300: Finding Your Voice: My Podcasting and an Adult Autism Diagnosis Journey

300: Finding Your Voice: My Podcasting and an Adult Autism Diagnosis Journey

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Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: [00:00:00] When I recorded my first episode five years ago, I was nervous. I was apprehensive. I was doubtful. I didn't know if what I had to say was enough. I didn't know if my knowledge was enough. I didn't know if I was good enough. But what I did know is that I had witnessed many, many years. Several people like me with a first gen, BIPOC, low income background, receiving the support and the knowledge and the resources they needed to successfully apply, then get in, then complete their graduate programs, And I wanted to be able [00:01:00] to provide similar types of knowledge, resources, and support to others so that they would believe in themselves and so that they would ultimately reach their goals.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And here we are, 300 episodes later. And the mission has both stayed the same and grown in that I continue to support people in their higher ed journey. And I'm also supporting a greater mission of helping people to pursue the career and lives of their dreams and to live their lives and do work according to their terms.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And what I didn't know when recording that first episode. is that in going through this multi year podcasting journey, not only was I going to help others to find their voices, but I suddenly started to find my own [00:02:00] voice. And so for today's milestone episode, I am recording on the topic of finding your voice and how a recent adult's autism diagnosis is transforming the future of my work and my podcast.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Welcome to the award winning Grad School Femtoring Podcast, the place for first gen BIPOCs to listen in on inclusive grad school stories and learn about personal development and productivity tips. This is Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu, a certified coach, consultant, and author, and I will be serving as your femtor, providing you with insider knowledge to help you reach your personal and professional [00:03:00] goals.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Grad School Femtoring Podcast. This is your host, Dr. Yvette. I'm so grateful to have you here for episode 300. It is a milestone episode and with every milestone episode for episode 100, then 200, Now 300. I will admit, I do feel a sense of added pressure of making sure it's a good episode, making sure that it resonates with my audience.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And up to this point, I actually didn't know what I was going to record on. I sometimes record my episodes early. Well, I record all of my guest episodes months in advance, but my solo episodes, sometimes I record them early and sometimes I record them closer to the It comes out. And so technically I'm taking time off from my [00:04:00] work.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Technically, other than this, I'm not doing any other work, but I wanted to give myself time and see what would come up and what came up for me this week, the week that the show comes out. It is the week of, , the Christmas holiday for those of y'all that celebrate it is that I got a very special Christmas gift in the mail.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And by mail, I mean email, which was an adult autism assessment report and an official autism diagnosis. And I am thrilled to have this information. It's been a long time coming, and I want to take you through a little bit more of this journey. By talking a little bit more about my childhood as an undiagnosed autistic kid, about the process of discovering autism and even pursuing a diagnosis and what this means to [00:05:00] me for the future of my work and the future of the podcast.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Going back to my youth, I will say this. A lot of us that are neurodivergent have this thing in common in that a lot of us, we felt different. We felt weird. We struggled in some areas and in other areas, we probably did very, very well, especially those of us that had the privilege of discovering some of our gifts and some of our talents.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: But for me, in elementary school, I was actually very shy. I was selectively mute. I did very good academically because I was, So afraid. I was a very fearful child. I started elementary school in first grade. I didn't go to kindergarten. I didn't go to preschool. And I started elementary school in 1994.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: The same year of the [00:06:00] Northridge earthquake in California. For those of you that are not from California, that was a major earthquake and it hit us really hard. And I was already a very fearful kid, but that only made things worse. So I was very fearful, very anxious. And I started elementary school with very little information on what to expect.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And so, of course, I was a very shy, very anxious kid, and I prioritized doing as well as I could because I was afraid of the consequences that would come if I didn't do well in school. So that became my goal. My special interest was academics. Then later on near the end of elementary school, I mentioned this a lot as part of my backstory, or you can call it my origin story.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I was encouraged to audition for a school play and to my horror, I landed the lead role. It was really, really scary for me because I didn't know what to expect. [00:07:00] And next thing you know, I became a theater kid. Those two things became my special interests. Those were the things that I focused on academics and theater and why theater, you might ask.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Well, it actually kind of happened as a pleasant surprise in that my dad just wanted me to break out of my shell. And so he was the one that forced me to get involved. And even among my siblings, they were encouraged to take on leadership roles and to do public speaking and to break out of their shell.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: That was one of the benefits I think that's one of the more positive aspects of my father was that he really encouraged us to do well academically and to do well with our public speaking. And so theater from the lens of being autistic, actually, it makes a lot of sense that I did well because it is a space where everything is scripted, where everything is blocked out.[00:08:00]

