A High Achiever’s Hidden ADHD

Nikolai Blinow 0:00

I think those of us who are the high achievers who are also neurodiverse and highly sensitive, what I saw in myself and what I see in other people is the manifestation of the ADHD traits, just more show up in my personal life more than in my professional life. With that said, how did I not know this? Literally at my intake when I said, I think I have ADHD, and that's one reason I'm here. They said, you know, I was gonna mention it because you literally haven't sat still.

Welcome And What We Explore

April Snow 0:40

Welcome to Sensitive Stories, the podcast for the people who live with hearts and eyes wide open. I'm your host, psychotherapist and author April Snow. I invite you to join me as I deep dive into rich conversations with fellow highly sensitive people that will inspire you to live a more fulfilling life as an HSP without all the overwhelm. In this episode, I talk with Nikolai Blineau about the subtle signs of ADHD, why highly sensitive people and women are often misdiagnosed, and how to embrace neurodiversity as a strength. Nikolai is a therapist, TEDx speaker, and a highly sensitive person with ADHD who helps fellow HSP and ADHD women in leadership roles who are done with operating in survival mode. Her work blends strategic therapy and nervous system recalibration to help women slow down and keep their edge. And just a reminder that this episode is for educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for treatment with a mental health or medical professional. Let's dive in the welcome, Nikolai. I'm so happy to have you on the podcast today. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Discovering High Sensitivity As A Therapist

April Snow 2:12

Same. I'm wondering if you could start off by sharing your HSP discovery story, how or when you realize that you're highly sensitive.

Nikolai Blinow 2:21

Yeah. So I am a clinician, a therapist, and actually, I will freely admit I knew nothing about what it meant to be a highly sensitive person. I think that's probably how it is for many people. Someone introduces you to the concept, and for me, it was actually a client. I work with a lot of highly sensitive people and neurodivergent people. But early on in my practice, I actually did not intentionally do that. So I share that story because this person who was my client was a highly sensitive person and started sharing with me what it meant. And they had read Elaine Aaron's book, you know, many years ago. And that tracked for them. And as I was hearing more about it, I did some research so I could be educated for my client. And then I thought, oh wow, I think I am this too. And I had taken that HSP quiz, and it was actually their earlier version of it because I went and I retook it, and I see now they added domains. They did, yes. Back in the day when I took it, it was just like if you get a score of like 20 or higher, 25, and I was like, oh, definitely score highly sensitive. So I actually went back and retook it recently just to get sort of the domain scores, which is very interesting. I literally have them right here because I did it just a couple days ago. And I still track is very highly sensitive, and now I have even more details about where that sensitivity presents itself in certain domains, which is across all domains that fall into the high sensitivity category, but some are higher than others.

April Snow 4:18

Yeah, I'm wondering if you want to share more about which area scores the highest for you.

Nikolai Blinow 4:25

Yeah, you know, not shocked as I look at it, social sensitivity, which I think sort of explains maybe why I eventually fell into a career as a therapist. And I'd be willing to bet a lot of highly sensitive people out there who are also therapists or do therapist adjacent work probably feel similarly that sometimes I have clients who have met with other therapists before. And it's been okay. Right. And sometimes they feel like there's been some sort of like missing ingredient or missing experience that I've been given the feedback that sometimes I'm able to provide. And I think it's because I have that higher level of sensitivity where I think I can read things in my clients that maybe less sensitive therapists just like missed, you know.

April Snow 5:25

Exactly. Yeah, there's an attunement that our sensitivity brings, and not just to what's tangible in the room, but the nonverbals, the emotional components, you know, the unsaid. And being able to bring your sensitivity into the room because it touches everything is so important. And it is often the missing puzzle piece. I've had a lot of clients say that to me as well. Like, you know, therapy was fine, but we weren't going to those deeper places that I needed to go to. I wasn't having the insights I was looking for because that's a big blind spot to not be looking at. And I love hearing, I don't get to hear that very often where the client introduces it to the therapist. But I've heard a lot of people say they were reading about or trying to learn about someone else in their life, a child, a parent, a friend, a partner, a client. And that's how it comes to you. It's usually through the word of mouth channels it finds us because we weren't taught that in school in our therapist trainings. So yeah, it's hopefully that changes. But yeah, usually we have to find it on our own. And so I'm curious, as you realize you're highly sensitive, you also realize there's another form of neurodivergence, which is you have ADHD as well. So I'm wondering if you could share a little bit more about how you found that part of yourself.

