Episode 200: Sharing stories of neurodivergence in India – with Aditi Gangrade

The episode transcript is below.

Carolyn Kiel: Welcome to Beyond 6 Seconds, the podcast that goes beyond the six second first impression to share the extraordinary stories of neurodivergent people. I’m your host, Carolyn Kiel.

Carolyn Kiel: On today’s episode I’m speaking with Aditi Gangrade, a 25 year old film director and writer. She is autistic and has ADHD and PMDD, or premenstrual dysphoric disorder. She is the co founder of Much Much Spectrum, an inclusive storytelling content and insights wing of Much Much Media. In the past six years of her career, she’s worked with brands like Netflix, Instagram, Google, Coca Cola Foundation, Save the Children, and more. Aditi is based in India and is working to mainstream stories and representation of mental health, neurodiversity, and disability through her company. Aditi, welcome to the podcast.

Aditi Gangrade: Thanks. Thanks, Carolyn. Thanks for inviting me.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, thanks so much for being on the show. I’m a big fan of the videos and the content that you create through Much Much Media and Much Much Spectrum. So I’m excited to learn about your personal story and about the work that you do.

Aditi Gangrade: Oh, I mean, I, I’ve been following Beyond 6 Seconds podcast for, for a long time and I’ve always been wanting to speak to you and I keep seeing your posts. So I’m a big fan of yours too. So great to see your work.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, great to be able to talk with you in person!

So would love to start out with your, learning more about your own personal story. So how did you discover that you’re autistic and have ADHD and PMDD?

Aditi Gangrade: So last year my partner, my husband found out that he’s autistic and both of us met in 2020 before the lockdown began, pre pandemic basically. And we always thought that there is some kind of connection, something that’s invisible or some, there’s something that brings us together. And last year when he discovered he’s autistic, I thought that I’m, I am relating to some things, but I was still not sure, because the things that I was reading about autism were all male oriented and everything was from the perspective of men and boys.

But I wanted to support my partner. I wanted to be there for him and hold space for him and accommodate him in every way possible. So when he decided to go in for a diagnosis, I thought that I might, I should start reading up more about autism and what exactly neurodiversity is. So he read this book called NeuroTribes, and I couldn’t read it because it was like a thick one and I’m not that great a reader. But I started watching YouTube videos. I started listening to podcasts and started following more and more creators on Twitter and everywhere else. And I started relating to their experiences. I was like, okay. My experiences are different, but some were similar from my partner.

So I started reading up about autistic women’s experiences. And I found some great creators on YouTube. There’s Chloe Hayden. I saw your podcast sometime last year. And And there’s a Purple Ella and there, there are some more YouTube channels. So I started watching their videos and I could relate so much with their experiences. I saw some research articles and I decided to go in for a diagnosis as well.

My husband’s diagnosis took about three months and mine took a bit longer, and you have to basically delve deeper into your, into your past and your childhood experiences and bring your parents into the assessment process. So that was a bit overwhelming for me and I was not able to unmask. I was not able to even recollect all the experiences from my childhood. Like, there were some things that, that were very fresh in my head. There were some experiences, some specific instances, but I could not recollect most of my memories. And my mother did, but… I, again, I was not comfortable bringing her into the diagnosis process because again, she’s from a tier two city in India and she doesn’t know much about autism and everything else. So it was quite overwhelming for me. So I decided to step out of my assessment and chose not to get diagnosed. So I’m a self diagnosed autistic person right now.

And yeah, that, that’s how in the similar way I discovered my ADHD as well. After I think three months into Much Much Spectrum, I was like, okay, I think ADHD is also something that I have because I face major challenges with my executive function. And also there’s, there’s major time blindness. So if I have to be somewhere at five, I really need my partner’s help to basically be prepared and get ready and reach there on time. There was so many experiences that made sense.

And I think PMDD, the realization about PMDD just happened a couple of months ago. I was reading some experiences of menstruators with PMDD, autistic menstruators. And I’ve, I’ve always had severe pain during periods. And I mean, there, there’s just this window of one week that I can really like feel comfortable in my body and not be in pain, or maybe three or four days in a month. But apart from that, most of the time I’m in severe pain or I’m not in the right kind of mental space to, to think about things. And I really need support and need help from others. So I think I started relating with PMDD even more. And that’s when I got to know that, okay, it’s PMDD also.

