Building Bridges: How Community Transforms Lives with NJCTS

Joining me this week are two incredible guests from the NJCTS Community Connections program: Peyton Estabrook, a long-time participant, and Alina Lawas Osborn, the program coordinator. In this episode, we discuss how creating safe spaces for people with Tourette Syndrome can foster connection, reduce isolation, and empower individuals to thrive. From the challenges of starting new communities to the creative solutions that bring people together, this conversation is packed with insights for anyone looking to build or find a community of their own. 

Episode Highlights:

[0:29] - Introducing Peyton and Alina: leaders in community building at NJCTS.
[2:20] - Alina shares how she came full circle from a Community Connections member to program coordinator.
[5:18] - Peyton talks about overcoming self-consciousness and the value of finding a safe space.
[8:14] - How connecting with others in marginalized groups fosters empowerment and strength.
[11:18] - Zoom meetings versus in-person events: the strengths and limitations of each format.
[13:11] - Strategies for building community in the digital age and the decline of “third spaces.”
[19:04] - Ideas for improving virtual community events, including breakout groups and “fast friends” sessions.
[27:11] - Finding hope and resilience through community and learning from others’ experiences.
[30:29] - Alina’s advice for approaching new groups with curiosity and breaking patterns of isolation.
[36:03] - Final reflections on building community as an ongoing, collaborative process.

Links & Resources:

 Guests:

• Alina Lawas Osborn - Program Coordinator for NJCTS
• Peyton Estabrook - Community Connections member

The next community connections is on December 16 at 7pm ET. Listeners can register here: https://njcts.org/event/community-connections-for-adults-with-ts-10/ 

Remember, each story shared on this podcast brings light and understanding to the diverse experiences within the Tourette's community. Your journey is your own, and it's filled with potential and promise. If this episode resonated with you, I encourage you to like, share, and leave a review to help us connect with more listeners.

Transcript

Peyton Estabrook: 0:00

You know, when you're in a marginalized group, the strength in numbers mentality is kind of a reversal that you can sort of pull on the quote, unquote oppressors. You know, you can sort of flip by connecting and creating a very human network and showing like, no, there's actually a lot of us. I'm not alone. I'm not one person that you can just, you know, knock down because I have other people to help me get back up.

Michael Leopold: 0:29

Welcome to the uptick. Brought to you by The New Jersey Center for Tourette syndrome and associated disorders, empowering children and adults through education, advocacy and research, by sharing the stories and experiences relevant to the TS community. Hello and welcome back to the uptick. It's been several weeks since our last episode. There's been a lot going on in my life and with njcts, and we're excited to get back to our regular cadence of episodes. Today, we've got two incredible members of the njcts community here, Peyton Estabrook, who's a long standing community member and a participant of the NJ CTS Community Connections program, and Alina allowis Osborne, program coordinator for njcts. Alina hosts the NJ CTS Community Connections program, which Peyton is a member of and participates in regularly. And this is an interesting program. It started in 2001 after for more Executive Director faith rice passed away. It was really a way to honor and continue her legacy of connecting people with Tourette, but this is really a safe space for young adults with Tourette to share their experiences about life, and not just about Tourette, but but whatever they want to discuss, dating life, jobs, you name it. It started off as a young professional support group, and then it's kind of evolved into just being adults, talking mentoring, hanging out, discussing topics relevant to the trek community, really a judgment free, safe space to talk about these topics for people who get it. Alina, I'd love to turn things over to you, if you'd like to share a little bit about your connection to community connections as the host of it and sort of how you see your vision paying for it. Yeah,

Alina Lawas Osborn: 2:21

I'd love to Community Connections was really a joy to host. I was not the first host. I didn't learn this until I think I had been at njcts for at least a year. I've been there two years now, but I was actually one of the first members of community connections as a community member along with Peyton when it started in, I think, 2021, but I didn't realize it was such a new program when I started going as a community member. And then at some point I was I was job searching a Community Connections meeting was coming up, and I thought to myself, I wonder if these folks are hiring, and they were looking for a program coordinator, and was a really good fit. So it really kind of came full full circle. I run the program now. I think it's going pretty well. It's it's really a joy and an honor to be able to provide a space, a safe space, and for adults with Tourette's to sometimes sort of like an unofficial support group. You know, we're not licensed counselors here, so it's not like a support group in the sense of, of like group therapy or anything, but it's a good way for folks to be able to just kind of talk through stuff they're going through around Tourette syndrome, and everyone there gets it. So it's it's a really good space where people can really understand each other and empathize with each other. Folks talk a lot about other things, aside from threat related matters too. It's a good place for people to meet each other and find similar interests. I've I've seen some friendships form outside of the group, or friendships from in the group go to outside of the group, which has been really cool to watch

Michael Leopold: 4:03

of that. Peyton, I know you've been on many of the the community connections, events, in person and also virtual. We do both. You've been in this for a long time. We'd love to hear a little bit of your thoughts of what got you joining it and what what you what you value about about this program. Yeah.

