The Benefits of Accommodations with Dr. Carolyn Lentzsch-Parcells

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Come join me May 1st through the sixth, so that you can rest rediscover your strengths, reconnect with yourself and those physicians like you who are ready to leave, work at work, and re-energize. This is the invitation for you to make 2023 your year. Join me in Costa Rica in this really amazing, non-judgmental, intimate decision community.

I am gonna show you how to rest and how to recharge. Let's transform your brain so that you can start to dream the life that you always wanted this year in 2023. I can't wait to learn all. What kind of view you're gonna have after this conference? Take care. Hello. Welcome to Beyond ADHD, a Physician's Perspective.

I am Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh, I'm a family medicine physician practicing in rural Texas. I used to be hindered by my adhd, but I now. See it as a gift that helps me show up as a person. I was always meant to be both in my work and in my personal life. In the past two years, I've come to realize that unlearning some of my beliefs and some of my habits were just as important as learning the new set of.

Hello. Hello. I am so excited to have a dear friend of mine here and an amazing person, Dr. Carolyn Lentzsch-Parcells, and we've been knowing each other for some years now. I'm gonna say two or three years. I don't know how long, but it feels like a pandemic sometime. Yeah, it feels like a lifetime, and it's been amazing because.

She is here in Texas and she is doing the work of encouraging young adults and teenagers and all the works to have better life. And it's an amazing, right? Yes. And it's an amazing journey that she's been on. And not only that, but she's a really solid advocate for A D H D using as a superpower.

Thank you. And she, At all the platforms and not just here and there, but like at the national level. She is been an amazing speaker at the a D conference and she's been there years and years. So anyways, I just wanna bring her today for her to share her story and for her to share a little bit about herself and so that we all can see that we can do wonderful things like.

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: Thank you, Diana. Like Diana said my, my full blown full doctorate name is Dr. Carolyn Lentzsch-Parcells. I'm a board certified pediatrician practicing adolescent medicine in Fort Worth, Texas. And as Diana said, I do, I take care of basically kids and teenagers and young adults, many of whom have a D H D learning disabilities.

Or other challenges. And of course myself am also A D H D, human and mom and business owner and all the things. Yeah, and I'm happy to be here. I got to meet Diana through our A D H D nurse and it's been really fun getting to know her. Awesome. So

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: I know that your story is a little bit different from some of our stories in the sense that, yeah, some of us females tend to be diagnosed a little bit later in age.

Yeah. And I remember you telling I knew a little bit earlier. So would you mind sharing a little bit about

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: that? Yeah, I would love to I consider myself very lucky especially for a woman and especially for a woman of our generation because, like you said, so many of us slipped through the cracks until really recently.

And essentially what happened for me was my, my I had a family member who was a younger male and he was getting diagnosed cuz he had more kind of classic symptoms. And my parents looked at that and went, hold on a. That looks familiar and they had already advocated for me throughout my life.

My dad would read my summer reading to me because I also have a learning disability in reading, which we didn't know, but he still did that. They got me tutoring and they really supported me all the way through. And then this occurred when I was a junior in high school, so I had a full assessment done and was diagnosed with a D H D combined type and a learning disability and reading and written expression as a junior.

At a very rigorous, private all girl school. So that was interesting. But it explained a lot for me and for my folks. And what was interesting too, though at the time is, being 17 and therefore knowing everything I refused a lot of the help that was offered to me. I refused medication.

My parents were actually very supportive of medication. One of my mom's favorite phrases has always been, You know that this is like diabetes it's another condition. And if you were diabetic, would you not take your insulin? I don't think so. So that's again, something that's pretty unique from what I came from.

But I still refused medication at the time. For the same reasons. I had a lot of the same kind of, Concerns, misconceptions, what have you that a lot of folks have. I was worried about the side effects. I'd seen some family members have some negative side effects and that concerned me. I was worried about using my diagnosis or medication as a quote unquote crutch.

I had all those same kind of concerns that a lot of people have. I did very, I'm very glad in hindsight, except accom. And that was critical. That was absolutely critical. And then of course, over the years, just understanding more about H ADHD and about my brain was in and of. Really helpful.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Would you mind sharing what kind of accommodations and was it like during college or was it already in medical school that you decided to type in Sure.

