 Good day and welcome back to the 4G Aughty Podcast with your host, Mr Thomas Henley of course. How are you doing today? Today we've got a very special episode as per usual. We're going to be talking all about autism and ADHD. Now there's a bit of a funny story around this because I've had a few conversations with some odd HD for anyone who doesn't know is basically the term for someone who identifies as being autistic and ADHD. So I've been kind of going through my own sort of personal dive into what ADHD is all about. I think the first time that I really sort of was able to kind of voice my my opinions and thoughts is when I was talking to Dr. Megan Neff which if you haven't already watched that episode it's a really really great one. All about PTSD and CPSD. But we were talking about that and that crossover was it's been on my mind for a while. It's a little bit strange because I'm on a medication which is quite highly sedative. But I can't really remember a time when I wasn't on them and I've always really sort of struggled with concentration, executive functioning. Some of those things that I mentioned they're kind of some things that are you know the crossover between diagnoses. So we're going to talk all about that kind of crossover, what the differences are, what the similarities are you know whether you as an autistic person can know if you might want to go for an ADHD diagnosis or explore it or vice versa if you have ADHD. So today I'm joined by Brooke Snipman who is a master's and a master's what does PCC mean? It's a professional coach certification and then the board certification as well. A board certification, a certified specialist. We're going to leave it in it's funny. It's me trying to wrap my head around speaking. I really you know what I think I might you know also have some kind of sort of dyslexia kind of experience of things because I found it really hard to like read off like the page. Yeah many many ADHD years have that. Really well yeah we'll get into that. Brooke is a certified coach specializing in ADHD and founder of coaching with Brooke. Brooke and a team of eight coaches help individuals with ADHD 8 to 80 gain the tools and accountability to lead empowered lives. Brooke's also worked with individuals with ADHD since 2006 as she graduated her master's in students with disabilities from New York University. She is also the host of the successful with ADHD podcast which shines a light on the strength of ADHD as more and Brooke how are you doing today? I'm doing great Thomas it's so glad I'm glad that we are finally here connecting again. Yes of course yeah and we had a scheduled podcast yesterday but I've my brain's been all over the place at the moment which is probably very apt for our conversation today. So we missed that and Brooke was really great in rescheduling and we're here today the day after. Very thankful for that. It's all good. Forget it. Would you like to tell us a little bit about your sort of online work because we know that you've you sort of you specialize in kind of coaching and you're in like a business and stuff but what does your like online content tend to cover? Yeah so you and I initially connected over Instagram so I would say that our biggest following is there but we do a lot of carousels that break down ADHD some of the nuances of it and tools to help people with that area of their ADHD so if someone maybe doesn't recognize that that aspect might be in fact part of their ADHD it shines a light on that and if they've been struggling in that area we give them tools for that so it's a great resource it's literally a library of like every single aspect of ADHD. We also do an Ask Brooke on the fourth Sunday of every month and is it like an Instagram live? No I put questions into my story and people can ask the questions and then I personally respond within that day but I do tons of Instagram lives successful with ADHD is a podcast however after the podcast we go on live on Instagram with whomever I spoke with and answer the questions from the public and kind of just go deeper into some of the topics that were discussed so there's lots of free information there but you can find me on all platforms under coaching with Brooke. Well um in terms of your um your like your podcasts and stuff when did you start that and what kind of I mean I imagine that it's it's related to the ADHD and autism and stuff like that but it'll be interesting to know like what your your sort of journey with is with that did you do you do any like presentiary stuff before that or is it it's kind of thrown into the deep end kind of thing. So I used to be an administrator in a school system so I was working with individuals with ADHD since 2006 worked in a as a special education teacher for eight years and then an assistant director of special education so with that I did a lot of presentations I was also in different leadership roles and then in my company did some you know news stories pod other people's podcasts and then I was joined by um a fellow member of different brains which is a neurodiverse company and we are currently and previously doing a podcast called the ADHD power tool so that has been going on for like two and a half years. I have two podcasts I know but we've taken a little bit of a break because my co-host is studying for his MCATs so I figured at this time it would be perfect to start my own podcast that initially started just as an Instagram live and I feel empowered to to finally do it on my own and I think that imposter syndrome which is huge for people with ADHD and neurodiverse brains and even entrepreneur women I didn't think that I was capable of doing a podcast I've had my company for five years and I've been wanting to do a podcast but I'm like who wants to listen to me so finally I just got out there on Instagram put my face out there I'm like you know what if I can do it here I can do it on the actual podcast platform so we started it it launched three weeks ago success full with ADHD with 2Ls and we're already in the top 10% of ADHD podcast so it's exciting yes congratulations thank you well um I find it I found it really interesting like in our pre chat when we're talking about sort of the world of of certain special educational needs and disabilities I think that's is that the acronym yeah it's different by you and as it is here so in the US they call it something different so like in in New York they call it the committee of special education so that's CSE in Florida they call it ESE it's interesting like the different dialogues between two countries right that both speak English but just yeah you know slightly different words yeah it's like the horse horse riding in the UK's horseback riding us sidewalk in sidewalk in the US is path in English in England fascinating there's some other ones or pants yeah that's that's that's the uh that's that's the old one pants first underwear wait so for underwear people in the UK say pants yeah yeah so what do you say for for pants like joggers probably like if they're like sort of the cotton you kind of fabrics but yeah well that those are joggers or trousers trousers okay that's good to know so if someone saying they're not wearing their pants I know that there's an issue yeah yeah I've had a few conversations with sort of American people and that that has been something that that kind of makes people go like you know but um yeah I mean just just thinking about like the the world of I'm just gonna say sen because I can't remember the acronyms but like it's it's interesting because you know to me that there is sort of distinct sort of fields within like the realm of like neurodiversity you have like parents you have adults you have professionals and there's obviously like subsets of each of them and you have like partners of neurodiverse people and friends but they're very separate like the terminology sort of the the attitudes they tend to be quite quite different I know that in the UK they don't they don't tend to deviate quite as much but I have seen sort of in the US that those kind of spheres