Peyton Estabrook: 4:19

So I think I had been getting these emails for a little while, because I think either during 2020 or 2021 I had participated in a few online programs. For example, Jason Michaels, a magician with Tourette's, did an online little magic show. And it was really awesome. It was it was really cool to see that there was this guy out there with Tourette's doing magic, and he's super fantastic and charismatic, really interesting guy and really great show. And so after that, I think I started getting those emails about like, you know, Hey, there's this room. I sort of ignored it for a while because I was very I think I told you guys. Kind of prior to this, I was very, kind of self conscious, and I was just worried about being judged. I was worried about being like, on camera, in front of people anyway, so I basically been in the group where, I'd say, about, like two years, but apparently, you know, I mean, it wasn't around for that much longer. Yeah,

Michael Leopold: 5:18

one of the things with this, with community connections, that I like is, is it? It brings people together, people from wherever you are, could be anywhere in the world, adults with Tourette syndrome. And I think historically, when we think about Tourette, it's such a for many people, it's been a very isolating condition historically. And I was diagnosed back in 2003 I mean, then things were getting you know that certainly better in terms of that than if I it had been in, you know, the 1950s or before that, but, but I didn't know anyone else with it for the first number of years after being diagnosed. You know, in childhood, I grew up in a rural Indiana town, didn't know others with it. And it was really through programming, through through based organizations that I eventually got to meet other people with it, and then you run into a challenge where, if you're not in a city or in a state that has a vibrant chapter or Tourette organized practice, you wouldn't be able to benefit from those so this is neat, and that there are in person activities that community connections hosts, but also primarily virtual in terms of its regular cadence of get togethers. So that allows people, wherever they are, to really take part in this and get value out of it. Pain. Would love to hear a little bit about some of the value you've gotten. I mean, I appreciate the courage you took in and this being something that you maybe didn't feel comfortable sharing about your thread. It was, it felt like, all right, is this really a safe space where I can do that. And it seems like you've really navigated through that to get to a point where you're going to these actively contributing you've led some of the community connection sessions. Would love to hear your words a little bit about the value you've gotten out of it. Michael, I

Peyton Estabrook: 6:53

can definitely agree. I think I was watching a YouTube video where it was talking about this sci fi writer who he he was gay, and he was sort of in the closet, because it was, I forget if it was the 1980s 1980s 1990s and, you know, obviously that wasn't as accepted. And basically, I forget if it was something he wrote about. He went to some sort of a gathering of gay men, and the numbers that he saw, he realized the danger of, I guess, oppression. The danger of oppression is that it isolates people, and sort of the antidote to that, almost, is the connecting of people. So when you have people in kind of a marginalized group, whether that's gay men or gay women, or, you know, anybody in that LGBTQ plus community. You know, when you're in a marginalized group, the strength in numbers mentality is kind of a reversal that you can sort of pull on the quote, unquote oppressors. You know, you can sort of flip by connecting and creating a very human network and showing like, no, there's actually a lot of us. I'm not alone. I'm not one person that you can just, you know, knock down because I have other people to help me get back up.

Michael Leopold: 8:14

Alina curious in hosting these sessions, if you've noticed any kind of patterns and what people want to discuss questions they have, what they talk about, or if you're you're welcome to to kind of respond or give your thoughts on what Peyton had said there.