To dive into that? Sure. No, so it

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: started in high school when I was diagnosed. And actually one of the things that made me realize, oh, I guess the is a thing and I guess I really am different, was I had actually taken. The SATs and the SAT T two subject tests before my diagnosis, and then I retook them with accommodations after my diagnosis.

And on a 16 point scale, I went up over 200 points and, oh, I can do what was that? And I didn't think that I was stupid. I didn't think that I was lazy, it wasn't any of. I thought I had a very realistic view of what my capability was, and it turned out that my capability was actually quite above what I thought it was.

That testing. Of course, for better or for worse, that testing is critical, right? So that was one of the first times where I really went, oh wow, okay, this is the thing. And then I had accommodations. It was primarily testing accommodations, but also some note taking and things like that.

And I had those accommodations all the way through college on the mcm. All the way through medical school. Medical school for my medical school exams. But unfortunately, and this has actually changed a little bit since then cuz some of us fought. But at the time especially the U S M L E, the United States Licensing Medical Licensing exam is governed by the a d A laws.

Whereas the exams I had taken previously were governed by I D E A laws, so the educational laws versus the professional laws. And I fought and fought and fought and fought and was not able to get accommodations for the US m l e in time to take it. Clearly I passed because I am a licensed physician.

But what was really interesting about that one actually was when I came to the, there was also the first test that I ever took that was on a computer. Because I'm old. So yes, children, there were tests originally on paper and Scantron sheet, which as soon as I say Scantron gives anybody 35 or older, P T S D.

But anyway what was really fascinating though is because it was on the computer, there was actually a lot of accommodations. Built in, because I only saw one question at a time. The script was very large. I didn't have to transfer from a answer booklet to a Scantron. I just clicked a dot. I had headphones on.

I had, I was in one of those cubicles with the, I call 'em human blinders, right? Yeah. So there was a lot of things that actually turned out to be very accommodating for me. And so I did okay. I did fine. It was scary and it wasn't, But I did it. So that was interesting. But those were the accommodations.

Primarily had. Yeah.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: So it's, again, it's so good to become curious with how you learn and to make sure that, like you said, you don't miss maybe a learning disability on top of that or dyslexia or a number thing or something else, right? Input or output understanding, because, Yes, it can be a d h, adhd and that can be its spectrum in itself, but it can also be end something else.

And right when you're aware of that, then you can, like you said, you can advocate to have correct accommodations for that. And some people, when they think accommodations, all they think about is oh, maybe they just get a little bit extra time. And while that might be helpful, a little bit extra time can make a world of a difference for some of us.

What if there could be something else that could be done as you're learning how you learn or how you test or how you give information back

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: to people. No, yeah, that's exactly right. And I think for me anyway, and obviously everybody's different, but for me, the accommodations were really key for me to be able to show what I could really do.

And I think one of the things that people get hung up with on accommodations is but what about real life? What will that mean for somebody in real life? These are all things, I'm not taking a multiple choice test in real life. I don't take care of my patients. My patients don't walk in and hand me a multiple choice, question, answer for me to go, oh, it's this diagnosis and you don't have one minute to figure it out.

No, exactly. Exactly. I don't. And in fact, the fact that I take my. The fact that I listen, the fact that I notice details that other people may not notice, all of which can be part and parcel with my A D H D, right? Are all the reasons why I'm good at what I do. So the key to AC accommodations is not overly accommodating people or enabling, folks to not build skills.

It's to. It's to take away unnecessary barriers. It's not to, the analogy I like to use sometimes is if you've got a fence and someone's too short to hop over the fence, accommodations are not to catapult you over the fence. Accommodations are a step stool, so then you can grab the top and pull yourself up and get you up over it.

It's that kind of thing. There's the other thing too is there's accommodations these days. Like when I was a kid, I wish, there's times I'm glad we didn't have cell phones. There's also times I wish we had, because now the accommodations we had to fight for audiobooks, for dictation.

Software for those of us who have writing difficulties. All these things are now in our hands 24 7. I use dictation software on to do my charts because I still, writing is still not the easiest thing for me. These are all things that, that we do get to have moving into real life. So there's no reason to not allow our students to learn what resources they have and what assistive technologies are out there that they can use, that they'll be able to use their whole life.