tend to be kind of more boxed off so I guess I'm really interested in like you know your experience working in this sort of high level position sort of having that that sort of influence on you know special needs education in in the US yeah so coming from a school background initially I was grateful to work at two of the best schools one was the best school in the country and one is the best special education public school on Long Island yeah yeah yeah oh wow down yeah yeah and one was the best special education public school or program we should say yeah on Long Island so I was thankful for that and I felt that students received the accommodations that they needed very often which isn't always the case in certain public schools I am in Florida right now and I'm fighting hard to get the accommodations that my stepson needs both of my stepsons have ADHD so I think it's really the nuances you need people who know what they're talking about and what they're doing knowledge is power and don't settle as well the the experience angle as well because I imagine that no I'm I'm right in thinking that you're in ADHD as well I am I am okay my brain is so foggy at the moment so that's okay yeah and ironically even though I've been working with ADHD for 17 years I didn't realize I had ADHD until four years ago when I self-diagnosed and then got a real diagnosis from a psychologist in the area so yeah it's interesting but I would say that again just like don't settle if you are a parent or your students make sure that you're getting the accommodations that you deserve and also over accommodations aren't always good either so you want to make sure that it's within your needs and not just speculating that one day you might need this so you can always revisit in any public school system your individualized education plan you can have as many meetings as you want so I want to put that out there for all those parents who are worried you can request a meeting from the school at any time awesome well um I mean I suppose a really good good sort of place to start off with is I mean we're going to be talking about sort of like particularly around the crossovers I think you know in the past I've done a couple of things sort of around ADHD but I've never sort of explored like the world of old HD so I guess like you know what what are the similarities and like crossovers between like the two diagnosis is like whether it be something to do with the actual like diagnostic profile or whether it's to do with your own sort of professional experience yeah so they are very similar and sometimes people confuse the two and sometimes people are diagnosed with one and not the other and then they realize they have both so I know we were speaking before now and there's over 50 percent of individuals with autism who also have ADHD some studies show 50 to 70 percent of individuals with autism have ADHD so both ADHD and autism affect the central nervous system which is responsible for movement language memory social and focusing skills but the amazing thing about it is if you get the services that you need and you find out that you have autism at an earlier age there are so many things that you can do to help your language your memory your movement you know social interactions so it can like it doesn't go away but it's just like ADHD doesn't go away but there are so many ways to empower yourself and to you know get the help you need I think it's it's um it's less about sort of getting over it more like in terms of making adjustments like within your own life like how you correct you know no so for me for me particularly I like to be pretty much I don't tend to have a lot of social interaction doesn't mean I don't tend to like it it's something that I do quite enjoy just in very small bursts so like there's there's that adjustment and then there's things like sensory adjustments that that I make pretty much on a daily basis where would those you know if we were to kind of look at it in a sort of broad sense where would those like two things sort of crossover like because obviously there are sort of those similarities but which kind of diagnostic criteria would you would you say that that kind of crossover yeah so both individuals with ADHD and autism can have intense fixations with interest so you know we can get very excited and hyper fixated on a hobby and an interest and then it bores us and then we move on so there's one crossover we both have emotional dysregulation so we have difficulty regulating our emotions due to the third thing executive functioning issues my enemy so there is where you see a lot of overlap and then of course I'm happy to share the differences but that is part of the reason why sometimes it can be challenging to know you know if you have autism or ADHD or both it's interesting to kind of I think it would be cool to kind of zoom in and on like the particulars of those things because I think for me when I've when I've talked to people who are just ADHD or know that they're ADHD but maybe maybe might be able to stick I don't know you never know but they tend to say that the sort of fixations and interests tend to be like a lot more ram they tend to shift quite a lot and one sort of comparison that I've found with autistic people is that we tend to have more stable sort of longer term fixations interests on things yeah I did a post recently on a concept called autistic monotropism oh I saw that pop up today yeah it's it's it's it's kind of a sort of quite a simple sort of concept that has a very complicated sounding name but it's basically someone's predilection to be like you know when we're when we're focusing on something when we're interested in something we get more of that sort of we get more of those those blinders that kind of tunnel vision um on our interests and for a lot of people um particularly myself um in terms of hyper fixation I'm like getting really focused on something I can often spend an entire day not not eating not not drinking not feeling like I need to go to the toilet because I'm so focused on like a project that I'm doing or a video that I'm doing and quite often I have the real big issue of finding a cut-off point particularly in the evenings I I do I have fall fell into the trap many many times in my life of allowing myself to go past a certain time that I've set for myself because once I kind of go when I'm prolonged working for like over my set designated time it's like those rules that I had to kind of blown out the water and I'll just I'll just continue working and working and working until I and you know I get migraines or I get tired or you know there's some like external force on me yeah tamas can I ask you a question does that help you relax too by getting hyper fixated on any interest of yours mm-hmm yeah it's I mean it can definitely be work I mean it's it's interesting because when whenever I've done sort of psychotherapy and stuff around anxiety and sleep and such they always recommend that I try and reduce the amount of stimulation that I get sort of during the night time and they're saying like oh listen to an audio book or read a book but for me I need to do something so I need to write or you know what I tend to do it during the evenings that works pretty pretty much every time is I'll set my phone at the lowest brightness I'll turn on the the warm the warm setting on it and I'll just like tilt the screen away from me and I'll play like a game and then I'll just tend to kind of drift asleep when my meds kicking but you definitely hear you there's a battle between stimulation because sometimes we don't have enough stimulation and sometimes it's too much stimulation right yeah yeah and I get kind of restless if I'm not doing something like I'm not sort of having a particular focus on something I definitely have that sometimes it doesn't go so well and it didn't go so well last night and I had a really sort of intense kind of feeling of an you know we call it autistic inertia where you know the longer that you kind of stay hyper fixated on something you know the longer