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AuDHD: When Autism Meets ADHD
2.9k Plays1 year ago
What is the crossover between Autism and ADHD? What strengths and weaknesses do AuDHD people have? How is mental health different for AuDHD individuals?
Mattia Maurée (they/them) is the host of The Longer Road podcast and creator of the @AuDHDFlourishing Instagram account. Mattia has a bustling professional life within music and art, being a working artist, composer, teacher, and poet. They grew up in Seattle but now reside in Philadelphia, and coaches AuDHD individuals on realising their true potential and managing life with Autism and ADHD.
My Links - https://linktr.ee/thomashenleyUK // Mattia’s Links - https://linktr.ee/mattiam
Dbud Noise Cancelling Adjustable Ear Buds (20% Off with code: THOUGHTYAUTI) - https://dbud.io/thoughtyautipodcast
Kicking off the conversation they talk about the difficulties neurodivergent individuals can have with sleep, the issue with high-functioning Autism labels, generalisation when talking about neurodivergencies, and the difficulties of feeling represented with intersectional identities.
Mattia talks on the stigma of Autism when compared to ADHD, highlighting the more intense negative stereotypes around Autism. In their own diagnosis journey they were diagnosed ADHD first, but originally had a misdiagnosis of Bipolar Disorder due to their Cyclical Energy Cycle. Going for an Autism diagnosis, Mattia found out after their Autism diagnosis that some countries can deny immigration due to Autism and that it can impact the rights someone has over the custody of children.
Mattia describes their focus and attention patterns as having an Interest-Based nervous system, whereby they find difficult or interesting tasks much easier to hyper-focus on than easy or uninteresting tasks. They highlight the strange difference between their IQ test results with and without caffeine, which highlighted just how much attention impacted their productivity/skills. With a self-identified spiky profile himself, Thomas speaks on the large variance of skills shown by Autistic and neurodivergent individuals.
Speaking on the crossover between Autism and ADHD, they highlight the issues in transitions, inertia, and ignoring one's needs during hyper-focus. There appears to be an apparent push-pull dynamic to organising life as an AuDHDer, finding a lot of issues with decision fatigue and anxiety-enforced deadlines due to autism. Although routine is a big part of an autistic persons wellbeing, ADHDers also find them to be helpful although they can feel bored or restricted.
Opening up about the SA, Mattia goes into the issues of managing mental health and well-being even as a well read and knowledgeable AuDHDer. The two speak on the different ways of coping with mental illness as a neurodivergent, separating burnout from depression and speaking on the unhelpful information given within therapy.
They converse about the supplements and medications that have been helpful or unhelpful for mental health as Autistic people, underlining the issues inherent with SSRIs on anxiety and interoceptive difficulties with <
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Transcript
Introduction to D-Buds and Sensory Management
00:00:00
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Understanding ODD HD: Autism and ADHD Combo
00:00:45
Speaker
Good day, and welcome back to the 4TRT Podcast with yours, Mr. Thomas Hanley, of course. How are you guys doing today? We have got a very special episode for you as usual. We're going to be talking about ODD HD, the mystical combination of autism and ADHD, and how
00:01:06
Speaker
It differs from just being autistic or just being ADHD. Some of perhaps the more mental health aspects of how it may be different for ADHD individuals, but also about different medications, supplements, and support that may be different when you're ADHD compared to ADHD and autism, so.
00:01:31
Speaker
Lots of stuff that we can talk about in this episode.
Challenges of Sleep and Neurodivergence
00:01:35
Speaker
Firstly, I want to introduce my guest, Mattia. How are you doing today? Pretty good. Thank you. How's your day been so far? Oh, pretty good. I mean, it's morning here. I was just saying before we got on, like I did not sleep great. So thankfully I woke up in time for this, but yeah, I haven't done too much yet today.
00:01:58
Speaker
Is sleep like a common sort of issue that you have? Like, so I know that for myself, like getting off to sleep, waking up always tends to be a pretty big task. Once I'm asleep, I'm okay, but yeah.
00:02:14
Speaker
Yeah, it always has been. I was a bad sleeper as a kid. My mom actually started putting out chores for me to do in the middle of the night because I would consistently be awake just in the wee hours of the morning. So I would wake up, put away laundry, and then go back to bed. So yeah, I've had trouble with sleep my whole life, which has helped me get that autism diagnosis because it's a classic.
00:02:36
Speaker
thing but yeah it's always been really interesting isn't it about like the circadian rhythms and like melatonin and yeah it's definitely something that needs to be understood more by more people and
00:02:54
Speaker
I don't know, to be honest I've had some good experiences with like melatonin but it always tended to be very much like whenever I've had it like it hasn't been like a long-term solution it's been something that that's helped me in the short term but overall it's been been pretty bad the only thing that has helped I think with my sleep
00:03:16
Speaker
is trying to set up like a routine around it if i'm out of that routine it's it's pretty pretty rubbish in terms of being able to fall asleep and wake up it's it's always a real task but i don't know things like um putting some like night modes on your your screens and playing like a mindless game seems to help me a lot
00:03:43
Speaker
Yeah, I actually have spent a lot of the last three years experimenting with my sleep and doing a variety of things, like all the things people tell you you should do. And the really annoying thing that I realized through, I have an aura ring, so I'm like tracking, you know, what, what different things you're doing to my sleep and realized my system is just so like my body mind system is so sensitive that I have to do all of the things that you're supposed to do in just extreme amounts. Like I need to not eat for four hours before bed, which feels
00:04:13
Speaker
Draconian and like I'm you know, I need to like not look at a screen for two hours before bed like I need to do sort of the maximum of all of the things and That's just like my brain just won't accept that. It's just like no I'm not I'm not gonna be like the perfect Child, you know all of the time and do all of the things perfectly so sometimes things align but yes, I mean routine does help routine especially like the one of the main things for me is just
00:04:39
Speaker
having my phone not be in my bedroom, like literally leaving it downstairs or something, just like not having it in the space.
Identity and Neurodivergence
00:04:46
Speaker
Because otherwise I will just sit on it. Like sleep hygiene, isn't that? Yeah. That's the kind of the term for it. But it just feels like so unfair that my body is so sensitive that it's just it has to have the all these super specialized things and just like, oh,
00:05:01
Speaker
You know, I think one thing that I struggle with with some like things that are recommended for helping with sleep is that I really just can't like turn off my brain. And so I have to find new ways to focus my attention without
00:05:17
Speaker
consuming much of my brains energy and keeping me awake, so as i said just having a mindless game that i tilt away from my head and lower the brightness down to fall, turn off all the lights to put the night mode on it, seems to help a lot but
00:05:35
Speaker
It's a constant battle of adjusting things I found in my life. But we're not here to talk about sleep today. We're here to talk about audio HD. And it'd be really nice to hear about the kind of work that you do online, a little bit about your podcast. Tell us about yourself.
Creative Work and Advocacy
00:05:58
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm in the US, obviously, as you can tell from my accent. I grew up in Seattle, and I'm now in Philadelphia. So I kind of lived around the US a bit. And I kind of have two sides of my life and work. I am a working
00:06:14
Speaker
artist. I'm a composer and poet and I teach and do commissions and stuff. So I've got the kind of music side of my life. And then most of my online presence is around, at this point, Audi HD and autism and my brain and my kind of journey because I very narrowly survived my teens and twenties. And a lot of what I want to help people with is just this
00:06:42
Speaker
you know, almost total lack of support, I think, around especially being an autistic adult, and then, you know, being an ADHD adult, like any anything where autism is, you know, there's just so much misconception and, and just very few supports for adults, especially if you are seen as
00:06:59
Speaker
you know, quote, functioning from the outside at all, meaning you finished school and you did okay in school or you can keep a job if you have either of those things. People are just like, oh, you're fine. You know, even if you, if you speak well and you can have conversations with people, it's like, that's, that's enough for people to be like, ah, you should be fine. Then every single area of your life, possibly that you're really excel in certain areas, but not in others and need support with others. Yeah.
00:07:28
Speaker
I think people have that kind of misconception, I think, a lot with all, like, neurodiversity. Yeah, totally. It's like they kind of see one talent and they extrapolate it across different areas. Like, I was talking to my, I think I was talking to my mum about, like, transference of skills. Like, skill transference is something that I'm wanting to make a post on at some point because
00:07:58
Speaker
It's kind of like, for example, if you are good at public speaking, like myself, so if I was to do public speaking, I'd be pretty exceptional at it. But then if I was to go to, I don't know, like a social event and speak to other people, I would not be anywhere near as good as I would be sort of within the public speaking arena.
00:08:27
Speaker
And I think that that kind of transference of skills is something that's very apparent to me. It's something that I think holds us back from, I guess, obviously transferring skills into other places like the workplace.
00:08:47
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's spot on. And that's, I mean, part of what I wanted to talk about with like the ADHD, like for me, and we'll get into this more, but like the
00:09:00
Speaker
different sides of what I experience and then as well being, you know, quote gifted, which I hate
Giftedness and Neurodivergence
00:09:05
Speaker
as a term. So like, there's no term I like around any of those things. But all of those three things together mean my brain functions so differently than most people I ever encountered. And so I, you know, I remember as a kid, just, you know, thinking my experience was totally normal, and then continuing to learn just over and over people being like, Oh, that's weird. And I'm like,
00:09:25
Speaker
Really? Like just realizing that every element of my brain processing was different than most people's. And then even, um, actually had an autistic friend, um, when I was a young teen and, and actually, and we're still friends and actually they're also trans. So that was fun. I was like one of the first people they came out to. And I remember thinking like, wow, we get along so well and I'm like one of her only friends, but
00:09:55
Speaker
I'm not like her because she was diagnosed young, she had a more stereotypical presentation. And actually, I mean, same thing happened, being non-binary and knowing binary trans people in college. I was like, oh, I relate so much to some parts of their experience, but I'm not that. So then you're just like- Get a little bit of a twist on things. Yeah. And so I think anytime you have these intersectional identities, which is what my podcast is about, The Longer Road,
00:10:25
Speaker
that I think it's really hard to see yourself represented. And then there's no model for figuring out your own identity. Because you're like, well, I'm kind of like that. Yeah. And I know this to be the case because part of the work I do is coaching with autistic and ADHD people. And I know this to be the case for adult diagnosed ADHD people like me, that they're looking at diagnostic criteria and being like, well,
00:10:51
Speaker
close but not quite because the confluence of the two is so, it can be different than just one or the other. So that's something I'm passionate about talking about and like being public about and it's why I'm very public with my identities. Yeah, I was talking to, I think I did an episode with Coaching with Brooke where we're talking about
00:11:16
Speaker
like the experiences of autism from my side and then ADHD from Brock's side. And we were saying like, you know, I guess we could theorize exactly what it might be like for an ADHD or I could perhaps go and interview someone who is an ADHD. Yeah, that's why I reached out to you because I was listening to that episode and I was like, okay.
00:11:39
Speaker
Yeah, I can do it. We might be able to at some point if the, you know, people like the episode or if I feel like it, we can maybe set up like a free way podcast, you know, autistic, ADHD, ADHD, sort of compare experiences. I think that'd be really cool. Yeah.
