was trying to make sense of my own presentation. I never felt like I looked good. I felt like I couldn't choose clothing or style that expressed anything about myself because I didn't fit any models that I could find. And then I noticed that androgyny was kind of a thing that didn't have to be a dirty, bad word, and started to explore the fashion of it and really connected with it and thought it was amazing. So I created a photo a day blog. And it very strangely quickly evolved into a coming out space, it became a place where people were saying, Oh, yeah, this is my presentation, too. And then it became not just about fashion, but about internal identity. And so I created the opportunity for people to express anonymously how they were feeling about gender. And we found a lot of non binary people that were closeted, and trans people that were closeted, and people who are early on in their coming out process, and in this androgynous space, needing to find self acceptance. And this blog ran for over 10 years and had, often two to three posts a day, representing different human beings. That was 1000s of people that we represented mostly through submissions and people who wanted to be represented. And holding that expression was a huge honour, it was humbling, it was a privilege. And I felt like a steward, it had gone beyond my own identity. And it was something that I could really care for, and protect and support and develop. And so as I'm approaching QueerADHD, I'm taking that experience with me. And I know that my biggest goal is to create community, not just one on one, individual coaching, but group resources, content that represents not just my story, which is a very interesting story, but a very, frankly, privileged story. I'm very white, and I come from an economically privileged background, which is why I'm able to run a business like this. But I want to represent a much broader view of our community and help people find their stories in each other and find resources and education in this context where they feel most comfortable.

Jennie Williams: 12:59

Wow, your blog sounds absolutely amazing. That's a really long time. 10 years to run.

Sarah Dopp: 13:05

Yeah, it was, it was phenomenal. It was 2007 to 2018, I think.

Jennie Williams: 13:12

I bet when you started, you could never have imagined it would take a life of its own like that. That's fantastic. Why do you think that people - and this is a very obvious question, I'm asking you here really - that some people might listen and say, Well, why can't you just accept who you are? Why do you feel you need to have a community and and be part of something and have to identify, and have to have a label? Why is that important for people to have? Not everybody, obviously, but for a lot of people?

Sarah Dopp: 13:49

Yeah, people who ask that question tend to have a background of already belonging to the labels that were assigned to them. And not understanding the experience of looking at the labels that were placed on them and saying, Wow, this isn't right. And I don't know what to do about it. And I don't know how to tell you that this isn't right. And I think because you think it's right and you've been telling me my whole worldview - I'm probably talking to parents right now - I must be wrong, there must be something wrong with me. And when we find the label that fits us, suddenly, there's not something wrong with me anymore. ADHD has disorder, it's Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. And there's a lot of shift right now toward seeing it as a difference rather than a disorder. Something that is just unsupported by the world and that if we live our lives in alignment with the way our brains want to work, it doesn't feel like a disorder anymore. It can even feel like a superpower. Once again, I've lost the original question, though.

Jennie Williams: 14:51

I think really, I was talking about why do people feel the need to kind of have labels and I was on a podcast a while ago with somebody also called Sarah, and she said, I have three labels. I am blind, and lesbian and transgender. And the absolutely brilliant analogy she said was, I was constantly running away(she has absolutely no sight now), I was running away, I was frightened all the time. And I decided to stop. And I decided to let the tidal wave go over me and see what happened. And I can just envisage, as it was such a visual explanation. And she said, I'm still here, I haven't drowned and look at me now. And very happily married to her wife, and living a fantastic life. In comparison to how she felt before just running away. And I think for her, that's what labels have done for her. They've reclaimed that identity, of hiding, of being scared of being ashamed of who she was. So, tell us about? Tell us about your practice. What's your big vision? What would you like to see happen with this? It sounds really exciting.

Sarah Dopp: 16:17

Yeah, my big vision is to strengthen the ecosystem overall, for this intersection of identities, queer and ADHD, I want to inspire more people to become coaches, because frankly, the need cannot be met by me. It is too big. And I see that immediately. So I'm hoping to create some infrastructure that can support other coaches as well. My goal is to connect community with these support methods. So actually, we're launching group sessions very soon, we've just announced it, and they'll probably be live by the time this airs. And the goal for that is to allow people to learn about their ADHD together, get group coaching together, support each other together, see themselves in each other. And I'm really hoping to build that into something that could have unlimited size, like I'm trying to design it so that I could bring in other coaches to lead the sessions and bring in other people from the community to be moderators in whatever format is important. One thing that's important about ADHD is that we the way we learn really matters. I'm an auditory learner. Some people are very visual learners. Some people are very kinesthetic, tactile, conceptual, intuitive, like there's lots of different ways that you process information. And the ways that we're starting are with Zoom sessions. So people who ask for coaching are people that learn well through a conversation, that's kind of a self selecting thing. If they learn great through a book, they're probably not asking for a coach, they're probably just learning through a book. So we're trying to create resources that support the many different ways that people learn. And conversations is just one of those ways. And I'm hoping to really tap into a lot of different opportunities in the space of accessibility, like lots of different modalities, lots of different translations into different formats, audio visual, make it really easy to find and access and not let the way you learn or any impairments in your senses get in the way of your ability to access this.

