 Attention all neurodivergence, are you tired of feeling overwhelmed by loud noises in crowded environments? Well, debuts are a first of their kind game changing earplugs with volume adjustable technology. Debut earplugs can help reduce sensory overload, help you focus, and make your environment a lot more manageable. I've been using debuts for the past few months now and they've really been amazing out and about, at the gym, and pretty much anytime that I'm not listening to music. If you're interested in giving them a go, my affiliate link is always down in the description. Use code 40Aughty for a 20% discount. Good day and welcome back to the 40Aughty podcast with yours Mr. Thomas Henley 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 old HD, the mystical combination of autism and ADHD and how 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 old HD individuals, but also about different medications, supplements, and support that may be different when you're old HD compared to ADHD and autism. So lots of stuff that we can talk about in this episode. Firstly, I want to introduce my guest, Mathia. How are you doing today? Pretty good. Thank you. How's your day been so far? Oh, pretty good. This morning here, I was just saying before we got on, I did not sleep great, so thankfully I woke up in time for this, but yeah, I haven't done too much yet today. Sleep like a common issue that you have, because I know that for myself, getting off to sleep, waking up always tends to be a pretty big task. Once I'm asleep, I'm okay, but yeah. It always has been. As 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 thing, but yeah, it's always been terrible. It's really interesting, isn't it, about the circadian rhythms and melatonin and it's definitely something that needs to be understood more by my more people. And I don't know, to be honest, I've had some good experiences with melatonin, but it always tended to be very much like whenever I've had it, like it hasn't been a long-term solution. It's been something that's helped me in the short term, but overall it's been pretty bad. The only thing that has helped, I think, with my sleep is trying to set up a routine around it. If I'm out of that routine, it's pretty rubbish in terms of being able to fall asleep and wake up. It's always a real task, but I don't know, things like putting some night modes on your screens and playing a mindless game seems to help me a lot. 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 tracking 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 draconian. And I need to 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 going to be like the perfect child 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 one of the main things for me is just having my phone not be in my bedroom, like literally leaving it downstairs or something, just like not having it in the space because otherwise I will just sit on it. Like sleep hygiene, isn't that the kind of the term for it? But it just feels like so unfair that my body is so sensitive that it has to have all these super specialized things. And it's just like, oh. Yeah, 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 consuming much of like my brain's energy and keeping me awake. So as I said, just like having like a mindless game that I tilt away from my head and lower the brightness down to full turn off all the lights to put the night mode on it seems to help a lot. But it's a constant 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 ADHD. And it'd be really nice to hear about the kind of work that you you do online a little bit about your podcast. Tell us, tell us about yourself. 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. And 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 artist and a composer and poet and I teach and, you know, do commissions and stuff. So, you know, I've got the kind of music side of my life. And then most of my online presence is around at this point, my ADHD and, you know, 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. You know, almost total lack of support, I think around, especially being an autistic adult and then, you know, being an ADHD. Like any anything where autism is, you know, there's just so much misconception and it's just very few supports for adults, especially if you are seen as, you know, quote, functioning from the outside at all, meaning you finished school or you need to OK 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 people to be like, you should be fine. And every single area of your life. Yeah, possibly that you're really excel in certain areas, but not in others and need support with others. Yeah, I think people have that kind of misconception, I think, a lot with people like neurodiversity. Yeah, 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 my mom about. Like transference of skills, like skill transference is something that I'm wanting to make a post on at some point, because it's kind of like. Like, for example, if you are good at public speaking, you know, like, like, like myself. So if I 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 as anywhere near as good as I would be sort of within the public speaking arena. And I think that that kind of transference of skills is is something that's that's very apparent to me. Like it's it's something that I think. Holders holds us back from. I guess, obviously, transferring skills into other places like the workplace. 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 the different sides of what I experience and then as well being, you know, quote, gifted, which I hate 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, really? Like just realizing that every element of my brain processing was different than most people's. And then even I actually had a autistic friend when I was a young teen and and actually 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 I'm not like her. Yeah, because she had the more steered, you know, she was diagnosed young. She was had a more stereotypical presentation. And actually, I mean, same thing happened, you know, being non-binary and knowing binary trans people in college. I was like, oh, like I relate so much to some parts of their experience. But like, I'm not that, you know. So going to get a twist on things. Yeah. And so I think any time you kind of have these intersectional identities, which is what my podcast is about the longer road. That I think it's really hard to see yourself represented. And then there's no model for no like figuring out your own identity because you're like, well, I'm kind of like that models. Yeah. And I know this to be the case because, you know, part of the work I do is, you know, coaching with autistic and ADHD people. And I know this to be the case for adult diagnosed, audio-HD people like me, that they're looking at diagnostic criteria and being like, well, 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 like the experiences of autism from my side and then ADHD from Brooke's side. And we were saying like, you know, I guess we could theorize exactly what it might be like for an old HD or or I could perhaps go and interview someone who was an old HD. Yeah, that's why I reached out to you. It's because I was listening to that episode and I was like, oh, hey. Yeah, I can do that. Well, we might be able to at some point if if the, you know, people like the episode or if I feel like it, we can maybe maybe set up like a a freeway podcast, you know, Autistic, ADHD or HD sort of compare experiences, I think that'd be really cool. Yeah. I think with anything, you know, I try to preface this as much as possible, but, you know, it's 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 people 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, neurodivergencies, it can not always apply directly to every single person. And there tends to be quite a heavy, 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 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've been too general, everyone's going to think that they're autistic or are you being, you know, that I don't fit in with all of these. Am I am I autistic? It's like it was meant as a way for people to be like, hey, you know, I actually do recognize this just just for those people who perhaps have that kind of stigma in their head about different neurodiversities, just to be like, 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. So I think that that generalization aspect needs to be 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. Yeah, totally. So you were talking about sort of your your diagnosis journey a little bit, like your journey with your neurodiversity. I'd love to know a little bit more about that. Also, specifics around when did you find out that you're ADHD and when do you find out that you're autistic and what kind of what order did they go in and that kind of thing. It would be really interesting to have. 