00:12:02
Speaker
I think with anything, I try to preface this as much as possible, but whenever we speak about autism or ADHD or any type of neurodiversity, there is always a heavy air of generalization that goes on with that. And that's something that I feel
00:12:23
Speaker
people don't particularly understand like on the internet, like when we talk about our lived experiences and generalize in that way, that's is pretty much the only way that we can do it. And just because of how different people can be from their personalities and experiences and diagnoses, diagnoses, neurodivergences,
00:12:48
Speaker
It cannot always apply directly to every single person. And there tends to be quite a heavy need for anyone, you know, whether they're thinking about neurodivergencies to actually talk to someone and give their sort of individual experiences on things. The reason why I bring this up is because I made a post recently, I'm making like a series of posts about how to know if you're autistic and I give like some
00:13:18
Speaker
experiences in like different areas of life and some of the pointers or kind of experiences that might be quite common for a lot of autistic people but of course like me making something like that there's going to be comments where like oh you're being too
00:13:37
Speaker
general, everyone's gonna think that they're autistic or are you being, I don't fit in with all of these, am I autistic? It was meant as a way for people to be like, hey, I actually do recognize this, just for those people who perhaps have that kind of stigma in their head about different neurodiversities, just to be like,
00:14:03
Speaker
Hey, actually, you know, I actually relate to this this person who is autistic and share a lot of the common experiences that they have and then possibly go and research a bit more into it.
00:14:15
Speaker
So I think that that generalisation aspect needs to be highlighted, I think, because we are talking about our own personal experiences with this, and perhaps personal experiences of other people, but it will never be wholly representative of the entire population, you know, of people.
Family Dynamics and Diagnosis Journey
00:14:34
Speaker
Yeah, totally. So you were talking about sort of your diagnosis journey a little bit, like your journey with your neurodiversity. I'd love to know
00:14:45
Speaker
a little bit more about that, but also specifics around when did you find out that you're ADHD and when do you find out that you're autistic and what all did they go in and that kind of thing. It'll be really interesting to hear.
00:14:59
Speaker
Yeah. So background, I grew up in that fun slice of Americans who did not vaccinate their children because they thought it would make you autistic. Um, I was, I was vaccinated until I was three years old and then I had a seizure from a high fever after a vaccination and my mom freaked out and stopped vaccinating me and my siblings and no more from then on out. So I actually just finished my adult vaccinations in my thirties, which was great.
00:15:29
Speaker
So anyway, this is to say that what I was raised to believe autism was, was completely non-speaking, right? Like no eye contact rocking back and forth.
00:15:42
Speaker
Ironically, there are literally video clips of me at two and three exhibiting super stereotypical autistic behaviors, including one favorite one of mine. I'm in a box. I'm rocking back and forth, having a good time by myself, and my mom starts singing to me slightly out of key, and I just start screaming at her to stop. I had perfect pitch. It's not subtle.
00:16:06
Speaker
So I had all these things, but I was born in the 80s to these parents, and they just didn't believe that that was possible, basically, for me. The stigma was too sort of embedded within their mind about what it is. Exactly. And it was hyperlexic. And so again, they didn't know that that was a sign and not a, oh, you couldn't possibly be. So looking back, if I were
00:16:35
Speaker
a kid now, I would have been diagnosed very young because it was really super obvious. A lot of the things I was doing and saying. And then both my parents, so my dad is autistic and ADHD and my mom is ADHD. So I grew up in a very, very neurodivergent household where things were being lost or where we got locked out of our house all the time. Just like where a lot of and we like
00:17:02
Speaker
My parents had a lot of trouble doing things functionally. And then I have six younger siblings, all of whom are neurodivergent. And most of them are diagnosed or something.
Diagnosis Challenges and Misdiagnoses
00:17:19
Speaker
So it was a very chaotic household for me as an autistic kid. It was very, very overwhelming. And so the reason I'm giving that background is because in my
00:17:30
Speaker
You know, it's early twenties when I, at which point I was done with the college and I was looking at my life and I was like, I cannot buy groceries. I cannot get my laundry done. Like I can't do things in my life when I was trying to figure out what that.
00:17:44
Speaker
mapped to besides just depression I was like oh ADHD and I know both my parents have ADHD because they they have talked about their experiences enough and like my mom at least will say my dad has ADHD so like they have no problem with that they're they're not down with the autism but you know really really really interesting isn't that good that kind of
00:18:03
Speaker
the stigma around ADHD is kind of this fun, fun, outgoing, kind of a bit messy minded. Yeah, just kind of weird fun. And yeah, party animal kind of like lose your keys all the time. Like, that's kind of funny. Like the story of my family tells us that my mom at one point made my dad five sets of keys.
00:18:23
Speaker
and when he lost the fifth one like after not very long my mom thought about it and she was like i think it's in your red coat and he was like i lost that coat so i mean like he just like could not he went to work he was a pastor and he went to work one time without shoes or pants on
00:18:38
Speaker
Like he like got to work and realized he wasn't wearing shoes or pants. He was just wearing like shorts and he was like, well, it's Sunday and I have to, like, I have to, you know, I can't go to church like this. Stay, stay behind the altar. Just like crouch behind the altar, make sure. Yeah. So, so for me going, Oh, I made HD, like that was a, not a jump, right? Like that was just like a, yes, this is in my family. You know, this makes sense. I know that people in my family struggle with stuff like this.
00:19:04
Speaker
And it's also just not as stigmatized. And I actually didn't know at the time that part of autism is also executive function issues. So if I'd known that, if I'd known more about it, autism actually might have looked more prominent in my history in certain ways. But anyway, so I did seek an ADHD diagnosis. It was a very weird experience.
00:19:32
Speaker
at the time also had an incorrect bipolar diagnosis, which I think is extremely common for ADHD people specifically, because we have very cyclical energy. Yeah, autistic women as well. It seems like bipolar, BPD, schizophrenia even I've heard. But in particular, the really cyclical energy of ADHD of having these big bursts of energy and then needing big rest and a lot of rest, that looked like bipolar.
00:20:02
Speaker
And so when I went and got the ADHD testing, there were, you know, two issues. One, because I had bipolar, they were like, well, we can't give you stimulants. You can't have stimulants. Right. So I've actually never had stimulant medication. I'm thinking about trying it soon. Don't get that. That pharmaceutical grade, my funpets I mean, I want to try it and just see, like, what does this do to my brain? I think I've heard enough stories about it to know it's not it's probably not going to do what I hope it's going to do. But
00:20:29
Speaker
I want to have that, I'm curious about the experience that I've heard neurotypical people can have of their brain just being quiet. I'm like, what is that? It's interesting, isn't it? Because it was designed as a way to produce energy. It's, you know, amphetamines are these things that make you productive and have all this energy. But a lot of the experiences that people who are ADHD have is that it calms their brain because it kind of
00:21:00
Speaker
It's weird, isn't it? Why would you give a high, like a very energy inducing, hyperactive medication to someone who is naturally quite hyperactive and like, you know, all over the place in terms of thoughts and behaviors and stuff. It doesn't make any sense, but it's... Yeah. We don't understand the brain.
00:21:21
Speaker
But we still don't know how most psych meds work, for example. No, depression meds. I think the way that they found out that serotonin was important with depression and mental health disorders is by giving someone something that impacted their serotonin and then being like,
00:21:41
Speaker
that must be a reason. And that's something that I think about a lot because from doing my biomedical sciences course, I know that the way that science is supposed to work is you're supposed to find a target, find a reason, have a mechanism, do trials around that, and then produce things that might be able to counteract that. Whereas with antidepressants, it's like the opposite way.
00:22:10
Speaker
It's still not very understood. I think of that every time we take a medication that most of the time when I read about it, it says we still don't understand the pathway through which the survivor is just like, that's the norm in medication. So there's a long way to go there.
00:22:26
Speaker
Oh, but back to my ADHD testing story.
Cognitive Variability and Focus Patterns
00:22:30
Speaker
So when I did the testing and then, you know, come back and they, and also it was like a student testing me cause I was in Boston and you just like, you get medical care by students when you're in a city that has a lot of med schools. So he was like in school to become, you know, whatever. So when he started the, you know, kind of reciting back the results to me, he started with, well, obviously you have an extraordinary mind. And I was like,
00:22:57
Speaker
He's not going to help me. That's kind of the problem with adding in the giftedness element is one of the things he was saying to me is he was like, it's probably frustrating for you when you're in the 99th percentile of a bunch of stuff to have things where you're not, to have things where you struggle.
00:23:17
Speaker
he was saying, his example was like something being in the 50th percentile. And I was like, no, no, that's fine, but I'm looking at my actual results and I have things that are in like the 16th percentile, but I maxed out the verbal part of the test. They ran out of words for me because I knew all of them. There shouldn't really be anything in my brain in terms of focus.
00:23:39
Speaker
where I'm in the 16th percentile for something, right? And I don't mean shouldn't in like a, you know, metaphysical sense, but like, you know, just the sec according to like how most people are neurotypicals might be. And that I have this very like uneven focus pattern. And one of the things actually that they pointed out in both, because then I did neuropsych testing for autism two years ago.
00:24:05
Speaker
One thing they pointed out in both parts of the testing is that I have a much easier time focusing when the task is hard because it's interesting to me. So I did better on the hard tasks and then I did terribly on the easy tasks, which is like a really classic, right? So both autism and ADHD, I love the term interest-based nervous system, like that I can't do anything or it's very, very hard to mobilize myself to do anything.
00:24:31
Speaker
that is not interesting. And, you know, there are a lot of ways around that, right? I can like listen to, I listen to podcasts a lot, you know, while I'm say doing dishes or something, right? If I have to do something that's boring, I can make it more interesting or like try to stimulate myself in some way. But that was another thing. And, you know, the test, I relate to that. Totally. And so I actually just looked back again at the results of my neuropsych testing, just kind of side by side, because they were five or six years apart from each other.
00:24:58
Speaker
And in one of them, I was heavily caffeinated. And in one of them, I had no caffeine because I was like, I want to see what my brain does without. And looking at those numbers, I was just like, I don't see how anyone could look at this and not think I was struggling. Like looking at just the huge variability. And I know from, you know,
00:25:17
Speaker
learning more about it, that one of the things they look for in ADHD is extreme differences in the bell curve between different areas. So having really, really strong competency in one area. And again, I had those couple things that were just really- Spiky profiles. Spiky profiles, exactly. Where your brain is doing some things very well, and then some things your brain is just like, no, thanks. I have
00:25:41
Speaker
no interest in doing that and you can't make me. Yeah. It's really interesting you're talking about that kind of high level of competency that you have in different areas.
Educational and Mental Health System Challenges
00:25:52
Speaker
Because a lot of the ways that the medical system works or even the education system works is that they flag people who are not doing well in terms of academically or in terms of life.
00:26:05
Speaker
So, you know, there was there's quite a long period of time pretty much throughout the entirety of secondary school or high school where I struggled massively with, you know, burnout and getting off going off school sick due to anxiety and struggling with the social sensory aspects of school. So I was not doing well at all. And, you know, I went through a lot of mental health pathways because of that.
00:26:34
Speaker
But the school never really picked it up as an issue because, you know, I was pretty much a straight A student. You know, I did well in the academic side of things. It was just very much like the social, emotional aspects of growth through education that I really struggled with, which I think is equally, if not more important than the academic side of things.
00:27:01
Speaker
So it's kind of interesting. And then when you look at them like the medical system.
