We're diving into the delightful chaos of "An American (not) in Paris," a hilarious solo show by Liv Rocklin, hitting the stage at the Pittsburgh Fringe Festival from March 24th to March 28th. This isn't just any comedy; it's a vibrant mix of stand-up storytelling and musical comedy, all wrapped up in a package that’s equal parts relatable and riotous. Liv shares her journey through the ups and downs of life, sprinkled with a dash of ADHD and OCD humor, which we all know can be a wild ride! With Taylor Swift references and a hint of Lizzie McGuire nostalgia, Liv's show promises to tug at your heartstrings while also making you laugh until you snort. So, whether you’re a Pittsburgh local or just passing through, grab your tickets and prepare for a night of laughter at the Mr. Roboto Project!

An American (not) in Paris

Company: Liv Rocklin

Date(s): March 24, 2026 - March 28, 2026

Time(s): 6:35 pm, 1:00 pm

Genre: Comedy

Venue: Mr. Roboto Project

https://pittsburghfringe.org/events/an-american-not-in-paris/

Mentioned in this episode:

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Joe Bean Roasters

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Well, that music means it's time for another episode of Just Can't Not.

I'm your host, Chris Lindstrom, and this is part of our preview for the Pittsburgh Fringe Festival.

I know this is outside of our typical Rochester and surrounding area content, but the Fringe is universal and we're thrilled to partner with the Pittsburgh fringe for their 13th year running from March 19th to the 28th.

To learn more about all the shows and get Tickets, go to pittsburghfringe.org Tickets cap out at $20 and an entire event pass is only 150.

So make sure to go get your tickets today and join the action over on Pen Ave. And I have a guest guest.

Why don't you introduce yourself?

Hi, I'm Liv Rocklin.

I'm the writer performer of An American not in Paris.

And I'm super excited to be here.

Thank you for having me.

And to confirm, you are not an American Werewolf in Paris, Nor not in Paris.

No.

No.

So I guess, right, I can neither confirm nor deny the American Werewolf part, but I can confirm the not in Paris part.

Yes.

Not in Paris anymore.

Unfortunately, if I was an American Werewolf, I would love to be in Paris.

That's true.

That is completely fair.

I mean, you know, the London part, it didn't end as well as they would have hoped, but Paris, maybe the story would be.

Have a happier ending.

Right.

It's such a beautiful, like, romanticized place.

I feel like it would.

It would have gone different.

That was the one thing missing.

Yeah.

Completely differently.

So why don't you explain what is an American not in Paris?

And then also, let's just get the plugs out for the show.

So the show's over at the Mr. Roboto Project on March 24th, the 26th and the 28th.

The 24th and 26th are at 6:35pm, just like TBS used to be on the fives.

And then March 28th at the.

At the theater over at 1 o'.

Clock.

Tickets are $10 at pittsburghfringe.org yes.

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

So in America, not in Paris.

This is a solo show that I've been working with and touring for about the last year, year and a half.

Very much in the style of Rachel Bloom, Bo Burnham.

It has stand up storytelling, musical comedy, and then also one just like unironically sad song I've been saying.

You know, it's an OCD ADHD, gluten free, Gen Z musical comedy.

And I actually just got diagnosed with ADHD in December, so I was just very glad that it rhymed.

Because I was already, you know, down the road with the show.

I mean, adding more acronyms is only going to help.

It's only going to help.

Right.

But I was like, I'm going to need.

When I was talking to my psychiatrist, I was like, I'm going to need this one to rhyme, though.

If you could just make sure, you know, whatever's wrong with me.

Yeah, nothing with too many syllables, just.

Just letters, please.

Right, right.

I'm trying to make a poster.

There's a word limit, but yeah, it's very Gen Z Millennial.

It has Taylor Swift references.

Britney Spears.

Lizzie McGuire is a big heart of that show.

I've been joking that Hilary Duff is like making her comeback tour right now.

And I'm like, yeah, it's in collaboration with my show, but it has yet.

Definitely themes of loneliness, control, a lot of control.

