Epi 53:

If you are constantly overthinking, feeling overwhelmed, or stuck in perfectionism, you might assume it is just part of veterinary medicine and the high expectations that come with it. But what if there is more going on beneath the surface?

In this episode, I share my personal experience of being diagnosed in my 40s with something I never thought applied to me, only to realize it had been there my entire life. This discovery completely changed the way I understand burnout, chronic stress, and the mental load in veterinary medicine.

We break down how this shows up in high-achieving veterinary professionals, even if you have never considered it before, and why so many in vet med struggle with focus, overwhelm, and emotional exhaustion without fully understanding why.

If you have ever felt like this job should not feel this hard, this episode will help you better understand your brain, your stress, and what might actually be driving it.

 

What You'll Learn In This Episode:

• 00:01:49 Why overthinking, perfectionism, and constant overwhelm may not just be burnout

• 00:02:55 The personal story that led to a late diagnosis and why it is more common than you think

• 00:04:47 What neurodivergence actually is and how it shows up in high achievers

• 00:07:00 How perfectionism, people pleasing, and all-or-nothing thinking fuel chronic stress

• 00:09:00 Why things can suddenly feel harder in your 40s and what may be driving it

• 00:13:33 A real clinical case moment that highlights cognitive overload in practice

• 00:16:00 How common traits you think are “just you” may point to something deeper

• 00:20:07 The overlap between ADHD and autism and how it presents differently than expected

• 00:29:13 The neuroscience behind focus, motivation, and why your brain feels exhausted

• 00:33:03 How chronic stress impacts your brain and keeps you stuck in survival mode

• 00:36:34 Why communication, masking, and decision fatigue drain your mental energy

• 00:43:17 What rejection sensitive dysphoria is and why feedback can feel so intense

 

Key Takeaway

• What feels like burnout or chronic stress may have a deeper neurological component

• High-achieving veterinary professionals often normalize patterns that are actually driving their exhaustion

• Chronic stress and neurodivergent traits can amplify each other, making everyday tasks feel harder

• Understanding how your brain works is the first step to reducing mental load and improving focus

•  

A Truth You Need to Hear:

“When you understand how your brain is actually processing everything, it starts to make sense why this feels so overwhelming and exhausting.”

 

Links mentioned:

Click here to learn more & grab your spot for the FREE training: The Vet Reset Masterclass on Wed. April 1st!

 

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www.thestressandburnoutcoach.com

 

S2 Epi 53 Transcript:

You’ve Been Calling It Burnout or Stress… But This Might Be What You’re Missing (Part I)

 

[00:01:49] Amber Parks: Welcome back to another episode of Stop the Burnout. I know that I always say this, but I am incredibly excited today to bring you this topic. Now, I just wanna start by saying, are you someone who feels that at work, you're overwhelmed, you're constantly overthinking, you feel you're.

Just always on edge and maybe you really have a lot of perfectionist tendencies and if so, that's okay. [00:02:00] That is very common in high achievers and certainly in veterinary medicine. What I'm gonna say will probably blow your mind, but all of those things that I described that I have myself or had. aspect of those I still have to work through.

Right? But a lot of those are actually, in a way, symptoms of Neurodivergence. And what I want you to know is that I'm gonna go into a lot more detail about what this is now. I never thought I was neurodivergent. I was diagnosed last year at the age of 42, and to the point that I thought that, I'm oh, neurodivergence, I hear the word come on, what is this?

Personal Story - Getting Diagnosed
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[00:02:55] Amber Parks: So the irony is not lost on me, [00:03:00] but I'll tell you a little bit about my story, how I got to that point. But what prompted a lot of this is I adjusted. An amazing symposium at my alma mater, Tuskegee University in Alabama, and it was so, so good. I, I enjoyed, I did two lectures on. Pretty much, well, it was on chronic stress and burnout and the neuroscience behind it.

And then I also spoke to the first year class in, it was a little over about an hour and 15 minutes. about all the things we probably wish, I know I wish I would've known as a first year veterinary student. And everything was so well received. And in it I talked a lot about neurodivergence and every person that came up to me didn't matter their age too.