And I think if I wouldn’t have discovered that I’m autistic, I wouldn’t be able to understand why everything is happening. And I mean, here out in India, even if you go to gynecs, they’ll be like, “okay, you are in pain, but it will be fine after you have kids.” So, so that is the thing that’s been told to most menstruators. And parents also say the same thing that, “okay, women, if you are born a woman, you have to go through pain. And this is like the normal way to be, this is how it happens when everyone goes through pain.” So, so I think that’s how I discovered all of these.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, it’s similar in the United States. A lot of people are just like, “well, of course you’re in pain. Like, that’s normal!” Like a lot of “that’s normal” comes out with conditions like PMDD or even autism, like so many things like, “well, everybody feels like that!” It’s like, well, not to the severity and not like all 20 of these things at once. So it can make it really hard as an adult to figure out that, no, this is, this is different. And there are just different things that I need to do.

Aditi Gangrade: Yeah, exactly. Because I mean, so many experiences, especially women get invalidated and dismissed and you always feel like, okay, maybe I’m overthinking and maybe something is wrong with me and everybody’s right. So that, that happened a lot in my case.

I was not sure that I’m autistic till I think August or September last year. I started this journey in March and it took me so many months to be sure that, okay, I am autistic. Because my partner affirmed my neurodivergence and he was like, okay, even I can see these experiences that you have had and these definitely sound like you are autistic and ADHD.

Carolyn Kiel: The discovery of being autistic and ADHD usually does take a couple months. So I think sometimes there’s this impression of somebody watches one video and then decides that they’re autistic or has ADHD, but it never really works out like that. So people take months to, as you were saying, really think about, like, is this, you know, is this something I’m imagining? Is this really what it is? And all that doubt and that, that thinking. So once, once you come to the realization that you’re autistic or have ADHD, like, you’re, you’re pretty sure. Like, that’s as valid as a professional diagnosis.

Aditi Gangrade: Yeah. Actually, I’ll share a great incident. It’s not great. But, but yeah, I was happy that this person asked me this question. So I was speaking to someone and they asked me, “do you worry that you might have misdiagnosed yourself? Because you are a self diagnosed autistic person, you might have misdiagnosed yourself because you’re not a professional or not an expert.” But that’s, that’s how the discourse is here in India. Like a lot of people don’t understand the length and depth of a neurodivergent experience. And because there are so many videos out there on Instagram, on TikTok. So people think that, okay, you might’ve just seen one Reel or a TikTok video and you might’ve been like, okay, you’re autistic. So I spoke to them for about 45 minutes and told them how how this process is like, and it’s not that I’ve just gotten up one day and been like, okay, I’m autistic. So it doesn’t work that way.

So, so yeah, it is I mean, you feel invalidated a lot of the times and your experiences are dismissed, but what I’ve understood in this past one year is that you have to keep advocating for yourself because there is very less awareness, acceptance is, like still, we have like a long way to go. But I mean, self advocacy is the only way that I see neurodivergence getting more and more spoken about here in India at least.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, absolutely.

So you mentioned that you sometimes had a hard time remembering some of your experiences growing up when you were going through the diagnosis process. But are there any experiences that you remember, like what it was like growing up as an autistic girl with ADHD in India, like, but not realizing that you were neurodivergent?

Aditi Gangrade: Actually, there are some memories that are very fresh in my head. And the one thing that I always thought was that I had, I always thought at least that I have so many friends. So I had friends, and my father in law also relates with this. He also got diagnosed last year. And like the entire family discovered that so many people are neurodivergent. And I was just talking to my father in law a couple of days ago, and he was saying the exact same thing. So I always felt that I had school friends and I had college friends and tuition friends and so many friends at these different places. But outside of these settings, they were, they were not my friends. They would meet very often, they would hang out with each other, but I was never invited to these places. I always tried to fit in. I always tried to be “cool” and always masked a lot, now when I look back. But I think friendships were very difficult for me.

I almost went to some nine schools throughout my schooling years because my father had a transferable job. So I am born and brought up in Madhya Pradesh, which is a state in India. There’s the city called Indore. So I lived there for about six or seven years. Then my father got transferred to another city called Jabalpur. And then I lived some time in Ujjain. And then there are so many, these tier two, tier three cities. So I’ve grown up mostly in tier two and tier three cities. And also I think a part of sometime I was in rural India as well.

There are boxes that people fit others into. So there’s like, if you’re a, okay, if you’re a woman, you have to be this particular way. I mean, there were some things that I never understood. And people around me were very okay with these rules and with these boxes and stereotyping. But things like, okay, girls and boys have to sit in separate rows. You can’t interact with boys.