Late ADHD Diagnosis And Subtle Clues

Nikolai Blinow 6:45

Yeah, I would say I had this amazing, lovely client who introduced me to the highly sensitive person probably about 10 years ago. 10 years. And then probably I'd say about five years after that. I'm 42 years old, newly 42 within the last month. And I want to say I finally came to an ADHD diagnosis, very late 30s, maybe like 37, 38, so within like the past five years, fairly recent. So there was a gap, you know, and and for a long time, like the sensitivity piece definitely spoke to me. And similarly, I guess not that different of a journey. I have a colleague who is a late in life diagnosed ADHD woman, probably also highly sensitive. She's a dance movement therapist. And she had been misdiagnosed. And I guess this is good for people to know because I've seen this in my practice with a mild mood dysregulation disorder, like a cycloctymia or like a bipolar two because of ups and down moods, but eventually found her way to an ADHD diagnosis. And so just same thing bearing her journey, um, but also love her some of the ADHD impulsiveness as well. We're very good friends, so she became very comfortable saying to me, I think you have it. I think you have it, I think you have it. And for a long time, honestly, I really didn't think I had it because I think this is the experience a lot of late-in-life diagnosed women have, and especially a very specific kind of late-in-life diagnosed women. I never got a bad grade in school. I never acted out in school. In fact, I was the complete opposite. I was like the gold star straight A student. If I follow my career, my school career when I graduated, I was given a lot of awards at like graduation ceremony and scholarships, performed well at any job I'd ever had before becoming a therapist. And so I think I had all these stereotypes that like, and I run my own practice, like right. I have other clinicians who are afraid of going into private practice because they think they can't handle the unpredictability or the organization or the structure of it. And I've got that down on path. So I'm like, no way can I have ADHD.

April Snow 9:25

Right. You're not fitting the stereotypical model of what we think ADHD is, which is not being able to, yeah, focus at school, not be able to function and run things in a workplace, but you're doing all that. So I'm curious, what was the clue then that pulls you in and say, I think I am ADHD?

Nikolai Blinow 9:42

Yeah, I think the clue for me, and so I work with a lot of specifically high-achieving women who basically their nervous systems are burnt out, fried, stuck in stress and survival mode, hence how I was attracting highly sensitive people and neurodivergent people for a long time without intentionally attracting those people. And so I think those of us who are those like really high achievers who are also neurodiverse and highly sensitive, what I saw in myself and what I see in other people is the manifestation of the ADHD traits, just more show up in my personal life more than in my professional life. And also because I'm a high achiever, I've collected a lot of great skills throughout life. So they don't show up in ways that are necessarily very detrimental or impair my functioning, which when we think about DSM5 and diagnostic criteria, like it doesn't look bad enough, I think, for me to get missed. With that said, clues that really were like, how did I not know this? I self-referred myself to a psychiatrist because I was like, I think I have ADHD. I want to get a confirmation of this, and I even want to try medication because I'm curious. And literally at my intake, when I said, I think I have ADHD, and that's one reason I'm here, they said, you know, I was gonna mention it because you literally haven't sat still. Like I'm a fidgeter. And then they gave me a questionnaire about do you have any compulsive behaviors? And I thought, not clinically significant ones, but I'm like a picker of my cuticles. So I said, I'm going to not pick my cuticles and just see what happens. And I stopped because I'm constantly picking at them, like literally non-stop. I stopped and my body was like, I want to throw a chair across the room right now. Like I just had, and it's not frustration. And I think some ADHD can be a disorder of emotional dysregulation, and we can potentially get into that. But for me, it was like, wow, I have this constant, just restless energy inside of me. And it comes out in these ways that are like really small.

April Snow 12:13

Right.

Nikolai Blinow 12:14

You have the cover present. Yeah. Oh. And the other cue to me was working memory, which I thought was great because again, I can run a business. I've owned my practice since 2015, so over 10 years. And sometimes clients will say to me, and I think this is a common neurodiversion experience, and maybe highly sensitive people too. Like, I can tell a client something they told me at their intake 10 years ago.

April Snow 12:45

Wow.