Neurodivergence in Veterinary Medicine
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[00:03:54] Amber Parks: Every person that came up to me after all of those talks were every single question [00:04:00] was about the neurodivergence. And when I got diagnosed last year, I realized, I'm I think that there's something here in veterinary medicine that we are not address addressing maybe it's my pattern recognition, which is also another huge neurodivergent trait.

But I also think this is making us more prone to burnout and is making us have a higher rate of burnout for several reasons. And I'll go over what that is specifically in veterinary medicine. First I, I'll tell you a little bit about my story and then I'm gonna tell you a little more about Neurodivergence, what it is, what it looks like, the neuroscience behind it, things that.

What is Neurodivergence
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[00:04:47] Amber Parks: You maybe think we're just you or we're normal. Now, quote unquote, normal is just typical, right? We call those people neurotypical. I [00:05:00] being neurodivergent just means that we're processing, our brain is processing in a different way. So it doesn't necessarily mean that yes, we're different, but then I ask the question well.

Why is neurotypical quote unquote normal? That's just been our baseline for so long. What are we comparing this to? So we'll go into the neuroscience behind that. And then I think this is gonna be probably two parts, because I wanna go into what does that look in clinical practice and how do we set ourselves up for success, especially in the clinical setting.

Because now looking back, I'm thinking to myself, okay, yeah, I, I definitely. Can see where that neurodivergence came in in clinical practice and made it a lot more challenging. And so I, I see that a lot with my clients as well as those who, [00:06:00] really identify with some of the things that I share. So I'll give you my story in a nutshell, because it could be a whole episode.

But essentially I was always that person, I always. Pictured myself as a perfectionist. Right. And I also thought that that was a beneficial thing, right? To be, we wanna be perfect. We wanna strive for perfection. In theory, yes, there's aspects of that that are beneficial. The problem comes in when we are taking that perfectionism and we will take nothing less because we tend to then over function and overwork.

To be that perfect. Okay. So I always saw myself as a perfectionist. I was diagnosed with anxiety, depression, as I feel a lot of us in veterinary medicine are. And I definitely identified, and this isn't a specific diagnosis, but [00:07:00] things high functioning anxiety. Which means there's a whole lot going on in my brain, but on the outside it looks I have it together.

I'm prepared for that meeting. I'm prepared for that case. I know the next thing that's coming in, you're, you're very hypervigilant. And that by itself is really exhausting and I never realized it until I finally started looking at different aspects of my life. But I also have the concept or the idea that there's this all or nothing mentality.

A great example is going to the gym, right? I would go through periods of my life where I was really good at it and consistent, and I really enjoyed it. And then there were times that I'm I can't even do one workout for half the time. So if I can't go three times a week for an hour I was doing, then I'm just not gonna go at all because it's not doing anything and I don't wanna waste my time and energy and effort.

To go there and then not [00:08:00] get the results. So I'll just do better next time. The problem is next time never, always comes, right? So all of this together, and I was definitely a people pleaser and I think a lot of that definitely from my childhood, many people, but it also kept. Things in my environment more amicable.

So there was less chance of conflict, which was really fucking stressful. There was less chance of rejection, which is also really stressful. So all this to say, I went through my entire life, so undergrad, vet school, working, burning out all through my thirties, and then. There were a lot of changes when I turned 40 that I will do another episode in maybe a month or two when I can talk about this again.

and it's not, there's nothing bad, it's, there's a legal aspect of [00:09:00] this, so stay tuned. So what I noticed is that this was about the same time I started to feel a little more of the burnout again and. This is actually when I started officially doing coaching, which I obviously really enjoy and I love doing it.

But what was interesting is I also think I kinda went that way because I was looking for a different avenue to get out of the stress that I was currently experiencing in my job and. It was a way of we all do this, right? okay, veterinary medicine's hard, clinical practice is hard. I need to do something else.

And there was that mindset, but there were a lot of other things that happened in my life at that same time. And I realized I got to a point that I thought, my God, I can't remember fucking [00:10:00] anything. I was never I never identified as that person. I forget where my keys are. No, I've never had that problem.

or forget where I put stuff. No, I'm very, intentional about where I put stuff so I don't forget it, or, focused, right? So I'm doing something, I'm really focused and it felt when I turn 40, the wheel just fell off. And if you're on social media at all, you can actually go look, up some of these.

