It isn’t a secret that science fiction is not for the everyday person. It takes a specific type of person to fall in total love with a piece of escapism, and even more specific a person to find real-world application from the stories. In the case of Kristina, she found that certain characters mirrored her own personal world. Have a listen to her story.

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0:00 – Opening Credits
0:27 – Gary Introduces Kristina
1:44 – Imperfect Role Models
4:23 – Inattentive ADHD
6:33 – Gary’s Own Lack of Focus
8:54 – Stargate Characters with ADHD
14:11 – Want to Share Your Story?
14:39 – End Credits

***

“Stargate” and all related materials are owned by MGM Studios and MGM Television.

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TRANSCRIPT
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Gary Jones:
Hey, everybody. Welcome to Dial the Gate. I’m Gary Jones. You might know me as Chief Master Sergeant Walter Harriman or Chief Master Sergeant Norman Walter Davis, or any number of names. But really, when I’m at home, I’m Gary Jones. And I’m at home in Vancouver right now, and I’m so thrilled to be hosting Dial the Gate and talking to various fans around the world. And one of the people that I’m talking to today, my next guest, is Kristina Albert. Kristina, welcome.

Kristina Albert:
Hi.

Gary Jones:
Hello. How are you? Are you well?

Kristina Albert:
I am. I’m doing good.

Gary Jones:
Good, good. What city are you talking to me from?

Kristina Albert:
I’m actually in upstate South Carolina.

Gary Jones:
Upstate South Carolina. Okay, great. How’s the weather like there?

Kristina Albert:
It’s been in the mid-50s, so relatively nice.

Gary Jones:
Oh, nice, nice. Great.

Kristina Albert:
This is Fahrenheit, of course, since we’re… US is not with the program in the metric system.

Gary Jones:
No, I know. They’re lagging behind terribly.

Gary Jones:
But we’ll just let them have their whatever. If that’s what they wanna do, they can have it. This is great that you’re on the show. Thank you so much. Now, you’re interesting because you’ve mentioned that you recently got diagnosed with ADHD. But your Stargate connection was this whole concept of imperfect heroes and the idea that we had imperfect heroes allowed you to just go, “Well, if they can be imperfect, so can I.” I’m assuming that’s what you were thinking.

Kristina Albert:
Yeah, definitely. That’s a good way of explaining it. I think for me, just kind of going through my life feeling like I was different than everybody else. And I had to try to figure out what was going on all the time, and watch other people, “Okay, what are we doing now? What am I supposed to say in this situation?” It didn’t just all come naturally like it seemed for everyone else. So, when I would watch TV shows and movies, the heroes, half the time, seemed to be superhuman. Or even if they didn’t have superpowers, they just always looked good and sounded really clever. And when I first saw Stargate… I actually saw Stargate Atlantis first, and then SG-1, and I was just like, “Wow, these characters are all just normal human beings.” They have a lot of really good qualities, and they also have some weaknesses. I was really into Star Trek in college, and so that was one of the shows that I was like, “I love this show. I love sci-fi and all this stuff they’re doing,” but I feel like I can’t really relate to the characters on that personal level because they looked like they knew what they were doing all the time. And I just really liked how Stargate characters are very human and make mistakes sometimes. They stick their foot in their mouth. They’re just still trying to figure out how, “OK, how do you do this thing on the other side of the galaxy?” It’s not like they have all the answers. So, that felt really relatable to me because it’s like, “Oh, these are people like me,” and I could potentially go out and do these things if I had a degree in astrophysics or whatever.

Gary Jones:
How does ADHD show up in your life? To what degree?

Kristina Albert:
I have inattentive type ADHD, so it’s a little bit less obvious than hyperactive ADHD, which is the type everyone thinks of where you just have so much energy and you can’t just sit still. For me, the inattentive is more about the ability to pay attention to things. Instead of feeling like running around, I zone out regularly. ADHD is essentially not a lack of attention. It’s difficulty directing your attention. You have less control over it to some degree than people who don’t have ADHD. So, something interesting will happen, and your brain is like, “I really wanna pay attention to that,” even if it’s not all what you’re supposed to be paying attention to. So, just constantly distracted. When I was in college, I had a really hard time with reading assignments because even though I liked to read stuff, reading homework is not fun at all. So, it wasn’t something I was interested in. And when I would read stuff, I would have to re-read each paragraph multiple times. And still, I would be zoning out halfway through and not retain half of what I’d just read. I had no idea that that was not normal either. I thought everybody had trouble with that, and then I found out later, “Oh, no, actually that’s ADHD.” So, that was very stressful at the time, not knowing that that was what was going on.

Gary Jones:
Right. I’ve never been diagnosed but I have to say that I have experienced things like that. It takes me a lot to focus on something. And I will… If I’m doing one job and even if my girlfriend just mentions another job, I’ll stop what I’m doing and try to go do that other job. I’ve done that enough times where I’ve learned… I’ve seen myself do that, and I’ve actually said sometimes to her… I said, “I gotta finish this job. Don’t mention anything else to me because I’ll just give this job up and go start the other job.” And then if I’m doing that other job and she mentions something else, I’ll stop that job. So, I don’t know what that is or whether that’s a form of it, but I certainly have experienced that, and I find it’s not productive.