Yeah.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And it's so interesting, like you said that about the, that like in my mind, I used to have the thought, oh, I'm not a great writer because it takes me forever. But when I had, I got coached on they asked me, so which, did you get a F? And I was like no, they're like in English. I was like, no, they're like in Spanish.

I'm like, no. They're like, then where did you get this thought? You're not a good writer. And so many times because we have

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: a certain thought, it gets us stuck, right? But

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: maybe that's not. The right thought, but maybe you do realize that takes you a little bit longer than other things. Maybe speaking is easier.

So like you said, you can click on your phone. There's a tab where it lets you record a voice to text message, and you could do that, or you could click on the tab and it literally just records your voice message and you send that, right? So it takes you two or three minutes to write that whole thing where it would've taken you like 20 minutes to.

Think about what the hell you're trying to type and I'm you saying it right. Are you thinking it? And so then we never even send it because we were thinking about it too long and then we got distracted somewhere.

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: And I see that happen with, a lot of my kiddos who have dysgraphia, or have dyslexia. I still use books on. Books on tape. Wow. I just aged myself again. Audible books on tape. Oh my gracious. I still use audio books. Thank you very much. And in fact, actually one of the, one of the coolest, I gotta give a shout out to my residency friends because when I was in residency, we, they decided to start a book.

And they were readers, several of them. And of course it was like every other book club, right? There was a book, but we didn't really discuss the book. It was just an excuse to get together, drink, wine, and vent. But there was a book chosen and every book they chose, they made sure was available on Audible so that I could listen to it if I wanted to.

Yeah. That was huge. Yeah.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And that's huge. That's so important, right? Because that just doesn't talk about. Hey, let's get together. But that talks about inclusion. Yes. It talks about equality and having that possibility to actually accomplish whatever you say you're doing well and

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: this is where, so that's in Exactly.

That's where I wanted. So when we talk about, cuz there's so much conversation now, not just in the A D H D and LD world, but the all over on inclusion and accommodations and what does that mean and what should it mean? And that instance right there, I think is the, at least for me, illustrates the ideal.

It wasn't a big deal. It wasn't made a big deal. It's not like there was some big fanfare, Hey, look at us, we're doing this for you. And it also wasn't something that was a huge effort for them. It wasn't, it didn't take anything away from them. It was just, and again, nobody made a big deal out of it. It wasn't, it was a nonis.

Yeah. And I don't know that they even realized until I told them what that meant to me. Again, it just, it would just was, it just was, and that little thing to them was a huge thing to me. And that's, we, again, we get caught up in, the extremes of these things. And really it can be just the small day-to-day things.

And it doesn't have to be a big deal. It doesn't have to be a big fanfare. Yeah. My dad reading my summer reading books to me he didn't make a big deal of that one way or the other.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And he used it as a way to bond with you. He used it as a way to spend time with you. So instead of, sometimes we all have 10,000 things as parents that we're doing, and then he could have chosen to think, oh my God, one more thing I have to do.

Or he could have chosen to think this is something we do together.

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: And actually the funny thing about that one is apparently I might have gotten diagnosed even younger. Because of what teachers had said, except my parents, my dad in particular, cuz he. Similar challenges was like, what?

It's just, I don't see just life. It's isn't this just what our family does? Our joke is that if you open up the DSM five criteria under A D H D, you're pretty much just gonna see my family tree. Yeah. It's just how we roll.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: We don't make a mean a thing.

Yeah. So tell me what are some of the things that you're up to nowadays? And I know we were talking about social media right before we started recording. Oh my goodness. But you're

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: welcome to share anything that you're up to. Oh, I appreciate that. I think, dude, it's hard these days.

Because the good news is we have all these opportunities. The bad news is we have all these opportunities. Oh my Lord. And I don't know how much of it is I was born with a horrible case of FOMO and or is it the A D H D or what? I don't know. I don't know. But I feel like I'm constantly, I know you and I have talked about this constantly trying to find the balance, whatever the heck that means between all the things I wanna do and all the things I need to do, right?

Yeah. And all the things other people. And want me to do. Yes. And and I do think some of that is the A D H D, because we are constantly chasing the dopamine man. Yeah. And I tell people all the time, I overcommit and say yes to too many things. Not because I'm a people pleaser, not because I feel like I have to say yes.