Alina Lawas Osborn: 8:27

Well, we usually have several regular members, and that's that show up on a slow day, three regular members. On a on a busier day, five, regulars, and then handful or two of irregular members and new folks too. So I think we it's usually a group of probably eight to 10 people at the moment, and you know, it varies, I think, in larger groups. If it's all people that are regulars and have gotten have developed a rapport with one another, it can get pretty personal as well. If it's a group where there's a lot of new people, new people usually don't jump into sharing a lot of personal information at the beginning, which is perfectly understandable when I first started, I think I just kind of listened in for the first several meetings, but when I was a community member. But yeah, I think that's what I've noticed. Usually, new folks will pull back a little bit until they're they're comfortable, and they'll start sharing more, sometimes, depending on what people want to talk about, and they'll send topics that they're interested in or would like to have the discussion about in the registration form ahead of time. So I know how to lead the discussion. In addition to being like a community support group, again, community support group, not like a counselor led support group this collector, it can also be just a very friendly, casual group. I noticed that a lot too, when we get together in person. I really like that during. Person meetings. It's easier for folks to kind of break up into smaller individual conversations. I think one of the limitations of zoom meetings is that it's one virtual meeting room with anywhere from like five, five to 15 participants. So we kind of have to make sure that if there are a lot or a lot of people that want to say something, we can't let anyone talk for too long of a time, which is unfortunate because a lot of neurodivergent folks for method of communication is info dumping at one another, which takes a lot of time. So that is a constraint of the virtual program. So folks have really enjoyed being able to get together in person, and I've really enjoyed being able to see people have much longer conversations that I don't have to, like, step in to cut people off because somebody else wants to talk. Because I have a couple people over here that are talking about something that interests them for like, 15 minutes, and another group of people over here talking about a different topic that's interesting to them, and they can just go on and on, and that's great. I'm very happy that njcts is able to provide both a virtual and in person venue for this program. I think it makes it more accessible to a larger amount of people. Yeah.

Unknown: 11:19

Peyton, what are you thinking? So I

Peyton Estabrook: 11:21

agree with a lot of what Alina was saying, but I've sort of learned my own kind of doing Medicaid. If someone's speaking, and I've been kind of sitting through high school, I would literally be, like, raising my hand, and I would shaking it, and I would be lowering it or raising it, like it's just, it's such a pain in the butt that, honestly, virtual, there's so if you go to the bottom of like zoom, for example, and you go to like, react. There's different little like, some emojis and stuff, but, like, there's also a raised hand feature, and you can raise your hand, and then I believe Alina, you know, the host, and Michael the host, can see that like, oh, this person is raising their hand and they kind of want to speak. And I've even kind of other people have reacted and being like, Oh, that's a feature. Oh, you can use them. Like, yeah, you know, if anybody is interested, because it's a nice way, because I tend to have a lot I want to say. So sometimes I sort of it

Michael Leopold: 12:13

keeps guiding the flow of it, too. It's good for the coast to see that and then be able to, you know, point to that something we don't really have in, like, other kinds of vet, you know, venues like in person or something. It's a way to help make it work better, right? Virtual. I want to now bring our conversation to the broader topic of building community around Tourette. You know, I think we have spoken a lot about this specific program, which is one way to get involved with the tour community and also getting to meet other neurodivergent individuals and allies of our community, and, you know, make friends, get questions answered, all of that. It's not limited to just this program. There's a lot of ways that you can build community. And you know, wherever you are right now, each person can build that community. Not everyone is able to join our meetings. You know, for example, they tend to be at night, and if someone's working a job at night or has other commitments they wouldn't be able to I would love to hear if either of you have thoughts on any strategies out there that our listeners can use to build their own community. Yeah, I

Alina Lawas Osborn: 13:11

think building community is one of the most important things you can do, not just as a neurodivergent individual, but as anyone. But I think human connection is really what keeps us going as people, and when you're neurodivergent or you're queer or a member of any type of marginalized group, it can be very isolating and a lot harder to find community just in regular day to day life. So finding different affinity groups can be super helpful. And I also know I want to note that what I'm saying about community building now is is my opinion, and based on anecdotes and patterns that I've I've observed, this is not like an official njcts stance or anything. So just want to add that little disclaimer. But yeah, I think humans are a social species, so it's super important for everyone to have a community. I think it's increasingly difficult to find community in person nowadays. I think part of it is probably because so many things shut down during quarantine in the pandemic, and a lot just didn't open back up. I think we're also as as a society, moving a lot more towards online spaces than than in person activities. I remember when I was a kid, there were like, roller rinks everywhere, and a lot more, like in person physical activities that you could just do with people and meet people. And I think, I think we're losing that a bit, and it takes a lot more effort to like, meet people outside, to like. I think online communities can be super valuable for that reason.

