 The Thoughty Autie Podcast. There tend to be some issues in terms of socializing sometimes. What kind of things do you think those would be for ADHD-ers? For ADHD-ers, 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 thinking of one individual in my head, but I'm not going to name them of course, but I know someone that does have ADHD diagnosis, I don't think they're autistic. They haven't explored it or anything, but I'm pretty sure. But I find that for me talking to them, it tends to be this kind of strange dynamic where I'm very sort of direct and blunt, and I tend to be able to concentrate more on the topic, whereas when I'm talking to someone with ADHD, it tends to be the case that we'll talk about. I'll talk about something, I'll give them a monologue, and then they'll start talking about it, but then they'll veer off track and just start talking about other things. And then I ask a question, and then I kind of bring them back to it, or it can be sort of on the more 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. So sometimes they'll like... You just remind 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, 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. 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 the... It's phrases over things. Cognitive empathy, basically. It's the ability to do exactly what you just said. It's the ability 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. 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 with that, I believe that we're more hypersensitive. Hey, YouTube. Hope you have enjoyed this podcast clip so far. If you want to check out the full episode, you can find it here on my YouTube channel under the podcast section, or you can go to Spotify, Apple, Google to check it out on different podcasting streaming services. If you have enjoyed this video this far, please make sure to like, perhaps drop me a subscribe if you want to see some more content from me, and drop a comment down below, even if it's something simple like an emoji or a heart. It really does help satisfy those big YouTube algorithm gods in the sky. Anyway, I'll let you go back to it. 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 there is sort of a difference between cognitive and adaptive, and adaptive is that element of once you know how someone's feeling, your empathic, you respond correctly to how they're feeling. So you'll comfort them, you'll do things for them, you'll talk to them. Is that aspect of knowing, I think, that it's the hardest, and it's been described as other things like theory of mind, or the sort of the difficulty of putting yourself in someone else's shoes. And also 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're in certain emotions. Right. So it's hard for us to really identify with someone when they're kind of openly expressing it, because perhaps when we're sad, we might just look completely blank, and just talk in a very sort of mellow voice, but we might be like 95% anxious, like we're nearly gonna have a blow up. Whereas for other people, you can see it, they'll be like fidgeting, they'll be like showing those kind of visual signs. 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, but they're not, it's just the way that they're speaking. Yeah. Right, exactly. Exactly. You have so many issues, especially within the realm of psychology and stuff, like when you get in counseling or you're working with a mental health worker or you're getting psychotherapy, or even to be honest, in most places, in life, we tend to approach people and say something that is completely conflicting with how we're acting, and that can be really hard for people to 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 not feeling good and I'm thinking all about all these horrible things, but if someone said I'm feeling really depressed and I'm just 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 training that people did to kind of understand autism in terms of emotions kind of focuses around, you know, if we're directly explaining our emotions, it literally means that it's not less by the fact that we're not expressing as much on the outside. It's very interesting, like it contributes to things like, 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 to 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 those and then taking longer to fall back down. So would you say that the anxiety associated with autism is higher than the anxiety associated with ADHD? I'm not sure. OK. It tends, I mean, just from my experience, autistic people, we tend to retreat when we're anxious. I don't know, sort of on the ADHD side because I imagine that there's a lot of due to the fact that you have that hyperactivity element that you are moving a lot and you 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 sometimes just not even recognize it, that we're feeling that way. So I think there might be some like differences in how we sort of process it possibly. Interesting.