Nikolai Blinow 12:46

Right. Because it's just like, remember when you said this and look at what's happening now or how much you've grown, right? And clients will say to me, How can you remember that? Okay, I'm also the person where I can have my sunglasses on my head and think, where are my sunglasses?

April Snow 13:04

Right, right. So it's confusing. You think, well, but look, I have this great memory, I have such strong executive functioning, I'm not a distractable person. But yeah, there are those little subtle clues. When you look closer, it becomes obvious. Right? That restlessness, you're losing track of some things, but not others. And of course, when the stakes are high at work, at school, you click into place. But when you look, like you said, in your personal life, like, oh, wait, there's something going on here. And this is why it's so hard, right? And why I think often women do not get diagnosed, or people who don't have the stereotypical presentation that are completely missed, and finding ways to cope on their own just to get through. Yeah, wow.

Nikolai Blinow 13:49

And all of that, and I think if you're ADHD and also highly sensitive, it's like your brain and your nervous system, I think, are doing so much coping. And that's what the experience was like for me. And that's why I wanted to try medication because ultimately I have a very investigative mind. So quite frankly, I wanted to try medication because I wanted to feel what it felt like just for my own uh experience and to have data. But that's what it felt like was oh wow. There's all these little ways my brain was coping, my nervous system was coping. I didn't even realize it. And with the medication, in some ways feels like it does nothing. And also, I'm just like, oh, things that maybe used to overstimulate me a little bit just don't anymore. There are little things like I'm not necessarily highly distractable. I can focus, and I think part of it too is I had a yoga and meditation practice even before I became a therapist. So I've done some form of yoga or mindfulness meditation for many years. Because I have ADHD, I'll be honest, sometimes I'm better at it than others, but I always come back to it. So I think my brain has had a lot more of mindfulness skill set than the average person. And so I think because of that, my experience of distractability is different, where it's not that I don't get distractable thoughts, I can just sort of be with them more and like make a conscious choice not to follow them because of my lots of years of mindfulness practice. But I will be honest, I could be in a meeting, and this is the ADHD thought is like, oh my God, I forgot to take this thing out of the freezer that I need to defrost for dinner tonight. Right. And I think when you have ADHD, like those kinds of thoughts sometimes just come much more frequently than neurotypical people who can just say, like, I'm in a meeting.

April Snow 15:57

Right. Right. So on the surface, it looks like, oh, you are here, you're present, you're focused, but there's so much going on behind the scenes that people wouldn't pick up on.

Nikolai Blinow 16:07

And maybe they don't know what's happening, but like I do.

April Snow 16:10

Exactly, right. You're the one experiencing that, which is, you know, I think we could say probably most people who are neurodivergent in some capacity experience that of not being understood of our internal experience is not understood. Yeah. I'm wondering if we could, because a lot of you're hearing a lot now of people conflating ADHD and sensitivity.

ADHD Versus HSP Overlaps And Differences

April Snow 16:32

You know, I personally think that they're different, and you're seeing people describe them with more nuance than that. So I'm curious for you, what do you see as some of the overlaps or the differences between high sensitivity and ADHD? Maybe for yourself or in your practice, what have you seen?

Nikolai Blinow 16:47

Yeah, I actually I think it was two weeks ago, maybe last you actually sent an email out about the Oh, I did. Yeah, you did, and you included a research paper with it, which was really helpful. And I read that last week just to get sort of clinical perspectives outside versus like my own sort of lived experience, plus my lived experience as a clinician who sits in front of people.

April Snow 17:12

Yeah.

Nikolai Blinow 17:13

And so, yeah, I think they're different, and I can tell you, I can tell you they are different because I give my clients, if I think they have ADHD, the World Health Organization ADHD Adult Self-Report, the ASRS, which actually is a measure they were using in that research study that you sent um the email out about. And I have clients who will take that measure and they will absolutely not score ADHD, but then I can give them the highly sensitive measure and they will score through the charts highly sensitive. So I do believe they are different. My just anecdotal evidence, I do think, and they even talked about this in the research paper. I think neurodivergent people are maybe more likely to also be highly sensitive.

April Snow 18:08

Right?