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: You know what you're going to say, you know what you're going to do. You know how you're going to say it, you know, how you're going to move, you know, when things start, you know, when things end. And that predictability was so comforting for me. It felt like a sanctuary and a safe space. And I wanted to mention this to you because I think that folks who, are not exposed to the world of theater and who maybe they're neurotypical themselves.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Maybe they're not shy. Sometimes it comes as a surprise to, to find out, wait, hold up. How can you , have been this shy kid and then do very, very well on stage in front of presumably hundreds of people. And , that continues to be true to this day in that you can give me a stage with thousands of people and I will feel [00:09:00] fairly confident that I can do a very good job and that I can demand people's attention and that I can say something worthwhile.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: You put me in a room with a bunch of strangers. where it's unscripted, where it's unstructured, and I will probably just be hanging out like a fly in the wall and struggling to interact with people. And that is one of the diagnostic criteria in the DSM, which is considered the Bible of psychology, which is they're looking for What they call deficits in areas of socializing and in areas of behaviors and , how you behave in your environment.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Now, do I agree with the way that the DSM pathologizes autistic people? No, I don't, but I do think that it can be helpful to have [00:10:00] a diagnosis in that you get a certain level of validation and you have documentation that can help in requesting formal accommodations with an employer or anybody that you work with.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So, take it with not with a grain of salt, but I want you to understand that there are critiques to everything. And so even me pursuing a diagnosis. I hold a certain level of privilege to even be able to access that, to even be able to access the financial means, the educational privilege.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: There's all kinds of other privileges involved in accessing a formal diagnosis. But in any case, I didn't have this information as a child. I didn't have this information throughout K through 12. I also didn't have this information. in college, and I didn't have this information in graduate school. [00:11:00] And so I continued to do well academically and in theater, but I always struggled with my friendships.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I struggled to make friendships. I struggled to maintain them. It's still sort of a thing now, but ever since I've learned more about myself. I've been able to attract more people that I deeply resonate with. And because of that, it has certainly helped to enhance my friendships. But let me go back to