that that goes on the harder it is to kind of break out of that that thing you know there's where things like issues with like transitions and things like that routine changes come in because we kind of build up that speed it's like yeah you build it's like a steam train it's like you're setting the steam train and you just the more that you go on the like faster that it gets and then like if you want to break yeah it doesn't really work so much you gotta yeah yeah Dr. Halliwell talked about the Ferrari brain right the end the Chrysler breaks it's really hard to stop yeah and quite often if you if you know in a good place and you kind of let it run rampant you can lose a tire yeah definitely big blowout but like in terms of like hyper fixation what what kind of differences have you seen sort of between autistic and ADHD is so my specialty really is ADHD and I would also say that and this doesn't go for everyone because it's a spectrum right so this isn't a one size ADHD or one size autism but I've seen more like anime and Legos and trains and what else like comic this yeah yeah like like Comic Con I forget I guess it's anime but more like fantasy yes for the autism but again you know I have children with ADHD and they're not diagnosed with autism and you know one of them loves anime and loves Legos so I don't I don't really know the if there is like a huge difference but I do know I meant more as like the the kind of like the presentation of the hyper focus like oh I know with ADHD you have like the um the focus the focusing tends to be a little bit more erratic and you know if and I'll probably give the example for me you know if I'm if I'm focused on something and I hear a noise in the corner or someone shouts my name or I get a text message I just don't hear it no so I just continue in that focus mode but yes yeah I think that's I don't know is the answer but I I do know in like when someone in my experience and again this is not everybody and when someone is hyper focused or hyper fixated on something with autism and you interrupt them and you like really try to get them out of that it it's a that transition can be intense yes it could be really difficult right that anxiety the frustration all of that where they they need that preparation now individuals with ADHD also can have difficulties with transitions as well so but yeah I believe that individuals that I've seen with that transition in who have autism have a harder time transitioning for sure and what about um sort of the aspects of emotional regulation like I know for for autistic people there's quite high sort of co-occurrence of this um I don't know if you can I think it's more of a trait it's less of a like a diagnosed condition but um more of like the elixophymic kind of experience of struggling to focus yourself internally and understand or or realize or identify what emotion you're feeling particularly in in the moment yeah I think that in order to gain more of a sensory stimulation or like to stim due to what you're talking about like individuals with ADHD might flap their hands might rock like those repetitive behaviors the echolalia repeat that same sound over and over again and it's it's to help them stay focused and yes yeah right and at the same time they can have difficulty with like intense sensory sensitivity so someone I'm close to who does have autism little things might really bother him you know whether it be chewing you know yeah noises from far away misophonia misophonia exactly exactly so might have an intense reaction to those types of sounds in terms of like ADHD would you find that because I I mean just as a as a sort of guess because I haven't done a lot of sort of research or a work around ADHD would would the emotional regulation the most more dysfunction kind of aspect of ADHD be more around things to do with like positive emotions or you know like the so yeah a lot of I don't know if this is answering your question but even neurotypical oh excited yes we get impulsive although not you know everyone with ADHD has impulsivity we have a lot of mental or physical activity we're quick like you said before to jump to different hobbies and tasks and jobs where maybe someone with autism will hyper fixate on something for a little bit longer than someone with ADHD and as far as negative thoughts go we you know all individuals have negative thoughts and then neurodiverse brains have a negativity bias on top of that I mean I'd imagine that a lot of the sort of the emotional dysregulation with ADHD would be like more akin to like not stopping and just continuing to like burn free you're like yeah you gas tank constantly yes yes with autism it's more like I mean to be honest I experienced the same that same kind of feeling of you know burning yourself out by doing too much but I think a lot of the emotional overwhelm that I experience it tends to be with the sensory like almost always like 99 percent of the time the sensory and the social stuff yeah is less less as much of me kind of just absolutely taxing my brain if that makes sense yeah the person I was describing before loves to tax their brain but also has ADHD and autism but you know both ADHD years and individuals with autism thrive on routine even though we hate it at the same time going back to those transitions yeah you know we like doing our own thing we don't like following rules we don't like other people telling us what to do but at the same time we like that preparation we like to know what's coming that can emotionally calm our brains 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 in a podcasting streaming service and do all that like subscribe comment stuff on youtube that I'm 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 percent off discount anyway I hope you enjoy the rest of the podcast that's all from me hmm well um I know we talked a bit sort of like the sort of the similarities in the crossover but what about like in terms of diagnostics in terms of sort of the ADHD versus autism experience what are the differences like if you could if you could pick some things out that would sort of deviate between the two which which kind of things would those be I'm not looking at the DSM 5 right now if I was to pull it up I would probably have a better idea but I would say to your point the big differences with autism and ADHD for autism it's the sensory the social difficulties the the speech delay or the unusual speech with ADHD the processing but both of them have processing like both 80 a lot of individuals with ADHD have slow processing or are also diagnosed with an auditory processing disorder or some other type of processing disorder I was diagnosed with a processing disorder early in life but individuals with ADHD have difficulties with concentration impulsivity very often the hyperactivity and the hobby jumping but we both have the executive dysfunction the executive the emotional dysregulation the fixations well it's interesting like I think one thing that I find particularly hard to wrap my head around is because you know quite often when we think of neurodiversities because because there's such like a wide array of experiences for each individual person it can sometimes hard to like box people into specific groups yes because I've heard as well that the rest or there tends to be some kind of I mean it tends to be different just from the idiot's people that I know but there tend to be some some issues in terms like socializing sometimes what what kind of things do you think you know those those would be like for ADHD years for ADHD years for socializing we can very often overshare and then feel bad about it afterwards and that comes with that impulsivity and regulation and you know sometimes we like to go hard and then we need to relax and I know that individuals with autism as well very often need that time as well to come down from all the stimulation that they're seeking throughout the week and throughout the day so I find that when I'm I'm thinking of one individual in my head but I'm not going to name them of course but I