It's because I want to say yes to everything, because it all sounds. Yeah. And I think that's an issue whether you have ADHD or not, whether you're a mom, not a man mom, a woman, a man, whatever, whoever. I think we're all facing that these days. And again, it's it's cool because we've got opportunities to do other things, but then trying to not compare ourselves and trying to.

Weighed through what the options are. So Diana and I were talking before I popped on, I was asking her about how she started her podcast because I'm like, should I do a podcast? Should I just be a guest on podcasts? What do I wanna do with that? And right now I'm not doing that, but I am. I do have a practice, girls, women in Young Men's Health and Wellness, Fort Worth in Fort Worth, Texas, which like I said, we take care of.

Young adults and teenagers and kiddos in general. We do primary care, but we also do some mental behavioral health, obviously, things like a D H D. So I'm running that practice and we are building and growing, which is exciting, but whew. Stressful. Stressful at times. And then I kindly sorta finally, Spit the bullet at the behest of many and our of several of our friends and colleagues in the A D H D community and started doing the social media thing.

I I refer to myself as a reluctant social media poster. So you can follow me if you want. God, I still feel weird doing that though, and saying that the self-promotion thing just does. Come naturally. But anyway, Instagram, I'm the hd.md. Same on TikTok, Carolyn Lynch, Parcells on Facebook.

I think technically I'm the underscore h d underscore MD on Twitter, but I don't tweet a whole lot.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: I just, yeah,

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: I don't, I tell you what, I am such a visual person. I cannot stand the visual format of Twitter. Yeah, it confuses me and drives me crazy because I'm an old person. Just don't get it. Yeah. I'm mostly active on Instagram, but I am on the others too.

Yeah. So

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: that's right. Doing, and we were just talking about like the overthinking and the good enough thinking whenever we're doing some of the social media. Yes.

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: And. Yeah, it's actually been, what is that about? Yeah, so it's been actually an interesting little growth experience for me because I love speaking, I love teaching.

I was a theater major. I was a pre-med theater major, also known as a sparkly unicorn, and so I thought it might be a nice little outlet for me to. Use some of my creative juices, but also to get some good information out there and some good education out there. And hopefully, brighten some people's days.

And what's interesting though is the whole short form thing. So first of all, I'm a theater kid, so for those of you who aren't theater kids, it is very different from film because theater, you go out there, you cannot see yourself. It is you and the audience. You get to feed off your audience and get that immediate feedback.

And oh, by the way, the show must go. So there is, it is once and you are done, right? You might have another show, but that one is done. It's in the can. You can't change anything. And this video thing, man, you can see yourself. You can do it multiple times. You can oh, not good for a perfectionist with adhd not good at all.

And the whole like 90 seconds or less. I can't have a conversation. I can't, oh, that's, no. Anybody who knows me knows. But that's like impossible. But I've had to figure it out. So like the first few videos I did. I almost completely gave up cuz it took me like, what, 24 something, whatever bazillion takes.

And I still wasn't totally happy with it and I don't know how to edit. So that was a whole thing. And then as I've gotten doing it more and more, I've gotten so much more comfortable with the fact that and I think it's really cool that what people want is not this highly curated, highly edited thing, even from a professional like myself.

Cause I do think sometimes as physicians we feel like we have. We almost have to mask a little bit more. And so it's cool that I've figured out, okay, what's the information that people really need? And take out all the extra junk, right? Or what's the point I really wanna make?

And let's just get to that. And then being a lot less perfectionistic about it, which is actually really cool. And just you know what? Yeah, that's good enough. We're posting it, eh, we'll see what happens. Yeah. So that part's been really cool. The not cool part. About the whole social media thing is like my whole life, Diana and I were talking about this, like when you're a physician, your entire life has been largely prescribed, and yes, pun intended, right?

It's four years of college, maybe three, maybe five, but it is college done. If you do that and you do it well enough and you get these scores, then you get to this next level, then you go to medical school. Four years, and as long as you don't screw up and you do well enough and you pass your exams, then you're a doctor, and then you do residency and then this and then that.

So the whole thing is very prescribed and the outcome is known as long as you do X, Y, and z for the most part. Obviously there's some variations, right? And this social media thing is you never know. You never know what videos are gonna hit. You don't know what's not gonna hit. You don't know when it does.

You don't necessarily know why. When it doesn't, you don't necessarily. And the other thing that I think is a little hard for me, again, when I'm doing something in front of a live audience, first of all, I often get immediate feedback by people talking to me or giving me either positive or negative feedback.

