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[00:00:00] Welcome to ADHD Gathering
Welcome to ADHD Gathering. I’m your host, Ying Deng, also known as ADHD Asian girl. I’m an award-winning ADHD coach, certified meditation teacher, and featured expert in Self Magazine. Your ADHD brain is not a problem to fix. It’s an ecosystem to understand. Let’s explore it together.
[00:00:18] Ying: Welcome to ADHD gathering. And this is another episode in the mini series of me asking the question of how do we collectively face this moment?
[00:00:28] Meet Dian Dian
[00:00:28] Ying: So today I have a good friend with me, Dian Dian, the community organizer and researcher working at their intersections of gender, sexuality, migration, and labor.
They received a PhD in women’s gender and sexuality studies from Emory University. Dian has been involved in lgbtq plus and feminist movements since 2009. And now based in Seattle. They serve as research and campaign coordinator at Massage Parlor Organizing project and support community building among overseas Chinese queer woman.
Dian, we met through Women’s overseas Forum and we had a lot of overlap interests of mindfulness, meditation, Buddhism, and then later ADHD that’s how we kept in touch. thank you for showing up at my podcast.
[00:01:17] Diandian: Yeah, thank you for inviting me. You are the one who, let me realize that I actually have ADHD so thank you so much for that. That really was a life changer for me in my last year of my PhD.
[00:01:32] Ying: I’m really glad that I posted about my own diagnosis, on Women Overseas Forum and that prompted a lot of folks to do some self-reflection and then, they later realized, they actually have ADHD. So I really would love to talk to you about how you’re personally perceiving and navigating this moment.
And I’m really curious about your perspective as somebody who, I know you studied history before, and then you’re in social movement type of work. So how are you perceiving and navigating this current moment?
[00:02:09] Navigating a Chaotic Moment
[00:02:09] Diandian: Yeah, like both things you mentioned, like my history major before and my current work in social movements, they are both double sided, give me that sensitivity of realizing we are definitely in, a very interesting moment, lot of changes happening in the world and not necessarily in good directions. So I’m definitely seeing the increasing crisis, the, polarization of people’s views, the conflicts, all these. But on the other side, because I’ve seen history through this. Human beings went through a lot of these moments in the history and also in social movement.
We are dealing with these kind of injustice and crisis and conflicts every day. So this also give me some peace, I guess because. I just continue it’s not a shock to me. I’ve been dealing with, political pressures, since I start my activism.
For me, navigating this moment, it just like navigating my daily life. Of course we share more reflections like now, maybe people, my friends who were not that, into politics now start to talk about it or worry about it. But generally my life is not that different. We get slightly busier because, I’m working to help immigrant workers in the US now, they are, undergoing many crisis, even they got attacked, targeted. We have a lot more work to do to try to support them. But besides that, it’s normal to me. And, actually doing something for the vulnerable population makes me feel slightly better.
[00:04:21] Ying: Thank you for sharing that. That’s so interesting. Contextualizing through history and understanding that this moment is not that different from what we have faced in history, and through your own life of doing activism having multiple marginalized identities that navigating the political pressure is part of daily life.
I’m really curious how do your multiple layers of identities of neurodivergence or queerness, culture, background, immigrant, shape your experiences and response to this moment.
[00:04:59] Identity and Organizing
[00:04:59] Diandian: What’s interesting is I’ve noticed that community organizers like me tend to be, disproportionately women or queer people or immigrants or people of color and of course neurodivergent folks like we are. At the two organizations I work with now, one focus on, migrant worker label rights, other on queer feminism, more than half of my colleagues also have ADHD. There’s definitely something there. One side is when you’ve experienced a system trying to standardize you. If you grow up in that environment and you realize that’s how this system work, you develop a sharper sense of injustice.
You understand what it feels like to be pushed to margins and that understanding becomes wanting to change things for people like us. And the other side is also, in the social movement area. I don’t want to idealize it, of course there are many problems.
There are many, burdens, labor of love, a lot of care work, But there is generally a sense that we are not expecting people to act normal, we are all marginalized people drawn to the movement, for justice because we’ve experienced exclusion too.
For example, my colleagues makes me feel more comfortable. One time, we forgot, to bring the keys and we’re stuck outside laughing at each other.
