Top AuDHD Expert: Shocking Risks of Undiagnosed Female ADHD & Autism | Dr. Samantha Hiew

35:54Because Quakers coming in hot with morning nutrition, 100 % whole grain oats, and a good source of fiber to fuel the rhythm of your morning and kickstart your day. and that sounds absolutely delicious fuel to start whatever's next quaker official sponsor of fifa world cup 26 being um autistic or autistic adhd or an adhd where we can feel overwhelmed quite quickly and then with autism and odhd there is that sensory sensitivity so from very early in life you're going into social situations and those cues are too much you know because they've done research and showed that um the autistic brain actually it was a highly male um research and i said that the emotions and the sensory you know and the cognitive part of our brain is kind of the same so we process feelings and thoughts as like our senses you know they all feed into the same place whereas for autistic women that we have less of that globular you know network and more of that individual network where like other brain networks work really well on their own but then if you try to connect them they aren't as connected and that's in female autism and so then if you feel that sensory challenge it can be very heightened in your brain but it can also be very contained so often women try to contain that you know because it isn't socially accepted and then they then have meltdowns on their own or shutdowns on their own or you know if that becomes so overwhelming that you can't control it like with ADHD then you kind of you know yeah so it's it's a very interesting discovery yeah well that is interesting and also in the context of what you said earlier of autistic women wanting to have more connection and wanting to be more social, which often isn't the way that autism is perceived.

37:58It's perceived as, you know, somebody who can't communicate, who can't actually connect with others. And we find that that's just simply not true. Yeah, because the face of autism, right, is what used to be the Rain Man and Sheldon. People in Asia don't even think, you know, like don't even hope to have a representation. People from different cultures also, like that doesn't look like that. And so when you look at female autism, because we are so socially wired to connect, even if we may prefer to have our own space and, you know, even if we do have sensory challenges, we often mitigate that by you know compensating by um being more social you know and and perhaps more communicative more literal you know there we basically have been invisible for so long yeah because we didn't know what to look like and at and there was a new article in new scientists that says if female autism look different to male autism should we give it a different name and yeah it was interesting because we can but how then are we going to acknowledge that it is a thing and maybe we are going to move towards understanding neurodivergence it's a very natural way of being yeah and the thing is when you talk about this then people who you know fall on the kind of the stronger spectrum of asd then they will feel underrepresented so you know like I've had conversations with my colleagues, other speakers who say they work in the mental health clinics and the neurodivergence specialist clinics, if that exists.

39:45But they see those with more severe support needs, they may not be represented by all the conversations that we have now. So where does that leave us as a collective? because I think, you know, what is the implication on this rise in diagnosis on us as a society? Yeah, I think, you know, when people say that, okay, there's male autism, there's female autism, should we give them different names? I often think about heart attacks. Heart attacks, like men have them, women have them, but women present differently, women's experiences differently, but it's still a heart attack, like at the baseline of it.

40:26And it almost feels like this idea that we have to call it something different to actually get clinicians to recognize that it's different. And I think you're right. We've seen a huge uptick this year in the United States with the talk of autism and them saying, well, we've got high support needs. It's funny because I've seen doctors say there's high support needs and then there's no support needs. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. To get the diagnosis of autism, there is, there has to be some level of support you need. And it's interesting because I'll have people say to me, like, why did you need the diagnosis?

41:03Obviously you've been fine your whole life. I'm like, so what you've seen appears fine. but it's funny because I look back at things like even 10 years ago like I would say to my friends like when I'm in a conference and I take a stage I speak I give it my all I meet with everybody I will stand there for hours and I will meet with every single person who traveled to come see me then I will go back to my hotel room I will bury myself in blankets cover everything up put in earplugs and sometimes have a good cry and I would say that to my colleagues and they're just like that's interesting. And nobody ever clocked it as like, oh, you allow yourself to the point of getting dysregulated.

41:40By the way, I actually don't mind that for anyone listening. Please always come up and say hi to me. I love that. I would never be where I'm at in this world if it wasn't for people who support me. But it's like, you know, I have to go back into my cocoon and dissipate some of that energy, recalibrate. But, you know, I explain to people often of like, you know, the childcare that I have, the executive assistant I have, like all the people I have support. I mean, as a female entrepreneur, that scene is you're so successful. You've built a team. You're so smart. And I'm like, and what you don't understand is that I couldn't function without this team.

42:15And I had to build a life of support systems because society said, and I've had people argue like you're probably more moderate needs with how much support that you've gotten. And I'm like, what does it actually matter? Because what society has said is that you You graduated, you have a doctorate, you have a license, you're able to function. So therefore, we're not going to give you the support you need. You look fine on the surface. Yeah. And I love everything you said, Jolene, because I resonate with that so much. People think you don't need support, but the hidden struggles that you have, and I call them hidden because when you appear on stage, people see the part of you that actually laughs to do what you do.

42:56You know, so that is not a show. that is you authentically channeling, you know, your love of like knowledge and helping people through it, you know, that is so important to you, almost like oxygen. And you need that part, you know, to be you. But then in order to keep that going and also be everything that society expects a woman to be, you know, we need incredible amount of support, you know, but people don't see that. And because if you had to do the work that you do and care for children and, you know, cook for them and, you know, look after your schedule, it's nearly impossible. And the meltdown that people tend to have, you know, behind closed doors, they are real as well.

43:36But will we show that? We may talk about that. And, you know, I've actually openly had a meltdown on stage because it's like, no, I can't actually control this. A meltdown is because I see all the time people on social media label it as a tantrum. And I'm like, a meltdown is not a tantrum. Can you explain it? So often the meltdown is often a result of a nervous system overload, you know, and it happens. It's what appears to be so quickly even to you, because all the stages, you know, that you kind of take on these cues from the environment that is both external and internal, by the way. You know, and you're always trying to deal with this like signals that are breathing, you know, or like the lid.

44:21And eventually, when you feel like, you know, okay, well, it's coming like a tidal wave. And that can look like sudden outbursts, like crying, you know, for no reason, what appeared to be no reason. But by the time a meltdown happens, it's already too late. Your senses, your feelings, you know, your thoughts have already like been overwhelmed. And they can come from as simple as, you know, if you turn up on stage, Like I've had situations where I turn up in a room where I have to give a talk and the light is really bright, like white, and it's too hot and the mic has echoes. And it's like a whiplash, you know, that's happening and people don't see that.

45:03But that is going to contribute to your tank being totally fallen and overbrimming. And so, yeah, that's how I see meltdown because it often happens so quickly and without, you know, us being able to explain it. And with all the ADHDers, we have a nervous system dysregulation called this autonomia, where often we don't know how to explain how we're feeling in that moment, but it takes time to kind of then say it. Yeah. And, you know, I think a lot of people can always relate to a panic attack, like they've seen a panic attack. It's been in the media enough to understand that a panic attack is completely out of someone's control.

45:40With a meltdown, there is no sense of fear or dread, but it is the same sympathetic overdrive. The nervous system gets overwhelmed and it is a full speed ahead train that's already left the station and it has no brakes. And the only thing you have to do is wait for enough, you know, for, you know, in the physics perspective, the train is going to have to meet enough friction to slow down, but it still has to run its course. And that's much like a meltdown. And I'll see people being very judgmental of people having meltdowns and being like, why can't you just hold it together? Why can't you just, just, just, just, just?

46:17And it's because the nervous system can't. And it's even the like, well, what are you feeling? more questions. What do you need? How can I help you? That also just contributes to things. And you know, I see this in my children when they have a meltdown and it's like, okay, just brace for impact because there is just nothing that can be done in this moment. We just have to be a safe space for them and make sure they're safe as their nervous system works this out. Yeah, completely. It's like, I love that you did say like when people ask you what you need, like, I don't want conversation right now.

46:50Like I can't talk and I actually really can't like tell you because that is another demand yeah you know i just want to be left alone like yeah under a duvet um maybe in a salt with a salt lamp next to me and just not talk to anyone yeah yeah yeah yeah so i want to ask you what did it look like for you you talked about how people stepped into their more authentic self like they realized like oh here i am i'm this you know this different person i think a lot about i don't know if you've ever seen the movie i hurt huckabees no I'm not I want to watch it now okay okay so there's a there's a part where um it basically an existential crisis sets in and he's like how am I not myself how am I not myself how am I not myself and I feel like that is something I remember watching that movie I was probably in my 20s and asking myself that question and being like wait who am I actually and having this moment of feeling like I'm not always showing up as my authentic self and I'm going along with things and saying I'm interested in things and doing things that I actually am not.

47:52It still took a while for me to work through that. But I feel like that's true for a lot of people as they start to question, how am I not myself? What did it look like for you stepping into your authentic self? Such a complex question. Very, very complex situation. Because I'm thinking, you know, my authenticity isn't always like, you know, I'm just saying like my natural state isn't fully inauthentic. But then being authentic to me means that actually, if I don't feel right about something, I'm going to say it. And if I'm around people who make me feel uncomfortable, then I will have to assert boundaries.