And I'm coming off of last year I brought the show to Orlando Fringe and I was listed as best of Fringe with Orlando, which was really exciting.

Harrisburg Fringe had a sold out run, so I'm excited to be back in Pennsylvania.

And.

And then I think my favorite review of the show is Ginger Minj, the winner of season 10 of All Star Drag Race.

She came up to me after an Orlando show and she said, I'm so glad I accidentally saw your show.

I was like, okay, I'll take that, I'll take that.

So, yeah, I'm super excited.

It's guitar, piano recordings, very much one of those kind of solo shows that you feel happy and light and laughing.

But then a couple times I'm like, oh, what about this?

And you go, oh, no, that's true too.

Oh, oh, no.

And some French as well.

Yeah, not too much.

I do have to say, like, I love that anecdote.

I think that is, you know, it's.

It's something that if you overthought, it could be like, oh, I didn't want to go, but I did.

No, but that, that accidental finding and not knowing what it is and still loving it, I think is one of the best compliments somebody can get is, I didn't, you know, I wasn't planning on this.

I didn't know what to expect.

And I'm not just coming here because I know you.

I'm coming here just to see something and then be delighted by it.

Is.

And especially from a performer.

What better compliment can you get?

Totally.

And I think that's the beauty of Fringe too.

Oh, wow.

And I'm super excited.

I'm going back this year as a performer with the show.

So I'm excited to be doing another run before then.

And that really was the magic of Edinburgh Fringe, too, was you went in, you didn't know if something was gonna be incredible, less than incredible.

But that was cool, too, in its own right.

Like, it's such a cool way to discover things that, you know, they don't have the backing or the family members or whatever else it would take to be thrown up on Broadway.

And you actually get to kind of find something that has that spark.

So I love fringe for that reason.

So I love getting to be part of that.

Yeah.

I think that DIY mentality is.

Has a beautiful appeal for the right person, where you're just willing to go see a show.

It's kind of like, you know, there.

You know, there used to be people who would just go see a movie and they wouldn't know what it was, which was a thing that people did at a time when I lived, when I was still alive, because I'm an old.

It's like there's.

That was a thing that people did.

You just went to go see a movie, and you might have not even known what was showing, and like, okay, we're going to pick one.

And then you might be surprised, you might be delighted, you might be horrified because you didn't like it or you're horrified that you loved it.

Totally.

Yes.

I honestly don't look at reviews before seeing theater or movies.

People will be like, oh, do you want to see?

No.

Why?

I'll see it.

I'll see what.

Also, I don't really claim to have the best taste.

So if the most professional reviewer ever hated it, that often doesn't mean that much for me, because I'm like, well, I still might like that a lot.

Yeah.

So I think it's such a great aspect of.

And such a great aspect of the lottery system of fringe that truly, it is just, like, luck of the draw.

I, of course, have my parents.

Anytime I don't get drawn in the lottery, they're like, well, did you tell them about Orlando?

You should.

And I'm like, mom, this is the.

This is the magic of fringe.

It's not about pulling that card.

It's just about all of us being on this level playing field and getting to enjoy each other's art, which is so cool.

I think that other part of it, too, is that you put yourself out there and the venue says, I want this.

I love that aspect of it, because you might not have chosen that venue, but the fact that they want to have you there is, you know, it forces you to think about, hey, for that venue, do I change anything?

Do I do something different?

You know, and sometimes, you know, I, you know, at our.

Our Fringe in Rochester last year, I saw a show in a small room that was, you know, folding chairs on the floor.

That blew me away, like.

And, you know, it's an audience of 20 and God, it was.

It was personal and it was amazing.

But would that have been better on a bigger stage?

I don't know.

Maybe.

But that doesn't.

It's no qualitative assessment of the show itself is that for that day, at that time, it hit the people in that room deeply and personally.

Absolutely.

I mean, something I've really been grateful for in the reviews of the show, of my show that were coming out throughout Orlando and Harrisburg was a lot of comments on just how intimate the show felt and how it kind of felt like audience members are able to connect with me, which I'm really grateful for.

Because the show is not meant to be removed.