Ideas perimenopause, neurodivergence, and many people will say that they did okay and they coped until perimenopause. And for that, my other working theory here is that we actually took off on tangent a little bit. We, I feel we do have a lot of neurodivergence in. Veterinary medicine, but a lot of us haven't been diagnosed and [00:11:00] identified with that yet, and myself included.

So I was born in 83. I'm starting to see these weird changes in my forties and all of the very prominent. Research and articles that are out there focus on things a DHD. We always associate that with a hyperactive little boy, right? And what they're finding is yes, but girls and women are very much underdiagnosed.

And what it shows up as is one version is inattentive. Meaning we are sitting in our chairs in school. Our body isn't physically overactive, but our brain is, our brain is going a mile a minute and it's trying to process all this and it's, there's just a constant stream of information coming in, I think I know for myself, I compensated not knowing, right?

You have to be a good student. [00:12:00] You have to sit in your seat, be quiet, get good grades. I'm good at following directions if I know what they are. And those were the directions because this was the nineties, right? So that was all great until, I said, I got to my forties and I really felt I was forgetting stuff.

I couldn't focus. I remember working er, and if you've ever, I mean, it happens in in general practice too, but er, you've got, you really have to be a multitasker. There's a lot of things going on at once. This one's blood work's pending this point. Appointment, not really appointment, but walk-in, just came in.

did you check the dose of the medication you wanted to give Dr. Parks? Hey, do you want us to keep us at this fluid rate? And those are four different cases. So I, yes, it took a lot of attention, but I could do it. Once I got into the flow and I got really comfortable with it, that wasn't a problem.

But then when I got [00:13:00] to my forties, I pulled back a little bit on the er 'cause I was getting really kind of bored with it because I. anything else for some people with A DHD, it was something that I'm okay. It was really hard. It was a challenge at first. Then I got good at it. I enjoyed it.

I was comfortable, and now I'm bored and I would always cycle through that.

Clinical Practice Challenges
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[00:13:33] Amber Parks: So now I'm in my forties and I'm working at this general practice that is an amazing practice. I just, you guys have heard me talk about them a lot. I really them and I'll never forget. There was a case that the pet was obviously sick and we were running in-house labs, and I don't know what made me think about it, but maybe the bilirubin was up.

The total total bilirubin on the chemistry came up first, and I remember thinking I wonder if this is an IM ha [00:14:00] case, immune mediated hemolytic anemia, I'm God damn, I, I don't have the capacity to this sounds awful, but this is where I was. I don't have the capacity to talk to this client in detail about this, work up this case further, come up with a treatment plan and it just I was just at that point, gimme an ear infection and some vaccines.

I, I just didn't have the energy to deal with that. And I'll never forget the CBC came out. I'm looking at it, I'm oh my God, I, I don't fuck. I don't know. Does this, does this dog have IMHA? And I'm freaking out. Just really overthinking and overanalyzing. And then I caught myself and I'm looking at the labs and I'm this dog is not anemic.

It's a complete, uh, blood count. His CBC was completely normal. So here I am. Thinking there's this huge thing that's a hallmark of the disease, which is anemia amongst other things. And I'm looking at the lab work and I'm oh my God, what if he has it? I'm gonna have to have this [00:15:00] conversation. then I, it dawned on me oh, this is not IMHA.

But I remember being so scared that, I've diagnosed this disease many times before, especially in the er. Why did I even just get to that place that I completely forgot and didn't remember anything? And so that really freaked me out. And there were several other instances where I had, when it rains, it pours, right?

You have one complicated case and the next one's complicated. And I was just, I literally couldn't even form words. My brain was all over the place and. I was really freaked out, but I also was frustrated, right? 'cause it's not fun anymore, it's not exciting. I'm just really overwhelmed. So long story short, all this has started happening and kept getting worse.

And I came across something literally on TikTok and it was talking about [00:16:00] having a DHD, and it was talking about the perfectionism and feeling overwhelmed and overthinking, and it was literally Listing off the things that I've experienced my entire life. And funnily enough, the things that I talk about in my coaching that so many of you relate to was all these things for A DHD.

And I was wait a minute, what? Because I remember A DHD, I have a family member who has it. And I remember thinking that is not me. I'm not disorganized. I have my shit together. And I just started going down this rabbit hole and I'm wow. Now. I already had a mental health nurse practitioner that I go to and for, medications and she said, so I met with her just every quarter, it's 30 minutes.