48:32And this is not something that I've ever been able to do very well. You know, and it starts from saying no, when it is something that I don't feel is aligned to me right now, and saying no louder. Because I have what is essentially a utility wound, where I need to feel useful in order to be accepted and loved. and in fact after writing my whole book in order to support the neurodiverse community and pouring my brain you know what it looked like when I read it again was I imposing my brain into the world you know and it was like if I was able to rationalize this and understand the process then I can help me and everyone but then that in itself meant that am I not allowed to just be me without being useful.

49:28And that was a huge realization for me that I have been trapped in my head for as long as I can remember. I so relate to this. Yeah. And I didn't know how to feel. Your summer runs just got a boost of energy in Lululemon's Shake It Out shorts. Made in our ultra breezy lightweight swift fabric, the Shake It Out shorts have a flowy layered hem and a comfy built-in liner. These shorts keep you locked in for miles with distraction-free storage and a waistband that doesn't budge. They might just be the shortcut to your summer goals. Shop the Shake It Out shorts now at lululemon.com. Like I thought I could, but it was so outward.

50:11I felt what everyone else felt and I knew how to help them because that was how I was useful as a child. And then it transferred into every relationship that I had you know if I could be of value and in fact one of the things I used to say to my ex-partner was that I can be of really high value to you as if that was a really good reason for him to stay which it was it turned out to be the reason he stayed because he needed me not because he wanted me and that was a really painful realization when eventually I knew that because I was like that and he loved that but he didn't love the whole of me and that I couldn't be myself the full you know kind of authentic messy reality of me in that relationship something in me was really breaking to come out and that looked like anger or suppression and because it wasn't expressed it came out as a fire you know it wasn't directed at him it was directed as how I would regulate was just sighing I was like essentially having a meltdown and that was when he left and I was just like wow okay and that was when I had no choice but to feel and for that whole month I had to sit in the bath to regulate my nervous system every day and I've never felt a grief that was so deep and so complete because that abandonment wound mixed with the utility wound wasn't just for me it was from my mother I saw her as the martyr for five children you know she had modeled to me what love looked like and I was so angry that I then did that and I was angry at the fact that I was always the provider never provided and when I asked people to step up to help me it didn't always look nice you know it didn't know I couldn't ask nicely because I didn't believe that I deserve it And so, yeah, so that took such a big journey for me, you know, in order to fully understand that actually this is who I am.

52:18And I'm going to work on actually maybe not even being useful to people and just being truly me and actually start living for me. And this year I did that. I live for me. And, you know, I poured my energy into what gives me energy, which is community impact. And the event that I set up in April, which is probably the time when your community told you about me, was when I was trying to recover from the pain of that heartbreak. And I turned up, you know, with my voice shaking, not actually feeling confident at all. I was feeling so beaten down and didn't really believe that I even deserved to be there.

53:01I've never hit so low in my life. And then from then on, I just got up and realized that actually I had to have that experience to understand that I could never outsource love. I could never outsource emotional safety because in the end I was forced to be my own emotional anchor yeah and that was so hard but I had really amazing people around me friends who were going through similar things and we understood each other and the community we live parallel lives and then it was interesting because we all had this unspoken thing inside us and when we gather in a safe space. It was the first time I felt like if I was going to tell you this story, it wasn't just a, it wasn't a performance because like so many corporate structures expect you to go there and share your story, but then you speak and you kind of go into the space and the silence.

53:59But in the community, it's so felt, you know, women who have had those experience, who went through similar things, but at different timelines. And if you're at this timeline where you had to deal with this, you know, emotional authenticity, then perhaps then there is so much love and value in being together in a safe space. And that's what I poured my energy into this year, even though perhaps it's not the one that makes the most financial sense. But I know that for me, I need to really lead from my heart. And if I do that, I'll always be okay. So that's authenticity for you. Yeah, no, that's beautiful.

54:36Thank you for sharing that. And I think, you know, And what I want to highlight about that is that often when people think about camouflaging or masking, they think about deception. You're trying to just fit in. You're trying to be the right person so that you get into the group. And what they don't realize is that you're often self-sacrificing your own needs to show up and meet the needs of others. And so much of what you said is, I've never heard the term utility wound before. It's definitely something that I'm like, oh gosh, there's another layer to work on for myself, you also, you mentioned utility wound, you mentioned abandonment wound.

55:12What other kinds of wounds do you see that women are dealing with in your community? Yeah, the too much wound. Oh my God, is that not the truth? I'm actually working on the book and I think I'm like, I really think the dedication is going to be to like every woman who's been told she's too much. You know, I believe that women hold so much power, but we have perhaps silenced that life force that is within us and and that's why sometimes I feel like now in my journey now like I kind of cross over from being a scientist to a bit of a shaman and I feel like because our stories isn't just in our body like physically but then the nervous system imprint that we have is from generations before us and we've had you know so many oppression throughout history right If you think of even, you know, the times when women used to get like burned on the stakes for telling the truth or actually wanting more aliveness, you know, that is frowned upon.

56:13And then, you know, the fact that we've had like no health research that was based on us and in women's empowerment. I run a company called ADHD Girls and not a single day passes by where a man doesn't tell me. What about us? They're like, yeah, you're important. I just want to say, like, I actually made a video because, and I put this on social media because I get asked that all the time. What about me? Like, what about men? What about talking about men's health? What about, and they have this need. And what I'm really, it makes me angry is I see all these men who do not have expertise in women's health, yet they are asserting themselves as experts in women's health, inserting themselves into our story because it's such an easy profit for them.

56:59and I watch women who go to them because a man is finally validating their experience and that's so refreshing and it's so amazing. And so you see them like blowing up on social media and I don't think these are necessarily bad men. It's not what I'm saying. It's that they're following a capitalistic route and women are a means to an end rather than looking at their own community. Like you and I as women are fighting to get our information out there and to support women. And I see these men and I'm like, there are men who are fighting with us to give them information. Like you could be serving them.

57:36Like there's such a need in men's health community as well. And I've interviewed a couple of male practitioners just to put them out there because women would say, I need someone for my husband to follow. I'm like, these are the people that are doing that. But it's so sad to me that men need support, but there's some kind of barrier happening right now where like there's not other men standing up to give them that support. yeah it's it's it's interesting that you say that yeah I mean I certainly resonate with that there are so many you know these conversations that I've had and actually I even try to bend to suit it you know like in my early days of neurodiversity and I think that's why I started talking about neurodiversity instead of female neurodivergence because people are asking me you know to be more inclusive and it's I find it even funnier when I'm first asked to go and talk about you know neurodivergence in women and then they change it halfway and say oh there are a lot of men in the audience and I have actually been in a room in an insurance company where I was talking about ovulation and the hormonal cycle and the men were fixated yeah so same wanted to know same I have spoken at uh so there's been several like health corporations that have hired me and they come in and speak and it's the men with the most questions about women and so it's something that I'm always My lane is women's health and I will speak to how as a man you can support women.

58:57But I'm not going to speak to what your experience is. I think that's the thing that definitely rubs me wrong is when men are like, oh, you're a neurodivergent woman or you're a woman on your period or you're a woman with perimenopause. This is how you feel. And I'm like, you do not know. You do not know how I feel. I always love when they're talking about moms and being like, oh yeah, as a new mom, this is how you must be feeling. and I'm like ask yeah that's a novel thing ask us how we're feeling I really love this and I think like actually in the future I want to start talking more about relationships and that's because you know we have men who are very interested in women's health and that's because it affects them you know women are everywhere in our ecosystem in order for them to thrive they need to have good relationships with us and the thing is we all have different wounds you know we go into relationships with that need to be useful do not leave me and then they come the man comes into relationship with I need to control this if it's not controllable I need to withdraw if I can't withdraw then I'm gonna feel trapped and I've seen this again and again and again in every relationship And so it happens that in neurodivergent relationships, the autistic ADHD pairing is so common and can be painful if we don't understand what we're dealing with.

1:00:20You know, when people can feel that maybe the man in the relationship can feel like the female partner is too intense during some times of the month. And then the female partner feels like they don't feel accepted and they have to kind of suppress a bit of that fire. and eventually that fire comes out anyway. And it then looks like a beast or narcissistic empath pairing. But the truth is we all have different kind of, you know, archetypes at different times. And it is that, you know, what is unspoken, you know, in the vacuum that is the issue here, you know, in our relationship. Yeah. Why is it so common that ADHD autistic pairing in a couple?

1:01:06Yeah, I love that. I think one of your questions was around ADHD and how ADHD arise. And I have done a bit of deep dive into this because it's mainly from the ADHD perspective. And they have a study that looked at the evolutionary biology of ADHD. And they say that the risky alleles, the gene variants that contribute to ADHD, whether it's that sensation, novelty seeking, and the things that lead people to demise is gradually being phased out in the population. Because you expire before your time, before you can breathe. Right, right. And maybe you would self-medicate to demise. And then the authors in that paper actually postulated, perhaps it's because they mated with autism.