Nikolai Blinow 18:09

Yep. That's just my hypothesis. I don't think they all are, but I think there's like a predisposition if you're neurodivergent, that there's a tendency that you could also be highly sensitive. And when I think about the differences, I think often with ADHD, if it's just ADHD and there's not a sensitivity, we're looking more at those executive functioning challenges. I think that restlessness. So I am for I don't know who your population of people listening is. I'm sure I know some of them are clinicians, some of not be, but not all. Yeah. Okay. So for those of you who are not clinicians, there's three types of ADHD. You have your inattentive type, which I think of as more like easily distracted sort of uh space cadet stereotype, dangerous. Head of the clouds. Yes, right. Then you have your hyperactive type, which they a lot of people would say that's the more the stereotypical what you think ADHD is gonna be. Right, exactly. I'm a combined type, so I'm like a little bit of both. So I have that internal restlessness that like my clients who have high sensitivity don't necessarily come with that built-in restlessness. I think sometimes they end up with it because of the burnout and the nervous system, right? Exhaustion that sometimes when you're burnt out, you start to look a little bit sort of anxious, restless all over the place. But it's not like inherent in them. Versus for me, like I tell you with my cuticle, this energy is inside of me. Yes. No matter what, I could be very calm and everything in my life could be perfect.

April Snow 19:58

Right. That's your baseline versus an HSP without ADHD, is maybe only in that space when maybe they're in hyperarousal, they're anxious, they're frazzled, right? And that they've got that extra cortisol pumping through. But that's the confusing thing is you catch an HSP at a certain period of their life and they could look the same.

Nikolai Blinow 20:18

Absolutely.

April Snow 20:18

Yeah.

Nikolai Blinow 20:19

Yeah, absolutely. And then I think honestly, if I'm looking for like differentiating factors, like ADHD versus highly sensitivity, I really look at the working memory stuff because I think that's pretty telltale. And in the book ADHD 2.0, so this is not in the DSM 5 at all, but they talked about how there's some research that was coming out at that time that ADHD people they have like slightly different cerebellums, which is the part of your brain responsible for movement and balance.

April Snow 20:53

Yes.

Nikolai Blinow 20:54

And so they hypothesize that that part of the brain may actually also be associated with sort of mental and emotional balance, not just actual physical balance and proprioception.

April Snow 21:05

That makes sense.

Nikolai Blinow 21:07

With that said, anecdotally, have I seen a lot of ADHD people who have some sort of almost like proprioception problem, like they're bumping into things. They're always spilling coffee on their shirt no matter how hard they try. And I think that's because maybe like we really do have that little bit of genuine like neurological difference that's showing up in our body in space relationship.

April Snow 21:33

That makes sense because I can almost clock someone who has ADHD, at least the hyperactive type, because their bodies seem to be in a space differently. The way they move, the way they relate to objects in the space. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but that makes sense. But the cerebellum is wired up maybe differently where they're reacting to their physical spaces. And of course, then would spill over to the emotional experience. Yeah.

Nikolai Blinow 22:00

And you know, yeah, and then coming back to like similarities and reflecting on this, and that research paper was talking about highly sensitive people and their response to environments and also bringing in some comparison with neurodiverse people. And that research paper showed us, not surprisingly, to you, I think, or to me, that highly sensitive people are especially, I want to call it susceptible to their environments or influenced by their environments, where negative environments make you much more vulnerable to stress and anxiety and burnout. Positive environments actually can really be a great asset and help your sensitivity really sort of like be expressed in the most effective way and allow you to tap into it in a way that maybe even like sets you apart from people who don't have that sensitivity skill. Um, and I see a lot of that, and there's a lot of data on ADHD people as well, that they are also very influenced by environment. And I think some of it is sensory. And I also think executive functioning and environment go hand in hand too. I have a client I used to work with who was in a big fancy position, so they got a big fancy office and it had a window, but the window was like an internal window that looked into the building and they could see people walking by all the time. They actually switched offices with their administrative assistant who didn't have a window because the constant walking back and forth of people was just like too distracting for their brain.

April Snow 23:45

Yeah, I wouldn't be able to do that either. It's too much stimulus.

Nikolai Blinow 23:48

Maybe if it's like a nice outside window, I think there's like a sweet spot of stimulation. But I think that's something where we have some crossover between our highly sensitive and our neurodivergent folks. And maybe with neurodivergent, it's just the environmental stimuli is amplified into the executive functioning challenges.