Like even I think the schooling years were very difficult for me because there was lots of misogyny and people were very, I’m not able to find the right words, but they were not affirming at all. And it was very difficult to be in those systems because every time, even when I went to parents teacher meetings with my parents, the teachers would always say that “she has great potential and she is very attentive in class, but she’s, she’s really not getting good grades because, we don’t know what’s happening, and she sometimes seems lost.”

And that was one of my coping mechanisms. I never was able to have that kind of focus or attention in class, but I always pretended to be attentive. And I would always nod whenever someone was speaking, even if a teacher was saying something, I would keep nodding my head, even when I wouldn’t understand things, I would just nod my head. Because I had a lot of these experiences where I would ask some question. It was very difficult for me to get certain things, understand certain things. So I would keep asking questions and I would ask it again and again until I was not sure that okay, I’m convinced with this answer. And most of the times I was not convinced. So teachers would straight up bully me. They would be mean to me and they would be like, “okay, if everyone is able to understand, why can’t you? So there is definitely something wrong with you because everyone else is getting the thing in one go. And you are asking the same question like four or five times.” and they will think that this is like an attention seeking behavior where I’m trying to distract the class.

So so that became my coping mechanism. I was like, okay, I’m not going to ask any questions. I’m going to sit quietly, even if I don’t get anything, I will just go home and ask someone else. Or ask a friend. And again, that also became another thing where, where I would go to my friends or to my peers and ask them that, okay, this is a subject that I’m finding hard to understand, so can you explain it to me? And they would explain it to me for I think two or three years when I was in eighth or ninth grade, but as soon as I went to high school they would be like, “okay, you’re really dumb” because this is the, and they would very often use these words that “if you don’t get it, just go to, go to someone who is like an expert who can teach you all these things, because we can’t.”

And I mean, I always felt that I have nowhere to go to. My mother was definitely a great support system for me because I would get frustrated like being at school for eight hours or nine hours. And it was very hectic. And the school was never like that, okay, if you’re not doing well health wise or mental health wise, you can take leave. So it wasn’t like that. Children would get rewarded for 99% attendance, 100% attendance. And my mother was very okay with me taking a break or not going to school on some days, but I would feel this pressure that, no, everyone else is coming. Why should I stay back at home? So it would exhaust me. School really exhausted me. And every day I would come back home and I would cry for straight up 30 minutes or 45 minutes. And my mother would sit with me and she would be like, “it’s okay. It… It will get better in some time. When you go to college, these things will not happen.”

But I think things did get better when I was in college. But again, this whole fitting in thing was very difficult because I had to put up that mask with everyone. So if I had say six friends, I would have one particular mask with one friend and another mask for someone else. And when they would all come together, I would be blank. I would be like, okay, now I have pretended to be this person with this particular person. Now, how do I change this suddenly? So my mask would drop and I would panic or sometimes not be able to speak at all. So people would think that I’m really enthusiastic sometimes and sometimes really blah, or I was too moody.

So that I think that was one of the major experiences. But I think women in my life, my mother, my grandmother, they were really affirming. And now I mean, I’ve always wanted to be like them. I always wanted to be affirming. I always wanted to hold space for people and let people be and not put them in boxes because they were like such great women around me.

So I think there, there are people who don’t understand you, but there are also people who do accommodate you. There were some great teachers also. I think English and Hindi were my favorite subjects because the teachers were really nice and the teachers were really open to letting children be the way they are. And my grandma would tell stories to me. So I, I loved bedtime stories. So I think I found some really good things in my life to basically have my own time or spend time with people who I find easy to be with. And that whole anxiety and not being able to fit in was, I think, accommodated with some other people.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. That’s good that you had people in your life at home who were affirming and supportive and helped you get through those really difficult times through your schooling.

Aditi Gangrade: Mm-hmm.

Carolyn Kiel: And it’s interesting that you say that you really love the bedtime stories and storytelling because that’s a lot of what you’re doing now with Much Much Media and Much Much Spectrum. So, yeah, I’d love to learn more about both of those organizations. So yeah, tell me about how you first got involved with Much Much Media.

Aditi Gangrade: It was 2020 when I used to work with this organization and they were doing something like a roadshow. So there was this project that got commissioned from Instagram India and I was going to produce that show. So we were going to some 17 different cities and some, I think a lot of colleges in India, and we were speaking to young adults about mental health and gender and sexuality and basically youth issues in India. Everything from politics to personal issues and mental health and everything else. And my partner, Aalap was directing that show.