Usually positive. But even if they don't come up to me, I can see their face. So I have some idea as to the impact that I may or may not have made if people leave comments. Sure. And likes maybe, but I don't really know. Yeah. I don't get to really know how or if stuff is impacting people. Which, I keep to, I tell myself if it helps one person and it didn't take, and it was just a little bit of my time. Yeah. Then why not? Then it's worth it. Yeah. But it is time and it is. And you wanna make sure when your time is limited and your effort is limited, you wanna know that what you're doing and what you're putting out there is having the positive impact Yeah.

That you want it to have. Cause that's really the only reason for me to be doing it.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. I know what you mean because when I am supposed to give lectures or do something, I'd rather do it to a live audience, like you said, because then I can see how it's landing or I can see how I'm pivoting.

And while I might not have everything, of course, on the slides, because then that's like word vomit, like it's all in my brain. And I'm like feeding off of what. Seen in the audience or where they need to go based on the audience. And so yeah, when I'm supposed to, Hit record to

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: A

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: blind thing and just use my slides.

Oh my gosh.

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: I try it, but

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: oh my God, I feel like I'm not in my zone because again, I'm like you just said, I'm not getting that feedback. So it's, yeah. So talking to you like this is amazing because like I can understand what we're doing. We're just having a conversation. It's not scripted or anything, so it totally goes

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: where it goes, that's why I love, honestly, like that's why I. Favorite absolute favorite things to do other than live talks is podcasts, right? Because it really is just I love to talk and I love to talk with my friends, and I love to have that like connection. And so whenever I do 'em in this format, which is part of why I've thought about doing my own, but I just, I love, like you said, I love the format.

I love that it's just a conversation and even if I don't get to see the reaction of the audience, I get to at least interact with one other human. Yeah. There's at least that may, maybe nobody else likes it or listens to it, but we're gonna have a good time doing it, and at least that was worth, the hour, whatever that we put into doing the recording.

Of course you're doing all kinds of work on the back end. My brother-in-law, I'm sorry, your brother-in-law, bless him. See, that's what I would need if I did something like this. I would need, I'd need another. Yeah, I would need a human who knows techie things cuz I do not know techie things. Yeah,

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And like sometimes, it is, like you just said, realizing that in life there's certain things, obviously

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: we've been taught.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And drilled. Really, if you're talking medicine, we need to make sure we have some type of precision, but at the same time, it is called the practice of medicine. You need to have some wiggle room to be creative, wiggle room to explore wiggle room, to not just stay within the box that they're wanting us to stay in.

But at the same time, like you said, there's certain guidelines. There's certain guidelines, yeah. Where you know that if you went way south, okay. Everybody in recently would know you're really way south. But with social media, with an entrepreneurship, with anything that like. You don't have the prescription, like you said, and so you can easily go down some rabbit hole and be like, what?

What happened? And again, but at the same time, it lets you. Be creative enough and be willing, I wanna say the word fail faster, because again, you didn't know, but then that also makes you grow faster because now you have new data to change and modify and whatnot. But yeah, I still wanna rule book.

Yeah. But yes, we should. Honey, guys, we should have some guidelines though. I think that's why it's so good to surround yourself. Network of somebody who's a little bit ahead of you and maybe a little bit behind you. So that's, we can, we all can help each other. Keep going. That's exactly

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: right. To that point so some of the folks listening may have seen, and if you haven't, you really need to go take a look at Jessica Mc McCabes, how to A D H D YouTube videos.

She's one of the, one of the first of us, if you will, to really To really push out excellent content on A D H D. And I got to meet her through the conferences and we're now friends and she was one of the ones that kind of really encouraged me to do this. She's also one of the ones that helped me, that really taught me, because I did a video with her for her YouTube channel on medications.

What was that? October, 2020, I think. And, This was the first time I had ever recorded something on video and I had to do it, on my own, in my office. Next time I was like, I gotta have somebody else helping me with this because I just would get lost in the weeds. And I sent that poor woman, I think, and her team like, what, 34 clips.

I think that they miraculously managed to condense into five minutes of excellent material. That sounds like it was one take. I don't know how the hell they do it. They're good. But I told her afterwards, I was like, look, I already respected. Big time what you do, but holy crap, like I had no idea just how much time and effort and energy and editing and da.