April Snow 24:10

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because anyone who's neurodivergent in any sense is gonna have that sensory sensitivity that comes in, which impacts then amps up emotional reactivity, feelings of overstimulation and overwhelm. So there's a lot that looks the same on the surface, but there's there's more to the story underneath, like how our brains are wired or nervous systems are wired. And yeah, I think it's helpful to talk about these differences and nuances. So I'm wondering now that you're aware that you're working with neurodivergent folks, HSPs, folks, you know, women with ADHD, especially high functioning, highly achieving HSPs and women with ADHD, how do you guide them to care

Self-Care Through Radical Acceptance

April Snow 24:54

for themselves? You know, I know there can be a lot of pressure to keep up with everyone else, to meet all these criteria at the appropriate times, but we often need different paces and lifestyles. So I'm wondering how you invite your clients or yourself to care for yourself without feeling like you're falling behind.

Nikolai Blinow 25:11

So I was sharing before we started recording, one of my clinical orientations is in dialectical behavioral therapy, which we abbreviate to DBT. And for anyone who's listening who doesn't know what that means, most people, if they know something about therapy, have heard of cognitive behavioral therapy. And I like to describe dialectical behavioral therapy as cognitive behavioral therapies, like younger, more progressive sibling. Yeah, because it's weird, cognitive behavioral therapy, technically, dialectical behavioral therapy is a cognitive behavioral therapy, and yet I don't really like cognitive behavioral therapy because dialectical behavioral therapy to oversimplify it is basically about helping people's brains, bodies, and behaviors get more flexible. And I think if we can be more flexible, then life is better because there's a lot in this world that we don't have control of, and especially the conversation we just had about HSP people and neurodivergent people being extra vulnerable or susceptible to environmental factors. That is what it is. So learning to help our nervous systems be more flexible, knowing that we already have some predisposition to environmental factors, I think is good. But the reason I share that is in DBT, I have a skill or a strategy or concept that I often teach, which is radical acceptance. Radical acceptance of this idea that like sometimes we have to not just accept the situation, we also have to accept just like our feelings about that situation, our response to that situation. And so I think as neurodivergent people or HSP people, the fact of the matter is like 80% of the world is different from us. And so most of the world is set up differently, and even like the social norms are different, the schedules that people use, they're just different. And so I think we have to radically accept our difference so that we can free ourselves from trying to sort of surface level push ourselves into boxes or ways of being or strategy that work for other people, but they don't work for us.

April Snow 27:46

It's so essential, just because this is how we're wired, we're not changing. So to be able to say, This is how I am, this is okay, and then learn how to navigate the world as you are instead of fighting against yourself is so important. Yes, radical acceptance for sure. Do you notice that? Just curious how your clients respond to that. Is there often resistance? Because I know sometimes that can feel uncomfortable at first when we're not used to accepting ourselves so fully or treating ourselves with compassion. I'm just curious what you've seen.

Nikolai Blinow 28:20

Uh, I feel like I see different, I see probably like two or three different responses. One of my clients lovingly has rebranded radical acceptance as disgruntled acceptance. I think that says everything that's it needs to say, right? Like, okay, I know this would be good for me to do because I would probably just feel better in the long run, but I still don't like it.

April Snow 28:46

Yeah, right. Like begrudgingly accepting yourself.

Nikolai Blinow 28:50

Yes. Yeah, yes. I see some people who definitely have the disgruntled acceptance. I see some people, and this is interesting to me, just because as a clinician who's neurodiverse, this was not my personal experience, but I see this a lot in my clients. Sometimes with radical acceptance of your neurodiversity or your sensitivity, and the fact that that means you also just have to accept that you're gonna have to do things differently, and the world is just always gonna maybe feel like a little bit can't put my finger on it. Sometimes I think there's grief there. I just want it to be easy, or I just want to be like everyone else, or sometimes I wish I at least knew this about myself sooner because, like, how would I have set my life up differently? Yeah, and then I think the third thing I see is more what my experience was was this makes sense, and there's like a relief there, an understanding. Now I can, in acceptance of my neurodiversity and the fact that I need to let go of trying to live my life in the way 80% of other people are living it. You know, that means if I use myself as an example, like I can set my client's schedule up however I want to do it. Not how I think I should do it because, like, this is what my colleague that seems really smart is doing, or this other person who makes a lot of money is doing, or this person who speaks a lot and is really successful or gets awards or whatever. Like, I can just do what works best for me, and that can be very freeing.