So I met Aalap, and that was Much Much Media’s first project. So I think within, within a month of meeting him, we started dating, and that also happened very, like, very naturally. Like, we were shooting somewhere in Chennai, and he came up to me, and he was like, “I think I like you,” and I was like, “Same.” And that was it, there was no, there was not much back and forth, or “okay, let me think.” There was nothing of that sort. I was like, “same,” and boom, we were dating.

So so that’s how we started dating. And we decided to, I think after a couple of months in March, the pandemic happened and there was a lockdown. So he was in Mumbai and I was back at home in Indore. So we had like a long distance relationship for some time. And then I came back to Mumbai. And I had quit my job by then, I was like, it was really getting difficult for me to work in a corporate system and have like that kind of… I mean, there was, there was so many things that were not working out for me. So we decided to work together and we worked together for about a year, or year or two. And that’s how I got associated to Much Much Media. In 2021, we got married. And early last year in 2022 we discovered that we are autistic and that’s how Much Much Spectrum also started.

So Much Much Media is mainly, we are a production house and we are into advertising and making films and web series and documentary films. So that was not neurodiversity related at all back then. But yeah, we decided to spend a major chunk of our time to tell stories about neurodivergence through Much Much Spectrum, because we had discovered our neurodivergence and we tried to find resources here in India. Tried to find lived experiences of people in India in the Indian context, but we were not able to find many stories and we were like, “okay, we really need something here in India.” And that’s how Much Much Spectrum started. And we started doing research and creating content for Much Much Spectrum.

Carolyn Kiel: And Aalap, your partner now husband, was he the founder of Much Much Media?

Aditi Gangrade: He, he is the founder of Much Much Media. He started Much Much Media in 2020, and we met on the first project of Much Much Media. Yeah.

Carolyn Kiel: Oh, cool.

Aditi Gangrade: And then we became co-founders.

Carolyn Kiel: And then you’re both co-founders also of Much Much Spectrum.

Aditi Gangrade: Much Much Spectrum, yeah.

Carolyn Kiel: Okay, cool. For Much Much Spectrum, how do you determine the topics or the guests that you feature in your work?

Aditi Gangrade: The topics, I would say, it ranges all the way from like I would say the beginner topics, like people who are not initiated into the conversation of neurodiversity or disability or don’t know anything about it, there are topics that will help those people understand what exactly it is. And then there are topics which are specifically for people who are neurodivergent and disabled, for them to advocate and for them to share their experiences, irrespective of thinking about what the audience needs right now. So I think that, that platform was never there in India, specifically in smaller parts of India that there’s no content to watch on neurodiversity and disability.

So I think our topics, there are some things like body doubling or sensory sensitivities. So these are not terms which are used in everyday conversation here in India, at least. So we are now also trying to get all of this information in regional languages. So India is like very rich with respect to languages. Like every 50 kilometers people, people will speak some new different language, like a different variation of a language. So we are also trying to have that.

And I think with respect to guests, we try to have like a 360 degree perspective. You always try to have different kinds of perspectives, and also, intersectional perspectives. Because when we talk about queerness, it’s been spoken about in a silo: that okay, this is how a queer lived experience is. But what about someone who’s queer and neurodivergent and also comes from a marginalized caste or class or some of those marginalized sectors? So I think intersectionality is one of the major lens that we use with every content.

So like for example, we did this campaign early last year, which was called “Me As Me.” And we were doing this film on puberty. So a lot of people don’t understand how autistic experience is like when we are going through that transition phase from being a child, to being an adolescent, and becoming an adult then. Because there are so many hormonal changes and there’s so many aspects at that point of time that it’s, it gets overwhelming during these major changes in your life. So this film was mainly on that particular perspective to basically chronicle lived experiences of different kinds of people about their transition from puberty to adulthood. And we decided to have one male perspective, a music producer who’s in college right now. And then there was this person who’s non binary and trans and queer and autistic ADHDer, and also comes from a marginalized background. So, that whole different kinds of perspective and having intersectional perspectives really helped us understand that, okay, there is no one way that autistics experience puberty.