know it's someone that does have like ADHD diagnosis I don't think they're autistic they haven't explored it or anything but I'm I'm pretty sure but I find that for me talking to them it tends to be like this this kind of strange dynamic where I'm very sort of direct and blunt and I can kind of I tend to be able to concentrate more on on the topic whereas when I'm talking to someone with you know ADHD it tends to be the case that we'll talk about I'll talk about something I'll give them monologue and then I'll start talking about it but then they'll kind of veer off track yes and just start talking about other things and then I and then I ask a question yes and then I kind of bring them back to it or it can be like sort of on the more like short term thing where I start speaking I'm very slow in my processing and sometimes I'm quite mellow in the way that I deliver things yes so sometimes they're like you just reminded me concentration yes as I'm doing to you right now sorry it's okay no you just reminded me like my interactions with certain people with autism very literal my assistant has autism and it has helped me become such a better communicator where I got distracted in my communication with ADHD like you're saying but you can't when you're talking to someone with autism they need to know black and white what it is that you need from them right or what it is that you mean those little nuances in humor or in knowing someone who I'm close with who likely has autism as well you know when you're feeling a certain way without expressing it saying I am sad or I am feeling this way it might be hard for that person to pick up on how you're feeling yeah that aspect of cognitive empathy definitely I don't think it's am I right in thinking that that's not something that ADHD has experienced like that it's phrases other things cognitive empathy basically it's the ability to do exactly what what you just said it's the ability to to know how someone's feeling just based on indirect cues and not that sort of direct verbal kind of explanation more emotional expression over emotional explanation correct and I don't think that an individual with ADHD from the majority of people that I work with and know have as hard of a time without I believe that we're more hypersensitive and because of that we have that empathy to be hyper aware of how other people are feeling to a point where we're compensating for someone else and their needs and we put that over our own so we're like so alert and aware of everyone else's feelings I think it's um you know there there is sort of like a sort of a difference between like cognitive and adaptive and adaptive is that element of once you know how someone's feeling you're empathic you respond you respond correctly to how they're feeling so you'll you'll comfort them you'll do things for them you'll talk to them is is that aspect of knowing I think that's the hardest and it's it's been described as other things like theory of mind or like you know the the sort of the difficulty of putting yourself in someone else's shoes and also like in terms of emotional expression as well because we don't tend to have as much of the facial expression the body language and the tonality changes when we when we're in certain emotions so it's hard for us to really identify with someone when they're it they're kind of like openly expressing it you know because perhaps when we're sad we might just look completely blank and just talk in a very sort of mellow voice you know but we might be like 95% anxious like we're nearly really gonna have a blow-up whereas for other people you can see it they'll be like fidgeting they'll be like you know like showing those kind of visual signs that's probably that's probably a good good sort of key difference that sort of cognitive empathy part because yes and to that point too you know you can think that someone with autism might be mad at you by having that tonality of voice yeah but they're not or just not being serious yeah right exactly exactly you have so many issues like especially within like the realm of psychology and stuff like when you get in counseling or you're working with like a mental health work or you're getting psychotherapy or even to be honest in most places like in life we tend to approach people and say something that is completely conflicting with how we're acting like and that can be really hard for people to kind of grasp we call it like flat affect like we don't appear to be in distress but we definitely are I think it can make it really hard in those settings because perhaps people might not take us as seriously if we say I'm very depressed and I'm you know not feeling good and I'm thinking all about all these these horrible things but if someone said I'm feeling really depressed and I'm just I'm thinking about such horrible things and there's more of that like congruence between the two right it's not what you say it's how you say it right yeah so a lot of the like training that people did to kind of understand what is in terms of emotions kind of focuses around you know if if we're directly explaining our emotions it literally means that it's not it's not less by the fact that we're not expressing as much on the outside so it's very interesting like it contributes to things like um what's the name there's faux regulation sort of faking that you're regulated when you're not yeah so like inside your mind is going places yeah you're masking that intense panic but on the outside you're like calm and you're talking to people like you usually would but yeah they've done some studies around it's really interesting like around like cortisol and sort of maybe heightened more in us and then taking longer to fall back down hmm so would you say that that the anxiety associated with autism is higher than the anxiety associated with ADHD I'm not sure okay intense I mean just from my experience autistic people we tend to retreat when we're anxious I don't know sort of on the the ADHD side because I imagine that there's a lot of due to the fact it's that you have that hyperactivity element that you aren't moving a lot and you're sort of doing things and you're sort of coping with that anxiety and stress by getting the movement whereas for us we kind of just sit with it and just kind of ignore it and it all sometimes does not even recognize it that we're feeling that way so it might I think it might there might be some like differences in how we sort of process it possibly interesting yeah well um I guess like that's sort of the natural follow-on to that is you know what is it like to be an ADHD what is it like to have a dual diagnosis of autism and ADHD so I I don't have autism and ADHD but I can speak from you know people I know who do and clients I've worked with and just from what they've shared with me and what I've studied so again like I can't speak from someone who has it but intense hyper fixations like you said with the autism piece but then you know pulled aside by the stresses of other people's needs so like high anxiety about are they meeting you know their loved ones desires and needs yes the the sensory piece for sure so the overstimulation getting angry about some of those things and and speaking out about it or running away from it needing a lot of time where it almost looks like it's antisocial but a lot of time to just come down from the overstimulation very successful so Albert Einstein right is suspected to have had ADHD and autism as well oh big visionary yes right so we know that Elon Musk has autism I don't know if he has ADHD so big visionaries we get visionaries with people with ADHD and visionaries with people with autism I believe that from what I've seen individuals with autism and ADHD do like to try to fit in as well so with that neurodiversity there's the masking but then when you're working with someone there's the awareness and then trying to figure out your place in life yeah and trouble with eye contact contact sometimes you know either like being funny but also having a hard time understanding other people's humor