00:27:05
Speaker
most people get diagnosed when there's a problem. And you kind of need a problem for people to diagnose you, to be like, oh, there's an issue. I think that's the definition, is it has to be affecting your life. Pretty much. And it's quite contradicting to the idea of why most people want to go for that, which is to affirm their identity and to
00:27:31
Speaker
you know, understand I hate this, you know, this is something and for some people it's useful, some people isn't, but you know, it's, you always need to have some kind of difficulty for like medical, educational professionals to take you seriously. So it's like waiting for it, like waiting for something to happen. And because the focus is on productivity and doing well in school and at work, honestly, they don't really care if the problem is just that,
00:28:00
Speaker
you're not happy in your relationships. You have to be at a very high bar of misery and depression before it counts. It's not just like, oh, I'm not thriving.
00:28:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's like you're like coping, isn't it? Like they want you to be able to love like my mom was saying in the podcast. So I was talking about my life. It was like, you know, I was coping with school to a certain degree. I was not feeling good about school. I was not developing myself emotionally and socially at school.
00:28:36
Speaker
I was doing the work that I needed to do, but in all of the other areas I was coping and, you know, we were talking about that. And I don't think it's good enough just to cope, you know? Yeah. I mean, it's necessary some of the time, right? That was certainly a big part of my life, but it's not the ideal. Yeah. And I mean, I've had
00:29:01
Speaker
this experience. I know a lot of neurodivergent adults who've had this experience where they were in therapy and because they'd gone to therapy in crisis, as soon as they were out of crisis, their therapist was like, Oh, you're good. Like you're fine. I can graduate you. And you're like, what? Like, I don't want to kill myself today, but that's not a very high bar for life. You know, not doing well. Yeah.
00:29:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's, that's reflected in mental health systems as well. They want to get you out of the red zone, but once you're out of the red zone, it's not, it's, you know, they're not that bothered, you know? So like, perhaps in, in my early, early teenage hood, when I had a lot of ideation, um, a lot of like harming behaviors and things of that nature, then they were, they were full on, like it was like weekly sessions, weekly
Focus on Internal Wellbeing Over External Success
00:29:54
Speaker
support. It wasn't helpful, but they still took it seriously.
00:29:59
Speaker
And now I'm in adulthood, I do need that support in terms of therapy, but I don't have that ideation side of things, and I don't particularly have the harming side of things either, so those kind of
00:30:16
Speaker
that red zone that people would be in is not something that I'm part of, but I'm not any necessarily doing better. Like in the areas of my life, it's just my shift and my mindset has changed. Yeah, I think about this so much because I've been coaching for four years now and I
00:30:43
Speaker
Okay, so my like handles on the internet right now are ADHD flourishing. So I was like, okay, you know, flourishing, thriving, this is nice, right? It's not just about that, you know, coping. But I absolutely do not mean that in the sense that like, people need to be, you know, producing at some particular level or need their life to look neurotypical. And I was finding that
00:31:06
Speaker
unless I was being really explicit about that and saying, I want you to feel good. I want you to feel good in your life and that's the point, not your external production. People were coming to me for these external type problems. I want my career to look different. I need this, I need that, I need a friend, I need a relationship. Yeah, these external markers of success. I think about that so much because
00:31:32
Speaker
for me in my own life, the external markers of success have never helped me psychologically, at least for more than a few days or something. I might get a little rush of dopamine or something from
00:31:45
Speaker
but then it's done and I was like, okay, whatever. I relate to that so much. Yeah. But that's what we think of as flourishing because those are those external markers of success that we're told. Yeah. And that's the reason you should take stimulants, right? Is like, oh, so you can go and do stuff and be impressive. But we know that that doesn't actually make us happy in the long run. It's the day-to-day, it's the relationships, it's the way we're talking to ourselves and self-love, which is
00:32:15
Speaker
cheesy but important. My internal self-talk is just radically, radically different than it was when I was focused on achievement. Because you've talked about the ADHD side of things.
00:32:29
Speaker
At what point were you thinking about or questioning? Because I know for a lot of people, there's always this part of them that they don't really understand and the diagnosis that medical professionals give you, they don't fully explain everything. So at what point were you like, hey, there's something more than ADHD and mental health? Yeah, I think actually having
00:32:56
Speaker
an autistic dad who was extremely traumatized and not a nice person made it harder because I was like, oh, I'm a lot like my dad. But I was just like, oh, that's trauma, right? So everything that I now see in him as an autistic trait, I thought was just like weird trauma stuff or just like being smart and, you know, kind of a weirdo.
00:33:15
Speaker
So it was actually kind of hard for me to see. And I had a really, really great therapist about five years ago who was like, hey, so this diagnosis in your chart is not a thing. This weird amalgamation diagnosis you've gotten over the years, which at that time was rapid cycling bipolar one in full remission.
00:33:34
Speaker
It was like, that's not real. That does not exist. Bipolar I does not go into remission, and rapid cycling bipolar does not go into remission. I had had no symptoms in seven years. I was still medicated for it, but I had had literally no symptoms. The reason I'd gotten the rapid cycling diagnosis is because I wasn't really actually meeting the diagnostic criteria for bipolar.
Realizations During the Pandemic
00:33:57
Speaker
I was having really bad meltdowns.
00:34:00
Speaker
And those meltdowns looked like you know i mean that they could be all kinds of things but basically they were like we're having these like episodes they're calling the episodes and then you know got the diagnosis overtime kind of these. Things and so she was like you know and she had an autistic kid and she was kind of guiding me a little you know i'd say things like my kid does that.
00:34:19
Speaker
So she was kind of like guiding me in this direction to look at maybe considering autism. And as soon as I did with her, like when I was like looking, I was like, Oh, yeah, this is me. And this is my dad, like very, you know, and I still went through that period, like a lot of
00:34:36
Speaker
people do in adulthood of, you know, Oh, I don't want to take a space in the community or I'm not sure, you know, all of these things. Yeah. And so I, I was for a while, I was just identifying as neurodivergent. Generally, I was like, I am very neurodivergent. That was the term I was using. And then actually at the lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic, my anxiety plummeted by like 90%.
00:35:02
Speaker
Yeah. Even though I was anxious about what was happening in the world, obviously, like my personal, I was like, I don't have to get on the train every day. I don't, you know, I'm not going to work. Like I can, I had the having control over my space. Um, and this is weird, but this was just one specific thing that helped. I also have my own bathroom for the first time in my life. I was in this, um, subsidized apartment through the city with my sibling and we each had like our own half. So we each had our own bathroom. So having control over my space and being able to keep my space clean for the first time in my life.
00:35:32
Speaker
um, you know, not having other people like messing it up, like being able to do exactly what I wanted with it and realizing the extreme extent of my preferences that like most people don't have preferences that are this strong or that upset them this much. And, and all of these things kind of happening, you know, at once I was just like, Oh shit. Yeah, definitely autistic. Like within, you know, two weeks of lockdown, I was like, this is, yeah, this is definitely, this is what's happening. Um, and so, you know, really started identifying with that.
00:36:02
Speaker
And my therapist totally agreed and was like, yes, we can provisionally put this on your chart. The reason I sought an official diagnosis was actually because I work with neurodivergent people. And so I both wanted, I was like, I want the experience of the formal diagnosis to be able to talk about it in case my clients want to seek it out. I wanna be able to talk about it from personal experience. And I was like, if I'm gonna have this be part of my public
00:36:30
Speaker
identity and I'm going to be talking about it, I just feel better if I have the official diagnosis. I think that's something that, you know, I think within the community people are very happy and open to people self-diagnosing.
00:36:47
Speaker
But I do also see that the utility of having a diagnosis, especially when you're going out and you're talking about your experiences, you must be a lot more safe in yourself to do that kind of thing.
00:37:07
Speaker
Yeah, and it's a little bit unfortunate because I'm completely 100% and behind self-diagnosis. And also, I have an autistic brain that's literal and has
00:37:23
Speaker
a weird relationship with authority in certain ways. And it's just like, I didn't want anybody to be able to call me out. And I wanted to be like, no, this is, this is real. I have it on paper, you know, all this. So anyway, so that's, that's, that was kind of a weird intersection there of my like values, I guess, where part of me was like, I shouldn't need it. And then part of me was like, but I want it. Yeah.
Seeking Diagnosis and Its Implications
00:37:46
Speaker
And I now know that it would,
00:37:48
Speaker
prevent me potentially from emigrating to a variety of countries. So I maybe would not have sought the official diagnosis if I'd known that. Really? Yeah. There's a bunch of countries in Europe that you cannot become a citizen of, or you can't apply for moving there if you're autistic. Oh my God. Yeah. Which countries?
00:38:08
Speaker
I watched a video about this the other day. I don't want to I don't want to say the wrong ones because I don't remember all of them. But I remember just being like, oh, shit. Well, well. And then I also know it can be an issue with custody, which I mean, I don't have kids, but, you know, like it can be it can be brought up against you in custody battles, like all kinds of things.
00:38:27
Speaker
I have my partner and I own a house together and they are on the spectrum but not diagnosed. I don't imagine this would happen, but if we were to be in some kind of legal fight over the house, they could potentially use my diagnosis against me again. They wouldn't, and I'm not actually worried about that. I'm like, oh great, now I have all these potential problems from having the official diagnosis.
00:38:51
Speaker
So I guess it would be really interesting to talk about, you know, as I said, we had the podcast with, I had the podcast with Brooke, and we were talking about autism and AHD as very much a separate thing.
00:39:07
Speaker
So I really want to understand a bit more about The audit HD experience because I know that there are some differences between so be good to kind of touch on I guess The experiences you had some of perhaps the the difficulties that you may have Compared to autistic ADHD as It'd be really interesting to him Yeah, so there are a lot of
00:39:38
Speaker
There are some overlapping traits, which a lot of people probably know if they've looked at them, executive function difficulties, a variety of things, but they show up in different ways. And one thing I was thinking about this that I experienced
00:39:54
Speaker
almost my ADHD self and my autistic self almost as two characters that are fighting against each other sometimes in certain ways. The plane tug of war, push-pull kind of. Yeah. Because one part of me is like, oh, I love routine and need routine. And then one part of me is like, we'll do it live. Yeah.
00:40:13
Speaker
very much so. And I wonder if I would have that experience if I had not learned about these two things as disorders that are separate. So I have this conception of them in my mind as opposed to just sort of like, this is the way I am. But I have noticed because I
00:40:34
Speaker
I should also just say regarding clients that I've worked with, if I'm referring to them, I've worked with well over 100 neurodivergent people at this point, that the people who are coming to me are mostly white, mostly middle to upper class. It depends, and there's been some variation.
00:40:52
Speaker
I'm seeing a particular slice of population and they're English speaking and mostly American. So that's like getting this very particular slice of the neurodivergent experience and then my own experience and my siblings. And one of the really interesting things I've noticed with ADHD specifically is so there's the autistic
00:41:17
Speaker
ability to make really, really good decisions. There may be decision fatigue, there may be trouble taking action on the decision, but this very structured thinking through all the options, thinking through
00:41:29
Speaker
all the options as far into the future as you can, being very good at projecting outward into what might happen accurately. I saw one really cool study that indicated that autistic people were less affected by elements of tricky advertising because we're just trying to make a good decision and we just ignore the bad. I relate to that. I'm actually the opposite. It's like if I see an advert
00:41:54
Speaker
on the TV. I'm like, I know that you're trying to psychologically manipulate me into buying your product. I'm not going to do it. Yeah, exactly. It makes me mad. And then so I've got that part of my brain. But then the ADHD part of my brain is like, I don't want to read it. I like won't read an instruction manual. I'm like, I don't want to read instructions. You know, I like I just want to try it and just like get my hands dirty and get in there and do it and like
00:42:19
Speaker
you know, even if, even if it's uncomfortable and messy, I would rather just like get started. And that ability to just kind of like,
00:42:28
Speaker
jump in and take action on all of the information that my brain has been processing. Usually, when I'm trying to sleep, my brain's like, let's process all of our ideas. So thank you so much. So helpful. But I have processed so much information. And then there is this part of me, this ADHD part, that's just like, yes, I can just, I'll just start. I'll just start doing it. I'll just do it shittily.