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. 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. So anyway, this is to say that what I was raised to believe autism was was completely non-speaking, right? Like, yeah, no eye contact rocking back and forth. Ironically, there are literally video clips of me at two and three exhibiting super stereotypical autistic behaviors, including one of one favorite one of mine. I'm in a box. I'm like rocking back and forth, like 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. It's just like not, you know, I had perfect pitch. Like it's not subtle, right? So I had all these things, but I was born in the 80s, you know, to these parents and they, you know, they just didn't believe that that was possible, basically for me, you know, and I was stigma was to sort of embedded within that mind about what it is. And exactly. And it was hyperlexic. And so again, like they didn't know that that was a sign and not a, you know, oh, you couldn't possibly be right. So looking back, I, you know, if I were 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, you know, locked out of our house all the time, just like where a lot of, and we like, you know, my parents had a lot of trouble doing things functionally. And then I have six younger siblings, all of whom are neurodivergent. Yeah, six siblings. And most of them are diagnosed with something. Yeah. 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, you know, early 20s, when 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 mapped to besides just depression, I was like, Oh, ADHD. And I know both my parents have ADHD because 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 not down with the autism, but really, really, really interesting, isn't it? Because the kind of the stigma around ADHD is kind of this fun, fun, outgoing, kind of a bit messy minded. Yeah, just kind of weird fun and you know, party animal kind of like how you lose your keys all the time. Like that's kind of funny. And like the story of my family tells us that my mom at one point made my dad five sets of keys. 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, Oh, 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 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 behind the altar. Just like crutch behind the altar. Make sure you don't see this. Yeah. So for me, going, oh, I'm ADHD. Like that was a not a jump, right? Like that was just like a yes, this isn't my family. You know, this makes sense. I know that people in my family struggle with stuff like this. And it's also just not as stigmatized. So, you know, that just felt and I actually didn't know at the time that part of autism is also executive function issues, right? So that, you know, 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. I at the time also had an incorrect bipolar diagnosis, which I think is extremely common for ADHD people specifically because we have very sick women as well. It seems like exactly bipolar, BPD, schizophrenia when I've heard like in particular, the really cyclical energy of ADHD of having these like big bursts of energy and then needing big rest and like a lot of rest like that looked like bipolar. 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 fun pet's 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 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? And it's it's it's interesting, isn't it? Because it is designed as a way to produce energy. It's, you know, I've had to means of these things that make you productive and I 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 is 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, yeah, you know, all 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. But, you know, we still don't know how most psych mids work, for example. No, depression, depression, meds like I think the way that they found out that serotonin was important with like depression and mental health disorders is by giving someone something that impacted their serotonin and then being like, hey, that's that must be a reason. And that's that's, you know, something that I think about a lot because from doing my biomedical sciences course, you know, 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 counter that. Whereas with antidepressants, it's like the opposite way. It's it's still not very understood. No, it's really I mean, that 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 this virus is like that's the norm in medication. So, you know, there's a long way to go there. Oh, but back to my ADHD testing story. So when I did the testing and then you know, come back and they and also it was like a student testing me because 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, he's not going to help me. And that's, you know, kind of the problem with adding in the giftedness element is, you know, one of the things he was saying to me is he was like, you probably just, you know, 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, you know, to have things where you struggle. And I was like, 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. Like I read they ran out of words for me that, you know, because I knew all of them. Like there, there shouldn't really be anything in my brain in terms of like focus where I'm in the 16th percentile for something. Right. Yeah. And I don't mean shouldn't in like a, you know, metaphysical sense. But like, you know, just the second according to like how most, most people are neurotypicals might be in terms of. 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, 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 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. Yeah, totally. And so I actually just looked back again at the results of my nervous testing just kind of side by side because they were five or six years apart from each other and how. And in one of them, I was heavily caffeinated 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 the just the huge variability. And I know from, you know, learning more about it that one of the things they look for in ADHD is like extreme differences in the bell curve between different areas. So having like really, really strong competency in one area. And again, like I had those, you know, a couple of things that were just like spiky profiles, spiky profiles, exactly. Where, you know, your brain is doing some things very well. And then some things your brain is just like, no, thanks. I have no interest in doing that. And I won't and you can't make me. Yeah, it's really interesting you're talking about that kind of high level of like competency that you have in different areas that 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 academicity or in terms of life. 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 for a lot of mental health pathways because of that. But the school never really picked 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. So it's kind of interesting. And then when you look at them like the medical system, most people get diagnosed when there's a problem, like, and you kind of need a problem for people to diagnose you to be like, oh, there's an issue. So that's a definition is it has to be affecting your life. Pretty much, pretty much. And it's it's quite contradicting to the idea of how why most people want to go for that, which is to, like, affirm their identity and to, you know, understand, hey, this, you know, this is something. And for some people, it's useful. Some people it 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 you're not happy in your relationships or like, you know, you have to be at a very high bar of misery and depression before it counts, right? Like it's not just like, oh, I'm not thriving. Yeah, it's like you're like coping, isn't it? Like they want you to be able to 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. Yeah, to a certain degree. I was not feeling good about school. I was not developing myself emotionally and and socially as school. I was doing 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 if everything is good enough just 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 I've had this experience. I know a lot of neurodivergent adults who have 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. Yeah, I think that's that's reflected in mental health systems. 