So I think this whole stereotypical notion about autism that, okay, these are the five ways, or these are the five traits in which autism presents. So that is not going to work. And that is our main aim with every piece of content: to tell people that there is no one size fits all. Every autistic person is different. Their accommodation needs are going to be different. Their challenges might be different. So you have to like play it by ear and understand through that person. Ask them. That, okay, these are the things they need, or these are the experience that they’ve had. So so I think that’s the perspective.

And we also now with our guests, we are also trying to involve more and more people from tier two and tier three cities. Because autism and neurodiversity, even the word neurodiversity, a lot of people in India don’t know what exactly neurodiversity is because there is no word for neurodiversity in Hindi. So it’s, it’s become a conversation, which is very limited to only the privileged class, and it’s not happening in the case of someone who’s living in Uttar Pradesh or who’s living in maybe Mangalore or in a smaller city. So now we also want to involve people from these cities to basically talk about their experiences in a way that they understand or they deem best.

So, so yeah, that’s, that’s how our editorial is right now, but it’s very, it’s very dynamic. It keeps changing. Like we learn something new and we discuss it with our team. Or we see some content and we are like, okay, this is great. Why are we not doing this? So our editorial keeps changing.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. I think it’s so important to share these stories as told by the people who are having that lived experience. Before I really started actively trying to learn about the experiences of neurodivergent people, disabled people, I feel like a lot of the narrative in the United States was driven by people outside, like, you know, quote unquote experts or parents of children or just other, you know, family members or other people who didn’t have those lived experiences, so it was just so eye opening for me to be able to hear people talk about what it’s really like for them. And as you said, how there’s no one singular experience for anyone who’s autistic, ADHD, disabled, anything like that. So it’s, it’s really powerful to hear all of those different perspectives.

Aditi Gangrade: Yeah. It used to be the same here in India as well. The the narrative was completely led by people who didn’t have firsthand lived experience. And I think it’s changing now. I mean, there are so many people who are getting diagnosed. There are so many messages we get that okay, how can I get a diagnosis? Or how can, how can I self diagnose? So people are really starting to think in that direction.

A lot of the times therapists or mental health professionals would also misdiagnose, right? And misdiagnosis is very often in case of women and nonbinary people and trans people. So it’s been labeled as, “oh, you just have anxiety or you are just going through a phase and it will be better soon.” So, that whole conversation is changing and people are actually considering that they might be neurodivergent. There are so many parents who are getting diagnosed now, who have like kids who are adults or teenagers, who are now actually considering it. So that is like a great change that, that we are witnessing right now.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, that is, that is really great to see how that change is happening. Absolutely.

Aditi Gangrade: Yeah.

Carolyn Kiel: And yeah, I was gonna ask about like the kinds of impact that your videos and films have had on the people who have watched them. I mean, you, you described some of them just now, but have you heard from a lot of viewers about how watching your videos have changed something about the way they think or what kind of actions they might wanna take?

Aditi Gangrade: Actually, there are so many. When we started out, we thought that this is, this might not work out, or this might not be something that a lot of people relate to. This might just be an experience that we have. So we came from that perspective because we were not aware about the neurodiversity movement and we didn’t know that there are so many people. And with time, I think within four or five months, I think starting October last year, we started seeing like, a sudden boost in our followers. And there were so many people who were commenting on our posts, who were, like, writing messages to us about how they could relate to our content. And a lot of people have written to us saying that our content has really saved their lives.

There are so many emotional moments in our lives, in my partner and my life, where sometimes like we are sitting together, we are having dinner, and we might just be going through some comments or something, and we’ll read a comment and we just break down. Because we have been in a similar place earlier. We never saw representation of any kind of disability or neurodiversity or even it being spoken about in a normal way, or in a way that is okay to talk about. So I think it, it gets very emotional. But it’s also great that people are thinking, again, they’re thinking in that direction that, okay, I might be neurodivergent. I might be ADHDer. So many of our friends have gone in for a diagnosis and are now diagnosed. So I think that’s, I think one of our greatest achievements.

And also our page has become like a place for people to come and meet each other. So for example, we’ll post a tweet or we’ll post something, a Reel or something. And there’d be so many people who would write like one or two page long comments and they’d be like, “okay, I’ve gone through the same thing.” And then someone else will come in the comment section and they’ll reply to that person saying, “oh, I’ve, I’ve experienced the same thing. And I understand, and I, I empathize with you.” And people will share some bad experiences where they’ve been dismissed or have experienced ableism. And it really feels like a community now because it has given people that place to be open about things and talk to other people with similar lived experiences. So it really feels great to see that happen.