00:42:51
Speaker
And I have noticed, like I'm just going again, in a particular slice of population that my autistic clients often have trouble actually taking action on the decision without some support because they're so used to being told that the way they're doing it is wrong.
00:43:11
Speaker
I just don't care. I think to some extent, the ADHD melded together with the autism is just this really extreme level of not giving a shit about what anybody thinks and being willing to just do whatever I want to an extent that's occasionally been harmful.
00:43:29
Speaker
and it doesn't always work out well. But there is this energy behind it that I'm able to just take action. But then my autistic scrupulosity and ability to plan and love of routine keeps me from missing too many appointments or just totally forgetting that something is happening on a day, which I still do on occasion. But
00:43:52
Speaker
there's this certain, unfortunately, a lot of how that's presented is just anxiety in my system. It's just like, remember the thing, which is not fun. So there's these parts of me that are helping me function in this world that was not built for my brain.
00:44:10
Speaker
And so again, like those things, you know, kind of come together in this way that have helped me in certain ways, but then it also made it really hard to get support and help because people were like, well, you're achieving and you're doing things. And I was like, yeah, but I'm like not eating. Yeah. I relate to that.
Routine Maintenance with ADHD
00:44:30
Speaker
I suppose I'm really interested because in your experience, do you find that leaning more into your ADHD side or your autistic side is the most beneficial for your overall wellbeing and productivity? Oh, that is such a good question. Lean into your autistic traits or do you lean into your ADHD traits? I am typically happier when I lean into my autistic traits.
00:44:59
Speaker
but my ADHD traits are much more socially acceptable. So I receive more positive feedback when I lean into the ADHD traits. And just one small example I'll give of that is when I'm collaborating with someone on an artistic project, I found being willing to just send a shift craft. Yeah.
00:45:19
Speaker
nobody is ever like, oh my god, you're a bad composer, right? They're just like, oh cool, let's fix these things, right? Versus the part of me, and I was thinking about this because I was telling you about this, I have already made it, this quiz for what's your ADHD superpower. Because I looked at it, I was like, what are the overlaps between ADHD and autism?
00:45:40
Speaker
Positives that people the things people talk about as positive. What are the things that overlap? And then I made a cute little quiz about it And I was just laughing at myself that I was like I'm so nervous to give this to you to share with people This is a free thing. It's for fun. It doesn't matter versus when I'm writing literally an orchestral piece I'm like, I just give it to the orchestra and they'll play it and I'll see how I like it right like my brain is so uneven and how it applies Perfectionism to thanks and I think that that's hilarious
00:46:10
Speaker
that's really interesting because I guess like I think I think with with autism you know that in a lot of cases the ideal scenario requires a lot of structure and a lot of planning and routine and quite often that's not as easy I think
00:46:31
Speaker
but I've also heard from ADHD is that they also find a lot of use with getting a routine in and actually like following it and finding some structure it's just that they're not like naturally their brain is not inclined to do that
00:46:49
Speaker
Whereas with autistic people, we know because we feel anxious, we feel uncomfortable, we feel like in deep water if we don't have that kind of sense of certainty and structure and routine within our lives. That is the single most frustrating thing as an ADHD person for me, is part of me like physically wanting a routine so badly and loving it when I have it. And then no matter what routine I have,
00:47:20
Speaker
it's not going to last for longer than six weeks. In a breakout of your shell. My brain is eventually just going to be like, just right out the window. It does not last. And I literally have studied this, habits became an area of special interest for me. So I studied it a lot. I know a lot about them. I know a lot about the physicality of habit formation in the brain. I know a lot about plasticity in the brain and all of these things.
00:47:48
Speaker
And even with all of this information, I cannot force my neurotype to do something.
00:47:53
Speaker
that it physically does not want to do. And when I do, when I use willpower to try to force my brain to do something that it doesn't want to do, then I'm just wasting my willpower that I could be using on eating and showering.
Hyperfocus and Task Transition Challenges
00:48:08
Speaker
Using up all of your spoons before, using all of your spoons to go above and beyond everything, work and productivity related, but then leaving no spoons for you to sort of self care and executive functioning stuff.
00:48:23
Speaker
Which makes sense because nobody's praising me for showering, except maybe my partner, I guess, if I get really gross.
00:48:30
Speaker
I suppose as well like you know the only you know I a lot of the stuff that I do is online so people won't really be able to sell just dry shampoo it put some deodorant on for my own well-being you know it yeah definitely and it just it seems for me that it just takes so much more energy to do that than to
00:48:54
Speaker
produce the high level of content or produce something that's very detailed. Yeah, I was going to say, you produce a lot of content. Yeah, but that's what I mean. So it's like, on one hand, I can do this thing and yeah, it's probably going to be good. Or I can just leave it up until a point where it's really difficult and just have a burnout and get it all sorted.
00:49:23
Speaker
Obviously that's not the best way to do it, but I think I try to leave as many spins for myself as possible. It's just, you know, as you said, that interest dynamic of wanting to do things that you find interesting is just so, so strong for me. Yeah.
00:49:43
Speaker
And that is one of the other things with the audio HD together is the level of hyper focus I can engage in is absolutely wild. Forget to eat, forget to go to the toilet, forget to drink. Yeah. One time I forgot to eat for three days and you do that one time and people just never let you live it down ever.
00:50:04
Speaker
Yeah. I only once, but yeah, I frequently will forget to eat for like a whole day. Or I'll be thinking about it and I'll be like, I can't remember the last time I ate. Because I imagine that's quite hard because, you know, there is an element with autism around things like transitions, like transitioning from one thing to another. And I think a lot of people incorrectly think of it as only being an issue when you're transitioning into something that you like.
00:50:34
Speaker
like i love going to the gym often very often pretty much every day i have a difficulty transitioning into leaving to go to the gym like every day not you know i i love going it makes me feel great and it's my interest i love watching the videos and listening to the videos while i'm working out and you know just just completely just informing myself in that in that special interest but
00:51:02
Speaker
still it's so difficult and even going so far as you know i start work and then as you said you just you just continue working on it and working on it and it's like you've got this like steam train brain where it's like
00:51:18
Speaker
it's really hard to get started but once you get started and the more that you do and the faster that you go it just stays at that speed and it's just so hard to just like put the brakes on and you have it takes you ages to go to like halt to a stop and if you try to do it too quickly you get overwhelmed you get emotionally dysregulated
00:51:38
Speaker
you're like oh my god you fall off the tracks you're like oh my god everything's gone off your cargo is gone and then the day's gone and you know it's the time at which you would have gone to do a certain activity is passed and it's better just to kind of reset yeah and what you're describing like one of the things i have that exact experience one of the things that can happen in that experience
00:52:01
Speaker
is that one of my routines disappears during that. It doesn't even have to be a meltdown. It can just be either a really hard day or a transition that really doesn't go well, or thinking I'm going to do something and then I don't, and then having one of those really hard periods of time around it, as you're describing. And then it's like the next day when I wake up, one of my routines is gone from my brain. And I'm like, no.
00:52:30
Speaker
And part of what I want to express in my public life and being vulnerable about the difficulties I still have, even after doing a lot of work, is that this is not a problem. A lot of what I'm experiencing is like, oh, I hate this, that this routine is disappearing, or that I had a really bad day and that
00:52:56
Speaker
that did something to my brain that I don't understand. And now my, one of my routines is like gone, just gone, gone. And I can't, can't get it back. Right. I know how to rebuild it from scratch, but that's no fun. And I don't get the same dopamine rebuilding the same routine from scratch. So it actually doesn't work most of the time. And audio HD people will know exactly what I'm talking about. Like this is such a common experience. You don't have that excitement of starting something new. I can't get into it, but
00:53:23
Speaker
On the other hand, like the other thing my brain is capable of doing is one time I was just casually making art with friends in a dorm room and I looked up and everybody was staring at me and I was like, what? And they were like, you just looked down and you didn't move or talk or do anything except make art for three straight hours. And you just like, literally your body didn't do anything else. You just made the art and then you suddenly, and then you looked up and we were all like, oh my God, are they okay?
00:53:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So my brain has this capacity to go really deep and just like totally get lost.
00:53:57
Speaker
I had a similar experience at university as well because around about that time I think it's about my first year at university I went into this like dorm room kind of complex
Travel and Personal Interests
00:54:07
Speaker
of different students with their own places and I think it was like this summer day where everyone was kind of relaxing and chilling out you know drinking and doing all that kind of student-y stuff
00:54:20
Speaker
and I was like oh actually I need to get some need to get some training in today so I had this kind of like sandbag stand that I filled with water and it had like this pole that went up and it had some like kick pads at different heights on it and stuff and I just went up there and I just kicked the pads for like two hours and people started to notice because there was like a window going onto there onto the thing and they started coming up and they were like oh you've been you've been here a while like are you gonna
00:54:49
Speaker
when are you gonna finish and i'm like oh i don't know i kind of don't want to stop
00:54:57
Speaker
And it's the same like after Taekwondo training sessions when I came home after like a couple of hours of training, really, really struggled to stop. And like so I'd have a routine where I come home after training, after being depleted after two hours, where I had like a kettlebell and I just do like kettlebell jumps until my legs couldn't move and then I go to sleep.
00:55:24
Speaker
The only time that I really feel like there's no time pressure is when I'm traveling. I love traveling because if I'm on the train for like five hours or two hours, I know that there's nothing else that I can do. So anything that I do do during that time, it's a positive. So I love just that.
00:55:46
Speaker
Exactly. So it's like I can't I can't go in exercise. I can't do a podcast. I literally it's like it narrows the amount of things that I'm able to do. And it makes me feel safer that I have that that narrowing. So I always just love any time I'm having a car journey or a train journey or anything like that. I love to just get stuck in like with one of the few things that I can do and feel completely comfortable and
00:56:15
Speaker
I guess, fine with it and not give myself a hard time and it's a decision paralysis or something like that. I struggle with that quite a lot. Yeah. When I was saying, this is not a problem that my brain does this stuff, it's exactly what you're describing and also I love trains. The trains are great.
00:56:40
Speaker
for my brain to just believe that what it's experiencing is okay is a really unusual experience for me because I've been told my entire life that my experiences are not normal. And I don't want to be typical, but I would like to be accepted and part of the tribe and have that emotional experience of people thinking that my experience is okay. And I don't like being singled out as the different one in a group.
00:57:09
Speaker
you know, all the time, which still happens. You love it. Yeah. I'm fine with that. I'm a bit of an attention whore.
Societal Expectations vs Personal Happiness
00:57:17
Speaker
I love it. Yeah. I'll take that.