Michael Leopold: 14:56

Definitely, there's been a decline in third space. Spaces. I've heard them called with the I found this term interesting. I was reading an article and on how like, so often if you want to meet with someone in person, it's you have to, like, spend money. You like, yeah, their coffee shop you go to, like, we don't really have I've heard the term like, called third spaces before, places like a library or a park where you can just kind of go and exist as a person and socialize, meet other people without having to spend money. And we need more of them in the world. But I think until then, online Avenue is is an excellent place to go to for some of that huge

Alina Lawas Osborn: 15:32

pro bono public libraries. They have a lot of great programs that can meet local people through

Peyton Estabrook: 15:37

and yeah, actually, that kind of ties into, you know, Alina and Michael, what you were saying, like, there are definitely faces like that that exists, but I've personally seen for myself a lot of the limitations of not in the way that these programs are bad or maliciously designed, but personally for me, like community connections and njcts, you know, and jcts kind of at large, I can't make it to NJ CTS because I forget if it's Somerset or Somerville, whichever one it is, but that's like an hour plus away from me. So, you know, I just don't feel comfortable driving. And I think, you know, not to sound entitled, but I think I should have the right to have some other mechanism or venue to be able to travel, besides always relying on my mom, you know, I don't really use, like, Uber or Lyft, you know. And there is obviously, like, a financial barrier if you don't make a lot of money, and, you know, you don't have consistent transportation that really, that local transportation, like a bus service or shuttle service or that is a much better remedy. I think, you know, I'm also sort of defined sometimes by my own limitations and having to kind of come out of my shell a bit. One thing is, I, Alina, you were saying kind of about public libraries. There's a bunch of different branches of the Mercer County Library. They do have some limited online programming. I think they have, like, an online book club, which I went to a meeting or two of. I didn't really stick with it. I think personally, because I'm not a huge reader, so you know, Alina and Michael, maybe we can talk about it a little bit. I think for me, personally, I'm someone who's tends to be very self isolated, and when I went back to community college last year, I was briefly part of the Rainbow Alliance, which was their LGBTQ plus club, and they actually had a discord, so I joined now for a bit like I left college, and so I'm not really part of that group anymore, but using apps like discord and, you know, other people like to use, like WhatsApp or whatever, Sometimes just texting and group texts are like a good way to connect with people. And, you know, I think there are certain limitations as we've discussed kind of the community connections, meetings themselves.

Alina Lawas Osborn: 17:51

We are interested in branching out to other locations, if we can make it there and we have a space to meet to make our in person sessions more accessible to the community that isn't necessarily close to Somerville or able to get there from far away. But yeah, that's that's something we're interested in doing at some point, for sure.

Michael Leopold: 18:13

Yeah. So one of the themes I'm hearing is there are spaces that exist for neurodivergent people to get to meet each other, to talk, to hang out, to make friendships, but that they're, they're not perfect, that they're they're challenges we have with them. And I'd love to spend a little bit of time, because we've got two people here that that know these spaces well have been participants, and Alina, if you're hosting one actively, I want to do some solution ideation here. So for example, Alina, you had mentioned earlier about one of the challenges with Zoom, or I guess one of the downsides of it, is that it's not as conducive for one on one interactions, like if you have a big group setting, 10 people in the Zoom call, you're kind of all going around, one person talks at a time. You can't form, necessarily, that one on one dialog unless, I suppose you do breakout groups or something, but want to hear some thoughts on if there's anything that comes to mind to remedy that, that you've tried or have been thinking about, particularly you kind

Peyton Estabrook: 19:04

of alluded to the idea of breakout groups. And I think that's actually a potential so one of the things I learned through doing online education a little bit is that we were able to do things like you said, like breakout groups. So I think if you know Alina, I don't know how this works for you, because you're kind of, you're, you know, kind of, our fearless leader, you you know you as the facilitator, kind of, I don't know if you can set up, like maybe do a specific meeting where you set it up ahead of time, where you're going to do breakout groups or something for people, I think something that was actually being thrown around. I think we were talking a while ago, either early this year or late last year, about Tourette's and dating, and I think that's something that's come up a lot and but we had sort of discussed a little bit the idea of even, like a spread event, where it's like a fast friends, I think was the casual name we kind of threw around, was where we had, like a breakout rooms or. Some type of thing where people could have one on one conversations and get to, like, quickly meet and learn a little bit about each other, and maybe that you know, not again, not to facilitate, like, dating or romantic relationships, but being an unintended side effect is not like a bad thing. Hey, it being a positive of like, you might meet people, and you might meet a really cool friend, or possibly the love of your life you know, or a life partner you know. That's kind of the intent of spaces is, even if it's not a space that's specifically for romantic relationships. A lot of people describe being married as you're married to your best friend. And I think that's a problem for a lot of people, is they go out and they're looking for romantic relationships. When I've heard a big piece of advice is sort of just go out, looking for people, look for friends, don't try and look too far for a relationship. And that can sort of resolve some of the trouble with that aspect. So that was like one thing. So I think doing the breakout groups, either during the community connection style of meeting or doing a specific event that is about the breakout group. I don't know if we could maybe revive that idea and possibly execute it. Alina,