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 my early early teenagehood when I had a lot of ideation and 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 support. It wasn't helpful, but they still took it seriously. Yeah. Yeah. And that now I mean, kind of in adulthood, I do need that that support in terms of therapy, but I don't have that ideation side of things. And so I don't particularly have the harming side of things either. So those kind of that red zone that people would be in is not something that I'm part of, but but I'm not any necessarily doing better like in 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 I'm okay. So my like handles on the internet right now are ADHD flourishing. So I was like, OK, 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 unless I was being really explicit about that and saying I want I want you to feel good, right? Like 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 like external type problems, right? Like I need or I want my career to look different. I need this. I need that. I need a friend. I need a relationship. I need. Yeah. These these sort of external markers of success. And so I think about that so much because for me in my own life, like the external markers of success have never helped me psychologically, at least for more than, you know, a few days or something, right? I might get a little rush of dopamine or something from getting an award, but like it's done. And I was like, I relate to that so much. Yeah. But that's what we think of as flourishing because that's the those are those external markers of success that we're told. Highlight real. Yeah. And that's like the reason you should take stimulants, right? Is like, oh, so you can go and do stuff and like be impressive. But we know that that doesn't actually make us happy in the long run. Like it's the day to day. It's the relationships. It's, you know, the way we're talking to ourselves and like self love, which is cheesy, but important. Like my internal self talk is just radically, radically different than it was when I was focused on achievement. Because you talked about sort of like the ADHD side of things. At what point were you like thinking about or questioning? Because I know for a lot of people there's always just like this part of them that they don't really understand. And the, you know, the diagnosis that like 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 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 is an autistic trait. I thought it was just like weird trauma stuff or just like being smart and, you know, kind of a weirdo. 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. It was like, that's not real. Like that does not exist. Bipolar one 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 like literally no symptoms. And the reason I'd gotten the rapid cycling diagnosis is because I wasn't having long. I wasn't really actually meeting the diagnostic criteria for bipolar. I was having really bad meltdowns. And those meltdowns looked like, you know, I mean, they could be all kinds of things. But basically, they were like, well, you're having these like episodes. They were calling them episodes and then, you know, got the diagnosis over time, 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. She's like, oh, my kid does that. 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, look, 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 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 these things and voices. And yeah. And so I was for a while, I was just identifying as neurodivergent. Generally, I was like, I am fairy neurodivergent was the term I was using. And then actually at the lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic, my anxiety plummeted by like 90%. 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. And this is weird, but this is just one specific thing that helped. I also have my own bathroom for the first time in my life. I was in this 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, 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 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. And so, you know, really started identifying with that. And, and my, you know, my therapist totally agreed and was like, yes, we can, you know, 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, you know, my clients want to seek it out. I want to be able to talk about it in, you know, from personal experience. And I was like, if I'm going to have this be part of my public identity and I'm going to be talking about it, I just feel better if I have the official diagnosis. Sure. And I think that's something that, you know, I think within the community, people are very happy and open to people self-diagnosing. Absolutely. I do also see that, you know, that the utility of having a diagnosis, just especially when you, when you're going out and you're talking about your experiences, like it must be like a lot more, you must be a lot more like safe in yourself, like to do that kind of thing. Yeah. And it's a little bit unfortunate that, I mean, because I completely 100% and behind self-diagnosis and also, you know, I have an autistic brain that's literal and, you know, has 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 real. I have it on paper, you know, all this. So anyway, so that was kind of a weird intersection there of my 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. Yeah. And I now know that it would 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. Yeah. There's a bunch of countries in Europe that you cannot become a citizen of, or you can't apply for like moving there if you're autistic. Oh my God. Yeah. Like which countries? I watched a video about this the other day. 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, 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 brought up against you in custody battles, like all kinds of things. You know, my partner, I own a house together, and they are on the spectrum, but not diagnosed. So like if, and I don't imagine this would happen, but like 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 have not actually worried about that. I just know, I'm like, oh great, now I have all these potential problems from having official diagnosis. 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're talking about autism and AHD as very much a separate thing. So I really want to understand a bit more about the ADHD experience, because I know that there are some differences between. So it'd be good to kind of touch on, I guess, the experiences that you had, some of perhaps the difficulties that you may have compared to autistic ADHD as it'd be really interesting to hear. Yeah. So there are a lot of, there are some overlapping traits, right, which a lot of people probably know if they've looked at them, right, executive function difficulties, you know, a variety of things, but they show up in different ways. And one thing, I was thinking about this, that I experience almost my ADHD self and my autistic self almost as two characters that are like fighting against each other sometimes in certain ways. The plain tug-of-war, push-bull kind of, yeah. Yeah, because you know, one part of the, one part of me is like, oh, I like, I love routine and need routine. And then one part of me is like, we'll do it live. Yeah, 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, right? So I have this conception of them in my mind as they sort of, as opposed to just sort of like, this is the way I am. Yeah. But I have noticed because I, so, and I should also just say, you know, regarding, say, clients that I've worked with, if I'm referring to them, to have 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, right? Like it depends. And there's been some, some variation, but like, I'm seeing a particular slice of population, right? And they're English speaking and, you know, mostly American. So that's like, you