It's not therapy. It's literally how are the meds going? And I remember saying to her, Hey, I think I have a DHD. She was we literally didn't spend more than three minutes on it. She [00:17:00] goes, okay, you think so? Go get tested. Here's where you can go, blah, blah, blah. Okay. So I was fortunate enough to have insurance that paid for that test, and less than three weeks later I had an A DHD diagnosis, classic inattentive attention.

Deficit hyperactivity disorder, which it ain't a disorder. But anyway, so A DHD. And I remember being oh my God, I went through fucking vet school with a DHD. No wonder it was hard. And I just assumed it's vet school. It'll be hard, right? It. But now looking back, I remember I was I remember thinking.

Life with ADHD - Student Years
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[00:17:41] Amber Parks: Okay, I gotta study. I'm gonna really focus. I'm gonna do good, on studying. And I would get home from school, sit down at my desk, start studying and be no, what? I think I would do better in the library because it's quiet and I don't have my pets and there's less distractions. So I'd gather up all my shit, drive to the library, [00:18:00] find a spot, sit down, stay there for maybe 20 minutes and be

what? I think I'm more comfortable at home. Get up, get all my stuff, go back home. So I, I was joking. I was I don't think I really studied in vet school now. I didn't have a four O either in vet school, and I now am whoa. Maybe if I had the focus to actually study, I could have done better in a way of not to get better grades, but.

Done better. As in it would've been easier for me to study a larger volume of information. So then that really got me thinking, hold on now, let's go into clinical practice. I had, sometimes it was the same thing, I would the perfectionist tendencies that all or nothing thinking I know these things contributed to my burnout, the overthinking, and.

Obviously I got tested. I do have a DHD, and then [00:19:00] again on the TikTok aspect, I'm looking at autism and I'm wait a minute. I didn't know to what degree autism was until I started digging into that, and I forget the percentage, but those who have a DHD. Your chances of having autism as well do increase.

Like there's a certain percentage of A DHD people that have autism, in other words, and I'm looking at all the things and I'm like, well, I always thought someone with autism was not empathetic. And they, you know, sadly, if you've ever watched Love on the Spectrum, um, I, I love the show. I, I think the, the people on it are just like, they're just so sweet, right?

And they're just so. Real and who they are. But yeah, I thought it was, and I remember thinking like, no, I have a, I have a lot of empathy. In fact, I think that's part of my problem is like myself and a lot of us in the profession, we're almost overly empathetic [00:20:00] that that really weighs on us and is challenging, especially when we have a lot of challenging cases and situations.

Autism Diagnosis
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[00:20:07] Amber Parks: So I went back to my psychologist that did the testing and she's let's. Let's get things squared away for the ADHD because a lot of those symptoms can overlap. I'm okay, so a few months went by. I actually went back, got tested for autism, and I have autism stage one, which is, I believe there, I believe there's three stages.

So my psychologist is you're obviously very high functioning, and it's the combined A DHD and autism is what you hear. The A DHD, which is a. Little UDHD, so that's the autism and A DHD together. Now, the autism aspect, I'm this sums me up to a T because I would read things about A DHD. I'm yeah, that's me.

But the things forgetting your [00:21:00] keys and stuff that, I'm no, that, that's not really me. But the autism side is a lot of that detailed fooc focus. sensory, right? They tend to have our sensory, we're just in sensory over overload a lot of times. And so as I'm talking to my psychologist and she's taking a history, I'm oh my gosh.

When I was in fourth grade,

Sensory Experiences
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[00:21:33] Amber Parks: I remember I had a wore sneakers and I had socks. And I remember fighting with my parents. My dad was the one who got me ready in the morning 'cause he worked from home. And I would put on socks and I'd be I don't these. I can feel the seams in the socks, and so I would pull where the tongue of your sneaker hits your sock, that area.

I would pull on that so that I couldn't feel the seams, so it was really tight. It wasn't loose on my foot to the point that I had holes in my sock on that area, which is weird, right? It's not even really where your toes go or your heel, it's on top. And I was oh my gosh. I remember that it was yesterday.[00:22:00]

Also, I didn't wear. Jeans denim until I was almost in high school. 'cause I didn't the feel of it. I remember going to the beach with my friend and her family on vacation and I, I was always on the water, but I didn't salt water 'cause I didn't to be sticky. So we're literally in the ocean.