Unknown: 21:10

I remember talking

Alina Lawas Osborn: 21:11

about fast friends idea a while back. I think that was pretty new to njcts as an employee. Yeah, I think that's a really cool idea. I've never hosted a meeting with that kind of setup virtually before, so I would definitely need to look into how that's done, both logistically on Zoom and also how to keep it properly moderated. But that is a really good idea, and I might be interested in looking into it. Yeah, I would

Michael Leopold: 21:39

love to hear your thoughts on opportunities to put in some solutions and make our communities better, to make them solve for some of the challenges that have come up. I think part

Alina Lawas Osborn: 21:49

of what we try to do, at least with community connections, is that I'm always asking for feedback from people, so if there's an issue like Peyton said that he can't get to in person meetings and things. Okay, at some point, can we? Can we find a space closer to people that want to meet in person but can't get to our current meeting spaces so and again? You know, we're a very small organization, so we don't, we don't have the capacity to, like implement every idea that we come across all at once. They can be pretty slow process to make changes in programs. But one thing we've done before we realized that I think community connections for adults with Tourette Syndrome actually started as community connections for young adults with Tourette syndrome, and it was capped from age 18 to 35 but we were getting a lot of folks at threat talks and webinars, other programs we run that are adults with threats above 35 and you know, we would talk a lot in in community connections as as adults, of resources just not really being there For for adults as much. And you know you you turn 18, your Tourette's doesn't go away. And you know that it also extends to folks over the age of 35 so recently, we changed the program so the 35 year old calf is no longer there, and we've gotten a good amount of people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, even so I think that's a change that I'm proud that we've made, and I always want to hear feedback if, if there's something that the program could be doing better, or if there's ways to make it more accessible that community members have ideas about, I am always open to Hearing them.

Peyton Estabrook: 23:39

But thankfully, Community Connections is not like a Professionals Network. It's more just like casual conversation, but you feel a comfort level with a lot of these people, and as a group, contacting people even outside in the meetings. Sometimes that's through email, sometimes the absolute, you know, I have their number, or we shared numbers. Sometimes that's through texting. I do feel a degree of comfort with some of these people and some of the older folks that had joined more recently since we opened the group up Alina, were really helpful at trying to help me find a sense of kind of perspective, and actually were, like, way less judgmental than I, sort of like my preconceived notions thought, not that I think older people are just going to be more judgmental. But, for example, I just switched therapists recently, and I'm with a woman who's, you know, a very cool person, and I think we're making some good progress. She's a bit of an older woman, and I was nervous to have a woman as a therapist, or have, especially an older woman, because I think, you know, if I'm being honest, it sounds insensitive, but I I think of, you know, older woman, older woman therapist, I think sort of prudish, and, you know, like maybe a little bit judgmental, especially about things related to kind of men's issues. And, you know, maybe things like sexual health and issues. And, you know, I. Won't go any more specifically into that, but just, I think that's sort of preconceived notions that I had that maybe were wrong, but I still had them, and they still actively prevented me from Deakin that type of care. But when I opened myself up a little bit and just said, kind of screw it, I found this great therapist who is comforting me a little bit, but also challenging me in ways that maybe I wasn't being challenged in therapy before. And so that's kind of outside of the scope of njcts and community connections. But,

Michael Leopold: 25:31

and you bring up a good point, Peyton too, around like the value of of that diversity can bring in when you when you have programs like community connections or any kind of community building initiative, yeah, oftentimes we're surprised when we meet people that are different than us. We tend to get different perspectives, and that can be really helpful for us. I have been really privileged to have met a lot of older people with with Tourette's, who grew up with it at such a different time. So their perspective, they almost not, not all of them, but, but but I've noticed many have kind of this hardened resilience, because they went through Tourette when, like, we knew so much less and so much less support existed for it. And it's interesting. It almost gives me, as a, you know, where I'm at in my life, a little bit of I don't just a better, more holistic kind of understanding of, like, it's going to be okay, because these guys, I see what they had and the problems that I feel I'm going through, not not to delegitimize them, but like it gives it perspective. It's going to be all right. It's going to work out. I'm going to, well, you know, hopefully live into very long, into my adulthood as well, and can thrive with Tourette. So I think bringing diverse people together that have those perspectives is, you know, really enriching for all of us.

