Thank you for the opportunity. Like probably many of us, I always knew I wanted to be in veterinary medicine in some capacity. Even in middle school and then going into high school, I started working at a practice. Neurodivergence was not even a word back then, so that never crossed my mind until much later. But I always had that affinity for animals, for science, for learning, and it took me into vet school.

Coming out of vet school, I started in small animal private practice, where I was for about a decade, and I got very burnt out. I thought, for sure, the solution to my burnout would be relief work. I thought I would be able to leave the stress and chaos of any practice and bounce on to the next one down the street. And in that, I did actually find that I felt a lot better, and then I ended up burning out again.

That brought me full circle. I started seeing veterinary professionals experiencing the same thing I was experiencing in every different hospital I went into, no matter the structure, management, how it was run, good, bad, or indifferent. It made me identify that there was a common theme here. A lot of us are struggling, and no one is really bringing that to the forefront and having an honest conversation about it.

I never really knew it was a thing until I was in my burnout journey of healing. I inadvertently was actually coaching veterinary professionals in my relief work. When we go into a practice as relief doctors, people often see us as the new doctor who is going to save the day. Most of the time we are very welcome.

People felt comfortable saying, you are not in our inner circle, but you get the profession, so I can expand on my frustrations and challenges. We would have open dialogue, and I realized I was actually coaching these people. They were looking for support from someone who could identify what they were dealing with, but not someone they directly worked with. That is how it started. Then I found out about coaching and thought, oh, this is a thing. This is exactly what I need to be doing.

Sadly, it was not one point in my life. It was a culmination of situations and challenges. I finally thought, how much more do I want to suffer? Going into relief work was helpful because for a short period of time I did not feel burnt out. It was new. It was novel. That should have been a hint that there was probably some sort of neurodivergence there, but I missed that completely.

It became, how much more am I going to take and just be miserable? I could not see myself doing this for ten or twenty years. Therapy was what showed me the word burnout. I really was not aware of what that was. When I started reading about it, I thought, oh wow, this is me to a T, and this has been me for years.

In a way, it made me feel a little better because I realized this is a thing. I am not by myself. There is nothing wrong with me. Now this is something we can move through versus something I just have to suffer through because everyone else is.

I was just diagnosed last year, late diagnosed as a 42 year old. Looking back, it connected the dots. Some people say they go through a lot of guilt, frustration, or anger. I remember thinking, yes, but no, because this was always me. It just means there are more people like me out there.

What brought everything to the surface was that I had started therapy almost a decade before. I had a therapist I had a really good connection with and saw every other week for almost eight years. There was never a discussion of neurodivergence, autism, ADHD, or anything. I am not knocking therapy. I learned a lot in therapy. But I think the parameters we use to diagnose and identify girls and women are just now catching up.

I also want people to know that if they are seeking therapy and feel like there is a missing piece, that was it for me. The final icing on the cake was starting perimenopause. There is a lot of support showing that ADHD women may hit perimenopause earlier. I did not realize what was happening until it smacked me upside the head.

I literally thought I was having dementia. I could not remember anything. I was in clinical practice at the time, and I remember being scared because I could not remember things or have a conversation with people. That is what led me to seek out that there was something else here. I got a diagnosis of ADHD first, and then the next appointment I said, I am pretty sure I am autistic as well. I went through the testing and got formally diagnosed with both.

The first thought I had was, oh wow, this makes a lot of sense. The second thought was, oh my gosh, this is why I burnt out. And I think this is happening to a lot of people in veterinary medicine, and they have no idea.

I joke with my parents that when I was a little kid, I did not like the seams in my socks. There was a meme I saw not long ago about being a little kid complaining about the seams in socks and then getting diagnosed as autistic as an adult. I sent it to my parents, and they were like, oh my goodness, you are?

It started very early. Wearing denim jeans was a sensory thing. As far as practice goes, it was a production. I would put on a show for people. The masking when I went into exam rooms and had conversations, I literally just thought that was good customer service.

I realized I was subconsciously taking in people’s body language, micro expressions, what they said and did not say, and then filling in the gaps to make sure they felt taken care of. The problem was I was over functioning, over explaining, hypervigilant, and that was really the breaking point for me.

The biggest one was client interactions. Before going into an exam room, I would literally think, will the fire alarm go off? Maybe I do not have to go into this room. It could be the best, nicest client who loves education, and I enjoy that, but it was so draining to me. I wondered if everyone else felt that way. It never occurred to me that I might be different than someone else.