Kristina Albert:
No, it’s not. And what you’re describing is pretty common for some people who have ADHD. I have trouble finishing things. And I’ll start one project like cleaning my room or something, and twenty minutes later I’m halfway across the house doing something totally unrelated because one thing led to another and I just totally lost track of what I was doing.

Gary Jones:
I do actually experience that, and I guess there has to be a level of acceptance about it. Otherwise, you could feel pretty bad about yourself and about the fact that you’re not somebody who finishes jobs as opposed to somebody who could finish a job as long as you know that you’ve gotta stick to one thing instead of doing eight things at a time.

Kristina Albert:
Yeah. I think that finding those ways to know how you work and setting yourself up for success essentially… Because it’s not a personal problem. It’s not a character flaw. It’s just you work a little bit differently, and if you know that you can plan ahead and figure out, “OK. This is the best way to approach it, even if that’s not how someone else you know does it, but this is what works for me.”

Gary Jones:
Right. And I find that… Did you find that any of the Stargate characters had anything like that you could relate to specifically?

Kristina Albert:
Well, yes. Definitely. There’s a few of the characters who I am pretty sure could qualify for some type of ADHD.

Gary Jones:
Who would that be?

Kristina Albert:
On Atlantis, Rodney McKay is definitely ADHD. He’s constantly like this and that and the other, focusing on everything at once, and if he stabs his finger on something or whatever, then suddenly he’s really distracted by that and just can’t pay attention. Anyway, he’s got a lot of those traits, which was partly why I found his character hilarious. And then on SG-1 specifically, Jack O’Neill, I think, has hyperactive ADHD because he can pay attention to stuff but he’s always wanting to be going and doing something else. And then the character I relate to most because I have inattentive ADHD is Daniel Jackson because he has 100 percent, all of the traits. Even going back to the original Stargate movie, there’s that one scene towards the beginning where he’s working on deciphering the cover stone, and it’s late at night and he’s filling up a cup of coffee at a water fountain, and he’s zoning out, and he sees the back of a guy’s newspaper and he’s like, “Oh, that’s a constellation.” So, suddenly, that’s like… His attention is suddenly all the way zoned in and he runs over and grabs the back of the paper and he’s like, “Oh, I’m sorry, can I borrow this?” And then he rushes around doing all that. That part just cracks me up because that is so ADHD vibes right there.

Gary Jones:
That’s really interesting. It must be cool to realize that a show has created characters that are so well-drawn and complex that you can find yourself in some of them.

Kristina Albert:
Yeah. And that was kind of — When I started watching SG-1, I really connected with Daniel Jackson’s character because of the similarities that I was continually noticing, like, “Oh, I do that,” or “Oh no, I do that, too.” And that was interesting because I’d never seen the type of things that I do from my perspective, and I was tending to focus on — After finding out I had ADHD, after a few months I was really frustrated because I realized “OK. So, this is the how my brain is wired. It’s permanent. It’s not like I’m gonna someday figure out how to be different and not have challenges in these areas.” So, I was focused on all the negative stuff, and like, “Oh, this makes my life so hard,” but seeing a character who was doing all that same stuff and sometimes it was a complicated thing… But also seeing the strengths that come with having ADHD.

Gary Jones:
And also, being accepted by the other characters.

Kristina Albert:
Exactly. It’s not just “Oh, you’re so weird.” There was, of course, a little bit of that with O’Neill all the time teasing him. Just because he’s thinking on this totally outside of the box level all the time, not a straight line like everybody else he’s drawing these connections between totally unrelated ideas, and like, “Well, hey, this is what makes sense, and maybe this will solve our problem,” and figuring stuff out that nobody else would think of. And that’s one of my favorite parts about having ADHD, honestly, is being able to see the world a little bit differently that way and all that.

Gary Jones:
I know that… I’ve known people with dyslexia, and they consider it to be… They call it the gift of dyslexia. It’s just a different way of seeing the world and having to approach the world. Rather than treat it as a handicap, they treat it as a gift, and I think that’s awesome. Well, thanks so much for being on the show with us today.

Kristina Albert:
Thanks for having me.

Gary Jones:
Kristina, it was lovely to talk to you and find out how you relate to the show and find out a bit more about you personally. It’s great. It’s been really wonderful. I hope to talk to you again soon.

Kristina Albert:
Yeah, I hope so too.

Gary Jones:
Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.

Kristina Albert:
Thanks. Bye.

Gary Jones:
Hey, everybody. Thanks for watching this episode. Do you wanna share your Stargate story on air with me? Email the show at [email protected]. That’s [email protected]. Tell us a little bit about how Stargate has helped you grow as a person or affected your life in a positive way, and I’ll be recording more fan interviews in 2021, and you might be next. See you next time.