Now it helps if you have somebody who isn't completely paranoid and takes 34 takes and sends you every single clip cuz they don't know what's good and what's not. I'm, it helps me get over that a little bit.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: But hey, that was the first time you did it right? And like you said, exactly. You wanted to make sure, and I think that's where it's exciting, but it can also be paralyzing because what you're trying to give out into the world is bigger than yourself.

Like it's bigger than your ego. It's you wanna make an impact because this is education that can really be like a trailblazer for people who. Otherwise might not have considered the possibility of medicine. And you and I know that like medicine is one of the tools when it works amazing.

When it doesn't, then it can be a little bit harder, but it doesn't mean impossible. And it should be medicine and plus everything else.

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: And I feel I. You and I both, we have unique perspectives, right? Because we have a D H D, but we're also physicians ourselves. So even though like our stories are unique from each other's, we also have this unique perspective of seeing both sides of it.

And for me, I also, again, I feel very lucky that I. Had the situation that I had. Not to say that it wasn't with, its without its challenges. It absolutely was. I still had to, deal with teachers and professors and other people who, and still do, who don't understand or don't, didn't understand the accommodations and all of that.

But I had so much support and so much. We're talking, I don't even wanna say how long ago it was, cuz, this was a long time ago that I had all, like 20 plus years ago. Long time. I, even my learning special, the learning specialist at my college who I had to meet with cause I was getting accommodations.

I will never forget this. This comes back to, it goes back to something you said earlier. She said I had to meet with her and she said, Carrie, tell me how you study and how you do your work. And I said I do it all wrong. And she goes, okay, tell me. And I told her, for example, I said, I highlight everything except for and the, and, but, and she goes, okay, why is that wrong?

And I go cuz I was told it was wrong because you're only supposed to highlight like the main points. And she goes, Carrie, you graduated from Haka Day, you are at Davidson College. Tell me again how that is wrong. And I was like, oh. And she goes, let me tell you what you're doing and why it's right for.

And she went on to explain to me how I was using the highlighter to track and to process and all of this. And she's like, when you do it that way, do you remember everything? I'm like yeah, sorta. And she's okay then if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And that was such, and this was over 20 years ago.

Okay. That was just such a game changer for me and in my own thought process, and I was so lucky to have all of, to have that and to have that support growing up, especially back then that I feel like, our family has always our leading ethos, if you will, what we've always been Taught and what's always led us is to who much is given, much is expected.

So for me, I feel like that's taking the experience I've had taking, but also combining that with the knowledge that I have, being able to put that into the world in a way that hopefully makes a difference, right? And hopefully pays forward some of what I was given and part of what I, some of what I had the privilege to.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Thank you for sharing that. And I think it's also so important to realize, like you said, that you had opportunities. But you were brave enough to take those opportunities. Like some people, and Yes. You said as a teenager, maybe not all of them, but it is human. It is human nature, but at the same time, like that's okay,

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: we all wanna go have a conversation with our 17 year old self.

Exactly. Exactly.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: We shoulda could or would've done, but the point is that you were okay. You were comfortable enough and being curious to let me figure this out. Let me ask somebody else advice, but also let me. Resonates for me so that at the end of the day, you're not just. Okay, this is it.

But also curious enough to be like what if there could be more or not? But at least you go into that right sphere and like you were telling me like, you've been able to talk to your uncle who's like amazing at, that's his jam, right? Like in social media stuff and have friends who open up doors for you or explain different things and.

Most of us feel like they're gonna know I suck in this area. I don't wanna show them that I suck at this area. But it's in, again, it's not like it's, we all expect to start walking all of a sudden when we were just born. No. Like you have to learn different things. Exactly.

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: Yeah.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And so it was such a blessing to have you when you were in my group, and then to turn around to come and give us the talk, to be the guest coach about medicine like that was. Again, like you don't realize how we all have our own gifts and our own Yeah. Way to enhance the group or the environment or the community

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: that we're in.

To that point, I'll be honest, when I did, your coaching group, I wasn't totally sure what all I would get out of it, right? Because I know so much about ADHD already, right? And. I've done coaching in the past for myself and I've done kind of all the things, but I'd never done the group coaching, the thing.