know, getting this very particular slice of the neurodivergent experience. So, you know, that's, 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 ability to make really, really good decisions. There may be decision fatigue, there may be trouble taking action on the decision, but this very like, you know, structured thinking through all the options, thinking through all the options as far into the future as you can, right? Like being very good at projecting outward into what might happen accurately. Autistic people are, I saw one really cool study that indicated that autistic people were less affected by elements of like tricky advertising, because we're just trying to make a good decision. And we just like ignore the bad. I relate to that. I'm actually the opposite. It's like, if I see an advert on TV, I'm like, I know that you're trying to psychologically manipulate me into buying your product. I'm not gonna 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, you know, even if it's uncomfortable and messy, I would rather just like get started. Yeah. And that ability to just kind of like jump in and take action on all of the information that my brain has been processing, usually in the night 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 like, I have processed so much information. And then there is this part of me, this ADHD part that's just like, yes, I can like, I can just, I'll just start, I'll just start doing it. I'll just do it shittily. And I have noticed, like I'm just going again, you know, in a 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. And I just don't care, right? Like, so I think like to some extent, the ADHD melded together with the autism is just this really extreme level of not giving a sh** about what anybody thinks and being willing to just like do whatever I want. Yeah. You know, to an extent that's occasionally been harmful. But like, you know, it doesn't always work out well. But there is this like energy behind it that I'm able to just like take action. But then my autistic, you know, scrupulosity and ability to plan and love of routine keeps me from missing too many appointments or, you know, just totally forgetting that something is happening on a day, which I still do on occasion. But like, there's this certain, unfortunately, a lot of how that's presented is just anxiety in my system is just like, remember the thing, which is not fun. But you know, there's so there's these parts of me that are helping me function in this world that was not built for my brain. And so again, like those things 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. I suppose I'm really interesting because interested because, you know, in your experience, do you find that leading more into your ADHD side, or your autistic side is the most beneficial feel like overall well being and productivity? Like 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, 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 sheet of craft. Nobody is ever like, oh, my God, you're a bad composer, right? They're just like, oh, cool, like, let's fix these things 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 like, what are the overlaps between ADHD and autism 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 in how it applies perfectionism to things. And I think that that's hilarious. That's really interesting. Because I guess I think 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. 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 to do that. 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 audiology 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, it's not going to last for longer than six weeks. You know, break out of your shell. My brain is eventually just going to be like throughout the window. It does not last. And I mean, I literally have studied this, became a habit, 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 health information in the brain. I know a lot about plasticity in the brain and all of these things. And even with all of this information, I cannot force my neurotype to do something 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 shower. Yeah, the using or poor of your spoons before using all 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. Yeah, which makes sense because nobody's praising me for showering, except maybe my partner, I guess, if I get really gross. Well, 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 tell 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 produce like the high level of content or produce the produce something that that's very detailed. Yeah, I was gonna say you produce a lot. Yeah, that's what I mean. So it's like, on one hand, I can do 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 salted. Yeah, obviously, that's not the best way to do it. But I think I'm I try to leave as many spoons for myself as possible. It's just, you know, as you said, that that interest dynamic of wanting to do things that you find interesting is just so so strong for me. Yeah. And that is one of the other things with the, you know, 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. 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 that's quite hard because you know, there is an element with 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 when you're transitioning to something that you like. 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 love going it makes me feel great. And it's my interest I love watching the videos and listening to the videos when working out and, you know, just just in completely just in following myself in that in that special interest. But still it's it's so difficult. And it even going so far as you know, I start work. And then as you said, you just you just continue working on it working on it. And it's like you've got this, like steam train brain, where it's like, 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 to take some ages to get to like halt to a stop. And if you tried to do it too quickly, you get overwhelmed, you get emotionally dysregulated. You're like, oh my god, you fall off the tracks, you're like, oh my god, everything's gone off your car goes 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 because I have that exact experience, one of the things that can happen in that experience is that one of my routines disappears during that like, you know, it doesn't even have to be a meltdown, it can just be a like a big either really hard day or like a transition that's really doesn't go well or like thinking I'm going to do something and then I don't and then having one of those like really hard periods of time around it, like 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. And you know, like I part of part of what I want to, you know, express in my public life and being, you know, sort of 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, you know, or that I had a really bad day and that like 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 audience people will know exactly what I'm talking about. This is such a common experience. You know, you don't have that excitement of starting something new and motivated. I can't get into it. But 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? Yeah. Yeah. You know, so my brain has this capacity to go really deep and just like totally get lost. I did some experience at university as well because around about that time, I think it's about my first year at university and went into this like dorm room kind of complex of different 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. 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 had some like kick pads at different heights on it and stuff. 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 on to that 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, when are you gonna finish? And I'm like, Oh, I don't know. I kind of don't want to stop. And it's the same like after Taekwondo training sessions, when when I came home after like 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 then I go to sleep. 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 like, exactly. So it's like, I can't I can't go and exercise. I can't do a podcast. I literally it's like it narrows the amount of things that I'm able to 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 I guess fine with it and not like give myself hard time and it's paralysis decision paralysis or something like that. I struggle with that quite a lot. Yeah. And that, when I was saying like, 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. But being able like 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 all the time, which still happens. You love it. Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine with that. I'm a bit of an attention whore. I love it. So I'll take that. But no, I agree with you. I think there's a lot of expectations that people pour on you and there's 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. 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 these crazy, very restrictive life norms that people identify with. They ultimately always label you as either not achieving or doing too much. And I've had 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, you know, if I'm going through something. Or even just in general, you are a workaholic and you do do all of these stuff all the time. Like, you need to take a break, you need to step back, you know, even therapists might say that every time without fault, every time 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 any anywhere in those kind of norms that people have. You know, I, if I am able to, I will wake up midday and work into that and work and do my things up until, you know, 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. That works for me. But it's not what people kind of want to push on me, those expectations. Like, maybe, 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 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 work or to do the gym or watching YouTube videos. Those are all things that make me feel whole, make me feel good. But they're not typically things that kind of fit into this very, what did you say, distinct idea for what an adult life should be like. But then, ironically, we have all of these, you know, novels and movies about people who are living their boring normal life and then have some big weird experience, right? Midlife crisis or realize that they're miserable. So I don't even, like, what you're just, I totally get what you're saying about, you know, this is the life that we're expected to have. And yeah, like we're told that that's good. But then we have this media about how eventually you're going to get tired and want something else. You want to go pursue an interest. News articles about how people are depressed with life and it's kind of capitalist. It's not working. Productivity related system and it's so restrictive and like, we'll just don't do that. Like trying not to find something that's not like that. But it's so socially reinforced as well. Like people, I think we're talking about it on your podcast that kind of 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 necks now and again, they'll just kind of poke you, you know, and people do it to me, even though I achieve and lots of lots of different areas of my life, people still make those comments. It's quite bizarre sometimes. You kind of just want to be like, 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, reality TV shows and I really love scrolling on Instagram and TikTok and, you know, just doing all of the things that most people do that you don't need to have those interests. You can be interested in Nintendo, 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, 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, the all the stuff I make, all the content I make is just like, 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 feeling like what I like that I was making the wrong choices, like 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 that the anxiety 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, you know, being able to just be like, fuck it, I'll do what I want. It could often be people that want the best from you as well and they're neurotypicals and they just want you to succeed and they want you to feel good, but they just, they don't really get it. They don't really get what it's like to be you. And, you know, it's one of those difficult situations where you might have to go against what people tell you is best for you, you know, even close ones and people that you care about. 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 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. 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. But also to do things like alexa, alexa finia, in terms of understanding our emotional states, putting things in place to recover and putting breaks in place to to cope with different anxiety producing situations. But I'd really love to know more about, like your experiences in ADHD and how you think it might might differ to ADHD and autistic individuals. 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 ADHD experience, but my emotions are huge. Like they are all consuming, totally overwhelming, right? That's another reason that people often get it incorrect. But borderline diagnosis is just these big emotions. And that was happening when I was, again, like a really little kid, I was having meltdowns. 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 huge experiences that I had no context for. I didn't know anyone outside of my immediate family who was having emotional experiences like this that were just like that seemed uncontrolled and uncontrollable. So I don't know that I had, I definitely had anxiety as a kid. I don't know if I was having depression exactly. Like I don't know if I could pick that apart from the shutdowns at this point from just, but I mean, I also had a very traumatizing childhood. My was very like physically and emotionally abused. So that was bad and like obviously did not help. But the big like, thank you. Yeah, I mean, it sucked. The my parents were totally unequipped for they shouldn't have had any kids a little in seven. 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, really like really bad suicidal on and off for a couple years. And the 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 are in a lot of cases, they don't realize that it was assault until after the fact, which did happen to me. I like I knew it was bad. But like, it wasn't I was talking to somebody about it the next day that I was like, they were like that sounded non consensual. And I was like, Oh, 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 it was, but 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 or 18 year old at that point, I did not I didn't understand what it was to like 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 like 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, it's not situational. This is your entire childhood. This is all of your autistic experiences that haven't been, you know, accepted. Like it was like everything at once. I also was living in Minnesota at the time I was going to school in Minnesota, which is a very like the US, you know, has all these different mini cultures within it. Yeah. Minnesota is a very, very, very aggressively neurotypical culture. It is a culture. So the one term I've heard is guess culture, not ask culture, you are assume 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, do you if they offer you food, you're supposed to deny it three times. I'm like, this is some biblical. So people would offer me a snack and I just be like, Oh, yeah, sure. And they'd be like horrified that I said, yes. I'm like, why are you asking me? It was a terrible place. That's really weird. I did not know you were autistic. I mean, that happens anyway, doesn't it? Just just out and about in most places. We're neurotypical. It's like, Oh, do you want this? And they don't actually mean it. And you're like, Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well, yeah. So that was the worst possible place to, you know, not know. I've actually, I've heard that Minnesota is actually 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. I can't hear you. Don't know if that's me or not. I can hear you. Hey, 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. 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 canceling, 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% off discount. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the rest of the podcast. That's all from me. We were talking about mental health and stuff. You explained a bit about your experiences with things. I think it would be good to talk about the differences now, some unique challenges to being an old HD. Would that sound okay? Yeah. For me, one of the big formative experiences was around my auto-HD looking 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. One of the big experiences that was really hard was I was like, well, this isn't working. I keep getting depressed. 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 really good about substance use, I was doing everything I was supposed to do and I was still feeling like so. That was part of what made me suicidal 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 kind of the thought process. And 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. There doesn't have to be this element of being cured, but I would say that that particular experience having these huge emotions, having no help for them at all and really just not having like nobody was looking at my experiences and understanding me. They were just like, here's the label and like this label works well enough and whatever, here you can have it. That was really hard. And then I think another thing that a lot of neurodivergent people experience going to therapy and having your therapist be like, wow, you're so self aware. I do think that neurodivergent people have more better cognition, like more awareness of what's going on in our mind. That interception, not interception, introception. Yeah, like 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 like four, 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. 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. 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 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, what are you saying? I have that experience a lot as well. Like it's almost like you are going there to educate the therapist on stuff. Like they don't, 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. And just think less, just worry less. Yeah. Pretty much. Oh yeah. And yeah, you were saying about, oh, it's gone again. Oh my god. Let me have a think. Yeah, you were saying earlier, I think that, you know, you understand autism and ADHD and neurodiversities, but you still have like difficulties with it and stuff. Oh yeah. And I've had a similar experience with mental health. Like, I did so much work. I did my, a 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, a lot of lived experience and a lot of personal research has gone into me understanding my mental health conditions. Depression and anxiety particularly. Still, still is an issue. And I think that that's, 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 just like, hey, right. I'm catastrophizing. Hey, right. I'm being very learned helplessness about this situation. Having, having all of these, these thoughts about things doesn't always change the reality of like day to day living. Like I understand why I'm depressed and 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. Like I was kind of whenever I've been into therapy, I've always made the distinction of, 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 research and say that, well, sounds like you got a good handle on it. And that's an experience that I have a lot, both, both being autistic and also with, with mental health. It's like, it does just because you understand it and just because you have the knowledge and have the practical tips and ways to, 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. 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 minute, various, very small things, which I think therapists who have taught to me who, which has been somewhat transformative to me. And that was particularly around like anger. Like, I'm a very, 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, 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 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 to enough, I guess. So I have a lot of, 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 was like one of the things that that someone's mentioned to me that has had an impact on me. 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. And a lot of the ways that I manage my mental health is this kind of blanket approach. Like, and this can obviously fall into a lot of, you know, harmful ways of coping like SH or it can be, you know, 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 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. Yeah, that makes so much sense. And part of, so I've done so much, like you're talking about the intellectual, you know, the psycho education side of things. I was in therapy almost constantly for 15 years. 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 hip to therapist, 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 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 have experienced them. I've had some really wild, great health results from hypnotherapy myself. So 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, I'm just like, I don't want to. I want to be miserable right now. I just want to have this, it's internal stimming and letting the emotion take me and have this experience. And there's a part of me that wants that and that's okay. There's a part of me that just wants the intensity of this experience to just wash over me and just be in it and just let it pass by. I lean into it. Yeah. And 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 to just let it happen and be in it as opposed to, oh, and now I'm going to write, because I don't need to do a technique for that. I can just pass. I can refocus your mind, look around the room, save for free things. Yeah. And if I'm actually, yeah. It gets annoying. It does. It feels like it's trapping you sometimes. 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 let it happen. And like, you know, I've got, okay, so I have like 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 like, 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, like, I'll just grab this during a meeting. I don't go through a whole rigmarole in my head of like, oh, no, I have to like do something for the emotion that 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. Like, we don't always have to do the best thing or the perfect thing for this emotional experience. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. 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. 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, 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 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 okay with just dealing with feeling low today and not give myself walks in nature and doing all of this 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 this difficult day, 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 most people. So therefore, I'm going to do all of these things that help most people even though a few of these things actually don't help. And they actually cause 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. Because I got to just be low energy and nobody was commenting on it or telling me that I looked bummed out or something. I wish people do all the time anyway, because I just have like low affect on my face a lot of the time, if I'm not thinking about it. Flat affect. Yeah, I have flat affect a lot of the time. So people will be like, are you okay? Have like resting grumpy? I have like a slight frown, like naturally. And that would bum me out more to be around other people and have them reflecting back to me because 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 by like some standard, right? I feel low energy. I don't want to do things. And maybe I'm not, you know, eating or showering enough, and I don't want to be around people like 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, you know, it shares a lot of similarities with like situational depression. Like 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. And 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, you know, I'm just things are a lot in the moment, kind of need some time on my own. I think the way that I distinguish when it's mental health and not burnout is like how prolonged it is, how long have I been feeling like this? Have I bounced back after having a rest and 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. So there's so many factors, isn't there, in 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 so many aspects to maintaining your emotional well-being as a neurodiverse person. So it's neurodivergent person. 