yeah what's it saying saying things that are inappropriate social context exactly exactly and also having hard time again with executive function the planning the organization emotions you know that that's hugely intertwined so it's I think a lot of things that I've heard from people is like the main the main thing that I see from all the HDNs sort of doing their posts and stuff is that they kind of have this weird sort of push pull dynamic with how they they go about life so it's like they really really like intensely need that sort of fixed daily routine that they know what they're doing at every every hour of the day it's sort of a regular thing every week but then they also have that like sort of the the more ADHD kind of side where it's like the kind of screwing themselves over because they want they kind of they know that they need to have that routine to focus them and kind of provide them that that sort of comfort they don't want to plan it and they don't want to be set into this box right they don't want to follow rules and structure even though it's good for them but it's yeah I mean and also as far as routines go same restaurants same movies same um yeah day to day same people I find also that individuals with ADHD and autism when they socialize like being around people who are interesting to them I mean everyone enjoys conversation that can flow but like they want communication with people who like are more intellectual or like who like get them you know who they can talk history with you can talk facts with you know those types of conversations rather than just that small talk of like nothing they want okay so this is what's going on let's like let's deep dive into this right rather than just shooting the breeze yes yeah I think I think with like just autism and I think we we do tend to like that sort of my focused thing but I suppose then again there's there's like if you're if you're ADHD and autism it's you want to have that like deep dive on something but then you keep getting sidetracked with the conversation and sort of taking taking different side streets and stuff side and I find yes and I find that like someone else could be the like in phone calls for instance like someone can call and then the ADHD the odd HD the eight autism and ADHD individual will sometimes hijack the conversation right and as if it was their conversation although the other person was the one doing the calling so then they have to kind of back up and be like you called what was it that you wanted to talk about you know and listen we do that with it just ADHD as well right so there's there's more of that kind of because for me it takes me a while to sort of warm up to a social interaction like I can't just jump straight like when I go about my time at the gym it's like I'm focused on my workout I'm focused on my music if someone comes up to me I'm not expecting to talk to anyone if I do go to the gym with the expectation that I might talk to someone it's it's not too bad because I can kind of sort of mentally prepare myself but it's like that thing with the monotropism it's like if if I don't expect to have a conversation with somebody and someone starts conversation with me it's it's almost like I don't know what to do with myself like it's it's kind of you know it's hard to get into social mode when I'm sort of in that sort of productivity work mode but I'd imagine if you had that sort of more ADHD kind of influence that you might just be sort of more impulsive and sort of go into it a bit sort of quicker yes deeper and yes but it's it's usually more based on what's in that person's brain that comes out first at least and then they catch themselves and they're like oh wait you know but again yeah well how's how's your day exactly yeah but again there's my story for 20 minutes exactly exactly but you know everyone is different there's a spectrum so I don't want to say it's always this way or it's never this way this is just my personal interaction with AUDHD with just ADHD with just autism from the people that I've worked with from the people I'm close with this is what I've seen sure sure as best it's it's um it's quite difficult isn't it I think the ideal would probably be it would be interesting to have myself, you and someone and someone's AUDHD and sort of like I've got other questions about like you could do like like a real way you ask like different questions to people and like you know see if there's any like difference in how they feel about it or you and I need to do that once this person is ready to come out with their diagnosis 100% I would love that I would love that well um I mean just in terms of kind of wrapping things up and thinking about sort of the more like practical applications about what we've talked about you know if you were to think of an autistic person you know obviously talked about a lot of different sort of aspects that could could be applicable but what if you were autistic what would you look for in terms of like ADHD traits like you know you might feel a lot of you know because of that crossover you might be like a bit tentative about self exploring the the world of ADHD because that you know as you said the lines are very very blurry between the two mm-hmm what would you if if you were an autistic individual what would you what would you look for in in terms of like hey that you know this isn't sort of typically autistic experience maybe I should should go and sort of explore it a bit more yeah I would say that controlling impulsive behaviors racing thoughts daydreaming being overly active jumping from task to task yeah you know starting getting sidetracked come like doing one thing but then getting sidetracked by other things yeah because the other a lot of the other things overlap yes yeah I think that's really good because it's not you know I suppose they're jumping from task to task it's it's less so like an autism thing because of that like intense focus and the the inertia and having to sort of break that and switch to another thing like sometimes it can take me any anyway depending on my mental health and sort of how much you know I've done you know my energy levels alike I can you know sometimes it might take me about 15 minutes to kind of rearrange my head it's like if I if I go from perhaps work and I'm just like bang on soon as I finish work I get my clothes I get the get my bag go to the gym I couldn't do that it would just absolutely like send waves of anxiety from my body I just want nowhere my head's at and when I got to the gym I'd be like how did I get here and you know this doesn't feel right and it's almost like I have to kind of prep myself in order to make the jump from doing something like work wise into rest and then preparing myself to go into something else and there's those transitions right they're really hard so doing those and transitions are hard for ADHD years too but like it could be really hard for someone with autism so that prep work like you said whether it be an alarm or telling yourself okay you know by this time I'm going to do xyz and I'm going to have this ready and then you know I'm going to need to go here lots of prep work like you said I think another thing that you know I think that was a really great list of sort of things that you can look out for because I think because of our tendency to be a lot more sort of focused and want to want we kind of crave that feeling of just being fix fixated on some things it kind of it blurs out the sensory world it blurs out everything that's going on so we don't we don't tend to have for well I don't tend to have from my experiences that sort of daydreaming aspect I work just kind of just get lost in thought a lot I will have processing blips where I just forget everything that we're talking about and you know sort of it's like my brain cuts off but I don't like go off into thought and sort of follow that kind of train of thought around and sort of take different directions I saw some some really funny funny memes you have like someone did this I don't know if it's a meme but