And I'd also never done coaching with other physicians. I knew other physicians, but there wasn't a ton of us. There are a ton of us, but there weren't a ton of us that knew each other. And that was one the things that I think was really cool. Yeah, I had the opportunity even as a member of the group to answer questions or to share my knowledge, but there were definitely.

Several times where other members of the group would just say something or something about something they experienced or some epiphany they had that made me go

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: oh,

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: fabulous. Like brain capo like just brain blown. And I think that was really, I think that was really cool.

And just the camaraderie. Too, of just, and just being able to be like, Hey, we're not alone here. We're all having similar struggles we're having, we have some different stuff too. But we have some really similar stuff. Yeah. It's, we're not the only ones.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And it's, so again, and that's what I mean by it's so important to have a community that kind of just gets you, and they might not get everything, but when you have.

Safe space where you can just come and be. It's so different than from feeling like, oh, I can't say that out loud because my coworker is gonna think that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, because they have no problem here and therefore blah, blah, blah.

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: So that connection. Yeah. Con, we talk about connection a lot and resilience.

We talk about connection, and that's that connection that you get from having truly shared experiences. That is there's a lot of negatives to all the online stuff and all the social media stuff and all of that for sure. But that's one of the real positives Yeah. Is being able to actually form connections and community and that stuff's critical.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And I think Covid made it such, where again, I didn't even know how to use Zoom like or anything. Really prior to this. Yeah. But Covid made it such that you could wonder, Hey, I can have a conversation with anybody anywhere in the world. Okay. That's cool. And it made it a norm to be able to have that instant connection because I know when I then finally met you in person, oh my God, it was like a

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: world of different, That was so funny because it was like at that conference.

So for those of you who don't know, we're referring to the international conference on A D H D, which happens every November. By the way, please keep your eyes open and your emails open. It is fabulous. Baltimore. It's coming up. Here we go, crabcakes. But it is, it's three days of. Communing and having just the most fun time as well as very informational and educational with 1500 of your bestie, A D H D humans.

But anywho, needless to say, for 2020 and 2021, we were virtual, which was still great. I'm glad we had it, but it just wasn't the same. And I met all these people like Diana and some of our other physician friends and other folks. And then when we finally all came back together, The conference this last November in 22.

It was the funniest thing cuz there were people who was like, oh my God, it's so glad to see you again. And they're like, we've never actually met. And then there were other people who I'd actually met right before the pandemic who I was like, I'm so glad to finally see you in person. They're like, Carrie met before.

And I'm like, alright. Our sense of time was just so messed up. But it was oh, it was so much. Yes. So much fun. And the party was awesome. If I do say so myself, oh yes,

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: We party again. Oh my God. We party till like midnight or something crazy and yeah, we,

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: there's videos out there.

I, there are videos. They are posted online. Because yes, we are still responsible adults. There was nothing crazy. It was just a lot of fun. Feather boas and Elton John glasses. But there was, I, each night I went to bed later and later, I think the first night it was like 1:00 AM. Second night to I was like, I'm getting too old to stay up this late.

I was in so much pain by then. Yeah. But it was just, we were having so much fun finally being together and getting to see each other and Yeah. Talk about some deep stuff, but also just have fun and talk and chill and Yeah.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. And again, that's what I mean about community. Come into the place where everybody just gets you.

Yeah. It was so funny to hear people be giving a presentation and then midway they stop and they're like, what was I saying? And everybody's laughing, oh, and yeah. And then they're like, no, I'm serious. I got lost. What

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: was, it's amazing. I love it because I don't, one of the things I've always said about that conference, and part of why I've stayed so involved is because the first year I went in 2018, it was honestly, The first time that I felt like I could be 100% completely and totally authentically myself, both as a professional and as carry the D h D human.

Because so many times at these conference, when these professional conference, I feel like I have to mask Yes. And compensate to be taken seriously. Yes. Because if I'm my full, if I'm on full volume, I will not be taken seriously and people will look at me like I'm being annoyed. And at this one, like the very first time I went, people were like coming up to me.

I wasn't presenting right. I was just, And would raise my hand or, make comments or answer questions and people would come up to me and go oh my God, I love your energy. I'm like, I'm sorry, you said what? And they're like, and they looked at me like I was the, some sparkly unicorn because I was a physician with a d h adhd.