00:57:23
Speaker
No, I agree with you. I think there's a lot of expectations that people put on you and they're sometimes just the most bizarre things. Like if you don't have a car and you don't drive to work every morning and do a nine to five job and come home and relax and do something relaxing or wake up and go to the gym in the morning
00:57:47
Speaker
It's like anything else or I'll have a house and have independent living and all of those kind of things. If you don't have all of those separate aspects and you don't go out socializing, you don't have all these crazy
00:58:02
Speaker
very restrictive like life norms that people identify with they automatically always like label you as either not achieving or doing too much and i've had these these situations many times in my life because people around me would be like you need to take it easy on yourself you're having a tough time like you know if i'm going through something or even just in general like you you you are a workaholic and you do do all of these stuff all the time
00:58:31
Speaker
Like, you need to take a break, you need to step back, you know, the therapist might say that. Every time without fault, every time that I do that, I always feel worse, always feel dysregulated. Like, it's funny to me because I'm typically not like, I don't really fit anywhere in those kind of norms that people have.
00:58:59
Speaker
If I'm able to, I will wake up midday and work into that and work and do my things up until perhaps a bit later in the evening or early in the morning. I'm very happy with that. That works for me totally. I'm happy to work all day. I'm happy to do my social media stuff when I'm in bed. I'm happy to get up and do podcasts now and again. I love all of that stuff. That works for me.
00:59:26
Speaker
But it's not what people kind of want to push on me, those expectations. Like, you know, maybe I don't want to drive everywhere. Maybe I want to get a train or a bus or, you know, even things around food. Maybe, look, it's probably not the ideal, but, you know, I don't want to be cooking and meal prepping and stuff. I'm happy just to have
00:59:52
Speaker
basic kind of healthy microwave meals that I can have in the evening, protein shakes, lots of very, very healthy snacks and fruit. I'm good with that. That works for me. Or even going so far as interests, like most of my interests are productivity related, like to do with work or to do the gym or watching YouTube videos. Those are all things that
01:00:17
Speaker
make me feel whole, make me feel good but they're not typically things that kind of fit into this very distinct idea for what an adult life should be like
01:00:35
Speaker
But then, ironically, we have all of these novels and movies about people who are living their boring, normal life and then have some big, weird experience, some midlife crisis, or realize that they're miserable. So I totally get what you're saying about this is the life that we're expected to have. And yeah, we're told that that's good, but then we have this media about
01:00:57
Speaker
how eventually you're gonna get tired and want something else. You gotta go pursue an interest. News articles about how people are depressed with life and they have this kind of capitalist. It's not working. Productivity related system and it's so restrictive and like, well, just don't do that. Like try not to find something that's not like that. And like, but it's so socially reinforced as well. Like people, I think we're talking about it on your podcast, that kind of,
01:01:25
Speaker
people very much reinforce this particular way of being and if you deviate in any way from what they think an adult should be like they're very quick to just make like little jokes like little negs now and again they'll just kind of poke you
01:01:40
Speaker
You know, and people do it to me, even though I achieve in lots of lots of different areas of my life, people still make those comments. It's it's quite bizarre sometimes. You kind of just want to be like, you shake them and say, like, you don't need to fulfill all of these things to be an adult. You don't need to like daytime, not daytime, telly.
01:02:06
Speaker
reality TV shows and really love scrolling on Instagram and TikTok and just doing all of the things that most people do that you don't need to have those interests. You can be interested in
01:02:22
Speaker
Nintendo Game Boy games and love playing that or Pokemon or Dungeons and Dragons or Warhammer or you know I'm listing off very stereotypically geeky nerdy things but it could be like fresh metal like you could love just going to raves on your own and having a dance and like
01:02:43
Speaker
People just like, they feel so, it's like they want to fulfill these social expectations to be accepted, but then they're not happy with their lives. And they're like, why don't I feel happy? It's because you're not following what you're interested in and what you want to do and what you want your life to look like. So that's like, I feel like that's one of my main messages for, you know, all the stuff I make, all the content I make is just like,
01:03:13
Speaker
do what you want because if you can be happy, like if you can feel good day to day and like feel okay, like a lot of the anxiety that I had was about
01:03:26
Speaker
feeling that I was making the wrong choices, that the things I was doing with my time were not the correct things and that they were not moving my life in the right direction. And as soon as I just decided to ignore, I mean, not the things I disappeared in that moment. But when I realized, like, oh, this is not intrinsic to me, this is being put on me by outside forces, and that's not cool, and I don't want that. So being able to just be like, fuck it, I'll do what I want. And it can often be from people that want the best from you as well.
01:03:54
Speaker
the neurotypicals, then they just want you to succeed and they want you to feel good, but they don't really get it. They don't really get what it's like to be you. It's one of those difficult situations where you might have to go against what people tell you is best for you, even close ones and people that you care about.
01:04:16
Speaker
You know, I had situations perhaps when I was just starting off making YouTube videos that my dad was like, why are you doing this? Why are you spending all your time on this? You should be going and having a job or you should be doing this and that. And I'm like, well, I like doing this and this is going to be, you know, I'm going to grow it. And I did. And I have grown it to a point where, you know, it's enviable to a lot of people that I meet and
01:04:45
Speaker
now my dad's like oh hey this is great like this is you know you're doing amazing and i'm like yeah i know i know that exact experience yeah well you should have listened to me about this but you touched on something around anxiety
01:05:03
Speaker
and i know that with autism there are particular barriers that can make mental health difficult i mean just part and part due to the statistics around mental health and also the life experiences that we have
01:05:20
Speaker
But also to do things like alexa-phymia in terms of understanding our emotional states, putting things in place to recover and putting breaks in place to cope with different anxiety-producing situations.
Mental Health Challenges and Cultural Differences
01:05:37
Speaker
But I'd really love to know more about your experiences in ADHD and how you think it might differ to ADHD in autistic individuals.
01:05:49
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, like a lot of neurodivergent people, I've had really bad mental health experiences, both in terms of my internal experience and then trouble getting help for it. One thing, and this is, I don't know if this is just an audio HD experience, but my emotions are huge. Like they are all consuming,
01:06:16
Speaker
totally overwhelming, right? That's another reason that people often get an incorrect borderline diagnosis is just these big emotions. And that was happening when I was, again, like a really little kid, I was having meltdowns. You know, there's family lore around some of this stuff. But in my case, because my parents would hit me when that happened, I started moving towards shutdowns. So I stopped having meltdowns. And I would just go catatonic for hours as a kid. So I mean, I was having these like huge experiences that I had
01:06:46
Speaker
no context for. I didn't know anyone outside of my immediate family who was having emotional experiences like this that seemed uncontrolled and uncontrollable. So I don't know that I had
01:07:02
Speaker
I definitely had anxiety as a kid. I don't know if I was having depression exactly. I don't know if I could pick that apart from the shutdowns at this point, but I also had a very traumatizing childhood. I was very physically and emotionally abused, so that was bad and obviously did not help. But the big... I'm sorry to have that. Thank you. Yeah, it sucked. My parents were totally unequipped. They shouldn't have had any kids, let alone seven.
01:07:29
Speaker
But the big thing that happened was at the end of my junior year of college, and if you don't want to hear a mention of sexual assault, just skip ahead 10 seconds right now. I was raped at the end of my junior year of college, and that just absolutely sank me into an immediate depression, like really bad suicidal on and off for a couple of years.
01:07:51
Speaker
And the statistic that just gets me every time I see it is that 90% of autistic women have been sexually assaulted. And most of them, or in a lot of cases, they don't realize that it was assault until after the fact, which did happen to me. I knew it was bad, but it wasn't until I was talking to somebody about it the next day that they were like, that sounded non-consensual. And I was like, oh,
01:08:18
Speaker
Yeah. But I mean, I also, I don't love, I think virginity is a silly concept, but like for me, growing up evangelical, it was a big deal for me that my first sexual experience was like, yes, against my will. And you know, like I was, but I, I had grown up without bodily autonomy and I had grown up with, you know, abuse. And so in my world, you know, for me as a 17 year, 18 year old at that point, um, I,
01:08:46
Speaker
I didn't understand what it was to have control over my body and to be able to talk about it in a reasonable way. So all of these things, and then obviously having the trauma from childhood. So when depression hit me, it hit me really hard because it was not just, oh, there was an event. It was like, oh,
01:09:04
Speaker
It's not situational. This is your entire childhood. This is all of your autistic experiences that haven't been accepted. It was everything at once. I also was living in Minnesota at the time. I was going to school in Minnesota, which is a very... The US has all these different mini cultures within it. Minnesota is a very
01:09:23
Speaker
very, very aggressively in our typical culture. It is a guess culture. So the one term I've heard is guess culture, not ask culture. You're supposed to guess what people want and then provide it before they ask you. You're not supposed to ask what they want. If somebody asks if they offer you food, you're supposed to deny it three times. I'm like, this isn't biblical.
01:09:45
Speaker
What is this? So people would offer me a snack and I'd just be like, oh yeah, sure. And they'd be horrified that I said yes. I'm like, why are you asking me? So anyway, it was a terrible place. That's really weird. To not know you were autistic. I mean, that happens anyway, doesn't it? Just out and about in most places, when they were typically like, oh, do you want this? And they don't actually mean it. And you're like, yeah. Yeah. They're like, oh.
01:10:09
Speaker
Well, yeah, so that was the worst possible place to, you know, not know. I've actually I've heard that Minnesota is actually a good place in terms of school if you're autistic, if you know you are. But if you're an adult who doesn't know, it's not fun. People were just awful to me. I got bullied more there as an adult than like in my entire childhood. Jesus. So that was bad. That was like a bad period of time. And then also like right around that time I had a silent guy.
01:10:38
Speaker
Don't know if that's me or not. I can hear you. A up just popping on to say thank you for listening to this podcast thus far. If you could do me a real solid, please make sure to rate the podcast if you're in a podcasting streaming service and do all that like subscribe comment stuff on YouTube. Damn, even send a heart in the comments if you don't feel like typing.
01:11:02
Speaker
Make sure to check out my link tree, which is always down below in the description or head over to my Instagram page at Thomas Henley UK for daily blogs, podcast updates and weekly lives. This podcast is sponsored by my favorite noise cancelling noise reducing earbuds that you can adjust the volume on. Really, really great thing. They're called D buds and you can find the affiliate link down in the description of this podcast for a 15 percent off discount.
01:11:32
Speaker
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the rest of the podcast. That's all from me. We were talking about. So of mental health and stuff that you you explained a bit about your your experiences with things, and I think it would be good to talk about like the differences now, like some some unique sort of challenges to being an old age dear with that. That's okay.
01:11:58
Speaker
Yeah. So, I mean, for me, one of the big formative experiences was around that my ADHD looking like bipolar and having that diagnosis because I was on lithium, I was on a bunch of different medications over time for both depression and anxiety and the bipolar diagnosis. And
01:12:18
Speaker
One of the big experiences that was really hard was I was like, well, this isn't working. I keep getting depressed. And if I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, if I'm doing therapy and I'm taking my meds and I'm sleeping well and I like, you know, really good about substance use, like I was like, I was doing everything I was supposed to do and I was still feeling like shit. So I was like, that that was part of what made me suicidal.
01:12:42
Speaker
a lot more often was I was like, well, if nothing I do can touch this and I'm still having what I now recognize as meltdowns, not depressive episodes, but this is still happening and so it's never going to get better and so I may as well just be dead. That was the thought process. And
01:13:01
Speaker
I first of all recognize there's internalized ableism in that because now I'm like, oh, you can just live. Like comparing yourself to neurotypicals. And that you can totally live with conditions that suck a lot of the time, right? There doesn't have to be this element of being cured.