There's a little bit of a shtick to it at the beginning of trying to be removed, but that kind of fades as I unravel.

Frankly, that kind of facade has to fade because I'm kind of showing you all my cards, which is a lyric in the show.

But it is really helpful to see that that's what's working.

And in that way, yeah, I don't know that I'm even necessarily seeking.

I mean, look, if there's a Broadway booker out there, like totally seeking that venue, of course, obviously call me.

But also for real, though, I don't even know that that's what I'm totally after.

Cause I think it would lose some of the quality of the show.

And.

And with Mr. Roboto project, I'm really excited and it's challenged me in a new way.

Just because it's just different tech capabilities where they have a projector screen, but I'm running my own projector.

And that has gotten me to question, okay, what tech do I actually need?

Because I love to be a little bit of a minimalist with tech and really kind of stripping it down to what is necessary for the show to work.

I didn't really want to deal with finding a piano and trying to get a piano in.

And the Pittsburgh Fringe organizers were very, very helpful and they Were like, we could ask around.

We could do this.

I was like, you know what?

I'm not gonna have a piano for Edinburgh that I can bring in.

So I bought this little, like, kind of dinky keyboard that has a loud enough speaker, it has only three octaves on it.

And I'm so grateful that I'm gonna get to try it at Pittsburgh.

Yeah.

To take the run up for Edinburgh, I've had to stop playing my actual piano because the whole thing is smaller.

So I have to, like, rent, relearn my.

The muscle memory.

But it is a really cool thing of.

You don't always have a Broadway stage.

I never have a Broadway stage.

So the being flexible, I think, is a much stronger kind of muscle to build.

Yeah.

So, you know, before we get into, like, your.

Your background in, like, theater and performing, so you're doing your own music for the show as well.

When did you start.

When did you start writing, you know, writing pieces?

Was it in conjunction with needing it for performance and building on that, or is it something you've done along your time?

I've always been dramatic.

And I literally remember being eight years old in a hotel.

I can't remember where we were, but I remember was in a hotel.

Because I wrote this song on a hotel notepad.

Like, I found it years later.

It says Marriott on the top of it.

And I was 8 years old and wrote my first song called Find My Way, about how I was going to find my way to my hopes and my dreams, that this is always who I've been is looking for, is very much a dreamer.

And that was not a funny song.

That was just a song.

And I kept writing music.

I would say my mentality has probably always been around performing.

I don't know that I ever write something or have written something especially younger and been like, this is just for me.

I'm like.

And when I'm famous as a kid, that's what was my mentality.

And when I'm playing this on the.

On whatever, on the Jimmy Fallon show, they'll all say, right, like, that was my mentality as a kid.

Not my mentality in the same exact way now.

But then I would say the comedy side started coming out more.

I started doing improv when I was 7.

So just because my parents were like, whoa, this is a lot of energy.

We gotta throw this somewhere.

Go somewhere and do a thing, please.

Yeah, go somewhere.

Do a thing.

Do a thing.

We're gonna drop you off for two hours, come back tired, and.

And I did.

And I'm super grateful for improv.

It's been such an amazing tool in my life, my whole life.

But so I started comedy at that age, and then I started at the Second City.

I grew up in Chicago.

I started at the second City around 14.

And that was the first time that I wrote musical comedy.

I wrote a parody sketch of parodying a few different kind of key artists at the time.

It was like, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, maybe One Direction.

And that was the first time that I played around with kind of bringing music and comedy together.

At the time.

Dad said, I'm being a country music star.

I was like, I'm moving to Nashville.

I'm gonna.

I wrote one song that had the line at 16, that had the line, where's the pickup in this pickup?

I don't want to go slow.

Great.

And I was like, well.

Well, kind of good, right?

Yeah.

And I was like, okay.

Like, write me down for country music star.

Also, nothing rhymes better with pickup than pickup.

So, like, it's a perfect, perfect match.

Exactly.

It's not furthest thing from the slant rhyme from a slant rhyme I've ever written.

But then I think I just kind of loved the feeling of making people laugh more than I loved the feeling of rhyming pickup with pickup at the end of the day, to be honest, and bringing together music and comedy, it felt like exactly where I wanted to be.