1:02:00you know and then and then I kind of helped me visualize that somewhere up the evolutionary lineage ADHD met autism and thought you have the structure and routine that I need and you have the adventure that gets me out of that you know feel and whether it's men or women in different you know kind of archetype I don't know but eventually we then had this mating take place that you know eventually give rise to all the hd which now we know is an entirely different brain dynamics and brain structure and it is completely different to pure autism or pure adhd you know and that's why like we have audio as something completely different and we have to treat it differently you know and eventually accept it as a way of being i want to i want to talk about the difference in the adhd brain but i'm curious so you adhd girl who do you partner with have you have you seen a pattern of the men you're attracting yeah tend to go for the safe ones or what look to be safe ones you know because the safe ones i have a pattern of going for nice guys and boy that's a mistake because what tell me more i'm like i wish this was tea i i thought oh this person really kind very nice but then we're living in a time where people who are nice also had their different wounds you know they didn't really feel safe to express themselves and within that there's a lot of inauthenticity going on yeah and what i value so much is authenticity and seeing what i you know experience in private and then what i see you know how people act in public and then there's a dissonance you know and i don't like that so it kind of makes me feel like do i trust you i cannot handle dissonance i cannot handle a contradiction my brain feels like it's itching if I see a contradiction.

1:03:53I don't know if you're the same way. Oh, completely. Yeah. Yes. It'll drive me insane. And I'll think about it for like years to come, the contradiction that I witnessed. Yeah. And a lot of my work is to actually kind of match what is inside and outside as well. I'm still in a process, you know. But yeah, to the partners that I tend to get attracted to are the ones who I feel are a safe place. But then they also happen to be quite controlling because there's a reason why they're safe or stable because they're quite rigid yeah that rigidity That isn't something I can take. You know, I need freedom in the relationship as well as safe, you know, which is a lot to us, you know, but yeah, that's why I'm single.

1:04:34Yeah. Well, it's you, you met my husband briefly. And my ask is because ADHD, ADHD, like we are that pairing. And it is for sure that like the man can't plan a trip like to save his life and have like everything packed in the list and like everything. and that is what I like thrive on like we went to Iceland and he was talking about like oh my god we would have like never survived it if you hadn't done all the research and nature that like you had everything you had lists and you had everything organized and um it's it's so interesting though but he is less he's more risk adverse and I am more the the risk taker I was actually explaining to my child was we were listening to music he's 12 he's like and we were talking about a mosh pit and uh he's like oh who would ever go in there and I was like me hi I used to like live in the mosh pit at concerts and he's like what and then my husband's like explaining like your mom used to like bungee jump off bridges it was totally not safe like she used to do all of this wild stuff and like he's like oh what what happened like you're not like this person anymore I'm like I take risks in different ways now but I have small humans who depend on me and that that stops me but it is, it's just interesting that you say that because I'm like, there is this dynamic of we have our strengths and our weaknesses within our relationship that we figured out.

1:06:00And it is because of being neurodivergent. It's like, you could never do this. And yet, like, and I'm, my biggest thing is like, I hate driving. I, you know, this is where I relate to young Sheldon is like, statistically speaking, if you're going to die, it's going to be in the car. Like, let's, I don't like this at all. And like, he's like, I love driving. Like driving is like my favorite. And so, you know, I think it's really interesting how you find those pairings without ever knowing that you're actually neurodivergent and coming together. And I don't think it's too much to be like, I need freedom and I need safety.

1:06:31You're like, is that too much? That's too much to ask. I don't think so at all. Yeah, I guess it goes back to actually just being the person that you truly are, you know, right at the beginning. You know, and for me, I, you know, was quite trapped in my head and I don't think I was really like aligned internally and externally. So for me, then I attracted a partner that only likes a certain side. And then, you know, that was really difficult, you know, at the end. But now I have my eyes wide open and hopefully with better results in the future, you know, but I'm pretty content right now. Good.

1:07:07Well, I want to ask you. So we are often masking and we don't always do that around the people we trust, right? Like our partners, our family, we want them to be our safe space and we let our masks down. But that sometimes results in the partner or the other person misinterpreting your emotions as being mad or aggressive, you know, these terms that people put on us. But also sometimes resentful because they're like, you show up and you do all of this for other people. well, why can't you keep that up with me? How can women approach a relationship when that's the dynamic? Yeah, it's interesting.

1:07:46I think that's why we have to go in straight away first. Well, you know, it's different now. So many of us are like, I totally get it. So like, you need to really have that go back to the drawing board mentality, where you're like, actually, I know that there's a role that is set here. and there's an expectation of what you want from me but I don't think in this stage that I'm at now you know where I'm discovering who I really am that I can give that to you not when I'm in low energy phase anyway yeah and are you going to be okay with that and that's such an honest conversation right because then sometimes even if you're okay with that theoretically when it actually happens you know when you're actually in a relationship and all the messy triggers start flying all over the place life happens then you know your automatic response is going to happen then can you heal together you know in or do you need some time apart in order to heal you know on your own before coming back so that's that's the tricky phase I suppose because for me I actually held on for very very many years before I eventually you know told my ex-husband that I can't do it anymore and and I think in this new phase of my life that I I know that I cannot I can no longer suppress myself or my voice or my emotions so whoever I'm going to meet will have to be okay with that and that person will have to be able to match my fire which is it's not always going to be there you know like I met somebody who said to me that the reason that you know you can just have this outburst or rage is because you've had to put a lid on your emotions for a long time but if you are able to practice like actually releasing yourself on a more regular basis then you won't get to the point of you know overflow and that is so true yeah you know so true what are the some some of the ways that you find are helpful for you to release those emotions oh i love movement at the moment and um voice activation i am i was saying to you i went to that tamascal ceremony it's like mexican we went to a heated lodge it was like hot in there it was like a sauna in a steam room and i thought my neurodivergent self is gonna die in here you don't thermo regulate well but that's true well that's what i thought and as soon as you closed the door i was like oh my god it's dark i'm gonna die you know it was panic attack and And I thought, okay, you know, apparently the principle is that your body knows what to do.

1:10:30And then it did. You know, in that lodge, I lasted two hours. And I couldn't even go into a sauna for like 10 minutes. It's a lot warmer in a sauna, but that was kind of like a milder experience. So, yeah, I found that movement and voice was for me. And that was very much mapped to my own unique needs. For other people, it may be nature walks, you know. But what I have found is that we, whether it's men or women, have had our voice suppressed. So many neurodivergent men feel like, you know, they aren't able to just really express their authentic self. And then the archetypes of, you know, what is accepted, the spiritual bypass, which I see everywhere.

1:11:22Explain what that is for people who don't know. So that is another thing that I have done too. By intellectualizing our experience, by not feeling it, by going to yoga to release the stress without fully dealing with the why, it was a time where it's almost like you're going in to look for protection. and when you keep you know the spiritual activities to protect yourself you never really deal with the wounds underneath and you're bypassing your actual growth by looking for this band-aids um it's not always easy because because i said with our sensory sensitivities and our coping mechanisms over decades of our lifetimes you know actually just being more stress averse and actually leaving something, withdraw, you know, dissociate when something intense is happening.

1:12:24It's not easy to say, go back into your body. It's more about attuning, attuning to what we need. And yeah, it's like really tapping into that internal wisdom. So for me, like somatics, you know, being able to shake it out in my body, being able to dance and move and to sing and chant. I couldn't stop singing since I got to Mexico. I don't know why, why there's something in this land that's making me like singing and eating this is the way it is here yes yes and families are so connected you know i love that element you know which in the west is not so much like that you know i moved from asia to england and people are quite disconnected from their families you know like children leave home at age of 16 or 17 to go up year out to me like for a neurodivergent child like their brains are like 14 you know like how can you go into the world like that you know and then we make those choices from a very young age and then then it's not surprising that there is a rise in diagnosis now in the west whilst people in other parts of the world wondering what does ADHD look like in people like me you know like from southeast Asia I've given talks to APAC companies they're like why isn't there a single Asian person in the neurodiversity, you know, groups, that's because your culture don't see your challenges as something that needs to be fixed.

1:13:55Maybe they see it as something that you need to tolerate or, you know, suck it up or do something about it through other ways, you know, there's so much stigma involved. Yeah. Hey friends, Olivia from Oli. Between new routines and the ultimate group project known as parenting, you need science-backed solutions that work with your life. That's where Oli comes in. Start your mornings off right with Maltese made to support nutrition and immune health. Choose from our lineup of gut-supporting probiotics, and we've got occasional sleep support to help the whole fam chase their big dreams. Head back to class with the number one gummy supplement brand.

1:14:29Stock up on Oli.com today. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Yeah, it is interesting. you know, the other thing about other cultures, so as you're talking about Mexican culture, like, it's not the norm for every child just to go off to go to college. They usually live at home. We see this in other cultures as well, where children live at home and they attend university, so they still have their safe place, their place to process, like, they have their support. We see other cultures with multi-generational households.