But it’s a good feeling like we’re not blame each other or feel that’s a bad thing. But we are like, oh see, that’s our ADHD and we are laughing at it. So I guess spaces tend to be more accommodating for different working styles or for, neurodivergent people.
But of course it’s not perfect. I don’t want to idealize the workplace for social justice work, but, for me it’s my comfort zone.
[00:07:09] Ying: So it’s like the social movement and work draws people from, the neurodivergent communities and people who have experienced exclusion and have experienced a system trying to, erase the part of them that makes them uniquely them, trying to standardize them.
[00:07:29] China vs US Activism
[00:07:29] Ying: I’m also curious about, we’re recording this, February 18th, 2026, and we’re in the United States, so that’s the bigger context we’re dealing with, I’m really curious about what’s the similarities and difference of doing the social movement work, when you were back in China versus now.
I do think the US now is a lot more chaotic compared to maybe a decade ago. It is really interesting I reflect on how naive I was or a lot of probably millennials were. When we grew up seeing the U.S under Obama, and that’s a large draw, for me to oh, I wanna study in the US.
So it’s quite a contrast by learning history. Now I understand there’s always been the US as the ideal and the US as the reality of, slavery and Jim Crow and a lot of the history, but that’s not really taught and talked about. I’m really curious about how you are experiencing social movement work in this particular time as an immigrant contrasting your work, when you were in China?
[00:08:41] Diandian: Yeah, I see you mentioned that you didn’t know the true history until you’ve been here for a while. And that’s the experience we have in China. Like until I became a history major that I learned some hidden history of China. And we are like nowadays joking that the US is becoming more and more like China, so we are less homesick now.
[00:09:07] Risk and Concrete Action
[00:09:07] Diandian: Because we worried as activists in China when we do some campaigns publicly, we might get harassed by the police or, our organizations got shut down. All these things we experience as feminist and queer activists in China now happening for us when we work for immigrants rights anti some war that US is causing globally. There’s still space there, even still space in China. I have many of my previous colleagues still stay in China working for social justice. Of course we see now like the US is also censoring people’s social media. So we are all at that risk. Like when we are now going to a protest in the U.S we just do what we trying to do some protests in China. We want everyone to manage the risks, trying to cover themselves. We have many safety concerns. We have strategies navigating that and sharing that. That’s one side, the risk side. But I still wanna focus on these actions, things that I can do. The method, that I can trying to, navigate all these political pressure is just to focus on what I can do the actions in my reach.
Like what I can do to make myself more safe in a comfortable level, like not too troublesome level. Like I won’t delete my phone chat log and everything every day, but maybe I’ll, check that every month. But after I did what I think I can do, I’ll just let go of other things, like if something happened, I see it as an accident, not see it as something that I can control but didn’t. I won’t trying to control everything and, that offers some peace of mind for me. Also as a community organizer, I think what keeps me going is having my follow organizers, like my colleagues, my friends who share the same value they are around me.
What’s most important is that we don’t just talk about the current affairs abstractly. We do some concrete things, for example, writing letters to people detained in immigration detention centers. We go visit them. And we host community events, public events around issues.
Last Friday we have a screening of the film working the lines about how Chinese people, especially after the, Pandemic, trying to crossing the border like they went through a long road to go to the, US Mexico border and trying to cross the border from the current government’s perspective illegally. They are just migrating like human beings doing in its whole history. The film also reviews the interesting contracts. People admit after one or two years, they admit that their American dream was broken or they actually feel like the reality is quite different. Of course, there are also people who feel more satisfying in the U.S but the film, focus on these real people, walking the line. But we also have a panel with, organizers talking about the complexity, behind that, the US China relationship, the different sides of the American Dream, all these kind of things. And it’s event that attracts a lot of people. So I think, holding these events can be as large as a public film screening with this panel discussion or round table, but it can also be some small things like several friends book class what can be done, in our work and life, with that insights. Also, we sometimes do workshops for the, people we care about, like for immigrant workers, for queer people. That’s the community I work with.
But there are always many things, the tangible things, that we can do to have more connection with the community. And I think that’s what keeps me going.