I'm in an inner tube, but I'm holding my hands up I'm gonna go scrubbing for surgery because I don't wanna get my hands sticky. I don't want them, well, I don't want them to be wet with salt water and be sticky for the rest of the day. And everyone was you're so weird. And I remember being well, doesn't I don't, I hate sticky fingers.

Well, a lot of this is that sensory overload and that is the autism. So yeah, it, it's just been a wild ride, but. With our neurodivergent people, we tend to be really good at pattern recognition, which is funny 'cause I feel there's a lot of us in veterinary [00:23:00] medicine that are very good at that. And I instantly was wait a minute, this is everyone that I know in Vet Med or many of us in Vet Med.

So I shared. I'll go into the neuroscience behind this, but I shared that at this talk, at Tuskegee this past weekend, and I had several first year students come up to me and be I'm actually currently getting worked up to be diagnosed for A DHD. And I was all right, I'm onto something here because.

I told him, I was first of all, so good for you because you're in your early twenties, you're getting diagnosed and you're getting help and you're now understanding now I can work with how my brain works, not with how everyone else says I should be doing things. So I was really happy to hear that.

you hear a lot of people oh,

ADHD Diagnosis Insights
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[00:23:58] Amber Parks: everyone has a little A DHD. Well, not really. They did the studies that. They took an average group of [00:24:00] people, neurotypicals, that weren't neurodivergent compared to Neurotypicals, and they asked them things that we think are A DHD. oh, I forgot this, or I.

Know, get pulled and do another task when I'm doing this one task and then I don't finish the first one, et cetera. So were there people that were neurotypical that had those, struggled with that? Yes. But the percentage of those people that they interviewed was maybe one to 4% of them actually said and identified with that.

Whereas our A DHD people were well over 80, 90%. I say that because I think more people that are being diagnosed with A DHD and autism too, but A DHD people are well, everyone's getting diagnosed with it. And it's well, we actually have criteria for how to diagnose it. And truthfully, you can look up the DSM.

the criteria for A DHD, I still think that it [00:25:00] is antiquated and it's not updated because a lot of the studies were done on men and boys and not women and girls. And so what is happening is people are getting to, myself, perimenopause, estrogen, declines and or is inconsistent, and estrogen affects dopamine, which we'll go into and that.

Is, we know that's the neurotransmitter for motivation, reward, and focus. So I think it was up in, it was not that long ago, it was the mid, it was maybe 20 14, 20 15 I believe that they actually diagnosed autism and A DHD. So that A DHD that you hear. Women together. So that was less than 10 years ago.

Okay. So when people are oh, everyone's getting diagnosed. Well, no, we're just now knowing what to look for and uncovering it. there's a lot of people that get late diagnosed and are Ugh, what I could have been in my [00:26:00] life. And I agree, I wish I would've known this a lot long time ago, but.

I was also just thinking the other day, I am well, I thankfully stubbornly many of you in vet bed, we are just gonna bull dose through something. Right. It sucks. It's awful. I hate it. I'm still gonna do it. Right. I feel that's a lot of our mentality would I have it to be easier and understood what was going on in my brain.

Yeah. that. I definitely do. Then I'm also well, would I have made excuses for myself because I would've said, oh, it's my autism, or A DHD maybe. And by excuses I mean in a good way, gave myself a break and didn't burn myself out. Right? So those are the things that come to my mind.

So that is my story in a nutshell. I. Did get started on [00:27:00] medication for A DHD, and it was holy fuck. night and day difference. Also, working with my functional medicine doctor to get my hormones squared away as well. And I think I remember reading somewhere too, those people that have. A DHD, they actually go through perimenopause and menopause a lot earlier than neurotypicals.

I go to my OB, GYN every year. I her. But the last couple years I'm Hey, I was on birth control. I've been on birth control forever. By choice it, I'm coming of the age, when, what do we do? She goes, well. And it was a very, and I know this 'cause I've been this before, where you say something that is just so rehearsed.

You said a thousand times, right? But she's well typically menopause is around age 50, give or take five years. So when you get to age 45, we'll take you off birth control and then check your hormones. So I would've just suffered [00:28:00] and been continuing to suffer for half a decade had I not done my own research and been wait a minute.

