 But you touch 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 the things like alexifimia in terms of understanding our emotional states, putting things in place to recover and putting breaks in place to cope with different anxiety-producing situations. But I'd really love to know more about your experiences in ADHD and how you think it might differ to ADHD in autistic individuals. 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 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. I don't know if I could pick that apart from the shutdowns at this point. But I mean, I also had a very traumatizing childhood. It was very physically and emotionally abused. So that was bad and obviously did not help. But the big like, thank you. Yeah, I mean, it sucked. My parents were totally unequipped for they shouldn't have had any kids let alone 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 of 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 within 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 I was, 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 guest culture, not ask culture. You are assumed 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 if you don't even it was a terrible place. That's really weird. To 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 that 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 guy here. 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 this far. If you could do me a real solid, please make sure to rate the podcast if you're on 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 debuds 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 and I think it would be good to talk about the differences, now some unique challenges to being an old HD with that sound okay? Yeah. For me, one of the big formative experiences was around that. 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 and if I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, if I'm doing therapy and I'm taking my meds and I'm sleeping well and I really good about substance use, I was doing everything I was supposed to do and I was still feeling like shit. 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 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, nobody was looking at my experiences and understanding me. They were just like, here's the label and this label works well enough and whatever, here you can have it. 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 metacognition, 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 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 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. This is what we're going to do in therapy. You know, I think you were saying before about what you're saying. I have that experience a lot as well. It's almost like you are going there to educate the therapist on stuff. And that's if they're a good one. If they're a bad one, they just kind of gloss over your experiences and tell you what to do and tell you all the ways that you should be thinking and acting. Just think less. Just worry less. 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 understand autism and ADHD and neurodiversities, but you still have difficulties with it and stuff. Oh yeah. And I've had a similar experience with mental health. I did so much work. I did a lot of my degree around mental health and the biology of it. I understand 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 would just be like, Hey, right. I'm catastrophizing. Hey, right. I'm being very learned helplessness about this situation. And 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're saying about, you go to them and you give them all this, this research and say that, well, sounds like you got a good handle on it. Subscribe, drop a comment down below. Even if it's something simple, like sending me a heart or an emoji, it really, really does help me with the algorithm. All of my links to my socials, like my daily Instagram blog posts are down in the description. But other than that, I hope you enjoy the rest of this clip. And that's an experience that I have a lot, both, both being autistic and also with, with mental health is like, it does just because you understand it and just because you have the knowledge and have the practical tips and ways to wherever come it, it doesn't mean that it's always just going to get away and you're going to be able to manage it. Totally. I'd say that I probably have done more to help myself and manage it myself than any therapist has ever helped me with. There's been very, very minute, various, very small things, which I think therapists who have talked 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, 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 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 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 like got a scholarship for this thing because I was very interested in trauma. I am a board certified hip to therapist have 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 I've 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 want to just feel like, I just want to like have this, it's like internal stimming and like letting the emotion take me and have this experience. And there's a part of me that wants that and that's okay. Like there's a part of me that just wants the intensity of this experience to just wash over me and just like be in it and just let it pass by. I lean into it. Yeah. And I almost like, I can almost have a better time having that experience for the 30 to 90 seconds that the actual physical mechanism of an emotion usually takes in the body to just like let it happen and be in it as opposed to, oh, and now I'm at rate because I don't need to do a technique for that. I can just look around the room, save 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 I could just like 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, 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, it's something that's a part of you and the way that you, you function 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. We're just dealing with feeling low today and not give myself walks in nature and doing all of this self-help stuff. So that I'm an unacceptable 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, 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 would be like, are you okay? Have like resting grumpy? I have like a slight frown 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 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 expectation you come back and you feel better and like, no, so I would rather not do them because I don't want to know that that doesn't work for me. Yeah, yeah.