 Are mental health issues an inevitable side effect of autism and other neurodivergencies? I got represented presented with this healthy challenge recently because I often teach about the two things side by side because they're like peas and carrots if you're autistic, you're probably anxious for example and we see loads and loads of comorbidity when it comes to autism, ADHD and other neurodiversities and our common mental health issues. So I teach about them side by side because you don't very often get the neurodiversity without the mental health issue but the challenge came from a very respected friend and colleague who said we need to stop assuming that it's inevitable that if you're autistic you're also going to be anxious or that you're likely to self harm or develop an eating disorder or be depressed or or or or and I thought it was a really really important challenge and question because do the two need to go together and I think the answer is no they don't that actually we often see these two things side by side because being neurodivergent as an autistic person struggling in a neurotypical world is hard, it's really hard and so just doing day to day does tend to create anxiety for us, can trigger low self esteem can make us feel quite low, can when we don't feel we belong, can make it hard to cope all these things there's lots and lots and lots about being neurodivergent that's pretty tough but it's not inevitable it's because we're in a world that kind of don't really fit us very well so if the world were to change little tiny tiny things then maybe those symptoms would not have to be there those mental health issue symptoms so I guess I'm putting it out there as a general wondering what do you think should we be teaching about talking about learning about these things absolutely side by side because right now they do seem to be very very very closely intertwined or do we need to be picking apart more and actually putting more challenge out there to our settings our environment the world at large and saying hey hang on can you make this a more comfortable place for those of us who are autistic who have ADHD who otherwise experience the world a little bit differently so we do not have to be anxious depressed self-harming eating disordered generally struggling I'd love to hear your thoughts on this I don't have anything really constructive to say I'm just wondering out loud really and inviting your comments inviting your thoughts and thinking how best we tackle this and if it is something we need to do something about what should we be doing and how what's the best way of approaching that of tackling that do we need to be thinking about our language and that sense of inevitability of the two going together what I've done in my teaching is just to acknowledge this just to say it shouldn't be inevitable that the two go together but often right now they do just acknowledging that is my starting point what next would love to hear your thoughts would also love to know what you'd like videos on as I now finally have my office it's not quite yet you can probably hear the noise of the road in the background sorry about that but I do have space to record I do have an office it's exciting I can start to create content once more hurrah and I'm reunited with my books ha now the phone's ringing it's all going on here okay till next time