April Snow 30:38

That's my life motto. Do what works best for me. I'm constantly reminding my clients to look inward. You know, what is best for you, not what your mother says, your friend is doing, your coworkers are doing. We really do need to follow our own rhythms as much as we can, right? You and I are both privileged and that we have private practices and we get to set our schedules. But there are small choices, even if that's not the case, that you can make, even just with how you're thinking about yourself, how you're accepting yourself. It's so important. It's a good reminder. Nicole, I'm wondering if there are any other messages that you want to leave with listeners who maybe considering, wondering if they have ADHD, who already know and are figuring out how to accept that about themselves. Are there any final thoughts?

Strengths Of Neurodiversity At Work

Nikolai Blinow 31:32

Yeah, so I'll say about ADHD specifically. There are a lot of clinicians in the community right now and a lot of people who are really trying to champion a new way of conceptualizing neurodiversity. And I think sometimes we still have these ideas of what it means to be neurodiverse that are very based on the current clinical language that exists that is very diagnostic and deficits focused. Yes. And really, I don't know. Like, I'm not gonna say I don't have any challenges because of my ADHD, because again, try and get me to sit still and oh my god, when I first heard Pink Pony Club by Chapel Roan, did I literally not sleep at night because my brain was singing that song at like 2 a.m. for no reason, or insert whatever Nikolai's favorite song of the moment is, right? Like, and then that's I'm not sleeping as well as I would like, and that trickles in. Like, there's certainly challenges that come with being neurodivergent, and I actually think there's a lot of value that neurodivergency brings to the world. And I, in my own experience, I remember starting my private practice now a little over 10 years ago. And the woman who supervised me for my licensure, I worked underneath her, and so I was also working with her when I was starting to set up my private practice. And she said, Oh my God, I wish I was as sort of far along in my life plan as you were, because I opened my private practice, I think, when I was like 30 or 31. She said, I didn't even go into private practice until my 40s. Right. And I share that just anecdotally, not to be like, wow, go me, but I think that's an anecdotal example of sometimes like the benefit, like my internal restlessness has also led me to a lot of beneficial places. Um, my sort of like hyper awareness, high sensitivity, back to what we started talking about very much at the beginning of this session is like why I can call my clients out on things that they've never been called out on before. And also do it in a way because of my sensitivity. Where one of my clients said, I love that you like compassionately read me to filth, right? Like I can help show people things about themselves that sometimes are uncomfortable and hard and don't feel awesome to see, and do it in a way that feels like lovingly delivered and empathetic. And I don't think I could do, and therefore, in doing that, I think that's why my clients get good treatment outcomes because we've all probably heard stories or people listening have probably had experiences with therapists where they call you out on something and you think they're just judging you and being an able.

April Snow 34:40

Right, exactly, versus I'm holding up a mirror so you can see yourself.

Nikolai Blinow 34:44

Exactly, because I want you to see this. So you just have options about what to do with this.

April Snow 34:49

Exactly. Because we have our blind spots, right? And when a therapist, especially a highly sensitive therapist, can see what we're not able to see and can help us bring that to the surface. And it is, it is an act of care. It's not judgment, it's in support of the client. And there's a certain way to do that where it feels caring, it doesn't feel critical. I really appreciate that. You know, you're creating that space for your clients where they can feel safe to discover these parts of themselves where they can feel the grief of being different, where they can find a path forward. Okay, this is actually maybe there's something good here. It's not just a diagnosis that I feel burdened by. Because there is, we're starting to see some strength-space language around neurodiversity, but it is, we're in the early days.

Nikolai Blinow 35:40

And in the world in general, I guess I'll plug this. Uh, colleague of mine is launching a community online for late-in-life diagnosed neurodiverse women. Oh, wonderful. Called Divergently. I am affiliated in that I will be participating as a member who is also uh a clinical expert, but I get no monetary compensation. It's just me supporting uh a colleague in the field doing similar work. Leading that community, if you uh her name is Kendra Koch, K-O-C-H. You can find it at joindivergy.com. Great. Put it in the show notes. Yeah, it's great. But I know through being connected with her and following some of the sort of neurodivergent stuff that's happening beyond the clinical community that we are starting to see, for example, the CEO of Palantir just launched basically, I don't know if he's calling it a neurodivergent academy, but his corporation is actually specifically seeking out neurodivergent people and providing recruitment and trading programs and scholarship opportunities because he was recently on record saying that with the face of AI starting to come more into the world, that actually neurodivergent people are going to be especially valuable because of the ability that many neurodivergent people have to think like 10 steps ahead.