Carolyn Kiel: It’s great to build that community where you weren’t really seeing it before. So that’s exciting to bring people together and help them learn more about themselves and get the supports that they need.

Aditi Gangrade: Yeah. And I always thought that there might be some kind of bias. Because I mean, on other pages, I’ve seen that if someone who’s Indian or someone who comes from an Asian country has written something, a lot of other people might not understand those experiences or might not relate to them. But it’s, it’s so great to see that people from different parts of the world, people from India, people from Pakistan, from UK, US, Canada, Australia, everyone have had some similar experiences and they are like becoming friends. Like if we post one Reel of, of someone who’s neurodivergent or disabled, so many of our followers go and follow that person and they come and tell us that, okay I’ve made so many friends through your page. So I think that whole neurodivergent friendship thing is also blossoming now.

Carolyn Kiel: It’s great. And yeah, your, your pages are just such a great way to connect with people from all different parts of the world. And, you know, in parts of the world where like the social media algorithm may not naturally present like, you know, creators and advocates from, from all different countries. So it’s really great to have you curating that content and people kind of making those connections in your comments and on socials.

Where can people go to see your work? I know you have a YouTube channel. Is that mainly how people find and watch your videos?

Aditi Gangrade: So there’s our YouTube channel which is called Much Much Media. Our Instagram is muchmuchspectrum. We are on LinkedIn, which is also Much Much Spectrum. Then our website is called www.MuchMuchMedia.com. So a lot of our work and everything else about us is also available on our website. And they can also write to us. We are always happy to hear about more experiences and connect with more and more people. So our email ID is partnerships at much much media dot com. So they can always write to us or even DM us.

Carolyn Kiel: Cool. Yeah. I’ll put those links in the show notes so that people can have easy access to them and follow you and get in touch if they want to.

Thanks Aditi. It’s been so great to meet you and talk with you. You know, as we close out, is there anything else that you’d like our listeners to know or anything that they can help or support you with?

Aditi Gangrade: I think I, I’ll say this one thing that we really need self advocates now, more than ever, because I mean, the neurodiversity and disability movement is really taking up that speed right now. So many people are coming out with their neurodivergent conditions. And I mean, it is, it is definitely difficult because there are so many people who get discriminated against after they reveal that they are disabled at workplace or even in schools and everywhere else. But whichever capacity in which you can advocate for yourself and for people around you, you really should.

And I also think we need allies. Because I am seeing that there are people, I mean, the advocacy is only happening within these limited circles. So we also need people who are non neurodivergent and not disabled but are supporting other neurodivergent and disabled voices. So if you are having an event or if you’re having some conference or something, you should involve neurodivergent and disabled people in a better capacity than just having them there sit with other people and not talk about themselves or their lived experiences. So I think we really need to think about inclusion in those terms. Also, there are DEI policies in a lot of companies, but neurodiversity is not on their agenda yet. So I think that needs to happen.

And and yeah, the way you can best support us is follow us, watch our content. If you want to share your lived experiences, we are always, always, always open to anyone and everyone, so do write to us. And we are open to collaborating with other brands and nonprofits and other organizations. The main, aim that we have with Much Much Spectrum is to mainstream these conversations, mainstream disability representation in media. So if brands want to create such content, they should definitely approach us and have that on their agenda every year that, okay, this is something, neurodiversity or disability, something that we want to focus on.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. Great. Yeah. A lot of different ways that people can make an impact, whether they’re neurodivergent or they’re not. They’re an ally or they’re a brand. Or just so many different ways that they can support the community and support each other.

Yeah. Well, thanks so much, Aditi. Again, great to meet you and just so thrilled to be able to connect with you and congratulations on all the great work that you’ve been doing to help advocate and educate people about neurodiversity.

Aditi Gangrade: Thanks so much, Carolyn. I mean, I, I seriously want to thank you for having me on your podcast. I love what you’re doing. I love the kind of guests you have, like the different kind of lived experiences. And watching your podcast is really now become our special interest. Like every night we would watch one episode before sleeping. So, so yeah, please keep doing this great content, and really happy to be on your podcast.

Carolyn Kiel: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that so much. Thank you very much.

Aditi Gangrade: Thank you.

Carolyn Kiel: Thanks for listening to Beyond 6 Seconds. Please help me spread the word about this podcast. Share it with a friend, give it a shout out on your social media, or write a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player. You can find all of my episodes and sign up for my free newsletter at beyond6seconds.net. Until next time.