1:15:05In the West, in the United States, in the UK, where you're from, we don't see that. We see a very fractured family unit. And I wonder if that is an environmental stressor that exacerbates the operating system of a neurodivergent individual that makes it more pronounced. But also, the fact that it is that way means you have to be autonomous as quickly as possible. And when you're neurodivergent, as you said, like, you know, there's the 30 % rule, right? Like our brains are essentially like three years younger. Maybe that's why we still feel like kids. I don't know. I'm in my forties too. And I'm like, I don't feel like I'm in my forties.

1:15:45And I still act like a child in some ways, but it is something that I think that kind of pressure is on neurodivergent individuals of like grow up, grow up faster. Like, you know, in the United States, you're asking five-year-olds, what do you want to be when you grow up? My 12-year-old is still like, I have no idea. I'm like, that's a fantastic place to be in life. What a fantastic place to be, because that means you still are exploring all potential out there. Yeah, a hundred percent. And yeah, so when we are put into a culture, and actually that was my experience because I'm a cross-cultural woman.

1:16:23I have lived half of my life in Asia where that generational household very much exists. And then another half of my life being smacked in the middle of a very cold city in Leeds when I first got there. And then London having, yeah, I suppose without any family support throughout every single phases of my life that happened after that, which was getting married, getting pregnant, having a baby and dealing with that decade of existential crisis. And I see really jarring, you know, very different way of being that is not supported by the community element. Because one of the principles that they were addressing in that the Moscow Lodge was fear.

1:17:09And I remember just walking along the street and thinking, but it's a different type of fear for you guys here in Mexico. because you have family and you live under one household. There's interconnectedness. There is inter-reliance, you know, in the West, in the UK or in the States. And we are very much living on that, you know, the mess, those hierarchy of needs. It's very much about autonomy, fulfilling a potential and, you know, leaving like the household early on to go and find your growth and your place in the world. But then with neurodivergent children, you know, they're going in very early in life with that expectation from the world, you know, yet being under equipped to deal with that.

1:17:57From a very young age, I think I found a paper that looked at the development of mental health challenges, beginning from like zero to five to six to 12 and, you know, 18. is that different parts of our brain are developing, you know, at different times. And then the amygdala, the limbic system, actually, no, with ADHD, it's the motor control, you know. So that's why children with ADHD will get diagnosed if they're like, you know, feeling all over the place, hyperactive. And then that's the amygdala, you know, the limbic system starts to come online. And we get like children with ADHD, especially girls, you know, can be diagnosed with anxiety from the age of 11 to 12.

1:18:37And then the dopaminergic seeking, you know, part of the brain comes online before the prefrontal cortex, you know, that tells you that this is not a good idea. Like, what are you going to do with it? Like in another year's time or 10 years time, you know, that doesn't come online. So we're looking at a nervous system that is, you know, that is going to have that that seems too much and being under equipped to deal with that. We have that fear and anxiety system, you know, wrapped up very early on. And so there is that higher proportion of what constitutes as post-traumatic stress disorder. You know, ADHD is probably three or five times more likely to get that.

1:19:20And people with PTSD are two times more likely to be ADHD. So, yeah, that is a very difficult place to be. So when you then hit transitions in your life where, uh-oh, now I got to deal with this again. What do I do? and your brain will go back to the time when you had to deal with something alone without any help whether it's it's at six or seven years old where you are being left to cry or something happened to you and no one did anything about that or maybe you left home and went to university that might have been your first time you've experienced like what do i do here yeah you know people do not know and and then that that fear system you know is the fear response is high and and and you're in survival mode you know and and so then what do you do you know then you you almost can't blame people to go into spiritual bypass because then i'm safe here yeah you know and it it it is it's that's why community i find community is the answer you know to being more connected you know and because if you're you come from a fearful place if you make every decision like that then you're going to attract the wrong people the wrong opportunities into your life but if you come from a place of purpose and authentic you know and whilst feeling like you're not alone then you're more likely to be able to make decisions that really aligned with you and healthier for you, I find.

1:20:51Yeah. So speaking of trauma, your book, Tip of the ADHD Iceberg, you said you mostly wanted to find out if Gabor Mate was right to go on about trauma as the main cause for all the pain in our lives. So what did you discover? So the reason I said that is because so many neurodivergents were messaging me after they attended like a talk about mental health and trauma and how Gabro Mate talked about sorry Gabro Mate if you're listening I'm sure you know what you say is right for you but trauma is certainly something that could be our constant companion but then because you know you also said that there is not a single gene that causes ADHD yes there are 79 gene variants and counting and that experience of ADHD isn't just focus or attention.

1:21:46It is an entire systemic experience. And so when you say that, okay, what we experience is the pain, and that is also true. But then before that, we were born with that increased sensitivity to the world. And that was passed on by our parents. Yes, a lot of it could be epigenetics, you know, that we, you know, kind of acquired in the womb but a lot of that also you know you can prove through looking at the genes that weren't methylated that were just regular genes they're hanging out and they were still there you know they were um inherited um and so that's why i said that he wasn't totally right to put it all down to trauma um that but then you can also it shouldn't be discounted out the story but that it is a condition that will affect your entire way of being and it affects people even people who have said that they had no traumatic experiences you know from childhood so I feel like we tend to oversimplify the story you know and then it kind of I had a bit of that like realization when I was um on a little psychedelic trip am I allowed to say it here Dr.

1:23:03Sarah Gottfried, who very much was talking all about her MDMA experience as part of her processing trauma. And a lot of people are using ketamine or ayahuasca. Exactly. Well, it's interesting because, gosh, was that like 2018 maybe? The Institute of Functional Medicine had an entire conference dedicated to essentially psychedelics and all research coming out of Stanford and all of the research being done. They were like, patients are very much going to be interested in this. So we need to be well-equipped to navigate it. Yeah, exactly. And in Australia, they've legalized it and they're doing lots of clinical trials.

1:23:39But then for me, I had a supervised psychedelics experience with my friend who actually does clinical trials. And she gave me a kind of moderate dose. It's not microdosing of psilocybin. And probably at a time when I was looking to go deeper, but probably wrongly time because I was actually going through a traumatic experience. But what it did show me was that when that moment when I felt like my sense of self was being dissolved, you know, they say like when you start the psychedelic experience, then your default network can disintegrate in that process. and in that time like I just didn't like the person who overthought what people thought about me you know who think like okay I'm not good enough that person left and then I was saying why is everyone so serious why is Garbo Martín turning the world into you know like looking at our traumas and nothing else you know and that was when I was like someone needs to say something about this and and and that's when I thought you know why are we so serious why can't we just play more you know and and I feel like that was when I really truly understood who I was as a child before the world imposed all the pain onto me you know by being so hypersensitive to everything and and I love that essence and I try to remember it you know sometimes it's a bit hazy but sometimes I remember what it felt like to be so carefree as a child, and I want to be more like that.

1:25:20But also I wanted to add a caveat here that if we are predisposed to something like bipolar or schizophrenia, which many neurodivergence are, then they don't naturally recommend psychedelics as an experience because it does regulate. And I would also caveat that you should not do any kind of mind-altering treatments unless you're under the care of an experienced clinician who will also help you integrate afterwards. because I've definitely seen people who thought, I just need to deal with, you know, whatever I'm dealing with by having this psychedelic experience and they come out of it in a far worse state because the person who was administering it didn't understand mental health, didn't understand reintegration, and there was no container and support as they rolled out of that.

1:26:14And then they were just left to deal with, you know, I think sometimes, you know, people will be like, you need to just deal with your trauma and get to the root of that. But you don't always have the capacity for that. And sometimes your body has blocked things out and buried them down because you have to heal. And this is something that I always say to patients of like healing the physical body is the easy part. And once we get you to a state where like your hormones are much better and your body, your gut is functioning better and all of that, then all the emotional stuff you haven't dealt with, that's going to be the final body, the physical body healed.

1:26:45now the emotional body you actually have to work on and that is the part where people people don't usually want to go there they're like my gut is good i am fine it's very very true and that's for for some people it's a good reason and i love that you say that actually because i i did um read in a book is it dan siegel's book uh about patterns of personality development and where he said like some people are just like with the predisposition to mental health conditions they may not need to feel everything in their body like the traumatic experience but maybe it's enough for them to just understand because then you know you can then move into a clean slate because feeling so much pain in the body isn't that advice especially if it kickstarts your stress response you know and I should like say that we do with what we can deal with and you know for some people they just prefer to do it in their timeline and we cannot rush the process Yes.