I am in perimenopause and it's uncovering this A DHD, to this crazy degree that I just can't function. So I just wanna share that to know if you feel something's wrong with you, then you know yourself best. Right? And that was where things brain fog, I memory and word recall, I still have trouble if you listen to this podcast, you've heard me be wait, what's the word for.

That was awful. I don't remember it being that bad to the point that I don't remember the words and I might remember it a few hours later, or I have to literally go look it up 'cause I can't remember. And our jobs are hard. anything in veterinary medicine is hard. Now add that into the mix of.

Making it even more challenging is, oh yeah, let's now see if you can take away your, your [00:29:00] memory and your focus and all those things that we need every single day in Vet Med. Yeah, that's gonna be hard.

The Neuroscience of ADHD
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[00:29:13] Amber Parks: So what is neurodivergence, A DHD? What does that look So A DHD is. It does affect our neurotransmitters.

And again, you can Google any of this and, and look at references, but essentially we typically have less dopamine and norepinephrine. We know dopamine is what is responsible for motivation, reward, focus. Norepinephrine is also keeps us alert our attention. It's part of that stress response and it's also part of the aspect that helps us filter out distractions.

That, again, you can see where dopamine can be if we don't have enough. Now, first of all, I know that a lot of things on social media are made in a way to make them addictive. Right? the scrolling, but that's a dopamine hit. That's why, [00:30:00] yeah, the average person, it's designed psychologically to be addicting.

But can you imagine on top of that, having a DHD and you have less dopamine as it is, it's even more addicting. So we tend to be dopamine seeking. This is also why habits aren't, they don't really stick for us. Maybe a bad habit, right? That you enjoy. a lot of people with a DHD can be highly addictive to certain things.

alcohol, gambling, drugs, sex, food, food's. Another one. I almost fell off my chair when I learned that part, and I remember thinking. I would binge typically carbs or sweets. I still have trouble with that. And I told my psychologist and she goes, oh yeah, she's most people that have a DHD or a lot of them do have some sort of eating disorder.

And I remember thinking, I would always see this stuff online of you just have to enjoy the food and be mindful. And I remember thinking no, I actually just really the fucking [00:31:00] taste of it. I'm still I food. And now that makes sense. So all the things of chew slow and be mindful, yes, that's good, but that's not designed for our A DHD brains that are literally dopamine seeking.

We have dopamine receptors in our stomach. Okay. So, and I, I do feel sugar itself is highly addictive, but, so just thinking of all these things right now, being autistic. The aspects of our brain, the excitatory mechanism, I think it's the glutamate neurotransmitter that is overactive. And the gaba, which is our inhibitory kind of, pathway is underactive.

So what does that mean? These people are processing way more sensory information than a neurotypical. So things Noise, touch environment. Okay, let's just look at [00:32:00] a veterinary hospital, right? Barking dogs, ringing phones, people crying. People. Emotional high stakes, high stress fluorescent lights, you literally couldn't make it any worse for neurodivergent person.

And a lot of these also cross over to A DHD as well. I will say the things that I, I'm not mentioning that you can look up, there's other variations under the umbrella of neurodivergent, OCD, Tourette's, dyslexia, dyscalculia, all these different ones. So I, I'm not gonna go into that, but these are our biggest ones that we hear, so much about.

So when I learned that I was Whoa. No wonder why we're burnt the fuck out. And then let's add into a full day of appointment schedules. And now people want you to go faster and you're asked to do more with less. Right? The other thing is that neuroscience wise, and this is what I talked a lot on [00:33:00] my, talk that I did.

Brain Function - Amygdala & Prefrontal Cortex
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[00:33:03] Amber Parks: We have the amygdala, which I think I've talked about this before on here, but our amygdala is the fight or flight. It detects things fear, anxiety, threat. It's that part of our brain that can tell our prefrontal cortex Hey, there's a threat. We gotta deal with this. Our prefrontal cortex is part of the brain that is responsible for things.

planning, prioritizing, initiating tasks, working memory, emotional regulation. People that have a DHD, that part of the brain, that prefrontal cortex is just generally less active. So on a good day, it's less active. We have trouble doing these things. We know by research that chronic stress makes the prefrontal cortex less active as well, because.

