What happens when a late-diagnosed neurodivergent adult and childhood trauma survivor who spent years consulting for Dell and the Discovery Channel decides to build the world's first podcast network entirely focused on mental health — and then spends the next decade interviewing every expert on the planet, mostly to figure out what was going on with herself? In this episode of the Trustcast Show, Zane Myers speaks with Kristin Walker, founder of the Mental Health News Radio Network, about what it took to launch 18 shows in six months when nobody knew what a podcast network was, why she says she's been masking her competence her whole life rather than her incompetence, and how she completely rejected the deficit-based narrative the moment she got her autism and ADHD diagnosis two years ago. Kristin explains what makes a mental health interview do harm instead of good, why she started writing under a pen name to give herself a space away from her own reputation, and what she actually posts on TikTok that generates essays in the comments from deep thinkers. They also discuss the Autism Podcast Network she carved out as a sub-network seven years before most people were talking about late diagnosis, why she thinks differently abled is the right frame and disabled is not, how COVID blew the stigma around mental health out of the water in a useful way, and what she means by trauma-informed storytelling. Kristin Walker is the founder of the Mental Health News Radio Network, host of Mental Health News Radio, and author of The Tuning Fork Was Mine All Along, published under her pen name Joi Sun. Her network spans over 75 shows downloaded in more than 170 countries. Connect with Kristin Walker: MHNRnetwork.com info@MHNRnetwork.com TikTok and Substack: Joi Sun / Joi Sun Path Books on Amazon: Joi Sun Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Kristin Walker 01:06 The thread connecting medical billing, Dell, the Discovery Channel, and mental health podcasting 02:16 How the consulting work let a high masker be blunt and leave before the pitchforks arrived 03:11 What masking actually means and why it costs something to keep doing it 04:24 Over 75 shows across 170 countries and what the network actually looks like 05:49 How a five-show goal by end of 2017 turned into 18 shows by August 07:03 How the network generates income and stays funded 08:21 How she got diagnosed with ADHD and later autism as an adult 11:04 Rejecting the deficit narrative — masking competence not incompetence 12:33 Why labels are okay as data but she doesn't live and die by them 13:13 The tyranny of low expectations and what differently abled actually means 16:29 How to join the network or start a podcast from scratch 18:37 What makes a mental health interview do more harm than good 20:01 Why she carved out the Autism Podcast Network as its own sub-network 21:06 Keeping mental health issues private when employers make that risky 23:10 Writing under the pen name Joi Sun and why she needed a separate container 24:44 Two books on Amazon and hundreds of articles on Substack 26:07 Rapid fire questions 28:22 What she posts on TikTok and why the interactions there are extraordinary 30:41 The Digital Tech Initiative — when a good idea is just too early 31:50 What the network looks like over the next few years 33:06 Using late diagnosis as an excuse versus using it as a starting point 35:30 Where to find the shows and the Joi Sun content #KristinWalker #MentalHealthNewsRadio #NeurodivergentAdults #LateD diagnosis #AutismPodcast #JoiSun #MHNRNetwork #TrustcastShow #TraumaInformedStorytelling #DifferentlyAbled
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