And then bringing that together in a more narrative form in these last few years and bringing in that theater side has been even more fulfilling and more exciting.

And I would say now, when I'm writing, it's definitely for performance.

But I also think to some degree, just when I'm experiencing life, I'm like, okay, like, where do I see.

And this is healthy or unhealthy, but I'm like, where do I see a narrative in this?

Where do I see.

How can I make sense of this?

And comedy and musical comedy really helped me do that.

Yeah.

So it seems like when you mentioned your two inspirations, you know, when you're talking about that kind of comedy, that's, to me, that has that feel of.

It's got that, you know, big theater kid energy as part of that.

While for.

For me is like, you know, I'm more of the nerdy side of, like, liking musical comedy was like.

For me, it was like Weird Al when I was a kid.

You know, it was like, on that side, that was my.

That's what I loved.

And of course, you know, some of those.

You know, some of those Bo Burnham songs are, like, perfectly Written, you know, the country.

The country pandering song is one of the best things that's ever been written when it comes to musical comedy.

When did you ever identify as being a theater kid?

Because it seems like that is definitely part of your vibes.

And you're the second person to say that to me this week, so I'll take that as feedback.

Yes.

I grew up as a theater kid.

I have been on stage since I was three, which was not, like a stage bomb thing.

That was me being like, put me up there, put me out there, you know?

Yeah.

Get me dancing, get me singing.

And I grew up doing children's theater.

But I think, like, my favorite role that I ever played, I was 14.

I played the genie in Aladdin.

And I just remember the feeling of standing backstage, knowing that I was going to get to go out there and play this big role and connect with the audience, because that's the one character that breaks the fourth wall and just get to make people laugh.

And, like, that was the most exciting thing up until then.

I played a lot of villain, char, fun characters like Captain Hook, Wicked Witch, sure.

But I was kind of sick of making kids cry.

I was like, that's not super fun for me.

But, yeah, Then I studied educational theater at NYU for both my bachelor's and my master's, which is very much kind of using theater for social change and going into communities a little bit more than commercially going into communities and using theater as a tool for grief and coping and discussion and education.

And through that work and even just through that study, really seen kind of how much good can be done through theater and over those same years, honing in on, okay, what do I want to make?

I don't think that I want to make straight stand up.

I just.

It didn't.

I love watching it.

It's not what really fulfilled me in making it.

I don't think I really love doing theater because whenever I would do, like, plays and musicals in college, I would remember standing on stage and being like, I want to talk to the audience.

All these nice people are right here.

I want to chitchat, like, why am I not.

That fourth wall was really hard, but still wanting to prioritize, carrying some message that could matter to someone.

And that's, I think, where all of these things converged.

Well, and I think when you mentioned that part specifically, not that I know, like, the theater production version, but, you know, I'm sure it carries those inspirations from, you know, that.

The giant energy, you know, that giant Robin Williams energy.

And that performance, like, that seems just like a beautiful, like a beautiful direction to look at.

And you see somebody who is so honest with their performances and was, you know, somebody who like loved that side of it and bringing that big, bright, beautiful character to, to life in so many different ways.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

He, I mean, is such inspiration in so many ways, but just that authenticity and willingness to just go out there and put his entire self out there.

And I even, I don't know why this is what's coming to my mind, but I went to Comedy Cellar several weeks ago with my brother and sister in law.

Leslie Jones was a guest that night.

Yeah.

And it was, I guess I wouldn't say the same, but this a similar, just unapologetic, just like big energy and inviting everyone in.

And she was honestly roasting everyone in the front row like harder than I've ever seen anyone roast someone in the front row.

But still you just loved her and you just were so happy to be there with her and felt so included.

And I can't claim that I'm necessarily bringing that type of energy, but I think what I'm really grateful for at this point is that I'm not even trying to.

It's more that I feel very comfortable and very confident in the more kind of like intimate, one to one energy that I'm bringing on stage.

And I think there was a really big relief in realizing I can just kind of bring myself to the stage.