01:13:18
Speaker
I would say that that particular experience, having these huge emotions, having no help for them at all, and really just not having... Nobody was looking at my experiences and understanding me. They were just like, here's the label and this label works well enough and whatever. Here you can have it.
01:13:38
Speaker
that was really hard. And then I think another thing that a lot of neurodivergent people experience, you know, going to therapy and having a therapist be like, wow, you're so self-aware, you know?
Therapy and Emotional Understanding
01:13:50
Speaker
I do think that neurodivergent people have more metacognition, more awareness of what's going on in our mind. That in introception, not interreception, introception. Yeah. Being introspective and being able to look at your internal experience and analyze it because you have to, because nobody's helping you with it and you're having all of this information and all of these thoughts. The way I think of it is having
01:14:15
Speaker
between four and 16 tracks in my head at all times. There's just always stuff happening. And some of those tracks are music, and sometimes there's two musical tracks going on at once. And I'm like, could we not do this? I do not need to think of every mashup in my head.
01:14:33
Speaker
having just so much information going on at once. And then when you bring that to a mental health professional, they either think it's disordered because there's too much going on, right? So there's a whole bunch of labels that can go with that, including bipolar.
01:14:49
Speaker
And, and they're like, well, that's problematic. You're having too many thoughts, right? Or you've done a good job of managing them and you're coming in and you're like, here are my thoughts. I've organized them. And like, here's me explaining what I think they're about and where they came from and what they mean and all that. And they're like, Oh, you don't need help. You've already figured it out. Like this is what we're going to do in therapy. You know, I think you were saying before about like, I think you were, you were, what are you saying?
01:15:17
Speaker
I have that experience a lot as well. It's almost like you are going there to educate the therapist on stuff. And that's if they're a good one. If they're a bad one, they just kind of gloss over your experiences and tell you what to do and tell you all the ways that you should be thinking and acting. Just think less, just worry less.
01:15:43
Speaker
pretty much oh yeah and yeah you were saying about oh it's gone again oh my god let me have a think
01:15:55
Speaker
Yeah, you were saying earlier, I think that, you know, you understand autism and ADHD and neurodiversities, but you still have difficulties with it and stuff. And I've had a similar experience with mental health.
01:16:16
Speaker
i did so much work i did my lot of my degree around mental health and like the biology of it i understand like the neuroscience behind it and the medications and a lot of a lot of lived experience and a lot of personal research has gone into me understanding my mental health conditions depression anxiety particularly still still is an issue
01:16:43
Speaker
and I think that that's an important aspect to it because you know in my brain I think that I would think that understanding more about how it works and what's happening would alleviate all of it and I'd be like hey right I'm catastrophizing hey right I'm being very learnt helplessness about this situation and
01:17:08
Speaker
Having all of these thoughts about things doesn't always change the reality of day-to-day living. I understand why I'm depressed and I understand which thoughts are not real and which thoughts are very, very negative and not necessarily representative, but it doesn't stop me feeling that way. Whenever I've been into therapy, I've always made the distinction of
01:17:35
Speaker
right i understand it and i know and i know what and i know why and i know what helps but i've done that and i still feel this way or like this and it was it was always like you know you as you were saying about you go to them and you give them all this this research and say that well sounds like you got a good handle on it
01:18:00
Speaker
And that's an experience that I have a lot both being autistic and also with mental health. Just because you understand it and just because you have the knowledge and have the practical tips and ways to overcome it, it doesn't mean that it's always just going to get away and you're going to be able to manage it.
01:18:24
Speaker
Totally. I'd say that I probably have done more to help myself and manage it myself than any therapist has ever helped me with. There's been very, very small things, which I think therapists who have talked to me, which has been somewhat transformative to me, and that was particularly around anger.
01:18:50
Speaker
i'm a very angry person i get angry and irritable and annoyed at a lot of things but i don't express it and i kind of like push it down and ignore it and so one of the situations that
01:19:05
Speaker
you know i was talking to my therapist about that they were like right so anger doesn't always have to be this kind of over aggressive behavior and speech like it could just just be feeling angry about something and telling someone that you're not happy with something and putting boundaries in place and things like that and i was like hey actually you know i probably don't do that enough and i probably don't listen to myself about what i'm angry about too and enough i guess because i i've a lot of
01:19:35
Speaker
you know bad experiences with people being angry and aggressive and stuff and i'm always like i don't want to be like that i don't want my anger to dictate my behavior but i do think you know that that was like one of the things that that someone's mentioned to me that has had an impact on me
01:19:55
Speaker
All the other stuff, pretty much nothing. It's either educating them or being told a lot of useless information that doesn't apply to me. Like strategies to cope with anxiety. You know, I don't need the strategies to cope with anxiety because I cannot tell that I'm anxious until I'm at the point where I need a panic. I have a panic attack or a meltdown or anxiety attack. So it's not really useful for me for managing it long term.
01:20:23
Speaker
And a lot of the ways that I manage my mental health is this kind of blanket approach. And this can obviously fall into a lot of harmful ways of coping like SH or it can be with things like substance use, that kind of blanket approach that makes you feel good generally and doesn't necessarily have to be like this directed
01:20:49
Speaker
thing where you like process something and you implement strategies and things like that it could be every day you know I have my meds I go to the gym I listen to music I have lots of different sensory things around me so I have this kind of blanket mentality of trying to well successfully sort of bolstering my mood and my day with a very blanket approach rather than like targeting and be like hey I need to do these anxiety relief things
01:21:20
Speaker
Yeah, that makes so much sense. I've done so much, like you're talking about the intellectual, the psychoeducation side of things. I was in therapy almost constantly for 15 years. Yeah.
01:21:35
Speaker
I have myself taken a year-long trauma education program that was for therapists, but I got a scholarship for this thing because I was very interested in trauma. I am a board certified hypnotherapist. I've done a whole bunch of trainings. I know so many things about the mind-body system and how they interact and how magical
01:21:54
Speaker
change can be and how quick it can be when it's embodied and integrated and all of these things. Like I know all of these things intellectually and I've experienced them. I've had some really wild, great health results from hypnotherapy myself. So, you know, I love it. I think it's really great. And knowing all of these things, I still have an autistic PDA profile brain where when I'm having a bad time and my brain literally knows probably a thousand techniques that would help me.
01:22:22
Speaker
I'm just like, I don't want to. I want to be miserable right now. I just want to have
Experiencing Emotions Without Strategies
01:22:27
Speaker
this.
01:22:27
Speaker
It's like internal stimming and like letting the emotion take me and have this experience. And there's a part of me that wants that and that's okay. Like there's a part of me that just wants the intensity of this experience to just wash over me and just like be in it and just let it pass by. Lean into it. Yeah. And I almost like, I can almost have a better time having that experience for the 30 to 90 seconds that the actual physical mechanism of an emotion usually takes in the body.
01:22:55
Speaker
to just like let it happen and be in it as opposed to, oh, and now, because I don't, I don't need to do a technique for that. I can just focus your mind, look at, look around the room, save for free things. Yeah. And if I'm actually, yeah, it gets annoying. It does. It gets, it feels like it's trapping you. It feels self infantilizing to me to be like, oh, you're having an emotion. Like let's do this thing. And I'm like, okay. Or, or I could just like let it happen.
01:23:23
Speaker
Okay, so I have a weighted plushie, a couple of these that I love. This is like three pounds or something. Putting this on my lap is comforting. It also can help with focus for both ADHD and autism. So write something like that. I'm like, okay, now there's a soft, heavy thing in my lap. That is nice, right? But this is just like a... I'll just grab this during a meeting. I don't go through a whole rigmarole in my head of
01:23:48
Speaker
Oh no, I have to do something for the emotion. I'm just like, look, this will feel slightly better and it's okay to do things that feel good even if they're not the most adaptive option or the most healthy option all the time. We don't always have to do the best thing or the perfect thing for this emotional experience. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
01:24:10
Speaker
i think there is that tendency to be like hey right we need to get all of the factors involved in this just completely ironed out needs to be a plan for everything and a lot of the time for me it just takes me more energy than it would take to deal with the emotions themselves sometimes like you know it's
01:24:33
Speaker
I feel like, you know, as you said, you know, it's not something that's going to go away. Like, it's something that's a part of you and the way that you function and the way that you feel and think. And I think at some point you there is a mentality of just being like, hey, you know, actually, I'm just going to deal with this and be OK with just dealing with feeling low today and not give myself walks in nature and
01:25:00
Speaker
doing all of this self-help stuff so that I'm at an acceptable level of being okay. Like I'm used to it. Like for me, it's been like 12 years. It's like, I know what it's like to be anxious and depressed. I know that sometimes I'm not going to be able to cope with things and just being feeling okay with just letting things flow out and having this difficult
01:25:26
Speaker
a couple of days and then getting back on my feet and using those strategies. And it's a very individual thing, isn't it? Because everything that you read, everything that you, the studies that you look at, the research that you look at, the lived experiences in from other people, they're all individualized or generalized, depending on what you look at. And they're not always your experience. And it's not always easy to put yourself into a box of, right, this is helping.
01:25:56
Speaker
Most people so therefore I'm gonna do all of these things that help most people even though a few of these things actually Don't help and they actually caused me more stress Yeah, and I think part of that is this comparison both with others around us and then also this idea of what a life is supposed to look like or a day is supposed to look like because I know for me when I was depressed I Usually actually felt okay if I was alone
01:26:22
Speaker
because I got to just be low energy and nobody was commenting on it or telling me that I looked bummed out or something, which people do all the time anyway, because I just have low affect on my face a lot of the time if I'm not thinking about it. I have flat affect a lot of the time, so people will be like, are you okay? I have a slight frown naturally.
01:26:44
Speaker
And that would bum me out more to be around other people and have them reflecting back to me. Cause I was like, I don't actually feel that bad. I'm just at home, like hanging out with my cat, like engaging in my special interest. I feel okay. I'm technically depressed.
01:27:01
Speaker
by like some standard, right? I feel low energy. I don't want to do things and maybe I'm not eating or showering enough and I don't want to be around people. I'm meeting the technical definition of depression, but I feel okay because I'm doing things that feel good to me. That's really, really, really important that you talk about that because autistic burnout often shares a lot of similarities with situational depression. Yeah.
01:27:30
Speaker
from things and that is the way that you kind of cope with things, you kind of reset, you reduce stimulation of stressful things, sensory social things, productivity related things and that's how you kind of reset yourself.
01:27:46
Speaker
I think that's something that's worth highlighting because it may not always be that, you know, when you get yourself in these situations that you are just naturally just becoming more depressed and you are struggling it might actually be, you know, there's kind of more situational things of
01:28:04
Speaker
You know, I'm just things a lot in the moment and I need some time on my own. I think the way that I distinguish when it's mental health and not a burnout is like how prolonged it is. How long have I been feeling like this?
The Role of Supplements and Diet
01:28:21
Speaker
Yeah. Have I bounced back after after having a rest and having a having a break? And a lot of the time it is kind of more to do with that kind of burnout thing, and it often does help.
01:28:33
Speaker
So there's, there's so many factors, isn't there? And like dealing with mental health is like a neurodiverse brain because a lot of the stuff that's out there, it is neurotypical focused. It's not individualized. You know, there's, there's so many aspects to maintaining your emotional wellbeing as a neurodiverse person. So it's neurodivergent person.