they did a reel where they were talking they were explaining how it feels to be ADHD I don't know if I'm able to do this but I'll give it a go so like someone will ask them oh how's your day been and they go well how's my day well I did this and you know at work and but then that I saw I saw that lady Karen who was you know I'd you know you know what she's like and the issue you know to be honest yeah anyone who kind of acts like that towards me it's it's kind of a big of a red flag it's kind of like my ex my ex was you know he had all sorts of these kind of issues right like baseball for some reason you go to all these different tangents and you can go on and I remember one of my friends growing up and it's almost like she got it out of me she would go like this when I was talking and I was undiagnosed ADHD she's like like get to the point I remember when I was even in ADHD coaching training one person I was like sample coaching was she was in my class she's like okay you got there you got there yeah but it we're verbal processors so sometimes we don't even know like what it is until we get there so it's that like more thinking out loud correct so for me it's it's internal it's like I'll go quiet for like five ten seconds I'll think about it and then I'll speak like yes yes so my assistant who has autism as well she's like that as well so she'll be very quiet I can tell when you know she's thinking about something how she wants to say it to me if she's upset about something or like she has too much stimulation going on I can see that you know things will kind of like break down a little bit and she'll need time to recover yeah yeah so there's those little nuances that's really cool it's my spouse looking looking from the other side I mean I know I know that that for you personally you're not autistic my spouse if you're if you're in ADHD you know what what could you possibly look for about you know possibly pursuing an autism diagnosis I mean from from my experience it tends to be like the the opposite way around but I imagine that it could it could definitely happen yeah yes definitely I think if I was to pitch in a couple of things I think definitely the lexifying me aspect of things not being able to identify I'd notice or sort of tie emotions to events that tends to be something that that autistic people experience a lot and also the the aspects of cognitive empathy like like I said about sort of monitoring indirect communication I'd say that those two for me those are like the biggest things when it comes to social emotional stuff with like autism yeah what do you think do you think there's anything that you would add yeah I think for the hyper ADHD hyperactive impulsive type it's easier to spot the ADHD very often and you know if they've masked or adapted in certain ways or they're lower on the spectrum maybe of 80 of autism they might just the ADHD might be more prominent in them and that's what they might be diagnosed with first and also there's so much information on ADHD out there I know we spoke about that at this point and I think the stigma has been broken a lot more and it hasn't been enough yet with autism so I think that people might identify more if they have both with ADHD and then maybe I don't know this is that's very interesting it's like that that kind of stigmatizing because I think I think there's a lot of I don't know I feel like a lot of people it feels I mean to me if you know me thinking about me possibly having some ADHD ADHD it feels less sort of intrusive on my identity and it's more kind of you know I think of people who are ADHD as they're like fun they're like positive to be around and that's like but when you think of like autism in terms of like the stigma and myths it's like oh you're socially inept you're a bit weird yeah flat effect you're not very cool right and you can challenge that too right because everyone it's a spectrum sure and also like with that intrusive piece that you're talking about like you know before it was Asperger's and autism right they they still were under an umbrella right but they were separated now yeah it's autism spectrum disorder so I'm curious from someone who has autism you know what that that does for someone who's yeah identified I think it's it's an interesting question I know it's it's a very there are some trigger points within the autistic community and a lot of the trigger points tend to be around what we call functioning labels like high functioning autism or whatever yeah and and basically the the Asperger's label was was created by Hans Asperger who so sort of a researcher in Vienna they owned this really really great children's hospital at the time and it was taken over by sort of the Nazis during the Second World War and yeah and basically he made the distinction between two groups of people one which he called Asperger's syndrome which were people he deemed to be sort of useful to society is it tend to be obviously that there's social awkwardness sort of on the outside to them but more of the the hyper fixation the the sort of the more intelligent ones and sort of he boxed those people off so they weren't removed I weren't going to too much about that but so there's a bit of history around that and you know we have a lot of issues in the autistic community like fears around eugenics which has has been you know it's only in the last sort of 10 odd years where it's kind of being challenged in some sort of some organizations so there's that there's that kind of split and I think a lot of people we respond will respond quite drastically to things like that because they you know they were very sort of quick to kind of identify that and sort of separate ourselves from the label for me it's it's it's quite a bit more complicated because I see the utility of having sort of set categories of people based on which needs they have I think for a lot of people it's just the terminology it's like it's not nice to be called what makes you someone high functioning or low functioning exactly it's not like you have high functioning adhd and low functioning adhd but it's it's like it's it's not nice for someone to call you low functioning because why are we trying to say right and it's not nice for someone to call you high functioning because you may have loads of issues but be considered high functioning and people don't take you seriously you don't get as many supports you don't get as many adjustments so you know that both of those terms the kind of they but they box people off based on on you know what their needs and their functioning levels which is not something that people like to draw a lot of attention to sure and you know for me personally it's it's something that I've you know thought about quite a lot there's different ways of saying it nowadays I think it's more about categorizations but whenever we try to whenever I try to kind of think about or have a dialogue around sort of the utility of those kind of categorizations it's almost it's almost always like a really hot point of you know people saying like how dare you you're you're an ableist you're saying that we're better than them and stuff like that but then you have the parents of autistic people or friends or supporters of autistic people who have like intellectual disabilities they can't manage a job they can't live by themselves you know they have all these supports in place they can't communicate sometimes so there's that kind of there's that there's that tension around making that distinction which can often kind of shut down a lot of conversations around those things which then I'm wondering like now that people don't use the term Asperger's right so now it's ASD one two and three which is basically I think is worse for the cause because because you're literally saying like what level of autism do you have in one twos and threes which I don't think that's a good way of doing it but right yeah it's it's a very you know what with ADHD there's mild moderate and severe so I guess that's your one two and three but it's not indicative of intellectual ability yes