And that's what I love about Robin Williams and Leslie Jones and Rachel Bloom and Bo Burnham and so many others I think of like Taylor Tomlinson even

in a similar way, for sure.

And I was thinking about Gene Marco Ceres, you know, who's really bringing that like that, you know, the honesty of, hey, this is who I am.

I, I think you're.

We're seeing a lot of that in the next generation of these people who have lived in this in between world of theater and improv and all this world you're seeing, you know, the dropout people who are bringing this chaotic theater energy to improv and then you're seeing the blurring of all those lines in between.

It has to be kind of freeing just to see all these blended versions of.

I just want to drive in this direction of performance.

And you don't have to label it quite as clearly as maybe you would have 20 years ago.

Absolutely.

I mean, a lot of my family are like, so what do you do?

And I'm like, I don't know.

But I do know, right?

I do know But I think something that I had a hard time with in some stand up was this kind of benevolence that everybody wanted to have and this sort of like, oh, I don't care.

I'm just up here.

I'm just kind of nonchalant.

And I was like, I'm not nonchalant.

Like, I'm so chalant.

Like, I'm the epitome of chalant.

I'm happy to be that you're shalant maxing.

Yeah, I'm shalom maxing at this point.

And it's so free.

And yes, to be able to say, okay, but I like doing this part of comedy and this part of music and this part of theater.

And if I am, like, intentional enough, I can bring those things together.

And so cool to see, like, Rachel Bloom have a special on Netflix listed among the more traditional stuff.

And people are, I think, becoming more open to it.

I've definitely had, yeah, like, older audience members come to the show and say, I've never seen something like that before.

I at one point thought it was stand up.

I thought it was going to be this.

But it has all of these elements that really allows the audience to connect in wherever they'd like to.

I have some people come up to me after the show laughing and referencing jokes and telling me how much fun they had.

And then the person directly behind them is sobbing hysterically and talking to me about where they felt seen in the show.

And I'm so grateful that it's a show that can invite so many different responses.

Yeah.

And that's what you're definitely telling the audience.

If somebody doesn't cry and somebody doesn't laugh, cry in the audience, it's their fault.

They didn't understand it the right way.

You're kind of actually referencing the first song in the show a little bit.

There is a lyric in that song where it says, you'll laugh when I plan and you'll cry when I think you should.

And it does have this air of control to it.

Yes.

No, if you're not crying in the show, I don't know, maybe you're just not emotionally available.

Maybe that.

There is definitely a lot of.

Oh, then that song ends with me saying, clap on 1, 2, 3.

There is some kind of direction.

Colin responds at some different points when I'm still kind of in that illusion of perfect control, for sure.

Of Fringe.

Like, you didn't just like, oh, I'm going to go to US I'm going to go to a mid size one.

You know, I go to Pittsburgh for the first one, you know, experience, you know, 40 to 50 show thing.

You went right into the deep end.

How was that experience?

Just being.

Being overwhelmed by the amount of creativity just surrounding you.

I think that's what made it so amazing and that's what drew me.

I mean, I am definitely a person of extremes.

So I think when I was curious to go to a fringe, I was like, all right then let's go to Edinburgh.

I'm ready, let's go.

I said that it felt like an amusement park of theater and it really did.

Just.

I don't really claim to know Edinburgh that well after that trip, which I'm totally okay with.

Like, I'd love to go back into calmer time too.

But I recognized that this was really an experience of just seeing everything and everyone that's out there and seeing a community that is just excited to bring themselves together around art.

And there were shows that I saw, like, there was a mask show that I saw that.

I mean, I was sobbing hysterically in the audience.

And like, it was very different than anything I've seen.

I saw a show that was more similar to mine.

I wound up connecting with that performer after and they've been my writing coach for two years.

I mean, it's such a place of conn of growth that I'm grateful to have gone as.

I'm glad I went as an audience member before going as a performer because I think I would have been so overwhelmed.

But now I'm so excited to go back and just like dive even deeper into it.

That's really cool because it could have gone one of two ways where it's like, oh, this is way too much.

But seeing that path of like, oh, you're prepping, you're doing different size ones, you're learning and going down that direction.