01:28:56
Speaker
And as one example, like I know you were joking, but they're like, go walk in the woods or something, right? Go take a walk in nature. Like to me, again, if I was having like a depressed, but overall okay, you know, maybe have a more burnout resting experience at home. And then if I would go and do something like that, right? Just typical advice given to people. If I would go and do the thing, like go walk in nature. And if I did not feel better, cause I was like, this is the thing that's supposed to make me feel better. And if it doesn't work, then there's something wrong with me.
01:29:24
Speaker
Like it can be, it made me feel more depressed to do the things people said were supposed to make me feel better. If they didn't make me feel better. If it's like an expectation, you come back and like, you feel better? And I'm like, no. So I would rather not do them because I don't want to know that that doesn't work for me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get that. Well, um, I guess it would be really interesting to talk a little bit about like, I know you've touched on a bit about medication.
01:29:50
Speaker
But I was wondering like what like medication supplements or support around ADHD do you feel has been helpful as an old HDR and what hasn't been and why?
01:30:05
Speaker
Yeah. So one thing I haven't mentioned yet that has been really helpful is supplementing with B vitamins. When I did some genetic testing, one of the things that came out in that was I have a gene for not absorbing B vitamins well. And to be fair, that does not mean that the gene is expressed or activated or turned on. Are you vegetarian or are you?
01:30:28
Speaker
I was. And when I was a vegetarian, I passed out all the time. My body just could not do it. I was the worst vegetarian because I was so unhealthy. I also have had low... I've had a mininemic and had low iron before. So those two things together, like iron and B vitamins, when my body was depleted of those, I felt like shit. And when I took them, I felt better.
01:30:52
Speaker
And those are things that you shouldn't just, like don't just start taking supplements because you think you should, like actually test your blood vitamin levels if you can, because sometimes there's things missing that you wouldn't think of or that nobody's mentioned, right? It's very common, for example, in certain parts of the world or certain populations to have low vitamin D, that's very, very common, but you don't want to take too much vitamin D. And so you certainly don't want to take too much vitamin A. I don't know if the vitamins are the same letters
01:31:19
Speaker
actually where you are. I know that you can't eat a lot of like liver because it has too much vitamin A and it can cause you like toxicity. Exactly. So don't just like don't just start taking things because some neurodivergent person was like, this is good, but it is worth getting checked out for like B vitamins, D vitamins and like maybe iron if you're really tired. Can you can you get tests for magnesium? I'm not not sure about that because I've supplement it with magnesium as well.
01:31:47
Speaker
magnesium has been been really helpful to me and it's it's really interesting because when you look at it like neurons on like a like the nerves on like a very very close-up kind of zoomed in way the way that they work they work with sodium and potassium and there's also the action of magnesium as well which is
01:32:11
Speaker
You have some things which cause your nerves to be innervated and to fire off and do these kind of things. But magnesium is one of those compounds that inhibits neural activity. And it can be really important for rest and also if you do a lot of exercise and you're kind of up and about. And even if you think a lot about a lot of things,
01:32:36
Speaker
You know, magnesium is often a really useful thing. You have magnesium salts that some people use. I've done that, like the powder in water. So I've done magnesium for sleep. I've also done it and it has helped a lot, like as a sleep supplement. I've also taken melatonin for sleep.
01:32:54
Speaker
And then magnesium I've also taken like in the middle of the day, if my brain is just like being weird. So like magnesium, also drinking water. Like I know, I know it's so annoying. It is a hydration. But it's so true. It is important. The brain needs it and like salt, right? And getting enough of like macronutrients. So like not just eating food, but making sure you're eating food that has, you know, fat and sugar and salt and like all the things you need in it, you know, and protein, obviously, but like, you know, these things that if, if you have a restricted diet,
01:33:24
Speaker
you might not realize that you're not getting. And I know a lot of neurodivergent people who've had like one of these things, right? So like magnesium or vitamin B, B vitamin, you know, as a group or something, all these things where they started taking it and they were just like, oh, are you kidding me? Like it was that, like it was literally just, I just needed one supplement, you know? So again, don't just like start taking them all, but like, but get checked out or even just like talk to a doctor about what your symptoms are.
01:33:52
Speaker
It doesn't even have to be in the context of neurodivergence. It can just be like, I'm having brain fog and really sluggish in the morning. It can be useful to talk through the physical symptoms that are happening and not just the psychological ones. Because sometimes there is something or you have sleep apnea and there are all these things that can happen that affect brain functioning.
01:34:17
Speaker
We have this weird culture where we've kind of split apart the body and brain to some extent and been like brain problems are medicated differently. Like neurology biology is different to psychology. Right. It's not. It's an organ, isn't it? Yeah. So I think a lot of, you know, when I think about supplementation and medication, and again, I have not taken.
Medication as an Aid, Not a Solution
01:34:42
Speaker
I have not taken amphetamines yet, but I would like to try them.
01:34:47
Speaker
Here's the thing, here's what I'm telling myself and what I would tell my client, or have told clients who are starting medication, it is not going to fix your life. It's not gonna do everything you hope it will. It's going to help you with some specific problems, like for example, transitions or inertia. It might help you get started more easily if that's a problem for you, which is part of what I wanna do with it. I actually wanna try it for basically admin tasks, like things that I find really boring,
01:35:16
Speaker
That's the best way that it's used, it's not for complex creative things. Yeah, that's what I wanted for. Exactly. For complex creativity, I'm actually pretty good with because I know how to use flow states for that. So I know how to set up my life for flow state. It is really hard. I've gotten into a flow state one time with admin tasks, and it's because I gave myself an unreasonable amount of work to do in one hour, and I managed to hyper-focus on that. And that happened one time, and it's kind of like the one time I got a runner's high, I stopped running because I was like,
01:35:44
Speaker
I had been running forever and not getting a runner's high because I guess I wasn't running hard enough for something. I was like, oh, if this is what this is supposed to do, no way am I going to get it. So anyway, I think around medications, medications are amazing for helping you get
01:36:06
Speaker
to the point where you can actually do the stuff you need to do. And like the stuff that helps you, right? So we're talking about all these self care and you know, things that help, you know, movement, all these things that make you feel better. If you need medication to get to the point where you can actually do those things, I think that's amazing. But it's not going to take you from zero to 100.
01:36:26
Speaker
And they also come with some drawbacks. Exactly. And there are side effects and I've been very cautious. I think as someone who has had a lot of anxiety and depression, I'm so nervous about just tipping my brain into the bad place.
01:36:42
Speaker
Well, I was talking to my mom about, there's someone in my family who's ADHD and they take meds. They're also on metazapine, which is an appetite stimulant. But, you know, there is some nuanced ways that it can affect us differently as well, because like taking an amphetamine suppresses your appetite. Right. Which is not good for me. Autistic people.
01:37:13
Speaker
struggle with interoception, interoceptive awareness, knowing when to eat, you know, just little things like that I feel need to be. I wish medical professionals were more aware of those those kind of minute details.
01:37:28
Speaker
Because I can imagine that, you know, there's been situations where I've been junked up on caffeine for like a whole day and I've just been like, go, go, go, go. I realized, oh my God, why am I so sluggish at the gym? Oh yeah, I haven't eaten anything today. That is probably why.
01:37:47
Speaker
And I think there's, you know, there's aspects to medications, those kind of side effects, which I think can be very different for autistic people. Like I know a lot of autistic people struggle with SSRIs in particular, like with, for me, if I have SSRIs,
01:38:11
Speaker
It helps my depression. It makes my anxiety so much more worse. It makes me so wired, makes me so feel awful. It also impacts my ability to understand my emotions because of that flattening effects that you get with antidepressants. It makes the Alzheimer a lot harder to navigate. There's things like that, which I feel like can have a really big impact on our functioning.
01:38:38
Speaker
Yeah. And again, just this, you know, kind of societal idea that like you should be able to buy a solution to your problem, right? And that's kind of what meds are. It's like, okay, this will fix you. You can purchase a solution to your problems, but
01:38:55
Speaker
Part of my journey of self-acceptance has been about viewing my neurotype not as a problem. There are things that make it problematic for me. If I can't tell how I'm feeling or it can cause relationship problems or if I forget to eat, that can cause all kinds of problems. But at a very basic level, I don't think that my hyper-connected, hyperactive brain is a problem.
01:39:24
Speaker
Actually, I heard an analogy on TikTok the other day that I really liked, which was we are running advanced software on old hardware. Yeah, Intel 460 processor with the cloud. Literally is processing faster, but then it's on an old computer that is not evolved for this use case.
01:39:47
Speaker
Yeah. And I don't mean that in a we're better or something. I don't think we're the next wave of evolution, but we're part of the natural human diversity, just in the ways that bodies are diverse. And there is so little space to have a system that functions differently. I keep bringing up the cyclical energy because I have that. I can have
01:40:11
Speaker
I can sometimes have days or periods of days where I can work in a really focused way for like 10 hours, you know, five days in a row.
Creativity and Empathy in ADHD
01:40:20
Speaker
Sometimes if I'm like really into something or like finishing a big project and then my body does all kinds of weird things after that, it needs a lot of rest.
01:40:28
Speaker
Well, I found that that that quite interesting because, you know, the next thing that I really wanted to talk about is kind of like the strengths because, you know, there were a lot of things which can be quite unique about us that make us particularly good in like the
01:40:45
Speaker
world of productivity at work but also within like relationships and stuff like we have certain qualities that tend to be apart as i said generalize like generalize wise be apart of autistic or adhds or adhds so i guess like if you could think of some strengths what would those kind of be if you were to highlight them
01:41:10
Speaker
Yeah, so thinking about the combined ADHD strengths, things that are common in both and that I see a lot, the top one that comes to mind is creativity and divergent thinking. Almost all ADHD people I've known or met have either been a professional creative in some form, like a writer, they do something
01:41:28
Speaker
related to creativity or they approach their life or their work in extremely creative ways and they've maybe created their own job description where they are or they or their entrepreneurs as also like a very very common to just like not fit in in the corporate world and do your own thing.
01:41:46
Speaker
And having that ability to just imagine something different and then do it, I think, is a really, really powerful... I mean, it's probably one of our top skills and it helps with a lot of the problems. It offsets a lot of issues. Another strength I see is
01:42:08
Speaker
So it's not just hyper-empathy, because it can be hyper-empathy. It can also be having social skills be a special interest. But I do see a lot of ADHD people who either are naturally or have become very, very aware of the minute feelings of others. And I've talked to- I monetize people.
01:42:30
Speaker
Yeah. And I've talked to other ADHD people where we're like, one of the problems for me as a kid was that I could see that people's facial expressions, their tone of voice, the actual words they were saying, and their body language, all four of those things were different. So I know they are lying to me, you know, like that there's this, and that I could just kind of
01:42:48
Speaker
pick up on that or I got very good at picking up on that at some point. And that can make it, again, kind of make an autism diagnosis hard because they're like, oh, well you figured out social skills. And it's like, no, I read a bunch of books about body language. And asked people a bunch of weird questions that made them uncomfortable until I figured shit out.