1:27:44So when it comes to trauma, this is one contributor to the experience of an ADHD individual. But in your research, your experience, what do you believe is at the root cause of ADHD? So as you mentioned, all the different layers, right? I think that there's an evolutionary layer to begin with that we have inherited this gene variance that causes cellular changes in our body and it was so interesting when i looked into adhd you know it was affecting things like glucose metabolism hormonal you know clearance um energy production uh insulin um there was so much to it and also like immune system like cytokines production um but with autism also it's like it affects the structure that holds the cell together you know and that structure is it mTOR pathway and without that it can cause like cancer you know and then like many neurodivergence are like probably more at risk of cancer because of that and then the stress response um so that's the biological layer right but then adhd is a bio psycho psychology emotional and relational survival story you know i i think like if we want to put adhd on a piece of paper then okay you know we're gonna be able to list all these traits and symptoms but it's happening in real life to people how do you support a person like holistically then you look at you know not just that focus or regulation of their emotions but also nervous system emotions and how to then have relationships with people, you know, and that's why I think like with ADHD, that's the course, but then also what we're going to do with it.

1:29:34Yeah, it's so interesting how you talk about those differences there. I've come across the same research. I mean, dysregulated is the word that I have for the ADHD, ADHD, autism experience. We've got nervous system dysregulation. We've got immune system dysregulation. we've got metabolic dysregulation and we've got hormonal dysregulation like it's all taking place and for so long research and medicine has separated our hormones from our brain function now i must say that like certainly i see like the the generation um you know before me of gynecologists who are like don't reduce women to just their hormones and don't say their hormones affect their brain because then we'll be seen as the lesser and we won't be able to advance and i So I get how that was part of the narrative, but I think that it really did set us, it set us back in a way that they didn't intend, but they absolutely did influence.

1:30:29And with that, to understand, you know, you referenced Dr. Lisa Moscone's research of like estrogen and energy metabolism in the brain. You know, the ADHD brain already has like half a battery supply. it already has such a hard time generating energy and then it burns so hot it moves through that energy so fast so then when you take estrogen away because that's what the ovaries will do to you i won't take it away but if you live long enough and that's the goal estrogen is going to go away we're definitely going to see the brain fog we're going to see the memory issues and there's a lot of women in area menopause menopause who can relate to that they've experienced that And I know that Dr.

1:31:12Moscone's work says like, oh, but once you're through perimenopause, things get better. I have not seen that be true for the neurodivergent brain. I have not seen the lack of estrogen and then things just level out. It's almost as if once that... And so this is what's different. The neurotypical brain has been scanned and she's seen in the research that once you get through menopause, that roller coaster of estrogen, things stabilize. And it's not as bad as it was before. Or I have not seen that be true for neurodivergent brains. Once that estrogen is gone and they've lost that capacity, I have just seen that the struggle never ends and the deficits begin to climb more and more.

1:31:51What has been your observation? 100%. That's why I love lived experience research that is free, you know, and people aren't doing it. You know, the thing is, you can test this all in the labs, but to get the funding to really just look at neurodivergent women, you know, it is a climb for, you know, and actually so far I've seen people have to know their neurodivergent. How many don't even know? Yeah, exactly. So like so far, I've seen like people who do kind of anecdotal research, they're getting the funding. But in order to do real biochemical, you know, brain scan, brain imaging research, we're not doing that.

1:32:27And yeah, it is true. And women have told me that, okay, well, you think perimenopause is bad. Wait till you eat the pulse menopausal stage, right? Estrogen is bleh. And there are many, many neurodiversions who are undiagnosed who I come to know in my life, women in their 50s and 60s, they don't take medication. They have HRT. You know, and HRT has been able to help them. Yeah. You know, and they were even wondering, do I need medication? You know, so like, yeah, it is almost like a prerequisite for that stage in life, you know, and we do hope that women get some support before we get to the postmenopausal because we know that if you don't, that mental health, you know, risks, you know, can happen in that 10 years before menopause.

1:33:12Yeah. Which is what happened to me, actually. Yeah, no. And for anyone listening, just to underscore what you said, we don't wait until 12 consecutive months of no period has happened. We need to start it earlier. It's, I've always prescribed that way of like, if you are struggling, I'm going to prescribe now. I'm not going to wait until your period's gone. And literally, I would have doctors writing me being like, you, you are not following the guidelines. And this is like, not the way it should be. And I'm like, but this is what works. I think that's the thing of like, I have friends that are autistic and they're like, I always want to see an autistic doctor.

1:33:50I'm like, right? Because they notice the patterns and they shift and they're not afraid to challenge a paradigm that's wrong. Like when you see that it's wrong, like you're not going to do that. And it's also something too, when you have a human in front of you and they're having a different experience. I love that you talked about the lived experience research because we need to address the human. I always say, like, I don't have time. So I'm 44. I don't have time to wait for a research study to validate what my needs are. I will be far into menopause by then. Like, I need to be intervening now, doing things now for my health.

1:34:27So, you know, for people listening, we don't have to wait until you're officially in menopause. We can start things sooner. And typically, it's starting progesterone. if you're early enough going to a doctor who recognizes you're in perimenopause, it's usually progesterone because you get the sleep disturbance. Sleep disturbance makes executive function non-existent. Ask any mom, ask any ADHD mom having a new baby and not sleeping. So it's usually progesterone that gets started and then comes estrogen later as the ovaries finally are like, oh, we're on our way out. And testosterone is part of the conversation whenever estrogen is.

1:35:04And the reason for that is your ovaries produce 50 % of your testosterone. But if you're neurodivergent, your adrenal glands are the other 50 % and they've already been working overtime your whole life. So I see often that the DHEA production from the adrenal glands, that typically starts declining at age 25 in neurodivergent women who have been high masking, what gets called high functioning, but really just like high masking, showing up trauma they haven't dealt with, that DHA isn't the level we need it to be at to actually be able to produce some testosterone and even some estrogen from that.

1:35:39Yeah, that is so interesting. I find because we're talking so much about estrogen and progesterone and not enough about testosterone, and you're right, the research isn't fully out there yet for neurodivergent women and testosterone, but it's almost like you have to kind of understand your own biochemistry as well before we even start with this. And as you said just now, you know, with progesterone, when you introduce it to some women, it's like, okay, but then to other women, it can completely dysregulate a nervous system that's already sensitive. As for me, like I found that, you know, if I take the full dose that they recommend to protect, you know, the full dose of progesterone that I need to take alongside estrogen for half a month.

1:36:23And if I take that, I become really groggy the next day. and like also down, which is interesting. And then so I take half of that. And sometimes I forget that I get. So that is not in the NICE guidelines. That's not in the research because they haven't done that research yet. And they say if you want to go down that route, then we have to check your uterine lining in a few months. Well, you can also always do vaginal suppositories, which is yucks. I've had to do them. They're not for progesterone. Yeah, for progesterone. That's what I do. I didn't even wait to find out what it's like to take it through the mouth.

1:37:01I just knew that. But even that, so that is the mother effect. But it already is quite a lot for me. It's interesting because there's a subcutaneous injectable here called Motaris in Mexico. And I don't know if it's in the EU yet, but it's what is used in fertility treatments. And I found when I injected that, oh man, never have I been happier in my life. Like I was so happy. And I'm like, there's something about this subcutaneous. And I think because it's not like this bolus that just hits your system, it's going to be this sustained over, you know, a day or two that you're having this absorption of progesterone that really, I was doing this as part of fertility treatments and really worked well for me.

1:37:51I also did 600 milligrams daily, so three times a day, 200 milligrams suppository. And it never had that effect on me. I'm pointing this out because this is a different, like here, you have an ADHD. I have an ADHD diagnosis. I can take oral progesterone. I sleep like a baby. I feel great. You take it. You're groggy the next morning and you're feeling down. And of course, I want people to know that there are doctors who will say, oh, well, that doesn't happen to people regularly and it must be something with you. If allopregnenolone is coming from progesterone affects your GABA receptor in the brain, GABA is a big stop.

1:38:32You don't get the neuro excitatory neurotransmitters. GABA is like shut everything down. Of course, you're going to describe it as feeling down. But I just wanted to point out the differences because we have the same diagnosis. we have a different experience with the restaurant because i have a different maybe i don't have the same thing you do and you don't have the same other extra co-occurring conditions and that's why i talk about that as well when we look at support um what i have that i said before was pots and also what i've come to realize is mcas and that will be triggered by different things in my life one of it was a flu in january and then also emotional stress can trigger that having that histamine, you know, overproduction.

1:39:16And so with POTS, if I have high oestrogen, then I'm kind of hyperactivated, my blood vessels are pushing, you know, kind of squeezing. And then when I have progesterone, it can help to balance that out. But if I forget to take one or the other, then it's kind of like, what's going on here today? Like my heart is becoming really fast i always have to hold it here to keep it regulated and and that is something that will always follow me but also at the same time i think sometimes when we know so much about our body we can look too much into it and that may cause the anxiety i think like if we can balance our lives you know in terms of like doing other things to regulate our nervous system then half of the challenges you know it doesn't have to be supported by just medication or hormones and the reason I know it is it's because I've lived for quite long whilst in a perimenopausal stage without knowing because I potentially started in my late 30s feeling like that and then I gave birth at age of 39 it was a double whammy triple whammy and then last year in my heart I thought I was having a heart attack because I was at the very, very, very stressful month with like over 30 talks that I had to give in one month.