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, because 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. 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. Yeah, this was like an expectation, you come back and 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, I get that. Well, I guess it would be really interesting to talk a little bit about, like, I know you've touched on a bit about medication. But I was wondering, like, what medications, supplements or support around ADHD do you feel has been helpful as an old HDR? And what hasn't been and why? 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, you know, or activated or turned on, like 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 been anemic 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. And those are things that, you know, 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, there's certain populations to have low vitamin D that's very, very common, but you don't want to take too much vitamin D, like, and so you certainly don't want to take too much vitamin A. I don't know if the vitamins are the same letters actually where you are. Yeah, they 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 get tests for magnesium? I'm not sure about that. I'm not sure. Oh yeah, I supplement it with magnesium as well. Magnesium has been really helpful to me and it's really interesting because when you look at like neurons on 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, you know, you have some things which cause your nerves to be innovative and to fire off and do these kinds of things. But magnesium is one of those compounds that like inhibits neural activity and it can be really important for like rest and also if you do a lot of exercise and you kind of open about and even if you think a lot about a lot of things, you know, magnesium is often a really useful thing. You have magnesium salts that some people use. Yeah, 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 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 but it's so true. The brain needs it and like salts 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 you have a restricted diet, you might not realize that you're not getting. And I know 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. Get your blood waxed on. But get checked out or even just like talk to a doctor about what your symptoms are. It doesn't even have to be in the context of neurodivergence. It can just be like I'm having brain fog and, you know, really sluggish in the morning, right? Like 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 like, you know, you have sleep apnea and you need, you know, like there are all these things that can happen that affect brain functioning. And 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. But like that's like a neurology biology is different to psychology. Right? It's nice. It's an organ, isn't it? The brain? Yeah. So I think a lot of, you know, when I think about supplementation and medication, and again, I have not taken, I have not taken amphetamines, amphetamines yet, but I would like to try them. Here's the thing. Here's what I'm telling myself and what I would tell my client, you know, or have told clients who are starting medication, it is not going to fix your life. It's not going to do everything you hope it will. It's going to help you with some specific problems like for example, transitions or inertia, right? It might help you get started more easily if that's a problem for you, which is part of what I want to do with it. Like I actually want to try it for basically admin tasks, like things that I find really boring. That's the best way that it's used is not for complex creative things. Exactly. Complex creativity I'm actually pretty good with because I know how to use flow states for that. So I know how to like 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 like 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, oh, I had been running forever and not getting a runner's high because I guess I wasn't running hard enough or 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 to the point where you can actually do the stuff you need to do and like the stuff that helps you. So we're talking about all these self-care and things that have 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. 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. I think as well, I was talking to my mom about, because there's someone in my family who's ADHD and they take meds, they're also on metazapine, which is an appetite stimulant, but 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. Struggle within contraception, contraceptive awareness, knowing when to eat. Just little things like that I feel need to be, I wish medical professionals were more aware of those kind of minute details because it can, I can imagine that 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, realized, oh my God, why am I so sluggish at the gym? Oh yeah, I haven't eaten anything today. That is probably why. And I think 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, it helps my depression, it makes my anxiety so much more worse, 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. So yeah, it makes the elixir a lot harder to navigate. There's things like that, which I feel can have a really big impact on our functioning. Yeah. And again, just this kind of societal idea that 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 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 hyperconnected, hyperactive brain is a problem. I 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, whatever, 460 processor with the clouds, faster, but then it's on an old computer that is not evolved for this use case. Yeah. And that's, I don't mean that in a, we're better or something or we're the next, 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, even just like I keep bringing up the cyclical energy because I have that. I can have, 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. 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. Well, I find 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 are a lot, a lot of things which can be quite unique about us that make us particularly good in like the 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 a part of what is to call ADHD as or ADHD as. So I guess like if you could think of some strengths, what would those kind of be if you were to highlight them? Yeah, I think so thinking about like the combined ADHD strengths, like 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, right, like a writer, like they do something 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're not entrepreneurs as also like a very, very common to just like not fit in the corporate world and do your own thing. And having that ability to just like imagine something different and then do it, I think is like a really, really powerful, I mean, it's probably one of our top skills and it helps with a lot of the problems, like it kind of offsets a lot of issues. Another strength I see is hyper, 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 have become either are naturally or have become very, very aware of the minute feelings of others. And I've talked to people. 