It's also, that's a plan and you don't like just going in if you want to did your first one as that even after going like that's.

It's stepping into a whole different world.

But having that prep and having that experience and dialing in has to feel like, oh, we're heading in that direction.

This is a goal and we're, we're making the steps to get there.

Absolutely.

I'm really grateful that I didn't go to Edinburgh last year.

I was considering it and then I just realized, I mean, to be quite honest, it's a really expensive thing to do.

It's an investment to do.

It's a lot of work to get there.

And as much as I like to jump into the deep end on things, I also was like, I want to be prepared and I want to do this well.

And I don't know that I can do this well this year.

And I also wanted to give the show a little bit of time to breathe too, and to change if it needed to change.

And I think that running it in the way that it had to be run at Orlando and like I did my first run and it went three minutes over, which is a big no, no.

So then to slice it like to just kind of mercilessly be like, this joke isn't funny, the joke isn't funny.

To just get that down in a different way was a good experience.

So I do feel much more prepared.

I mean, I think there's only so prepared you can be going to Edinburgh to some degree, then you get there and you figure it out a little.

But I feel prepared.

I'm really, really grateful for my team.

I have like a really wonderful producer, Alice, who is such an expert in all things fringe and has just been guiding me through it in a way that has been unbelievable.

And she has also definitely been looking at kind of, okay, well, what happened at Orlando, what happened at Harrisburg, how can we maximize that?

How can we.

The changes that we need to make and such an incredible team that are kind of helping me to get there, that I've built over this last, these last two years.

Well, I think that's also getting real feedback too.

Because if it's all just you doing everything you it, sometimes it's hard to see, you know, see those moments because you are, you can be so attached to that little moment that you think is important, but somebody else might just see and say, no, that doesn't, that doesn't move.

It doesn't move the story, it doesn't move the feeling forward.

How was it cutting some of those things?

Absolutely.

So when I was looking for a director, I wanted a director who was in theater more than I wanted a kind of stand up director because I wanted the show to have a lot of heart.

And I knew that my instinct in some places might have been to cut where there was heart for the sake of a laugh.

And so I brought in my Director Halle Sebastian.

And she has an incredible theater background, but also is one of the absolute funniest people that I ever have met in my entire life.

So I knew that she'd be able to bring both.

And I think she really did protect me from cutting some of the heart of the show.

I'd be like, well, who cares about this?

And she'd be like, well, everyone, because that's why the show matters.

Like, you want to cut the part that makes me care that I'm here.

And then also saying to me, this is a funny joke, but let's go.

This is not.

And really kind of prioritizing what is the story and the message that I want to tell, what serves that story and will keep people there in that space with me.

There's also.

There's like, a secret revealed in the show.

And I put air quotes on that, because when I told Hallie the secret, she was like, no one's gonna care.

Like, no one's gonna care about.

Like, to me, it was this, like, life changing thing.

I was like, people in the audience especially.

Cause the first time I did the show was for friends and family.

I was like, well, Halle, like, people are gonna gasp.

Like, I kept joking.

We're gonna have to wait 10 minutes while everybody's running around screaming all these things.

And she was like, okay, so no one's gonna care.

So just say it.

It's helpful narratively.

It's important that this happened.

But you have to stop pausing before you say it.

It's not this dramatic.

And she was right.

But the one time in Orlando that someone gasped, I, like, wanted to call Hallie, and somebody gasped.

I swear, somebody gasped.

But to reality check, actually, this was one of the most important things Halle said to me at one point.

I was like, but do you think the show is relatable enough?

Do you think people can connect with it?

And she was like, do I think the show about loneliness?

The most relatable thing in the entire world is relatable.

And I can be so in my head of, like, this is about the thing that I did in Paris.

No, it's not.

Right.

It's about this broader perspective.

And that's where she really brought.

That's.

That's what she focused on bringing to the forefront of the show.

Yeah.

And I think that's.

There's an.

There's an honesty to.

When you learn more about yourself and realize that I'm not that special.

Everybody has feelings.