[00:13:52] Ying: Yeah, I love that. So a lot of different sides of tangible things that can be done. What you said about, the different practices that could make something a little safer. I think that was really difficult for me to grasp ’cause I was someone who never touched politics when I was in China. ‘Cause my dad was very hard line of don’t touch politics. So that was how I grew up. Like very black or white. And it’s really helpful for me to learn, there are different ways that you can make something slightly safer for yourself. It may not be all the way safe, but you can mitigate the risk to some extent.
You talked a lot about what value driven action looks like in this moment. I’m curious what practices are sustaining you, whether it’s meditation or self-care practices, whether it’s other parts of life. We already talked about having friends and other community organizers who share similar values that’s sustaining you.
I’m curious about what other practices that are sustaining you?
[00:14:55] Daily Practices That Sustain
[00:14:55] Diandian: Yeah, pretty basic things, like deep breathing. For me, as an ADHDer, keeping a to-do list is so important for me. I feel like my days can be divided into the days I forgot to keep a to do list and the days I did. Also drinking enough water.
I try to buy more convenient water bottle to motivate me to do that. Also moving my body. That’s something I picked up last year and really feel it’s improved my mental and physical health. And of course talking to friends who get it, yeah, just these daily things.
Nothing revolutionary, but all of it matters and that’s what politics means. I think politics just, means things for multiple people.
[00:15:48] Redefine Politics
[00:15:48] Diandian: But of course I totally get you, before college, I also thought politic is some dirty sh*t that’s not for common people especially in China. Like it’s dangerous. It’s dirty. People are afraid of that history, history of cultural revolution. everyone was encouraged to become the mess. But it’s not really going in a good direction. Yeah, so our parents’ generation definitely feel like politics is not a good thing. In the US people don’t have the trust to the elite, the politicians. But politics can be not like that. It can be community mutual aid. Basic things shared among people. I prefer to start politics from that bottom up way.
Both of my organizations are decentralized. We don’t have a top down organizing mode. We are democratic, in organizing ourselves, and that’s also our way to push the political campaign. Instead of just trying to reach out to the officers, the legislatives, we prioritize our real connection with the community, with people we wanna fight for their rights. Of course we need to do a little bit of both, if we wanna push some campaign or make a new law. But I feel like the most important thing is to focus on the people around us.
[00:17:28] Ying: That’s really good of focusing on the individual and the community level. Maybe not so much top down of focusing on the legislative and the representative, like the politician level. I’m curious about as somebody who’s been in social movement, what would your advice for folks who just got interested in politics, in this current moment, in this current context. How can people get into politics or social movements, like where do people even start? I think that’s what I observe a lot is when event happen and then people have strong emotions and then of course they wanna do something.
Sometimes it’s unclear, what can we do? What’s available? What’s possible? So I’m curious about, what do you think people can do if they wanna get involved? What does that look like?
[00:18:19] How to Get Involved
[00:18:19] Diandian: Yeah, there are so many different levels of things. Like the easiest thing is if you are on social media, You can see a lot of, online campaigns going on, or donations or, some articles, one-on-one to the campaigns they promote there.
Maybe If you feel like the flow of information is too much and it didn’t give you the concrete feeling of doing something I think it’s important to trying to meet someone face to face.
Trying to connect to specific, people in the communities you care about. It can be simple as just trying to small talk with someone in that community. Like we do a lot of door to door outreach to the restaurants, to massage parlors, to direct talk with the workers, and that’s how we build community with them. Recently, we have that ice out campaign that we still go door to door. Canvas in our neighborhood, just to common people to share with them about the impact of ice, to the community and encourage them to say no to them.
All these things, feels really concrete for me. But of course I know like talking to people face to face sometimes, for me that’s easier From when I was still doing queer movements in China. when I promote LGBTQs online, I got all these abusive words
[00:19:58] Ying: Oh wow.
[00:19:59] Diandian: But when I, just work in a random park in Beijing and ask people passing by there, even, those old people that you imagine them to be conservative, but if you ask them, what’s your opinion on, LGBTQ and they are actually polite. No one curse me or say really dirty things on me like people do online.