Jennie Williams: 18:34

And do you have to identify as queer to be part of the community?

Sarah Dopp: 18:38

Currently, yes. Well, you have to be somewhere in the LGBTQIA+ acronym, just that you have differences in your gender and sexuality that are unique from the mainstream and important to your identity. The reason for this is because that is the main draw for this practice to the people who have expressed interest in it so far, is to create the community of ourselves. And so we're asking that allies who really love queer people, but don't identify as queer themselves, that they leave this space specifically for us. That being said, we define queer very, very broadly. And if you call yourself queer, that's fine. That's good enough for us.

Jennie Williams: 19:23

It's not There's not a test. You've got to do a queer exam before you join!

Sarah Dopp: 19:27

Yeah! Well, and the same thing is with ADHD, you don't have to have a diagnosis. You don't even have to be sure that you have ADHD, you just need to identify with the list of symptoms enough that you believe that the kind of support we would offer for someone with ADHD would help you. That's enough. We don't need you to get it on paper.

Jennie Williams: 19:45

I think Well, if your blog is anything to go by, I think this is going to be hugely successful. And obviously, really needed by people and there is a sense of wanting to belong. And even if you're not taking part and really active, just being able to sit back and read, take on board, see what other people are saying maybe on forums or whatever, and build their confidence up slowly to then be able to say, right, okay, and maybe that's all the support somebody needs, sometimes, just to know that they're not alone.

Sarah Dopp: 20:23

Yeah, absolutely.

Jennie Williams: 20:25

Well, is there anything else that you want to promote or share? Or if people want to get in touch with you? How do they go about doing that? What's the best way?

Sarah Dopp: 20:39

Yeah, sure. So we're at queeradhd.com, you can reach out to me through that site. The biggest resource that I have available right now is group sessions, which people can sign up for as many sessions as they want. There's no commitment. Many group coaching programmes require a start date and end date, continued commitment. We're designing this to be flexible for wherever you are. There is a price to it but we are also happy to offer whatever price you are comfortable paying, if you can't meet it, we're going to have a limited number of those based on how many people require it. And we're aiming to add as many time slots as necessary for these sessions, over time as people express interest and join it. So that's our biggest offer right now. The other one that we're working on is building a method of creating community content that represents the people in our space. And those people don't need to be people that are attending group sessions. So if you're somebody that isn't ready to ask for group sessions, but wants to be given the opportunity to speak about your experience as a queer person with ADHD, my suggestion is that you join our newsletter, because the project that we're working on is to start asking questions every week through surveys and that newsletter so that you can give us your experience. And those experiences can become quotes in our content, which can be broadcast and help other people feel less alone. That's our biggest goal right now. So yeah,

Jennie Williams: 22:11

I'm very excited for you. It sounds absolutely fantastic. And, and obviously, with it being virtual and online, people from all around the world can can join and take part.

Sarah Dopp: 22:22

Absolutely. And as we're designing the group sessions, I'm trying to keep in mind that it should be accessible in California, and New York, London, and Sydney. And if I can get three out of four of those on every time, it's very rare to be able to get four out of four of those in a reasonable time. But I believe that if I can hit all of that in some of the sessions, then probably the whole world can access it. And that's, that's my hope.

Jennie Williams: 22:47

Well, we will certainly be sharing anything that you want us to share through our networks. And I don't know if you've already joined our Undressing Disability Hub. But if you haven't, I will invite you to join and create your profile. And any of our listeners can go on there as well. It's a free service. And you can go on there - we're calling it the sexy little sibling to LinkedIn. It's quite a select name, we're quite proud of that! So people can join in and then Sarah, you can share any information on there for free and people can find out what Sarah is doing. And this podcast as well will be sent out and people get news, weekly newsletters with everything that's coming on. So its free, free, free! All things sex and disability. So I really encourage people to join that. Can I just say I know how busy you are. I really appreciate you coming and joining me on the podcast. Thank you so much, even though I'm quite jel of your day, of how beautiful and sunny it is. Are you going out and about or you you homeworking today.

Sarah Dopp: 23:48

I have a commitment to going for walks, multiple times a day, every day because I've been housebound for a year because of the pandemic, so I will definitely get out and see more of this sun. Thank you so much for inviting me onto this podcast. It's really been a delight to talk to you and to learn more about your programmes and I will absolutely get onto that Hub.

Jennie Williams: 24:05

Brilliant. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Audio recording: 24:07

Thanks for listening. For more information or to have a chat with us. Please visit enhancetheUK.org. From there, you can also sign up to our Undressing Disability hub, a platform for professionals to connect and collaborate in the arena of sex and disability.