And, like, not, like, I'm not the only one with inner feelings and an inner monologue and caring about the way, like.

And nobody thinks of you as much as you think of yourself.

And that's like, after you get all of that, then it's okay.

The story is the thing.

And that the ups and downs and those comedic moments are aiding in the path.

They are not the thing.

They are the.

They are building on that feeling, that vibe through the whole thing.

What I'm kind of intrigued about is when you put.

You're putting all of those descriptors at the.

At the top of your poster and mentioned being, like, recently diagnosed adhd.

You know, as somebody who had been diagnosed not that long ago, like two, three years ago, it's not like I didn't know.

It was obvious and I knew it.

It's just getting somebody else to say the same thing.

Are you reckoning with all of those descriptors still, or do you feel like you've accepted it and are like, now you've not resigned to it, but you have, like, you understand it?

I would say with the OCD.

I was diagnosed OCD at 15, and that has always been a big part of my identity.

Not in a limiting way, but just in a way where I know that that's how my mind works.

I know that I'm obsessive.

I know that I can get stuck on things, but I also know that it's what makes me capable of doing a lot at once and paying attention to those details.

And as long as I'm, you know, attending to it and doing the whatever methods of treatments I need to be doing, then it's something I can harness.

The adhd, that was not something that I knew.

I had, to be totally honest, especially because, I mean, it shows up differently in women is one part of it.

Which means that, you know, when I'm hearing the stereotypical story of adhd, I didn't necessarily always see myself in that, but over the last kind of year or so, or more than that, but especially over the last kind of year or so, especially as I've kind of looked at my OCD more closely and treated that with kind of a more holistic approach that kind of left this other part of my brain that was running so fast and felt so overwhelmed and talking to, like, my doctor and everything, and, you know, we're treating the ocd, but this other part is still happening.

And I read some books then on how ADHD shows up in women, and I was like, oh, wow.

Like, this is me.

And it also explains, actually things from my entire life.

And I will definitely Say there's been a lot of grief around that, around this feeling of, would things have been easier if someone had looked at this?

And I have a lot of other like, diagnoses, frankly, that are very common with adhd.

And I was like, why didn't anyone look at this?

And some hurt around that.

But then also understanding that I'm really a believer in everything happens in the time that it needs to happen in.

And even though some aspects of having untreated ADHD were really difficult, I also totally believe that the universe kind of works in a way that I needed to have that experience to get me to where I am now.

And now to be able to look at it and be able to see that I can feel better than this.

Like, that is also an important thing, is that I might not have been ready to help myself feel better a few years ago.

That's not.

That wasn't my mentality.

My mentality a few years ago was do everything as, as fast and as hard as I can.

I would have heard that I had ADHD and I would have been like, sick.

I'm going to use this versus now being willing to say I deserve to feel okay.

And also this can totally be a strains, but how do I balance that to make sure that this is a sustainable experience?

So the adhd, I mean, and I'm still figuring it out, right?

It's only been four months.

I'm still dealing with meds.

I'm still figuring out.

So that story is not written.

But in some ways I would say the gluten free was the worst one to reckon with.

I mean, yeah, that's a tough one.

I mean, I mean, as a food person, a lot of my angle is food and drink.

Like that's my actual topic of my main podcast.

I do.

I used to write restaurant reviews.

I'm a deep food and drink nerd.

I mean, it's one of the things that.

Yes, I appreciate that there's options for all dietary backgrounds.

I did vegan for a few years, right.

And like, it's amazing.

There's just all these options for people and there can be amazing technical work.

We have a local author who did a great book on gluten free dessert baking, Calvin Eaton, which was a great book.

It just isn't.

It just isn't as good.

It just isn't.

I mean, gluten is amazing.

It's tremendous.

It's a tool.

It's a tool that everyone should be using.

It's truly, I think, the hardest thing about.

I live in New York City.

So in that way there was.

There are gluten free options.

Oh, tons.

Yeah.

And I was.

Yeah.

And I was diagnosed at 23, celiac.

I think honestly one of the biggest.

That was kind of the start of this fall with control.

In some ways though, too, of being like, I've been trying to control everything my entire life.