01:43:08
Speaker
But the skill around that, there's the social aspect of it, but I think I also see a lot of people feeling like they don't know who they are because they have this really chameleon quality of being able to mirror back to people, and it can make you very, very-
01:43:26
Speaker
Yeah, and it can make you very good in relationships where you are giving a lot. And so I'm thinking to a client I had who was just like, I know my partner's tiny preferences and I do them and I give them these super thoughtful gifts and I create these experiences for them and I do all these things for them and nobody ever does these things for me. And I was like, I think their brain just doesn't categorize information about people
01:43:51
Speaker
the way that your brain does. Your brain is remembering all these little details and then being thoughtful and kind around it. I don't think they're thinking about you in this way and then being like, fuck her, I'm not going to do nice stuff for her. They don't remember these tiny, tiny details about the way you like things to be presented in a particular order. It's a strength and then it can also be hard to find people who can match you in that level of empathy and care, which makes relationships hard. It makes friendships hard.
01:44:20
Speaker
I know pattern recognition means a lot of things, but the audio HD kind of particular way I see it is not only to having all of this information, but being able to put it into use. So again, whether it's just that whatever, I'll just try it thing, which I have.
01:44:44
Speaker
getting started with things. Being able to get started and not just gathering information and having the information, but really actively doing stuff with it and trying to either create something with it or put it into practical application or come up with your own theories around it, which my brain is constantly doing. I feel like
01:45:03
Speaker
I feel like I have this theory is like one of my, you know, main things that I say, cause my brain is just always not just gathering data, but being like, what can I do with this? How can I manipulate this individual parts of different things that you've heard and read and connecting that to other things that haven't been connecting things. And like one of my, like one of the ways I started to realize I was unusual is that I would go into conversations in areas where I didn't really know anything.
01:45:33
Speaker
Yeah, except I'd kind of gathered some random data and then as I was getting like in a in the course of it like I was able to as a 15 year old help my
01:45:43
Speaker
first boyfriend who was a senior in electrical engineering, I was able to help him with his homework. I didn't know anything about it. I was just able to look at it and be like, I understand how to formulate questions around this that are useful and just having a brain that can do that. And it's not just being smart, it's this particular pattern finding and application thing that I think is a particular strength that can be applied in a lot of ways.
01:46:10
Speaker
And then this is an interesting one that I wish we used more. I actually think we're really good at knowing what our own strengths and weaknesses are. Like I think we have a really good sense of what we're good and bad at, but a lot of societal conditioning is like work on your weaknesses. And I actually think that that's a big waste of time.
01:46:30
Speaker
for a lot of neurodivergent people. It's like, no, just lean into your strengths because what you're good at, you're so good at these little niche things that you can actually build something out of that and make something that's cool and fun for you and that you enjoy as opposed to just focusing on your weaknesses and just being frustrated forever. I am never going to be good at meal prep and I don't care and I don't want to. Meal prep sucks and I hate it.
01:46:58
Speaker
Admin communications yeah so like that's another thing is you know you.
01:47:07
Speaker
It might be reassuring to have someone outside of you tell you what you're good at, but really, I think you probably already know. You probably have a really good sense. It's just that we've been given all this conditioning around. Applying that to how to craft a life path for yourself. Exactly. And being able to figure that out when, again, a lot of my own anxiety was around like, am I doing the right thing or am I doing the wrong thing? And knowing that I have limited energy, am I wasting my energy doing the wrong thing? So there's this added layer, I think, that made me really anxious.
01:47:37
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I think it'd be, I know we've been talking for a while, so it'd be good to kind of wrap things up. But one thing that I did want to sort of mention, because you were talking about sort of like that cyclical energy that you were talking about, the podcast that I just did with Happy Autistic Lady Vera, we were talking about
01:47:59
Speaker
the cycles of burnout and I'm very much described as like a rollercoaster which you know kind of fits in with your kind of experience with cyclical energy like
01:48:17
Speaker
You have very, very high peaks of just doing all of these stuff and then stuff gets too much and you give yourself more and more and more
Managing Energy and Burnout
01:48:24
Speaker
and more and more. And then you kind of drop down and you can't cope and you have to regulate and you sort of in that kind of cycle.
01:48:32
Speaker
Do you think that that would, I guess, sort of explain some of the experiences that you have with that cyclical energy as well? Like, you know, you start, you have a burnout, you build yourself back up, you keep building, you drop down again, you have the burnout kind of experience. Is that something that you relate to?
01:48:53
Speaker
Yeah, that describes my 20s pretty well throughout and especially grad school. That was very much my experience in grad school and in the way that I was writing and part of the grad school for composition. So, I mean, writing, music. Yeah.
01:49:11
Speaker
Part of what I was experiencing, again, not yet knowing even that I had ADHD, was I recognized that sometimes my brain worked really, really well, and sometimes it worked like shit, and that's all I knew about it. Sometimes it's great, and sometimes it's terrible.
01:49:28
Speaker
So when my brain was on and I had energy, I was like, I have to go as hard as I can for as long as I can. It wasn't merely hyper-focus. I was like, I have to use this energy and be productive. And then I would push myself into burnout. So that was an experience I had cyclically over and over. Now, I haven't been
01:49:50
Speaker
burnt out in a really long time. Not fully. I do notice, I actually have a little, one of my little routines is every Friday I have a little kind of checklist I look at and some of them are physical symptoms that I'm like, if I'm having these symptoms, these are indications of me that I'm moving into burnout.
01:50:11
Speaker
And the reason I have it on Friday is because I was finding that on Friday nights, I was just exhausted and I would have social plans and I would always cancel them. I just like, I can't be around people. And I was like, Oh, this is like a little mini burnout like every week. Yeah. And that's fine. Once, you know, Friday nights, I was like, I can just set aside Friday nights to be, you know, low energy. That's fine. But I was like, I don't want this to become full burnout. So I have little things I do to check in with myself to make sure that's not happening. Even without burnout, I still have very cyclical energy in that I can have
01:50:41
Speaker
Like a big creative days or a couple days where I'm really focused on something and then I need a day that's where all of the work is low brain effort. Like I can't do hard stuff. So it's like I can do hard stuff and that's different for everybody with that means, right? But I can do hard stuff days and then I need like a break day.
01:51:00
Speaker
And sometimes that day means I'm doing, you know, maintenance tasks around the house or something, but those can be hard too. So I don't want to just say like those are easy, like they're not. It's just they're different and I can do them while, you know, listening to a podcast or something. So that's really what I've noticed is like when my body and brain are in the absolute best state they've ever been in, I still have this cyclical energy. I do not have a nine to five body.
01:51:28
Speaker
I just don't. And when I've tried to do those kinds of jobs, my body is like, that's when I get burnt out. It's when I try to make my body have that kind of routine because it's just not suited. It's really interesting.
01:51:43
Speaker
Well, I think we should probably try and wrap things up. It's been really great to talk about the ODD experience. I'm actually on the register to go for a ADD or ADHD assessment at some point.
01:51:59
Speaker
it could be very much something that applies to me but it's it's always a bit difficult isn't it there's such a big crossover with traits and things and also the rates of ADHD among autistic people is quite high so it's it's always interesting so well i'll see what what occurs i definitely struggle massively with the executive functioning part which is why i've kind of
01:52:25
Speaker
I guess gravitated towards that. And whenever I'm not doing something that interests me, I hardly have any energy for it. It's kind of this situation where I've crafted a life for me that works pretty on point with how I work.
Pursuing ADHD Diagnosis
01:52:43
Speaker
So it's hard to know because I have this life that I do stuff that I'm interested in.
01:52:50
Speaker
but as soon as I step out of that and do things that I'm not it's um it's harder so I'll keep you updated on that let's see what happens probably be a long waiting time because I'm going through some of the general healthcare systems in the UK so but yeah um I guess what I want to ask is you know do you have a song of the day that you would really like to share
01:53:19
Speaker
Yeah, I love the song Nautilus by Anna Meredith from her album Varmintz. I love the whole album. It is a very, to me, it is an audio HD song. I don't know if she is. I'm not saying she is, but it just tickles my brain in this really particular way. I was on a long road trip with one of my dear friends who is also audio HD and she had not heard this album. I played the album for her and she screamed out loud multiple times.
01:53:49
Speaker
Like it did the same. She's like, oh my God, it's doing the same thing to my brain. So I don't know. So yeah, that song in particular, and it's a, what's the name again? Sorry. It's the album is varmints. The song is Nautilus like a shell and it's by Anna Meredith. Yeah. I thought you said Nautilus.
01:54:09
Speaker
Yeah. And, and she also did a tiny desk concert so you can see it live because it's like a tuba with a mic in it, which is really fun. And like, there's this, there's this big, um, metric shift when the drums come in that just every time my body's just like, yeah, like it just does stuff to my brain. So it's actually my little like pump up song whenever I need to do something I don't want to do because it consistently gives me the dopamine.
01:54:34
Speaker
Well, that's awesome. And I will put that down in the description as per usual. You can find it right at the bottom, Song of the Day, on all of my podcast episodes. Check out the playlist. See all of the amazing different contributions of songs that my guests have had over this year. Season two.
01:54:55
Speaker
Mattia, where can people find you if they want to, I guess, see more of the kind of content that you produce?
Where to Find More Content
01:55:05
Speaker
Yeah, so the two best places I think to hear from me are the podcast, The Longer Road. I also have technically started, but not yet putting episodes on a new podcast called Audie HD Flourishing. So that exists, you can find it and like subscribe to it and then, you know, when I start putting episodes up, but that's because I was making a lot of content that I was like, okay, I just want to, you know, I want to talk about this specifically, but I didn't want The Longer Road to just become that because it's about more than that.
01:55:33
Speaker
And then on tiktok as well so tiktok is the other place where it's like just the social media that makes the most sense to my brain i really enjoy it i love making content for it and i'm very responsive on there so if you can find me it's the flourishing if you find me on tiktok and you like.
01:55:48
Speaker
engaging with me, I will like video respond to you. You know, if you're asking questions and stuff, I really, really engage on there. Also I'm on Instagram and Facebook. Um, I'm also, I'm the only Mattia Murray on the internet. So I'm very easy to find. It's easy to find like weird old video clips of me for all kinds of things. Um, and then Mattia Murray.com is my website. So just my name, if you want to see what I'm up to. Awesome. And if you have enjoyed this episode of the 40 or the podcast, make sure to rate subscribe, like share.
01:56:18
Speaker
do all of that stuff very much helps me out growing as a creator in this big, wild internet world.
01:56:28
Speaker
And if you want to check out some more stuff from me, you can always find my Instagram. You can see all my links, my little link tree, and it will take you to links for my website, links to the sponsor of the podcast debuds if you want to check those out, some of the merchandise that I make, and even some of the coaching sort of consultancy sessions that I'm going to be starting doing very soon. So if you're interested in any of that, please head over to there.
01:56:56
Speaker
I've also recently been set up as
01:57:00
Speaker
had a channel set up for me in a Discord server called Planet Aspie. So if you check the link tree, there'll also be a Discord link down there for you to get involved with all of the different podcast listeners, autistic people. It's kind of a German English server, so my channel's very much English, but there are a lot of German speakers on the other channels. So if you're interested in that, definitely encourage you to go check that out.
01:57:27
Speaker
And yeah, I guess last thing I want to ask, Mattia, is have you enjoyed your 40 audio experience? Yes, very much. Thank you. Awesome. Awesome. And make sure to check out the Longer Road podcast, which I am a guest on. If you want to go go see us in a different setting, chatting about a different thing, talking more about some of my experiences in life. Please go check out that will be down in the description as well.
01:57:55
Speaker
and yeah i hope you guys have enjoyed this episode and i hope to see you in the next week section ah god damn it i hope to see you in the next episode of the 40 orty podcast see you later guys