• Tide pooling

• D&D

• Being in nature

• Adventures

• Raves

• Magic the Gathering TCG

• Video games

• Finding good food places

• Cooking breakfast foods

• Ice cream

• Lucid dreaming

• Baking

• Creating wild stories

ADHD

• No current pets. I grew up with dogs and cats. One day I hope to have a small home that I can turn into a cat's dream home.

• My Girlfriend has a handsome cat named Jamison who I adore.

• A little bit of everything!

• I have been recently going through my music collection that has accumulated from when I was 11 years old and favoriting every song that I really enjoy to make a true favorites playlist of all my music. In this playlist you can find some jazz, hip-hop/rap, classical, country, EDM(electronic dance music), pop, rock, punk-rock, heavy metal, alt-rock, alternative, Reggae, R&B/Soul, folk, & more. I even enjoy music in other languages. I may not understand what's being said but the sounds are so enjoyable none the less.

I have enjoyed video games since the Gameboy came out. Since then I have saved my money to purchase consoles every couple years. As such I now have a collection of almost every console since the super Nintendo and games for all of them as well. My current gaming is done mostly on PC with occasional games on PS5. I enjoy survival crafters, strategy games, rogue likes, souls likes, and games with good stories. I am currently playing Mewgenics.

Hi 😊, my name is Jacob Williams. Some things to know about me, I have worked with the neurodiverse population for over nine years, ranging in age from four and up. Some examples; in college I worked with Oregon DOHS for two years as a care giver for a child has with a rare form of autism. We worked on things like motor skills and safety, such as crawling, walking up stairs, and getting down stairs safely.

After graduation I worked for a neurodiverse school in Federal Way that helped teenagers work in community service jobs and build life skills such as going to the grocery store.

Finally, for the past five years I have worked at Seattle Children’s Hospital on the Pediatric Behavioral Medicine unit where I coach children in mental/emotional crises. 

Why have I chosen to work in these fields?

Simple, I am neurodivergent (big time ADHD) and understand that most of society is not geared towards neurodiverse thinking. I want to help change this.

I believe neurodiversity to be a strength, and want to help others realize this as well. This starts with self-investment: helping find one’s creative abilities, to grow their own self-esteem, and become more comfortable understanding who they are.

An example is my story of using my ADHD strength:

While in college I learned how to channel my ADHD into what I was focusing on. Before my incoming thoughts were something like 20%- helpful, 70%- not pertinent, and 10%- annoying. I was able to get my incoming thoughts to be 70%-helpful, 20%-not pertinent, and 10%-annoying. Once I figured out how to channel my ADHD thoughts, I found the best way to apply them was in creating study guides/study rooms.

Using the study rooms at my university’s library, where all the walls were white boards, I let loose. When I started to receive top grades in difficult classes other students began to ask me what I was doing. I would invite them to my study sessions and before I knew it, I had made a group of friends that would study with me for the remainder of my junior and senior years. All of whom also started to receive better grades (mostly A’s). This was all possible because of my neurodivergent brain. 

What do I do for fun?

When not at work one can find me writing, drawing, creating voice memos, playing Dungeons & Dragons, enjoying video games with my friends, talking with my family, and enjoying the outdoors - be that rain or sun as a true Seattleite does :P.

One important aspect of myself is that I love to be by myself. Being alone with my thoughts is incredibly important to me.

My parents use to tell stories where I would be alone in my room for the majority of the day playing with my action figures and beanie babies - only coming out if I needed to use the restroom or if it was lunch or dinner time.

As an adult this has stuck, but instead of playing with action figures or beanie babies, I enjoy writing, drawing, and being creative. 

I come to A Life of my Own all wrapped up in a swirling ball of positive energy. 

In their free time, Jesse spends as much time as possible outside with their partner and their dog, Basil. Other interests include — but are definitely not limited to!: DOGS and other animals, plants, watching basketball, Pokemon, learning about all things related to neurodiversity, and a ton of other interests that come and go and sometimes get picked back up again later :)

I’m ADHD, autistic, and have OCD, anxiety, and a history of depression and social anxiety. I’m also learning disabled: I have dyslexia and dyscalculia. I also struggle with auditory processing and sensory processing sometimes.

I have an 8yo Australian Shepherd named Basil. She’s a troublemaker, and we love her for it 🙂

Diagnosed as ADHD when she was 15, and then (thanks to some of her really persistent students who kept pointing things out to her!) realizing shortly after college that she's also autistic, Jesse did not always have the best experiences in school as a young neurodivergent kid. Focus and reading have always been difficult for her, but luckily she had Bex (see bio below) as her mom to advocate for her.

Away from that support in college, however, she had trouble getting the right accommodations, and with people either not understanding her barriers or, worse, thinking she just wasn't trying hard enough... From that frustration, Jesse quickly realized that they were most passionate about supporting other neurodivergent people. In college, it became her mission to ensure that other neurodivergent students coming up after her would have the support and access to the things that she lacked during her years in school.

Not liking what she had already seen and experienced on every side of the education and mental health fields, she worked through school with the goal of filling those gaps in mind.

After graduation, Jesse joined Bellevue College's Neurodiversity Navigators (formerly Autism Spectrum Navigators) program as a peer mentor in 2016, and quickly became a key member of the team. Two years later, she became Program Manager and led the team of peer mentors in their work with students. It was incredibly rewarding to be part of a team that was breaking down some of the ableism in higher education that she had once been on the receiving end of. She loved to see students thrive with the right support, and after years of working alongside them, achieve their full potential while being their true selves. She was part of a wonderful team that made so much difference in students' lives, and enjoyed working under her professional idol and mentor, Sara Gardner (no relation) immensely.

Wanting to continue to work towards her goal of supporting people in all the ways that she’d needed support growing up (including outside of school), she realized that her mom, Bex, had already been doing that work over at A Life of My Own. Jesse made the jump over to ALOMO in September 2023. Being friends with Marc and Jacob for years before becoming coworkers, she's loved joining a new team full of wonderful humans, and hearing all of their innovative ideas for supporting clients.