Meanwhile, my body has been in absolute wreckage because of this thing that we didn't know about.

Yeah.

And realizing that and now navigating that differently.

And again, it's just kind of.

This is what I mean about the universe.

Like, if I had been told celiac and ADHD all at the same time and trying to juggle all these things like celiac definitely taught me how to advocate for myself differently.

It taught me again, how to care about myself enough to care for myself.

And I didn't necessarily always care about myself enough to do that.

And I think that's at the heart of the show too, is realizing that we don't.

That I don't have control over everything.

So how can I make sure that I'm all right anyway and that I am doing what I need to do?

What I think that's the, that's also like knowing yourself in the end is that you can see it differently.

If, if that happened earlier, you might not.

You weren't ready for that.

You weren't.

Even though it might have been better in some ways in the, you know, forthcoming years, knowing that might have just been too much at that time, even though there might have been moments where it was better later.

And that's okay.

And it's not, it's not perfect.

It's.

I think as, you know, somebody who, like I said, I got that later in life as well.

I don't feel any different.

I don't feel like it's aided much, but accepting, accepting some of it is really difficult for.

At least for me as, like, I've always been the high performer version of all of these things and keeping everything in your head and all those things.

But that doesn't mean it's not ruining your life in many different ways at the same time.

I'm not sure I've accepted it, but I'm trying to try.

I'm trying to try to be okay with things occasionally not going the way I want them to go.

I'm not even close to there, but I think it's good to talk about it too.

I think it's good to tell people, hey, I'm not fully okay, but I know and I'm trying absolutely I mean,

I think that's honestly kind of where the show ends up.

And it's not a spoiler, but like, yeah, I actively have grief around the adhd.

Like, I would love to claim to be someone that's all the way Zen and that's all the way like.

But I'm just so grateful that everything happened and it's time and I don't wish to change anything.

But there's a lot of stuff that's hard to accept and that's tough to look back at and wonder.

And as much as to some degree now, much more than I could even a year ago, I can accept as truth that I don't have control over everything.

I still want to scream about that and I still want to like thrash around on the floor and be like, but I want control over everything.

But that's not fair.

Like, and then there's some moments where I'm like, oh, no, I don't.

Not really.

But I think just both are true.

If, if you gave me control over everything, I don't think I'd act super responsibly with it, to be honest, because I'm.

Because ADHD brain.

I'd be doing everything all over the place.

Not in any particular order, but at the same time, it's okay that it's, it's okay that I still want that.

Sometimes I just also have to accept that I don't have it.

And both of those balance things out.

Well, I mean, I don't see a better way of ending what our conversation is.

Can you put the plugs out again for where the show is and where they can go?

Experience your entire journey in a 60 minute performance at the Pittsburgh Fringe.

Absolutely.

So the show is called An American not in Paris.

You can see the show on March 24th and 26th at 6:35pm at Mr. Roboto Project as well as Sunday, March 28th at 1:00pm at Mr. RoboTo Project.

My Instagram is Liv Rocklincomedy R O C K L I N. If you look up live rock, it'll probably come up hopefully.

And I also have a website, liverockland.com and you can find tickets for Pittsburgh Fringe just on the Pittsburgh Fringe website.

If you go under the shows, it's one of those first few rows of shows because I named it Starting with an A, which was also strategic.

Look at you gamifying the vibes over on the fringe websites.

See, and that's a strength of OCD and adhd.

So I'm thrilled for it.

But no, I'd love to see people out there, and I'd love to talk with people after.

I don't know.

I'm super excited, super excited for Pittsburgh Fringe.

I've never been to Pittsburgh.

I've heard it's a really cool, creative city.

So I'm really excited to go.

Yeah.

And I'm going to be joining for the second weekend of the Fringe, driving down from Rochester.

So hopefully going to see some people out there.

And if you want to check out other shows on the Lunch Order Podcast Network, we have shows that are both local and covering lots of different topics.

So check it out on lunchadore.org thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you out on the Fringe.

Thank you.

This has been a presentation of the Lunchador Podcast Network.

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