it's just the amount like how prominent the ADHD is so I think for me I tend to make the distinctions because I tend to make a distinction based on if if or not they have an intellectual disability so I just say they're autistic and they have intellectual disability which kind of you know it's not it we're not talking about levels of autism but we're talking about autism and a different diagnosis so it's it's a kind of hard work in that line I think you know one thing that I'd be really interested in knowing is around this sort of the particulars around identity and language before we before we sort of wrap up because yes I find it really interesting because I mean for you you've been sort of using that person for individuals with yep and yeah it's opposite and if you say that in the US it's offensive yeah well it's you know for I think I think in terms of autism the consensus is for autistic adults is that a lot of us like well I just said it with a lot of us like to be identity first like um and that it's it's it's weird because people who prefer one use of a language versus another like they both have sort of positive intentions with it like the person first language it's like oh person first like of course we want to put the person first that's great they're different from this they're they're better than this um whereas when you have the when you have the identity first it's like well you don't want to box someone off into a category but I think that the the real sort of difference is the the attitude in terms of identity because if you view autism in sort of a neutral to positive way and you see it as part of your your being and you don't feel like if you went autist if you feel like you you wouldn't be your same person if you didn't if you didn't have an autism diagnosis and it is something that I feel for myself but then I I do understand sort of it tends to be sort of with the more person first language it's something that's being used quite a lot in the word of education and parenting so it's kind of it's it's it's kind of been adopted for for a different reason but it's it's all in the the positive intentions of using that so it's it's interesting that like crossover between but what about ADHD because I know individuals with ADHD yeah it's the same it's the same difference with the UK and the US with autism and ADHD so I had this conversation with another podcaster in the UK and coming from a school background we had to be very careful how we identified someone with a disability so even on an individual education plan which is a legal binding document with services and accommodations it's an individual with autism individual with ADHD an individual with depression an individual with anxiety it's not an anxiety person or an ADHD person or an autism person it's interesting there's crossovers like I've talked to people with like physical disabilities and you know they don't want to be called physically disabled person they want to be person a person with a physical disability right but but in terms of like the ADHD community sort of outside of education outside of those kind of systems do you think that ADHDers sort of prefer that person person first language or that kind of identity first language I think it depends where they're from in the UK they're used to doing the identity first so from the US they are used to doing the but yeah I mean and some people are more sensitive to the labels than others you know just like ADHD and autism it's a spectrum right so everyone responds differently to labels I think yeah I think it's it's it's generally consensus that identity first is preferred by a lot of autistic people but yes and some people don't understand labels too some people without the diagnosis or even with the diagnosis you know they'll say why do you need to label it yeah you know nothing happens in vacuum which is true right so everything is nature and nurture however you know it helps individuals usually to be more self-aware and be able to you know come from a place of strengths within their diagnosis as well right like everyone has strengths just you know human strengths that they have based on their core strengths and their their core values but then there's also typical strengths of individuals of autism and individuals with ADHD so knowing those and knowing your boundaries with weaknesses can help you thrive with a diagnosis too well it's very interesting I mean it's for me it's you know I like to be referred to as an autistic person but I'm also like it but only in the case of like you know someone's to put a media piece out I would prefer that they say Thomas is an autistic person rather than Thomas has autism Thomas with autism just as a personal preference but I know that a lot of people can be very they can find that kind of difference in language are very very difficult to navigate for themselves they can get quite upset if people use the wrong sort of terms for it so to be honest the majority that's interesting so as someone sorry it's okay you go I think the majority of people they don't they don't mind either way they saw it most most people use that I know use it interchangeably it's just kind of what fits with the sentence that you're saying but I know that it is kind of a it has been a talking point in the past definitely so yeah I'm curious right so you have autism I have ADHD so you're from the UK I'm from the US so when I identify you in a conversation right I would I say you're an autistic because right you're autistic and then when you talk to me are you gonna say I have that's why I was kind of like do I call you an ADHD do I say right PC I don't I don't know I don't know if it is a I don't know if it is a sort of a regional thing but meanwhile meanwhile I I call myself an ADHD or all the time it's just easier for me rather than dragging it out an individual with ADHD and in my social media and in my newsletters I very often yeah very often use ADHD and I've had some people even from the US or the UK who've been offended by the word ADHD or so you just don't know it's interesting isn't it yeah I think the consensus is that I know a lot of people like the identity first for autism but I think it's always just good to go by what the individual wants to use like exactly like if I want to get my name exactly if I want to change my name from Brooke to Beth you're gonna call me Beth not Brooke if you want to be called you know an autistic person then I'm gonna call you an autistic person or autistic right yeah and you know what I love yeah yeah yeah yeah no and I'm curious because I I've watched like all the seasons love on the spectrum I love love on the spectrum because it really highlights all of the ranges of individuals with sorry autistic people and I would love to know your thoughts on that show I love love on the spectrum funny thing about me is I tend to avoid everything in the mainstream media that is at all related to autism in fiction gotcha yeah mostly because it hits a bit too close to home sometimes I'm kind of used to watching things that have neurotypicals in that I feel very detached from like I like that sort of emotional distance sort of like the difference between I don't know it's kind of it's it's more more for me it feels more like watching like a nature documentary for me when I when I watch dramas and stuff that you know have neurotypicals in but when there's like autism involved it's like there's a mass face and I know that love on the spectrum it's it's sort of a reality sort of TV thing I did watch the first season and I was actually quite surprised about sort of you know as you said the range of individuals that were on there they had they didn't from what I saw they weren't particularly going out for targeting individuals that have this set of stereotypes that they're looking for in order to generate clicks and to generate interest they did just have like a range of different people which I've always really great sometimes the the production choices they're a little bit on the edge for me particularly around music sort of the