The prefrontal cortex and the amygdala, they're almost a seesaw, right? So when one's activated, the [00:34:00] other one is less reactive and vice versa. So if our prefrontal cortex is less reactive, our amygdala, the place in the brain for fight or flight that rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, flighty feeling that ends up being not only more reactive, but more reactive and sensitive to threats or even neutral.

Situations We can tend to overreact of a situation that's neutral, but it doesn't feel that way because our brain learned, oh, this is what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to be over reactive and we're supposed to, detect these threats faster because our brain is always trying to make shortcuts, and our brain says, well, if we make these things faster, we won't have to think as much about it and just be more automatic.

Well, in theory, that's great if we're being chased by a bear. The problem is we're dealing with our everyday stuff. a client is upset or a case a case doesn't do well, or a [00:35:00] coworker, you don't working with them and they're rude to you. all those things get detected as fight or flight.

Well, shit, no wonder why. And so we stay in that chronic stress phase instead of having that prefrontal cortex. Do its job, right, of, hey, we can focus, we can have working memory, we can have emotional regulation, we can plan and prioritize. So I'm thinking to myself all the, when we deal with things chronic stress, a lot of us are, almost a DHD if you think about it in that way.

But we have a lot more. Ability to kind of bounce back but then add in, if you truly do have a DHD, it's gonna be really challenging to try and, be able to bounce back from, from those stressful situations. And that's every day, right? In veterinary medicine. So that chronic stress really [00:36:00] worsens our ability to, have attention.

Emotional regulation. They even did a study, they found that people that had. Increased stress or chronic stress. Their amygdala was actually larger on MRI than, other people. So we know that, okay, yep. A chronic thing, our brain's gonna continually be really activated. So all of this to say, wow, no wonder that so many of us have such a hard time.

Communication & Masking
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[00:36:34] Amber Parks: My other working theory is that. A lot of people that are neurodivergent have trouble communicating now. Is it big and obvious? No. I always felt. I could communicate with clients. 'cause I'm reading nonverbal body language. I'm reading the tone in their voice. They're facial expressions.

They're micro expressions. Right. And I felt hey, that's my superpower. I'm really good at it. Well it's [00:37:00] because my brain was learning that that's how we can, especially autistic, that's how we can. Read people to be able to know how to respond and react in average social situations. So that's great, but that takes a lot of mental bandwidth to do that, and we do it without thinking about it.

Especially, if, if you're an adult and you've been doing it and you've kind of learned to do that throughout life. It becomes second nature, but it also still, because your brain doesn't normally process things that way, not thinking about it, it does take a lot of cognitive and mental load, which is why another thing we see with neurotypicals with chronic stress, we have trouble with decision fatigue, but we also see that in our neurodivergence.

Decision Fatigue
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[00:37:51] Amber Parks: because the area of the brain, the prefrontal cortex is also responsible for. Decisions. And so if our [00:38:00] prefrontal cortex isn't working great, decision fatigue is a real thing. I mean, I, I can remember coming home and being I just need someone to feed me food. I don't even know what I want.

I just want someone to put it in front of me and I'll eat it. especially working er, right? You get asked a million questions every other turn, okay. And. What I also realized is that questions that seem to be really straightforward, I think of, if you've ever used, I think it's called Smart Flow.

It's been a little bit since I used it, but the computer program that we use in a lot of ERs, and it's, it's, it's very, it's very integrated, but it's very detail oriented, so you can put, medications, obviously it's a flow sheet if you've never used it. And. That's great, but they would put check with doctor two hours, every two hours about do you still want that fluid rate for that pet?

And that was the biggest thing. I'm Jesus Christ, I don't know. I, I gotta go look at the pet. I [00:39:00] gotta look at the record. You know, I've got 10 plus hospitalized patients, so now I'm like looking and I'm like, well if I keep it at the fluid rate, it's doing fine. But did I hear a heart murmur? And I don't wanna overload them on fluids or.

Oh my God, he is still dehydrated. Like he's gonna need the same amount of like all of that for one fucking question. And I got, not just me, but all of us, right? We get so many questions, whether you're a veterinarian, you're a technician, you're a receptionist, right? A manager, anyone, right? We always have, there's a lot of questions and there's a lot of nuances to medicine in general, so I realized that that is also very fatiguing.