I just felt like a high achiever who was putting too much thought into it. But when you might see 15 to 25 new people in a day, and we put that into perspective through neurodivergence, we do not give ourselves enough credit for how exhausting that truly is.

I have done the same and given myself bandwidth to not explain myself. The mask has just come off, and that has been an interesting journey. Looking back gave me permission to see that what I was experiencing was not because I did not do enough, or could have done it differently, or could have done it better. That was honestly very validating.

There is not one event. It just starts melding into one. The more I was in practice as a doctor, the more I saw that there were patterns. This happened before, this is the same kind of situation, so I need to get ahead of it. For me, a lot of that was client interactions and the thought that this client might be upset with me.

Then I am overcompensating, crossing T’s and dotting I’s. I am double checking that person, or going out of my way to answer emails on my day off because if I wait another day, they might be upset, and then I have to deal with that. We rationalize that the hypervigilant things we are doing are helpful and are what we should be doing.

One of my coaching clients put words to something I had been thinking about, which was that sense of urgency that was always there. It is led by hypervigilance: remember that one time you did not do the thing and that happened? If you do it now and get ahead of it, you should be fine. That mental loop is so exhausting and can be detrimental.

I see that a lot too. We have convinced ourselves that this is what we are supposed to be doing because we have done it so many times. I ask, why are you doing this, and what is your goal? Often people realize they are afraid of what a client or colleague might think of them. That is the bigger piece we have to peel back.

I definitely ignored all the red flags my body and brain were telling me and just steamrolled through that for a decade plus in practice. The biggest one was lighting. When we would have a euthanasia, we would dim the lights so everyone knew, and I would think, this is so nice. Can we just keep the fluorescent lights off? Fluorescent lighting does nothing for anyone other than helping us see better on exam. Other than that, it is not inviting.

Noise was big too. I can deal with certain things, but a dog that will not stop barking, a ringing phone at the same time, and then a client service representative or technician asking me a question, and I would think, I have no idea what you just asked me. I am very close to ripping my hair out. But the funny, not funny thing is that I never showed any of that. I felt it inside. I thought I was burnt out and irritable, but really I was ignoring what would have been ideal for me.

My shoulders were up to my ears. I was walking around tense all day. I still struggle with migraines, although they are much better. My head and neck were constantly tight. I would realize I was tight, but I would not address it. I would just continue to do the next thing.

Even taking five minutes to remove myself from the noise and lights, just to bring myself down to baseline, was something I never did. As I started doing relief work, I realized I would run to the bathroom and sit there in the quiet for five minutes. Only once did someone knock on the door and say, Dr. Parks? I thought, please give me five minutes. It was an emergency, but even taking five minutes was not crossing my mind as something I should have done or that would have helped me.

Task switching is something we almost pride ourselves on. I know I did. I would think, I can multitask, isn’t that great? Meanwhile, that is the worst thing. Can I do it? Yes. But what do we always say to clients? Just because you can do it does not mean we should be doing it.

It was incredibly taxing on concentration and mental bandwidth, and it did not have the outward benefit I thought it did. It felt like I was taking care of everyone else, so I thought it was great. Meanwhile, it would take me another five minutes to get back to what I was doing and where my train of thought was.

I would be in surgery and someone would ask for a calculation, and I would say, grab a calculator and I will tell you the calculation. But really, I was in surgery. This was not a life or death calculation for a dose the dog was going home with later. It could wait. In my mind, it was hypervigilance. Let me just get this done. It is one less thing I have to do. I would change that if I could.

A lot of neuroinclusive things are just beneficial for people as humans. I do not think bouncing back and forth between appointments, exam rooms, phones, and questions benefits anyone. We do it, so we do not think twice, but I have yet to meet someone who actually benefits from being pulled in multiple directions like that.

I see a lot of common themes. One is, if I do not do this, it will not get done. Or if I do not do this, my coworker will do it and it will not be perfect, so I am just going to do it because it will be faster. I am guilty of all of these.

We start doing it out of necessity, but then convince ourselves this is working and this is what we need to do to continue. It is like a speeding freight train. We pile on more things and it gets more complex. Most of the time, that is when I meet my clients. They say, I cannot do this anymore. They are doing the job of three people and they know that, but they also feel like they cannot stop.