1:40:38And then I was on a higher stimulant dosage than I needed. So then my body wasn't clearing it, but also I was pumping stress, you know, through my system. And then one day I was like giving a talk in Farringdon and I just stopped breathing. and just thinking this is not good how am I going to talk if I can't breathe and you can actually do that you know I just realized you can't talk even if you don't breathe and I really didn't know how to recover from that I did lots of tests with my GP and they said no you don't have an irregular heartbeat you know but my aura ring was showing me that cortisol was spiked you know through the roof I then considered like lowering my medication And you know did lots of things But then one thing happened Where I went to a yoga retreat And I ate vegetarian like vegan food for a weekend And I thought that was it You know then maybe I can like detoxify and all that But now looking back that wasn't it I went to the yoga retreat And there were lots of breath work There were lots of singing There were lots of regulating through movement.

1:41:51And I think like you can eat all the good food in the world and maybe be the healthiest you can be. But if you have a stressful environment, whether that comes from work or relationships, then you're still going to need support for that. You know, and that is so important, such a core part, you know. And I really think it boils down to our expression because what we don't express, we suppress. and with that comes lots of health issues and to quote our friend carol matthew said um if you don't know how to say no your body says no for you and i truly felt it yeah i think i would love to hear from people in the comments if that's ever been their experience that is was so much my experience in my 20s of like i didn't say no and then i would just get so sick and then i remember there were times where i was like wanting out of things and i'm oh, I wish I could just get sick.

1:42:44And then, you know, adult me, like, you know, I was technically an adult, but my brain wasn't totally formed yet. It was like, wait, you could just say no, but that was never modeled to me. That was never something that permission had been given to be able to say no. I, you know, I wanted to ask you, you've said we are seeing an exponential rise in women being diagnosed with autism and ADHD since the pandemic, with those 23 to 49 now the largest group receiving the ADHD diagnosis. Why is that? So there are a few factors here, as always, there's something in that complexity in that we see like generational differences, but also we see the female labor burden.

1:43:33and with the earlier ages the 20s you know they're the generation said they don't take no shit and and they also are very aware of mental health and the language that comes with it uh tiktok diagnosed a lot of people yeah especially the ones in the gen z and the early millennials and then with us the older folks who are still on tiktok i guess and cool and trendy and pink we are you know dealing with increased demands yeah and there's nothing like a pandemic to tip that demand over the edge and that's when we couldn't cope with that overflowing demand with no outlets you know and there were a lot of people who had a lot of alcohol during the pandemic you know as a way of coping then there's also when people were at home filming videos talking about adhd and that's how i found out you know about female adhd yeah um so that's tiktok no actually true instagram okay yeah meta you're still in the ring i'm a little bit old for tiktok but you know it's cool so um yeah that's how i found out and there is um that 23 to 49 years um kind of age group that was that stats were cited in a yeah times article in the uk and they say women you know are the largest contributor to the rise in diagnosis which then made you know people want to specialize in it to make money but for me it was always about just trying to work out what happened to me yeah and what happened to us you know and yeah that's that's when adhd goals was born, really.

1:45:16So I really appreciate you saying that because, and I want to go back to the fact that I do want to acknowledge, and I felt like I didn't acknowledge this properly before then, the high needs group, the nonverbal, usually the intellectual disability co-occurring autistic, which everyone's like, oh, that's just autism, but it's actually a co-occurring condition with autism. Those people don't have a voice on social media in the same way. I will say that I have come across nonverbal creators who are doing written text and they're still showing up that they are underrepresented. But what's interesting is that they're underrepresented on social media, but when it comes to what the U.S.

1:46:00government wants to do, this is all they're focused on, is those with the intellectual disability co-occurring with autism and saying, all the rest of you, you're not really autistic. You're not autistic enough, which I think is a whole other challenge. But there's been a big concern about the rise in autism. And I have been out there saying, we are seeing more adults diagnosed. Like this umbrella of there are this many people now diagnosed with autism are people who always existed. So sometimes when we're chasing certain things, you know, in the US right now, they're very much, the government's very interested in like, did our vaccines causing autism?

1:46:39And we're back to, you know, that conversation that I feel like has always been around. It just like kind of peaks and dips. But that, you know, that whole conversation, I'm like, hold up. But we, but this big number rise that you're, you're calling this epidemic is because so many adults now are finally being recognized. And it is incredibly painful. I think when you see leaders of a nation saying things like you're not autistic enough to worry about or you're just fine when you've struggled your entire life, especially with all these co-occurring conditions. So you've talked about POTS, mixed connective tissue disease, autoimmune diseases overall.

1:47:22There are so many, like not just mental, there are so many co-occurring conditions that nobody has even recognized those in this population. And they've been told things like you're malingering, you're drug seeking, like you just want attention. And in reality, you're neurodivergent. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling? Smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19 ,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling, just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state.

1:47:59Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. And that's why I think you do the work you do. And I want to address the fact that ADHD isn't just in the brain or autism, you know, isn't like something that people think because you're looking at, you know, a population that has co-occurring conditions in nearly all the organ systems in our body. And our way of being, you know, predisposes us to those conditions. And the pathway to that, you know, can be burnout, it can be all sorts of life changes and that's why even though we look like we have lower support needs what we don't know is that what is happening internally in our body that is causing people to have ill health you know and and i i know people who start medication after adhd diagnosis who actually i can really see that if they go down this route of like just overworking because that's what the medication does actually kind of shifts the energy into your brain and get you like to disconnect from what's happening down here and from the neck down and it's not good for our health and eventually we're going to run into health issues and they happen to me quite quickly within two years and and now I manage it I still take medication because I started with that and I just manage it with other things so it can be a tool in your you know like ADHD or ADHD management but you also need to know what is going on you know, in your body and your health.

1:49:30Yeah. And, you know, to the point of talking about ADHD, I've also, I have like all these quotes, actually, in my questions from the things I've seen you say, but you've said many ADHD women are still dismissed in assessments that separate autism and ADHD, despite research showing they co-occur in 80 to 90 % of cases. So what is going on there? um so like like you went into your like like you're saying do you mind me saying about your diagnosis your your autism diagnosis where you said you didn't sorry I already said but but but you can cut this out no no you can cut this I've talked about you know it's funny that you found out on um Instagram because I can talk about it on threads I can talk about it on um TikTok and it's totally fine people are like yeah whatever whatever and I talk about if I talk about being autistic on Instagram, like I've had to take down posts because people have just come at me being like, you're just seeking attention.

1:50:29You're just trying to get on this trend. You're like all of this stuff, like stuff to the point where, and it's just something that I'm going to say that for everybody listening, I've never interviewed a podcast guest that hasn't experienced bullying online on social media. And it really makes me think like, as I've talked to so many people in the podcast and like, what are we doing as a society? What are we doing as a society bullying people online? So anyhow, you can talk about it. I just was putting it out there that like, I do talk about it, but you won't often see it on my Instagram because for whatever reason, it's where the self-identified autism moms who are like, autism is only high support needs.

1:51:09And if you're anything else, like you're taking away from my child who are healing their own wounds. I want people, don't go after autism moms because I feel like they're living in a society that's giving them absolutely no support. And sometimes people are even saying, this is what you get for creating a child that has deficits and my heart breaks for them. So I just want to be really clear that I'm not dissing these people. I'm saying that they are, they do have their own wounds and that I can understand and respect why they will act in the way that they do. So like everything you said is the reason why I actually created the ODHD Life Experience Research and ran the event for women.

1:51:52I was dismissed in my autism assessment four times and the whole process took seven to eight months before I finally got a diagnosis. And the thing is, I wanted to see what this process was like. I wanted to see what the system was like. But at the time, I didn't know what ODHD looked like in women. We're talking 2024, like July. And yeah, they knew that I had an ADHD diagnosis. So a lot of the symptoms are like, hmm, what's that ADHD? Oh no, that's trauma. You know, that's trauma. It's definitely not autism. You're a woman. You have ovaries. It's trauma. Yeah. So then the list, the criteria that they used to assess me, the ADOS-2, was very male-centered.

1:52:32And I brought it up, you know, after they said no the first time. What about a masking scale? And they were like, yeah, we can do that. and then they didn't so the the next time it was like lots of invalidation I was just crying every time because the questions that were asked very much hit the kind of relational wound you know where like the bullying that happened in university and you know just never really feel like you fit in like that was me and and then also then using the intellect to be useful or to fit in because that was a place I had a role. And so all this is not easy. You know, actually, a lot of women say that the autism diagnosis was far harder.

1:53:15The assessment was far harder than ADHD because with ADHD, yeah, you wrecked your life. You had like self-medicating and you have problems like windows, this area. Okay, you have ADHD. But with autism, it's so much more intimate and intense. And so because of that, I launched the Live Experience Research asking ADHD women or women who identify with both autism and ADHD, what it was like to live, you know, as an ADHD-er. And I checked, what do these traits look like to you? Hyperactivity, impulsivity, inattention, social communication, repetitive behavior and interests, sensory challenges, mental health, hormones, you know, like loads of stuff, co-occurring conditions, things that people don't ask you in the assessment.