do-do-do-do kind of the light-light-hearted like they don't know where they are they don't know what to do and oh my god what's going to happen that kind of music kind of feels a bit circusy in terms of the music choice which I wasn't too keen on I wasn't or I was also not too keen on including a lot of the dialogue between the autistic individuals and their parents and sort of the ways that their parents handled kind of conversations yeah they kind of this make sure you prepare this way yeah yeah and that's fine I think it's just more I think they kind of had this air of banter the cameraman or the interviewers and the parents where like the parents were like oh this is rolling their eyes this is the autism thing like whereas you know the autistic person was just trying to have a conversation and just being in the cells and stuff so it's kind of pointing that out as like a I don't know it may it kind of felt a bit infantilizing in some aspects when they when they involve the parents not to say that living with your parents or having them around or having import is bad it's just kind of the way that they treated them when they were in front of the camera it's like oh don't say that like they're the wrong person let them say what they want right be authentically autistic right like that's what the show is all about finding someone who understands them it's not about helping someone's kid get a day it's about helping an adult get a day correct it's that kind of lens that they choose to frame it with which is kind of rub me up the wrong way but you know I thought it was generally quite quite good compared to perhaps some of the other stuff there's another show isn't there there's like the undatables or something like that which I think features a lot of autistic people sometimes that's the title undatables yeah yeah I think love on the spectrum was definitely a bit of a better design choice than the undatables yeah yeah well it's it's been really really great to talk to you about this kind of stuff and I always find particularly when things when categories or identities of people have like a crossover between one another and it's kind of hard to sort of pick pick them apart in terms of understanding like who you are if you if you're an autistic person listening to this you think in a I don't know if I got ADHD or is that an autism thing you know I very much relate to that and I'm sure that if you you know you're an ADHD yeah you have ADHD you know you'll find that there's hopefully some of the things will be able to kind of make that distinguish and and sort of possibly push towards sort of exploring autism a bit more yeah I think what you said about the stigma around autism is a really big barrier so it's really worth pointing that out a lot of people don't identify it with it with it because of the stereotypes so um yeah yeah it's been really great thank you thank you for um love this love it thank you for having me have you enjoyed your um 40 or t experience brook oh it's been amazing good I got that it took me it took me a second but I got I got that was a good one thank you well um so we have come to the part of the episode where we do the very lovely segment called song of the day where I ask my guests to provide a song which accurately sort of describes or touches something on the topic of the podcast or something that they personally enjoy and find useful usually we will I will put the description put the link I put the description down in the link to the Spotify playlist where you can find all of the different songs that people have contributed over the course of season 2 of the 40 or t podcast um so brook which what is your choice choice of song and why so my choice of song is show me love by robin okay it's an older song I would say it's uh-huh uh-huh and the reason is because it's been stuck in my brain and it suggested on youtube music but also I think it really highlights what we're trying to say here it's like the label is the label and we have to show ourselves love and compassion and other people need to you know see the real us so show me love like it starts with us and knowledge and awareness I like this very I love it yes I jam out I know this song I didn't I didn't know it when I first I'm playing it now so I didn't know it when I was first playing it but I definitely recognize it yeah it's a good one an oldie but a goodie yeah let's add that to the playlist you can find that down in the description but before we leave brook would you like to share some links some places that you would want people to go to absolutely coaching with brook.com you can find me on instagram for a lot of free resources as well coaching with brook do I mean everything we do is ADHD we have put in some autism and ADHD posts as well uh and then if you're if you have ADHD and you have autism or you know someone who has ADHD we launched my podcast a couple weeks ago successful with ADHD and that can be found on all major podcast platforms and it's successful with two else yes yeah very cool very cool well thank you very much for that now we'll put that down in the description as always and um yeah if you if you have enjoyed listening to us talk everything about ADHD and autism and the crossovers and the differences and all of that lovely stuff please make sure to give me a rating preferably of the five star variety over on Spotify apple all of those places and if you are on youtube watching us watching me with my very smooth face after having a beard for quite a while still look weird but um yeah make sure to give me a subscribe like maybe comment down below give me a blue heart really really helps in terms of the algorithm and getting this this type of information this message out to more people and if you want to keep up to date with my life and check out my daily blog blog posts and reels head over to instagram at Thomas Henry UK I am at the moment sort of going through a bit of a weird stage in my business because I've had this really crazy opportunity that's come upon me and I've had to kind of take a little bit of a back burner on developing my business but I am sort of leaning more towards the side of consultancy um personal consultancy rather than coaching so basically all that would mean is that there's less of sort of a process and it's less about the outcome and sort of setting goals and achieving them and more about sort of having a chat and understanding more about about autism and so more about yourself neurotypicals relationships and basically it kind of gives me agency to be a bit more recommendy with things which kind of suits me a lot more and less of the paperwork and all of that kind of stuff so that's probably what I'm going to go with in the future so personal consultancy you know you know so um you're going to do an amazing job thank you thank you very much I'm looking forward to it it would be good to kind of get started and sort of as you said sort of make my own way and I've had issues sort of with my imposter syndrome it's like am I going to be able to do it is the financial paperwork stuff too much but taking it slow and of course if you want to check out that consultancy work or you want to get in touch uh about the podcast sending you thoughts um I will try and read out some emails next time so send them over you can follow the link in the description to a link tree you'll be able to find my website on there and there'll be a contact form that you can use to get in touch but so thank you thank you very much Brooke thank you for understanding being understanding about all the rescheduling and stuff oh stop it it was one time I'm glad you didn't say sorry and you're saying thank you exactly there there would be a lot of rescheduling sorry is is a big family word within within my family we're we're sorry people by any situation say sorry yeah sorry we're we're cutting out sorry thank you for having me on today thank you very much to you the listener the viewer for tuning into another episode of the 40 oddie podcast and I will see you in the next episode in a week see you later