That is not a rational thought, so we have to break down what is really going on underneath the waterline. There are fears we have to get to. Then there are tangible, tactical things, like how to have a conversation with a client who wants to suck your time away, or a colleague or coworker who is not pulling their weight. A lot of times we know what we need to do, but the fears drive the internal dialogue that says, this is not going to go well, you might lose your job, or they will think you are X, Y, and Z. So we do not do it, and we repeat the cycle.

There are a lot of costs we do not realize. Part of it is that we do not know ourselves. We actually do not know what we want. I will ask clients what they want, and they often say, I do not really know, but I know it is not this thing I am experiencing. We are always managing everyone else and making sure everyone else is taken care of.

I once heard someone say people pleasing is a way of manipulation. I had never looked at it that way before. We think if we are people pleasing, we are making other people feel good, and that it is a good thing. But that perspective made me realize I did not want to be doing that, and I did not really know myself. We do this for years and decades, so it is hard to look at it through a different lens.

Yes. I joke that I stopped asking anyone in vet med what their hobbies are because no one has them, or they have a bunch, or it is our pets. When I ask what they do, they often do not know what would light them up. As long as it is not the thing that is exhausting, maybe it would be cool. But we do not really know.

I love the identity work because especially if you are a veterinarian, high school, college, and vet school condition us to look for what other people think is acceptable, not only for grades but for validation. We lose ourselves because we never really develop ourselves in that process.

A lot of us are solution based and problem solvers. Because we are capable, there is no concept that we should not do something. If we are capable and can do it, why would we not? That is where the loop happens. Then throw in guilt and shame. They are capable, and they can do those things, but when we experience guilt for not doing them, that is where we get stuck and repeat the cycle.

Society conditions us to be team players and go all out. Yes, but like anything else, there has to be a boundary around that because no one else is going to give us that boundary. If we do not have it for ourselves, it is a bad recipe.

Yes. I see people who do not feel comfortable slowing down. On their day off, they will clean the house, go work in the barn, and keep going. I get that because I did all of those things. But can you do something where the outcome does not matter, simply because you enjoy it? Can you do something with no productive outcome and enjoy it? A lot of times, that is not how we view life outside of work.

So many people carry the idea that they have to be productive and give to others to be valuable. I ask, if you sat on the couch and did nothing productive, were not scrolling, were not watching TV, what does that feel like for you? A lot of people say it does not feel great. That is where we have to change the pattern.

The biggest first step is to give myself compassion. Self compassion actually feels really good. It is part of the unmasking. I can say, I am going to forget that thing, so maybe I should write it down. Or if I forget, instead of getting frustrated, I can think, oh, that is the ADHD part. Moving on.

Now I know. Before, I would have just beat myself up that I forgot. But I have 300 tabs open on my computer and in my brain, and they are all running different things and talking at the same time. I like to do things that I know have worked for me. I like to be organized, but not too structured.

The biggest thing is when I am not feeling something. Whether it is work or an activity, I still have to make a conscious agreement with myself: right now, I am going to elect not to do that thing, and it is okay. This is not going to be one of those days where I do a bunch of stuff, and it is still okay.

A lot of it comes back to intention. I had a client in contract negotiations who had a conversation with her boss. The outcome was not what she wanted, but nothing changed. The ball was still in her court. She got flustered and overwhelmed because nothing changed. I said, hold on. You would not have had this conversation three weeks ago, so can we celebrate that?

It is easy to spiral into, I did not do it right, I did not say it right, they took it wrong, they think I am high maintenance. But would you have even tiptoed around the idea of this conversation three weeks ago? Probably not. That perspective can bring people back down to earth. It is a night and day difference.

You will probably laugh, but when I think left unattended, I think of the first time I was probably a solo doctor by myself and my receptionist came running back because there was an emergency. I thought, whoa, okay, hold on, let me ask an adult. And then I thought, oh, hold on. That is me. I was left unattended.

I think part of neurodivergence is that we always feel like kids, while at the same time we feel so much older. I felt that throughout my whole life. Being left unattended makes me assume and hope there is someone else there who knows more than I do. Now I realize it does not matter if that person is there or not. I know what I need to do. And if I do not know what I need to do, I know where to find the answer.

I mostly hang out on social media on Instagram at @dr.amberparks, or on my website, thestressandburnoutcoach.com.

Thank you so much for this opportunity. I think we could talk forever. We will have to do a lecture somewhere or something together. I would love that. I think getting both perspectives would be really powerful.