And I was like, y'all do know there's a lot of us, right? This is a lot of us. Like probably half the doctors out there, but I'm just saying. But no, but it was. It was so cool and it was not being myself didn't take away from who I was as a professional. It gave me more credibility. Yeah.

And it was incredible. It was incredible. Yes. And and it's continued that way. And working with those folks again, it's great because it's like, deadlines are a funny thing when you're working with a whole bunch of ADHD people. People are very forgiving which is nice, but also you also have to hold to 'em really tight or nothing ever gets done, exactly. So yeah.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Is that you? You should see me planning my Costa Rica retreat. You know when the deadline was? Oh my

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: gosh. Was it first,

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: right? Oh yeah. Like it firsts was the deadline and I'm like still getting Oh, I just booked my flight yesterday and my mom's coming too, and I'm like, give it the details.

I'm trying to organize. Getting you to and fro, right? Yeah.

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: But again,

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: To your point. I think we need to remember that our energy is important and that we need to protect it. But we also need to realize what enhances it so that we refill and recharge ourselves. Yeah. And like you said, we don't give it all away with the.

Things that you know, can distract us and if they were not really what was IMP would be important five years from now, then maybe that you could gauge it that way. But Okay. I'm gonna wrap this up cuz I know our time is valuable and I know you and I can talk for hours cuz we've done that before.

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: Yes ma'am. But in the interest of time

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: You already told us where people couldn't find you, but just tell us one more time and then I'm gonna ask you one more question and

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: we'll wrap it up. Our website is www.gtwhealth.com. My clinic is in Fort Worth, but we also two other clinics in the Dallas Fort Worth area.

The social medias are instagram@thehd.md which is the same at TikTok, Carolyn Lynch, l e n t z s c h, Parcells at for Facebook and then Twitter, but. Whatever. Awesome. Not Twitter.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: If people just started tuning in, because we have wondering attention, what is the one takeaway point that you would want them to walk away with?

I

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: get asked that, of course whenever we do these and my always go-to takeaway is this, which is do not let. Whether you are an adult with D H D or a parent of someone with D H D or you love someone with d h d, don't let what other people say prevent you from advocating for and fighting for what you or the person you love needs.

Everyone will always have an opinion. There will always be opinions and there will be always be opinions that disagree with whatever you choose to do. It is not shame. It is not failure to ask for help and to fight for what you and the people you love.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Preach. Awesome. Okay, the last question, I know I said it was only one.

What do you hope to do for fun in the next three to five years? I know you already have a lot of fun, but tell me, oh, tell me what are you

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: dreaming about in the next three to five years? Yeah, travel. Lots of travel where to Lots and lots of travel. Internationally, already checked off Italy. Wanna go back to Italy, London.

I do love me some tropic. I got a whole list of bucket list countries. Like I'm one of those people that wants to make it to just about every, continent or whatever. Yeah me too. I'm not a cold weather person, so some of those but yeah, a lot of travel. Awesome. I'm hoping to suggestion.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. We were just looking into maybe doing a cruise cuz that would be amazing. Like a 10 or 12 day cruise. Yeah. Like Mediterranean, because then you just have to literally get yourself on the ship and then you get on and get off, get on, get off. And you have hotel taken care of for you.

Exactly. Yeah. And then it's actually a lot more affordable than you think, how you do all your connections and. Stuff. So yeah, I think cruises are amazing for our A D H D brain dude. And we need an A D H D

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: physician's cruise. Oh, that'd be so much fun.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yes. We gotta plan something.

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: Go team. Woohoo.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Stay tuned guys. Stay tuned. This is coming up. Awesome. Thank you so much for spending your time here with me today and with everybody who's listening because like I always say, Time is our most valuable asset because unfortunately we don't know how much or how long we have a it.

So let's try to do our best to be present in the moment because we know that we like to dwell on whatever already happened, and we like to plan so far ahead that we forget, like right here, right now, don't know

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: what you're talking about. I have no idea. I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't do that over.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: So yes, thank you again for coming. It's been, I'd delight to have you.

Dr. Carolyn Lentzch-Parcells: Appreciate

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: it, Diana. Thank you for spending your time with me. I really believe that time is your most valuable asset. Please subscribe to the podcast, share with your colleagues, and don't forget to check out my website@hdlivecoach.com where you can find out about my upcoming coaching group classes, as well as free master classes and other exciting events that are happening.