I actually feel safer for, face to face communication. Now I understand that. Cursing online no longer affects me, but if people imagine the real world is just like online world, they might be less likely to go outside and meet people, but it’s not the same.
That’s my experience. I encourage people to go out, meet your peers. it won’t be that hard. Moved to Seattle for two years, I joined the community here and, built my chosen family here in two years.
[00:21:03] Ying: I think you’re extroverted.
[00:21:05] Diandian: But even for introvert, low energy people, I think there are still many things you can do as I mentioned, online reading club, just found some info online, but not just reading them. really, join one or two events. It can be very low key, mute yourself, keep the camera off, but just started. For me, if I hear someone else voices, see what they really do and join it in some way instead of just, reading the news and info, but trying to put in something.
It can be a $1 donation or it can be you make a comment or even just quote some of things that you found valuable in your journal that you keep to yourself. Maybe just copy paste it, do something small. Action. That’s how I manage my anxiety. I learned that from my PhD years, like my anxiety about everything that’s happening around me or happening the world. The best way to manage is to do something however small that is, but that’s something grounding for me.
[00:22:23] Micro Actions and Connection
[00:22:23] Ying: I love what you said about micro action that could be grounding, and it doesn’t have to be something big. It could just be listening in on online conversation or making a comment or donating small amounts or making small talks to somebody in real life. One thing I’ve done after making one local friend, she has lived in the community I’ve currently live in for a couple decades.
She would walk down the street. if we see people, she would wave. I’m like, oh my God, what is this? Because I’m from Shanghai, I’m still not used to waving to people. But now I’ve done that. If I walk my dog, I see people, I feel like hi. And people feel like saying hi back.
It’s great. It’s nice. at first it was like, this is bizarre. but slowly it got easier. Yeah.
[00:23:09] Diandian: I totally understand. I’m extrovert, but I have a lot of introvert friends and partner. All of my partners are introvert.
I’m actually different from most of people I know, like most of chinese immigrants, I know became more extrovert when they came to the US and speaking in English dropped their baggage of the culture normal of, being polite, being moderate. So they became more extrovert. But for me, because I’ve been so extrovert when I’m using mother tongue, but my English not as good. So I actually became, more introvert when speaking English.
and I also start practicing with, dog walk talk and that’s very helpful. When you are not so confident talking I feel dogs build connection in a more comfortable and safe level.
[00:24:10] Ying: Yeah. That’s true. Honestly, I don’t think I can cuss in Chinese, but I have no problem cussing in English.
[00:24:15] Diandian: Yeah. Our culture really don’t encourage girls to be expressive.
[00:24:21] Ying: The final question is what feels possible and what feels necessary and what are some examples of resistance and sources of hope you’re seeing in your life, in your community.
[00:24:32] Hope and What Is Necessary
[00:24:32] Diandian: Yeah what feels possible? Anything feels possible? Just a lot more is possible than we normally think. Many of the limitations are what we set for ourselves. I’m not saying that you can change everything or control everything, but if you believe it’s impossible, then it won’t happen anyways.
And if you wanna make a change is happening on you at least. And that’s a change. That’s how I see what feels possible. Like changing myself is changing one of my friend is changing.
I don’t need to change the whole world. And that’s out of my reach actually. But I don’t want to limit myself. I can do something, at least I got change. So what feels necessary?
It’s baseline, just being alive. I’m present.
Don’t die. Because if you die then of course you cannot change myself, so just trying to be alive, trying to be present when you can, that’s the baseline. You don’t need to be perfect. You don’t need to change everything around you.
[00:25:46] Ying: I love that. I love the if we try to make a change, at least we’re changing ourselves. it reminds me, Octavia’s Butler’s quote is one of my favorite quotes Of all that you touch, you change all that, you change changes you. ‘Cause I was wrestling with this question last week of what if, all decentralized micro goodness collectively still don’t outweigh the structural evil. Then what? I was really like struggling with that. But I love what you said about if I try to make a change, at least I’m changing myself and that is change. That is possible. And how do you work with people who are like, maybe still don’t too into the news, whether it’s for, protecting their quote unquote inner peace or nervous system, or they’re just more removed from the situation.
I’m really struggling with this year of having people who still are able to tune out of the news. I’m like, wow. I really struggle with that. Like how do you interact with them?