April Snow 37:15

Yes, that makes sense.

Nikolai Blinow 37:16

Or to anticipate problems that other people don't anticipate. And so AI, they think is going to be able to systematize a lot of things, but it's not going to be able to systematize or replicate that like visionary thinking that a lot of neurodivergent people are very capable of. For sure. So I think we are starting to see little bits of anecdotal evidence. And then I went to here in Rhode Island, we have a women's summit at Bryant University every year. And one of the keynote speakers was a C-suite executive for fidelity, and she was talking about diversity. And in her talk, she specifically also mentioned the need for neurodiversity in organizations and the values that they bring, and that fidelity, as this like large corporate conglomerate, is actually putting a lot of attention and energy into recruiting neurodivergent people, making sure that neurodivergent people are like a part of their team and see the value that they bring. I guess I'm plug in fidelity too. You're welcome. Fidelity. I don't know how they are to work for, but like these are things that they're actively. So we are seeing movement in that.

April Snow 38:54

Right, exactly. Right. And we're seeing it now as oh, something that is an asset, that there's a need in our communities, in our workplaces for people who can see the details, who can sense into what's happening between the lines. There's so much value folks bring. And I I love that we're bringing the conversation of neurodiversity into the general diversity conversation. Right? That gives me hope. So yeah, thank you for that.

Nikolai Blinow 39:25

Yay. In a world where sometimes my clients say it can feel like a dumpster fire. There's still hope, everyone. There's still especially important for us highly sensitive people to try and remember that.

April Snow 39:36

Absolutely. We need that anchor.

Working Together Resources And Closing

April Snow 39:38

Well, I want to thank you for everything you shared today, Nikolai. I really appreciate you opening this conversation. It's one we haven't had on the podcast yet. So this is an exciting start. And I'll be sure to share for folks all the resources you mentioned. I'll share your website and your self-care challenges in the show notes for folks that can sign up for that. I'm wondering if you could share a few words about what it's like to work with you if folks are interested in booking a consult.

Nikolai Blinow 40:03

Yeah, absolutely. If you are interested in working with me, I'm very authentic and collaborative. So often people will ask me, like, what do you do? And I think now that we've heard this conversation about neurodiversity and high sensitivity, my goal is to figure out with you like what's not working in your life, right? And then as a highly sensitive, very aware person, like bring my skill set to the table combined with my clinical skills. And so I work with people doing traditional, I do therapy and coaching hybrid, because I think DBT actually brings in a lot of coaching. And I think a lot of my people being high achievers want a little bit more of an active process where I'm calling them out on things and offering them alternatives of like what to try. But then I also do EMDR, which actually I think is often a needed part of the neurodivergent and highly sensitive experience for people who are going through that sort of like grief process response. Because I think a lot of highly sensitive and neurodivergent people unintentionally have absorbed a feeling that like they're defective, they don't fit, there's something wrong with them, and that needs healing too, right? Like all the strategy in the world isn't going to heal the part of your nervous system that feels that way. And so basically, my goal is to figure out like what you need first and when. And maybe some of you will only need coaching, and some of you will need nervous system healing, and some of you will need both, and it's going to be about prioritizing.

April Snow 41:54

I love that. You have lots of different layers that people can tap into, depending on where they are. That's so helpful. Well, Nikolai, thank you again for being on the podcast today. Can't wait for folks to dive into the resources that you shared.

Nikolai Blinow 42:08

Thank you so much. I really enjoyed our conversation.

April Snow 42:11

Yeah, same. Thanks so much for joining me and Nikolai for today's conversation. I hope you're taking away a deeper understanding of ADHD and appreciation of your sensitive gifts. If you're interested in working with Nikolai or diving into the many resources she shared, you can find all the details in the show notes. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the Sensitive Stories podcast so you don't miss our upcoming conversations. Reviews and ratings are also helpful and appreciated. Check out the show notes or head to sensitivestories.com to find all the resources and the transcript from today's episode. Thanks for listening.