1:54:01And so I feel like there isn't really this checklist out there and it needs to be developed. And obviously people have asked, you know, why can't there be a dual diagnosis? And there is now, it's just very expensive, you know, and it's only been less than a decade since the dual diagnosis has been allowed. And for people who, there's some, there's some people who might be autistic but um who get really rigid about the dsm and so when i'll talk about emotional dysregulation in adhd they're like that's not part of the diagnostic criteria therefore it's not part of it i'm like it might not be part of it anymore but the dsm was never made for the patient experience it was made for the clinician's ease of diagnosis i actually wrote an expose in psychiatry in my book yeah in like step one it was like um the apa and i'm gonna get like probably cancelled here come for us i dare you it's like the apa you know is represented by the dominant culture in that certain you know part of the world and the people that they say are inclusive you know were brought into the conversation but i have been in rooms because I worked in DEI in the early days.

1:55:13I have been in a room where if you are the minority in this culture, then your voice isn't as loud. And then there are people who hold this invisible power. And this power dynamics are very much like who's given the opportunity to talk and speak. And these things aren't discussed. The DSM is very reactive. You know, it's been changed when George Floyd, you know, was murdered and then they add a cultural angle to it. But do people use it? Some people don't even know it exists. There is a cultural lens that you can use within the DSM-5. There's a section in there where you look at how someone looks for help, you know, for their challenges.

1:55:59And what are the challenges regarded as in their culture? And what does the culture think of that? You know, because often there is a cultural control. and that it's not just within that culture. It's that culture trying to survive inside a bigger culture. And we know for a fact that this thing, you know, people are talking about it, but it isn't recognized in medical profession as a thing. And I wonder why you got raging women. I actually was talking on another podcast episode. I can't remember who I was with. If I find it, guys, I'll link to it about, like, how I have, you know, talked with counselors and I've worked with like spiritual intuitives and they've been like, you had this rage here and like you, you need to clear this rage.

1:56:44And I am always like, no, I will be keeping that. Thank you very much. Because I don't take, you know, a lot of people know my story. I mean, I'm late night diagnosed ADHD. I'm also late diagnosed endometriosis. And like, there are things that medicine has done me so dirty in, and it absolutely pisses me off. And I've had a lot of heartbreak and I'm like, I'm not going to just let that go and move on and kumbaa my way out of this. Like I'm going to be mad about it. And I'm going to take that anger because it's energy and I'm going to channel it into making sure it doesn't happen to other women.

1:57:17And I'm going to talk about it and I'm going to share information about it. I'm going to give resources about it. And I think that so often the term female rage is used as a way to like try to put us back in our place, like label us and push us back to be be quiet smile more just be a polite good girl and where has that gotten us sick dead dying like no like this is not good like so we have to speak up and I think that having having rage that you would channel for you know whether it's for your life to be better or for the greater good like that's not a negative thing like you're you're getting it out you're moving it out and you're creating purpose from pain.

1:57:55Yes, I love that. You have the Shiro archetype. And I've seen it, you know. I'm a kid of the 80s. I love Shiro. But then it's so cool that, you know, you are using that what people think is intensity, you know, as perhaps the thing that you were born to do. You know, maybe God made you that way. So you won't be quiet, you know, and you might be tested along the way, but that only makes you stronger because if you weren't born that way then you will just you know be beaten into submission but you won't and because of that you are healing yourself alongside healing other people and that's why people trust you you know i think that that rage when channeled you know into the right place and being allowed to be expressed is going to rebuild the world but first we have to set it on fire well i so i actually grew up near yosemite and i will say that great forests do have to burn for new life to grow and it is the reality of nature.

1:58:54So why would it be different for us? Do you think that it is easier for women to get a diagnosis of ADHD than to get a diagnosis of autism? Not just from the like answering the questions and checking it off, but do you think medicine actually would rather, like they think it's okay, like ADHD, that's fine. But autism, I don't know if I want to diagnose you with that. Yeah. So again, that is so varied and different people because I think like it's easier to spot female ADHD if someone's you know persistently showing chaos in their life but what if they have support but what if you know they found a safe system in their family maybe those people won't even look for a diagnosis you know I've had encounters with women who have stopped self-medicating for years and then when you see them now they appear more autistic because they say female adhd looks like the female autism phenotype you know when you're not in chaos you know so it is hard to discern but at the same time it's what has your life been like up to the point where you land in a psychiatrist's office you know so yeah it is definitely easy to see adhd or not like sometimes you get women who are ADHD who may be more autistic in their presentation and they don't get validated for the ADHD diagnosis.

2:00:14So it can go both ways. And for me, because I was already medicated for ADHD when I went to my autism diagnosis and they're like, no, you're fine. It's trauma. And then a few months afterwards, Gina Ripon's work came up and that book, it was like, oh, New Scientist was on it, a Times article. I'm sure she's getting lots of air time for a good reason. And she said, I really respect Gina Ripon for this she said that she had been part of the problem that she was trying to solve because for that case she said like you know there's no gender differences with the you know brain and then like and then i was like yes is she is she in that like what would be boomer generation yeah i think so yeah so there's very much that's the thing i've observed is this mindset that like we are no different anything a man can do we can do the same like women's hormones well and they're also the people that were like, just take the pill, then your hormones are more like a man's and you don't fluctuate and you can keep up with them.

2:01:10And I think it's been our generation and below younger who've been like, well, how's that worked out for you? It's not really worked out for you, but also we are different. Why wouldn't we embrace and celebrate our differences? But I think the world changed just enough for us to be able to do that. I mean, it's changed just enough, right? I mean, so many, like we can talk openly. I mean, there are certainly times, and I will say actually for my most recent book deal, I definitely question in the back of my mind the way some publishers responded to me when I talked about being on ADHD and seeing their faces.

2:01:50And I do question of like, did they value me less? Did they view me differently? There's definitely things that like, granted, I'm not the best at social cues, but there was a pattern in which it happened three times that I was like, among people that it really made me question like, hmm, did they suddenly see me different? Even though I, you know, I've written three books and this is going to be my fourth of a book. Like, and it is because, well, it's funny as you talk about like blowing up your life. Some special interests are really well embraced. special interest in science hormones, like that I could hyper-focus like through medical school, like all of that really like celebrated.

2:02:30But I think there's other parts of, you know, being, you know, talking about this openly that maybe that isn't totally accepted. And so I'm saying that because I started down the train of like, oh, things are more accepted now. And I'm like, yeah, but are they? There's definitely moments where perhaps they're not, which is why conversations like this are important. Yeah. And I think it's so important to break out of that echo chamber, You know, because I totally recognize when we're talking in these rooms and when we go to these community events, there is a curiosity for people who may already be quite receptive to listening.

2:03:03But the rest of the world are still being fed a diet, you know, of what is in media articles, you know, films. And so they aren't up to speed yet. and actually my book that I wrote was actually especially for the other half of the population who actually do not know what neurodivergent experience looked like and I also um created the first ADHD and women intersectional and scientific training that trains medical professionals like those who diagnose and support ADHD women trying to understand what our experience is like and then doing campaigns you know like podcast is something amazing I love to be doing that someday but I'm really much focused on the events that are good at the moment and I think that these conversations really need to break out of the echo chamber and people do not understand that actually ADHD we are human beings we might have some differences and quirks but actually we're not less than we're just different and understanding this difference is the first you know step to actually just crafting a life that we can you know kind of be happy in you know and maybe more acceptance and more compassion so yeah I totally hear you there is that shift in like so something in the air has changed yeah when we talk about the label for people who are not familiar with how autism presents differently in women can you give like a list of of how it looks differently because I think you're right in that media has given us young Sheldon, which I actually felt pretty seen in that show.

2:04:40There were moments where I was like, oh yeah, like the not wanting to shake hands. There's definitely things that like, I'll just out myself if I shake someone's hand that I'd rather hug you and I hugged, but I will think about my hand until I can wash it. And it's almost like it's burning and it's all I can think about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's definitely things about it. We were, I just, I'll show the other, because here's the thing, you're like, there's quirks. I feel like I'm awkward. I am definitely an awkward person. The other awkward thing is my son, he was like, oh, if you were like any superhero, who do you see yourself like?

2:05:17And I was like, oh, I'm like Tony Stark. I'm like Iron Man. And he's like, why? Because you would invent stuff? I'm like, no, because I don't like to be handed things. I don't like people to hand me things. And I also don't like people getting too much of my space. And he's like, oh, it's because you're weird. I'm like, yes. And that's where my brain went. Anyhow, we're going to talk about female autism. But that's just some of my weird things. You can share your weird things too if you want. Yeah, a big one that actually most autistic women really identify with is a difficulty reading people's intentions.