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: the path of pursuing a diagnosis. I actually didn't become aware of autism until probably 2015, 2016. So this was all thanks to becoming a parent. And when my first child was an infant, He showed some signs that he needed additional supports in areas of language articulation. And so we pursued an assessment to get him additional supports and [00:12:00] speech therapy.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: That was incredibly helpful. And then that all led to this kind of snowball process of him getting other assessments and other tests, et cetera, which eventually led to an autism diagnosis when he was three. This was December, 2016. Here we are eight years later, it's December, 2024, and I now have my diagnosis.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And so it wasn't a straightforward path. In fact, It didn't click right away when our child was diagnosed that, hold up, hold up, maybe one or both parents might also be autistic. It didn't click right away. And that wasn't even something that anybody told us, like, you might want to check yourself out. But over time, as I learned more about it, I started to suspect and my suspicions became stronger and stronger and [00:13:00] stronger to the point where eventually, this is probably just a few years ago, I started to share more openly and identify as neurodivergent.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And I actually, even to this day, I don't always say, oh, I'm autistic. It was something that brought a certain level of discomfort. Probably around my own internalized ableism, even though I understand that self diagnosis is valid in the autistic community, it was something that I struggled with because I wanted that sense of certainty.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And do you get a sense of certainty with a diagnosis? Let me just say, no, you don't. So I feel like I feel silly even saying this out loud because I am someone that I will openly embrace someone who is self diagnosed as autistic. And some of my closest friends [00:14:00] have and don't have formal diagnosis and are also autistic.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So in any case. It took me a little while to put two and two together and figure that out for myself. And then after that, it took me a little while to openly embrace my neurodivergent and autistic identity. And then after that, , it took me a while to save up and to work up the courage to pursue an assessment for myself, because it was always that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: worry in the back of my head. What if it's not this? What if it's something else? But in any case, I decided to pursue it this year because I thought about the pros and cons. And I thought that the pros of having this assessment overwhelmingly outweighed the cons. And so now that I have it, it has provided me with that validation.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: It has provided me with affirmation. It has provided me with more knowledge and with more knowledge for me, it means [00:15:00] more ways for me to continue to advocate for myself and to advocate for others. And having this experience of going through the assessment process helps me to better understand my children and even my clients.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: The majority, not all of them, but a good number, I would say, actually, I should go back to the numbers, but the majority of my clients, are neurodivergent. They're autistic. They're ADHD. They are also parents of neurodivergent children. Many of my clients are caregivers. Many of my clients also happen to have chronic illnesses.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Many of my clients, actually all my clients are BIPOC, but many of them are Latinas, Afro Latinas, Indigenous Latinas, Mestiza Latinas. A lot of them come from Immigrant backgrounds. And these are the folks that I hope to continue to attract because I want to help folks who have [00:16:00] very full lives and who, who need and deserve that extra support, , the support that they can receive through coaching, through consulting, even through listening to my podcast. My hope is that I can continue to , provide these free and paid services and resources to help people to continue their own self discovery journey and to use that information that they learn about themselves, to help them to better advocate for themselves, to help them, to, better embrace all of who they are to start to discover their gifts, their talents, their strengths, and to start to own that and to live life on their terms.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Because I think that that's at the root of the work that I do is to minimize harm. I feel like I experienced a substantial level of [00:17:00] harm, both externally and also self harm, because I didn't know any better, because I felt like there was something deeply wrong with me. And because I didn't have that information.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And now that I do, moving forward, I can share that with others. I can model that for others. I can, In modeling that for others, fill my cup enough to also support others directly. And so that's, I think that's the goal of this entire episode is in me going through this journey, this diagnosis, journey, assessment journey, I've learned more about myself.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I learned more about my youth and my background. And I hope that you can do that for yourself as well. I hope that you can go on your own self discovery journey. I hope that you can find the things that are your special interests, the things that help you to feel that sense of flow. For me, it just so happens [00:18:00] that I turned those things that I struggled with the most into my special interests.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I struggled so much. in my schooling and especially in grad school. So that became a special interest. Hello, grad school femtoring. That is the name of the podcast. And then I also turned my challenges in executive functioning into another special interest, the productivity support that I offer and teaching folks about doing work sustainably doing work in a way that doesn't promote burnout in a way that actually enhances your well being and In fact, I'm recording this the same week that the episode comes out. I'm technically taking time off I'm not supposed to be doing any work and this is the exception because this is The only thing I'm doing work related this week and I'm doing it because it feels good because it's restorative, because it's nourishing for me.[00:19:00]

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: But in any case, yeah, I hope that you can discover the things that make you feel good. You can discover more about yourself and you can start to advocate for yourself and find ways to live life on your terms because you're worth it, because you're enough. So that's it for this episode.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I hope that you found something useful in my message today. And, , please feel free to let me know what you thought about this episode. It's episode 300 and, , one of the best gifts that you can give a podcaster is to let them know what you think, to leave them a review, to rate their show.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: We always ask, and it's not very often that people actually go out of their way to message a podcaster. So I hope that it'll encourage you to shoot me a note if, if you feel motivated to do so. So thanks again for listening and I'll talk to y'all next time.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: [00:20:00] Thanks so much for listening. If you liked what you heard, here are three ways you can support the show. The first is to make sure you're subscribed and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. The second way is to get your copy of my free resource kit linked in my show notes. This kit includes tools, worksheets, and podcast playlists on all things grad school, productivity, and personal development.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: The third way to support my show is to follow me on social media. You can find me on Instagram with the handle at gradschoolfemtoring and on LinkedIn by searching my name. Thanks again for listening. And until next time.