[00:26:44] Diandian: Yeah. Most of my peers, my colleagues friends, we have shared values, but they’re also in conflicts. There are many things among feminist and among, lefties, but that’s another topic but inner conflicts always feel more traumatized because these are people you wanna trust and, you expect them high. And so when they disappoint you, you feel more hurt. And of course you share the same pressure, so sometimes this pressure from outside converts into your inner conflicts.
And that’s sad too because you are trigger each other’s trauma from like larger spaces. So actually that’s always not easy. The way you just describe it, like maybe some people need to keep their inner peace, maybe they are not ready for it. Yeah, just, to be understanding, to think of excuses for them. It’s better than blaming. And, in my daily life, because I work with migrant workers from all different backgrounds, of course they are different values, like they are Trump supporters. People who are really, Chinese nationalists, many of them, or there are people who simply says, oh, no one can be trusted.
They are all liars, especially Chinese people, because they were harmed. I guess it’s important to be curious, when people say something that’s the opposite of what you believe.
[00:28:23] Talking Across Differences
[00:28:23] Diandian: I, try to be curious what makes them think that way. From that, I learned a lot of insightful stories. Usually that’s how I start my conversation. because our organization support immigrant workers, especially when we do massage parlor outreach.
There are people who work as massage workers, but they also provide some kind of sex services. These two group of people sometimes hate each other, those who don’t do sex work will accused those do sex work. Pollute the whole industry, and, those two sex work already feel shamed so they can get defensive and, not easy to trust anyone, because they’ve always been stigmatized and judged. So all this makes the communication on the issue of sex work difficult, but no matter what they express, I always ask them, why they think that, what kind of story they’ve heard about sex work, whether they know a sex worker or not.
I’ll share with them my experience. I know friends be doing sex work. I know workers doing that during my outreach. So I’ll share real life stories instead of abstract theories of values. Stories is people’s real life experience that connects people
We can think of ourselves in the similar situation and trying to think of different strategies, different ways to see that. Instead of, there’s just yes, no answer to this. That’s also why I say everything’s possible because if you think the answer is one or there’s only, one correct answer to some situation, the possibility are limited.
But actually there are always a lot of possibilities. I even have right wing friends, although I work in these groups because I can see what makes them there. Their experience, their surroundings, like their choices of life. Study history also helps because history is all about stories. You’ve seen so many stories from those famous people to the common people. Because the recent, trends of history, we are focusing on common people stories more more, In all these, you can see that we are so different, but actually we are all human beings. That’s cliche, but that’s so true.
I think that’s what we start to connect. it’s not always possible. It’s a lot of care work. You need time to listen to others. When it’s not possible, the easiest way is to just communicate to those people you feel worth it. If you, push yourself to talk to someone that, the conversation is difficult and after that you feel like you are wasting your time and, that won’t work. It’s important to think why you want to talk to this person and what’s valuable there. I know my work seems to be trying to make change, but actually when people feels like you are trying to change their views, change them, they are, gonna go defensive. That’s also a common thing.
I feel like it’s humanity. so when you talk to them, really be curious, really trying to understand them rather than trying to change them, be a good listener. I’m still learning that. I think I do that better in my work than in my daily life. I’m learning, always trying to be a good listener it’s not a game that you need to win or the other side need to win. It’s more like a story sharing session. There’s not a judge about whose stories the right story or good story. It’s just stories.
[00:32:38] Ying: I love that. Being curious and sharing real stories in our life and hearing other people’s stories. It’s not a competition, it really is just story sharing. That’s super helpful.
Are there any final thing you wanna share about, or maybe c. For the collective of what the moment we’re in with your history wisdom.
[00:33:00] Closing Reflections and Care
[00:33:00] Diandian: Just take good care of yourself. I really like what my meditation teacher shared with me. What’s the most important time? It’s now. What’s the most important people? the person in front of you. And if you are with yourself, that’s yourself. And what’s the most important thing to do is to care.
I often remind myself of that.
[00:33:28] Ying: I love that. A person in front of you and doing something to care. Thank you for being on podcast. I really enjoy this conversation. thank you.
[00:33:37] Diandian: Thank you for inviting me.
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