Peyton Estabrook: 26:40

Yeah. Michael, quick question in response to that, do you feel like, do you feel like there's a sense of hope? Because I think someone I deal with a lot of anxiety and depression personally, and a sense of, I'm always filling out those questionnaires when I kind of have do a different online practitioner, and it's like, you know, do you feel hopeless? And I'm like, Yes, constantly, I feel a lot of hopelessness about the future, sometimes about the present, and, you know, also discomfort about the past and the present. It's hard to be hopeful for the future. That's

Michael Leopold: 27:11

an interesting question, and I do think there's a lot of reason to feel hopeful. One thing that I've kind of been surprised about in adulthood is that when things feel like they're going well in life, you know, it's a job, your relationship, your tics, your mental health, whatever it is. Or let me see, when there's challenges going on. I think we expect recovery improvement to be like this linear thing, like it just kind of keeps getting better incrementally. And at least for me, that's often not the case. I find that success or feeling like, like things are going well, kind of happens in like, staggers Joel, like something big will happen. You get an amazing job or a pay raise, or you get, you meet a really interesting person that transforms your life. And these things are so hard, like, when you're in the midst of that, that dark air, that depression in your life going through you, you wouldn't even conceive of that happening, you know? And it comes as a surprise, then a really pleasant surprise when it does happen and you're like, wow, in the last like, year, I have grown so much because of these couple of things that happened in my life, and that's really been the beauty that I've seen that kind of surprised me. You know, growth and improvement wasn't for me, this linear thing every day is a little better, and you're building in progress, piece by piece. If it works like that. For you, great. I found it was a little bit more jaggedy for me, and still upward, but, you know, and then you still have days where you two steps forward, three steps back, but in the long term, yes, I find that, you know, I have, I feel I'm growing, improving, bettering myself, and I think there's a lot of reason to to be hopeful as members of our community, especially as the word gets out more about Tourette, and more treatment and support options become available, and more community becomes accessible for people, I

Peyton Estabrook: 28:49

definitely think that I agree with you, Michael, that progress is not necessarily linear. It is sort of a cognitive mistake that we make thinking that things are just going to gradually get better. And you know, it can seem very hopeless when you know there are setbacks, but I think there's a certain freedom, I think, to acknowledging there are so many factors outside of your control, but hopefully being almost like hyper aware of those factors and you can't be aware of everything, and knowing that as well, just like knowing you can't be aware of everything, but that, like your failures are not always your own.

Alina Lawas Osborn: 29:21

Yeah, that's great. And what I was going to say about, like, solutions for finding community and mitigating isolation and stuff is a lot of it can be very scary, but if there's something you're looking for and it's not there, oftentimes, sometimes what needs to happen is you need to try to make it yourself, which, again, can be very scary and overwhelming, but it's, I think, worth a try and and like Peyton was saying, like, sometimes things happen, it's not your fault. If you're trying to get a community started, you're trying to do a meetup group or or an affinity group or something. And if nothing's sticking, don't think through yourself, like, Oh, it must have you could. Is I'm a terrible organizer, I'm a bad leader, or I just an awful person, and nobody wants to be around me like that's not what's happening. Community Organizing is hard. So anybody that is out there that is working on community building, whether it's trying to integrate into something that's already there, or build something new, you're doing a great job. And keep working. Keep going.