What a lot of people do is also called masking, which is apparently what I did for decades. But you're essentially like the people pleasing aspect. We make it amendable for other people so that it's not uncomfortable. So someone tells a joke, you don't get it, but you just laugh. Right? That's like a good example, which seems [00:40:00] minuscule, but.

Then when things another thing that a lot of Neurodivergents don't is small talk. I fucking hate small talk. How's the day? How's the weather? Oh, it was great last week. It just feels it sucks my soul out of my body. Right? I would rather, well, I'd rather just not have that conversation.

But if we're gonna have a conversation, I would rather it be about something that interests me, right. Neuroscience veterinary medicine, as long as you're not asking for free advice and at a holiday party, right? But what happens with that is we do it right, because if we don't engage in that small talk, people think we're rude.

And so we end up just indulging other people into doing typical behaviors. That again is exhausting. Or we over replay conversations days, weeks, months, years after they happened [00:41:00] because we're just trying to pull out that information and analyze it. And autistic specifically are very detail oriented.

So sometimes I know for myself I can get lost in the specifics. Right. I have a business coach that I work with, she's phenomenal. But I will ask her and I'll, I'll preface it. She knows me now and, but I'm I know this seems a really stupid question. when do I send this and when do I, should I ask this and should, things that you probably wouldn't think twice about?

And I'm I'm not over, not only overthinking it, but now I will think about it so much that I will be in paralysis and then I won't do the thing. So that I really recognize, now as well. So I think there's a lot of aspects of neurodivergent and neurotypicals that, in a typical clinical setting are really exhausting and challenging, and I think we can do better for.

Everyone. Right? Not just [00:42:00] Neurodivergence. For Neurotypicals, the way that we do things now is to benefit literally everyone else, but we don't and won't have a practice if we don't have our veterinarians and our support staff there. Right? And if we can't support a working environment for them, it doesn't matter if we have clients because there will be no one to serve them.

So in part two, I'm gonna go into how do we. Maybe change things that are going on clinically in our practices. And if you don't own a practice and you're I can't do these things, there are ways to approach that, which we'll talk about. But also, how do we ourselves as persons, right? Even if we're not neurodivergent, I'm gonna be sharing a lot of things that are super helpful that will help with things

If we can get rid of our chronic stress, we'll be better at working memory, emotional regulation, [00:43:00] prioritizing, planning, all that stuff, right? Because we know that that affects neurotypicals too if we're chronically stressed. So I'm gonna go into a lot of that in part two. The other thing that I will also go into, which is really interesting, this is another thing that hit me a ton of bricks, but.

Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria
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[00:43:17] Amber Parks: Rejection sensitive dysphoria so you don't have to be neurodivergent to have it. But I feel myself included, there are so many of us who are, who have rejection sensitive dysphoria, and what that means is something that is seemingly minuscule. Can have a profound effect and it being rejection.

So things constructive criticism, I fucking just hated constructive criticism. Was it helpful? Yeah, but I was mad, I was irritated. Right. Still. Or things when I, I know when I first started practicing, I would have a pet that was sick or whatever, and I get an estimate. Together with my technician.

[00:44:00] My technician goes in, comes back out and is they don't wanna do this, this, and this. And I would almost take it as wait, they don't wanna do the thing, even if financial issues, whatever. I took it as rejection and it it, I felt that right? And I felt it for a period of time after that.

It wasn't just in the moment. And so there, there definitely is an aspect of that that. Then I think we overcompensate or can overcompensate and we want to do a lot more people pleasing, right? 'cause it makes people happy and then they accept us, et cetera, et cetera. So we're gonna go into all that juicy stuff in part two.

Wrap Up & Call to Action
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[00:44:38] Amber Parks: But I would love to know, I wanna hear from you guys if you're oh my gosh, this really hits home for me. Go and certainly follow me on Instagram. my handle is at Dr for Doctor period, A-M-B-E-R-P-A-R-K-S. So at [00:45:00] Dr. Amber Parks on Instagram, make sure you friend me, send me a DM so it doesn't get lost in the mix, and tell me yeah, these sound really familiar.

I, I think that this is something I didn't even know. I wanna learn more. I would love that. Also, if you've got something out of this episode or other episodes that you've listened to, I would love it so, so much. If you can rate and review on Spotify and Apple, this helps the podcast reach more people.