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're lying to me, you know, like that there's this and that I could just kind of pick up on that or I got very good at picking up on that at some point. So, you know, that and that can make it again, that 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. You know, and ask people a bunch of weird questions that made them uncomfortable until I figured shit out. But that like the sort of skill around that, but there's the social aspect of it. But I think I also see a lot of, you know, people feeling like they don't know who they are because they have this really chameleon quality of being able to like, mirror back to people and it can make you very, very conscious masking. Yeah. And it can make you very good in relationships where you are giving a lot. And so like, I'm thinking to a client I had who was just like, I, I know my partner is, you know, my 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 the way that your brain does like 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. They just like, they don't remember these tiny, tiny details about the way you like things to be presented in a particular order. So that's like, it's a strength and then it can also be hard to find people who like can match you in that level of empathy and care, which makes relationships hard. It makes friendships hard. Another, I mean, I know, I know pattern recognition means a lot of things, but like the, the Audi HD kind of particular way I see it is, is not only to having all of this information, but being able to like, put it into use. So kind of having again, whether it's just that whatever, I'll just try it, you know, thing, which I have. Being able to get started and not getting so not just gathering information and having the information, but like really actively doing stuff with it and trying to like either create something with it or put it into practical application or like come up with your own theories around it, which my brain is constantly doing. Like I feel like, I feel like I have this theory is like one of my, you know, main things that I say, because my brain is just always not just gathering data, but being like, what can I do with this? How can I manipulate this? Connecting little individual parts of different things I've heard and read and connecting that to other things that haven't been. Yeah. I love connecting things. Me too. 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, except I'd kind of gathered some random data. And then as I was getting like in the course of it, like I was able to, as a 15-year-old, help my 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. Yeah. And just having a brain that can do that. And it's not just, you know, being smart. It's this particular pattern-finding and application thing that I think is like a particular strength that can be applied in a lot of ways. 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's a big waste of time 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. Like 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. Or admin, or communications. Yeah. So that's another thing is, 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've limited energy, am I wasting my energy doing the wrong thing? So this added layer, I think that made me really anxious. Well, I think it'd be, I know we've been talking for a while, so it'd be good to wrap things up. But one thing that I did want to mention, because you were talking about that cyclical energy that you were talking about, the podcast that I just did with Happy Autistic Lady Vera, we were talking about the cycles of burnout. And there was a, I'm very much described as like a roller coaster, which kind of fits in with your kind of experience with cyclical energy. Like 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 and more and more. And then you kind of drop down and you can't cope and you have to regulate and you're sort of in that kind of cycle. 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? 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, I did grad school for composition, so I mean writing, music. 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. Like that was my, you know, I was like, sometimes it's great and sometimes it's terrible. 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. Like 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, like I actually, I haven't been burnt out in a really long time. Not fully. I do notice I actually have, I 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. 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, which is like, I can't be around people. And I was like, Oh, this is like a little mini burnout, like every week. 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 like a big, you know, 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 what that means, right? But I can do hard stuff days. And then I need like a break day. 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 the cyclical energy. I do not have a nine to five body. I just don't. And when I've tried to do those kinds of jobs, my body is like, I just that's when I get burnt out is when I try to make my body have that kind of routine, because it's just not suited. It's really interesting. Well, I think we should probably try and wrap things up. It's been been really great to talk about like the odd HD experience. I'm actually on the register to go for a ADD or ADHD assessment at some point. So it could be very much something that applies to me, but 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 always interesting. So I'll see what occurs. I definitely struggle massively with the executive functioning part, which is why I've kind of, I guess, gravitated towards that. And whenever I'm not doing something that interests me, hardly have any energy for it. It's kind of the situation where I've crafted a life for me that works pretty on point with how I work. So it's hard to know, because I have this life that I'm interested in. But as soon as I step out of that and do things that I'm not, it's, it's harder. So I'll keep you updated on that. 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, 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? Yeah, I love the song Nautilus by Anna Meredith from her album Varmint. I love the whole album. It is a very, to me, it is an Audi HD song. I don't know if she is, I'm not saying she is, but it is, 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 Audi HD, and she had not heard this album. I played the album for her and she screamed out loud multiple times. Like it did this, it's like, Oh my God, it's doing the same thing to my brain. So I don't know, sounds like that. So yeah, that song in particular, and it's a What's the name again? Sorry? It's the album is Varmint's, the song is Nautilus, like a shell, and it's by Anna Meredith. I thought you said Nautilist. Yeah, 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 big 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. 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 playlists, see all of the amazing different contributions of songs that my guests have had over this year. Season two, Mattia, how can people, where can people find you if they want to, I guess, see more of the kind of content that you produce? 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 Audi 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. 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 come find me, it's at Audi HD Flourishing. If you find me on TikTok and you're like 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. I'm also, I'm the only Mattia Marais on the internet. So I'm very easy to find. It's easy to find like weird, old video clips of me from all kinds of things. And then MattiaMarais.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 Audi Podcast, make sure to rate, subscribe, like, share, do all of that stuff. Very much helps me out growing as a, as a, as a creator in this, this big wild internet world. And if you want to check out some more stuff from me, you can always find my Instagram. You can see my, all my links, my little link tree, and it will take you to links for my website, link to the sponsor of the podcast, dboards. If you want to check those out, some of the merchandise that I make, and even some of the coaching soft consultancy sessions that I'm going to be start, starting doing very soon. So if you're interested in any of that, please head over to there. I've also recently been set up as, had a channel set up for me in a Discord server called Planet Aspie. So if you check the link tree, there will also be a Discord link down there for you to get involved with all of the different podcasts listeners, autistic people. It's kind of a German English server. So my channel is very much English, but there are some, a lot of German speakers and the other channels. So if you're interested in that, definitely encourage you to go check that out. And yeah, I guess last thing that I want to ask, Matia, is have you enjoyed your 40 autistic experience? Yes, very much. Thank you. 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, chatting more about some of my experiences in life, please go check it out. That will be down in the description as well. And yeah, I hope you guys have enjoyed this episode and I hope to see you in the next week section. God damn it. I hope to see you in the next episode of the 40 autistic podcast. See you later, guys.