Unknown: 30:26

Yeah, yourself up. Be kind to yourself. Yeah. Well, one

Alina Lawas Osborn: 30:29

other thing about community building that Peyton mentioned this earlier, about having, like, preconceived notions and things and anxiety is about like, Oh, if I, if I go to this group already that's already meeting. Am I going to be talking too much? Am I going to be personable enough? Are people going to like me? What if everyone hates me and I can never show my face there? Again, those are judgments that you are both having about yourself and projecting onto other people, which, again, very understandable. A lot of us have anxiety, and that is very natural for for anxiety to take form in that way. But I think if, if you can approach it with a gentle curiosity of, okay, I'm nervous that if I go to this group, everyone's going to hate me. Why is that? Why? Why am I assuming that the people there are going to be hateful? Maybe have I've experienced discrimination or harassment for, like, taking in public or something or other, number of other things that could, that one could be discriminated against for. But if you're looking to become less isolated. Having a lot of walls up is going to be counterproductive, and the walls are there. If you've built a lot of walls up, it's probably for a good reason. I don't want want to make it seem like I'm saying people need to not be sensitive about people, microaggressing them. That's not what I'm saying at all. But I think it can help to look inward, try to dismantle your own preconceived notions about people, and not just things like, Oh, I'm stereotyping somebody of a marginalized group, and that's that's a stereotype that I need to unlearn, but also thinking, oh, this person is going to be awful to me because I have Tourette's, or I'm queer or something that you may have learned that people are going to treat you badly, but that doesn't mean that every single person you meet is going to so I think meeting that with a gentle curiosity of, okay, how is this interaction with this stranger going to go and and meeting people that way and not not immediately assuming this is going to be terrible, because that's how it's always been. Patterns can always be broken. So, so that would be my advice, to try to keep an open mind and try to meet all of your preconceived notions and judgments with some gentle curiosity.

Peyton Estabrook: 33:08

Yeah. Oh, one final thought in kind of response to that is just, I think I've sort of more lately thrown caution to the wind and kind of because of the current climate we're in, I think I felt a sense of urgency. Obviously, there's a level of you don't want to harass or badger people. But I sat on that email for maybe a day or two, and I but I still decided to send it out to all those people. I collected all the emails. I wrote the email, I rewrote at least maybe two or three times. I sat on it for a bit, but I still sent it out. A couple days later, I actually scheduled it, and then I was like, This email is going out. And I think throwing caution to the wind, like I'm not someone who is dismantling my things, because, you know, I'm definitely working through some stuff in therapy. But I mean, you don't necessarily have to dismantle Doherty, the trauma as much as sometimes, if you can this isn't going to work for everybody, but for me, just throwing caution to the wind and saying, Well, you know, the past was the past. Yesterday was yesterday. Today is another day, and maybe if I act differently today than I did yesterday, things can actually change, maybe not always in my favor, but they can change. And again, progress is not linear, so if you hit a setback, it's not always indicative of what you did wrong. But can you learn lessons from it? Absolutely, I think you can. Yeah, love

Michael Leopold: 34:34

that. Peyton, I always ask people at, you know, within a podcast around what advice they have for young people, in this podcast episode, it may be around what advice you have around community building, and I think you've both provided some really great, great thoughts around that that our listeners can, can can, you know, put to use any other remaining thoughts while we're on the call here really again, appreciate both of you taking the time to be on the uptick. Any other last minute urging fiery thoughts you have you want to get? Out of your system before we close things. Yeah,

Alina Lawas Osborn: 35:03

I think just one final thought about finding community and building community is that it's very similar to the progress. Is it linear? It's not going to happen overnight. I think a lot of folks, you know, folks, are really isolated and lonely, and they want to find something and really gel. But every relationship in every community, it's not something that's just found, it is something that is built. So I think keeping that in mind and really trying to be present in the moments where you are building community, or you are you're at a community event. Maybe you're really nervous, because it's really scary to be somewhere new, surrounded by a lot of people you don't know, and it can be so easy to just focus on any of the faux pas that you might have made, or, Oh God, I take too loud and people looked at me. But there are probably also going to be some moments where you share a little connection with someone, or just have a really nice conversation, or just see a twinkle in somebody's eye as you're speaking to them. And I think it's really important to pay attention to those little successes, because those are the things that build over time, and at some point you might realize like, oh, I have a community. And it wasn't. It's not necessarily something that you just found and were embraced into, but it was something that you built together with all these other people that wanted to build community. So that's, I think that's the last thing I would say.

Peyton Estabrook: 36:39

Wonderful point to end on. I

Michael Leopold: 36:40

like that. Alina and Peyton, thank you so much for being on the uptick. Join us next time.

Alina Lawas Osborn: 36:46

Thank you so much for having us. Thank you

Peyton Estabrook: 36:48

Thanks for having us.

Michael Leopold: 36:52

Thank you for listening to the uptick, brought to you by The New Jersey Center for Tourette syndrome and associated disorders, empowering you to stretch the boundaries to live your best life. You.