2:05:53And that has been one of the biggest challenges, I would say, in my life. And not perhaps actually knowing, but actually not being sure, you know, and even if you do know, you don't know what to do with it. You know, then that caused a challenge as well, you know, and being hyper empathetic. And that comes from having that strong drive to connect, to actually be accepted socially. And that can lead to camouflaging. And so we can hold eye contact. It might be uncomfortable, but we can do that for a bit until someone points it out and then you look at each other like, oh. RSD is really strong in the community.

2:06:37For people who don't know what RSD is. Rejection sensitivity dysphoria is not just autistic women, but women in general has a stronger activation of default mode network where it leads to more rumination, overthinking. And with autism, that's like persistent, like kind of expression of that default mode network, overthinking, which worsens during luteal phase and like hormonal transitions. And that's where the hormonal interplay gets into it. end like someone's told me like it's not really called special interests anymore it's called something else and and yes people are very good at keeping up in the community and that's why it's nice to talk to them so always changing too i know i can't remember i know that they change they are like now let's call it instead of special interest i i i take a little bit of an issue of always changing terminology even though it might better suit the community when we're trying to raise awareness and actually get people like neurotypicals to wrap their head around things.

2:07:39We see this a lot with other communities as well. Polycystic ovarian syndrome, terrible name, absolutely horrible name for the condition. Yet it has been generations of trying to raise awareness. And finally, legislators are starting to pay attention. If you change the name, you set everything back. So it's a tricky thing where I'm like, I want to do what's best for the community and also like when we talk about camouflaging i'm like everyone calls it masking like masking is the word that we use menopause hormone therapy yes that's the thing but hrt is what everyone knows so that's that's what we're going to use because we have to meet people where they're at yeah uh you know based on that so i'm sure special interest i know it has a different term and if we were talking only to a neurodivergent community we would make sure we had that term right I'd be googling right now yeah exactly and then I I can't keep up with all the name changes so I would just have to say special interest and you're totally right we have to meet people where they're at and that is one of the vein in my life because I I because whatever I do is based on like what my discovery is in my journey and to some people who are just looking for the diagnosis my interest is now here you know and they're here and then I'm going to kind of come back And so with these special interests, it's for autistic women tend to be more psychological, human-centered behaviors.

2:09:02So you get a lot of autistic women in the helper profession. But there's also things that regulate our nervous system, like music and crocheting, you know, and knitting. And some women are very interested in sex. and and so there are things that yeah may not be typical for autistic men you know to to like you know that is very much maybe more suitable for women you know or maybe what the culture thinks and accept as normal because maybe there is a drive for us to be more accepted which we have found that to be true so then yeah that is um often why we are missed because we do you know present differently.

2:09:46Okay. Yeah. The other thing that I have seen that was really, cause I always thought, oh, my special interest is hormones. And then I saw this psychologist saying in our clinic, female autistics love plants and plant. And I was like, and at that time I recently moved. So I had to part with my plants, but I had like 75 houseplants and I was like, it might be me. But I'm also, you know, I also find that a lot of the things that autistic women are into in special interest goes back to that utility wound you talked about before. It's about how do I have value to other people so that they want me around?

2:10:27Because I think that when, you know, as you were saying, so reading intentions is difficult. Reading social cues is difficult, but there's also this longing to belong. And I think that women find themselves in this place of like, I have to have utility. Otherwise I won't get invited to the party or I won't be part of the inner circle. I certainly experienced this in a community where I was living where people were having events and I wasn't invited to them. But when they had a hormone problem, those people always texted me. They always call me. And so when you were talking about the utility wound, I was like, oh, that came up for me recently in the last year where I was like, oh, I need to put a boundary up because I'm thinking we're friends.

2:11:17And I think that's another problem with autistic women is that we think we're in friendships with people who aren't actually our friends. And it's something that I'm doing with my children. I wish someone had taught me as a child to ask, what makes a good friend? How do you know someone's being a good friend? And how do you know if someone's just using you? And I had this epiphany of like, wait a minute, all these women are just using me because they're always my friend when they want something for me, but they're not my friend when they're like having parties or inviting people over or I have a birthday and I invite them and they're not coming.

2:11:50And so I think that's something, I'm not sure if that's an ADHD experience as well. I would imagine it is. Very much so. Yeah, but very much an autistic experience of like, you have to have a special interest of value to people so that you are kept in the community. I guess it works both ways as well, because you actually love to find out more and talk about it. So you naturally do talk to people about it. And that's when you light up. That's one thing that I actually have been describing my autism assessment by my ex-husband. And who was my developmental witness, which is another reason why I didn't get the autism diagnosis.

2:12:27Oh, jeez. Yeah, so he said that I can go into a monologue. And he's like, not interested. And I'm still talking. And he's like, okay, I'm going to stop. I didn't realize that. Because when it's so interesting to you, and you talk to somebody who maybe you work with, like what we're doing now, we're really charged about it. But then other people aren't. And that is one thing that perhaps I don't see sometimes. You know, but there is another element that, okay, then the friends who are with me now, do they want to be with my friend because of me or because of what I can give them? And that has been my journey as well to find the people for me.

2:13:07And it is, I have other autistic women who ask the same thing. Would they be my friend if I didn't do this thing? You know, and we're all trying to work out, you know, where our place is right now and how to just kind of have friendships and relationships with people. And I think it's very timely that we are talking about this. Yeah. You mentioned earlier that the ADHD brain is different. How? Yeah. So there was a paper that came out in 2023 and I've messaged a lab. They haven't got back to me. It was a Japanese lab. And that paper is by Watanabe and they look at the ADHD brain dynamics of children compared to ADHD and autism.

2:13:54And so that paper, I realize, is not very gender inclusive. I think 30 boys and three girls for ADHD. and they found that there is a different brain pattern that tends to happen in the ADHD brain and that differs from pure autism and pure ADHD. And they had something that looked like a Venn diagram of ADHD. It's kind of semi in the middle, but then it kind of overlaps with autism, social communication pattern, but it doesn't with ADHD. so then the ADHD phenotype looks very much like the social communication of autism and in my observations it's not been validated by scientific research but just by looking at the community events that I hold you know by coming across ADHD women we tend to have more of that female autism phenotype but then we're quite different to ADHD so they say with ADHD there's that difference in switching attention but with odhd is more about you know task switching because you are dealing with a brain that is both control and rigidity and in instability like over flexible you know so then we can go from a state of being very hyper rigid to completely over flexible so then it can confuse people yeah when you see that come up you know so yeah that that's how i realized that odhd they say that is a totally different brain you know dynamics compared to pure adhd and pure autism and several other papers have been published now to look at that but still not that many gender you know kind of um looking at just women or men they were they're are still like quite early days and from what I've seen you know many ADHD men have also say that they're very into like hyper like empathetic and you know tuning into environment to see what is needed the camouflaging the masking is also very very prevalent in the ADHD man community so we don't know yet you know what goes after this but what I do know is that you know that brain dynamics also make you loop in a very familiar pattern you know and and that's why when we go into relationships and encounter trauma from that relational injury we can look like we have this organized attachment because on the one hand oh no I don't want to do this anymore and then your brain loops into this pattern where like oh no I want it you know I don't want it I want it I don't want it I want it the number of like relationships I've come across that or the HD And that works that way, the push-pull and, you know, that disorganized attachment style, that's very prevalent.

2:16:56When you talk about, so you said the ADHD has more of the autism phenotype in terms of communication. How does that look different than the pure ADHD communication? I guess with ADHD there's more of that overwhelm you know and that chaos and that socially like just trying to over function socially but then they hit the point where they will just not be able to do it whereas with autism there is more camouflaging that actually you go all your way out but then with ADHD what's interesting is that we know what is expected but we may be more unwilling to do it like there is a fine like a deeply autonomous neurotype that actually unless we're doing it for us or our way you're not gonna want to do it you know and yeah do you find that as a struggle in your life yeah hugely that's why i don't have many friends i i see this like um i see it play out in my children as well where we're like Like, this is the way I planned on doing it.

2:18:07And I can recognize it in them so I can like hold space for them and be like, oh, but sometimes, sometimes I'm like, no, it has to be mama's way. But it is very much something that like my husband will be like, I don't understand. Like, just do it like that. I'm like, I can't. I can't. It's already been decided. The neuronal pathway was like laid down two days ago. You don't even know. Like, it's got to be this way. Yeah. You can't fight it either. It's like, you know, can't do anything about this. Well, that's the thing that you bring up is that a lot of people think, why don't you just act better, you know, try harder, do more.

2:18:43But on a neurochemical level, it's just not possible. Can you explain that? It's also like a brain network and then brain energy dynamics level. Because that paper with Watanabe, what was interesting is that they look at the energy patterns in our brain and how the energy flows, you know, when we encounter certain tasks. And so it's like, you know, when you go into the rigidity stage, then you almost have that overstable, you know, rigidity that will make it quite hard for you to do what other people want from you. But then when you go into that overflexible, you know, state where you just kind of throw caution to the wind and you just say yes to anything.

2:19:27And that can also be confusing to other people. I think that's why so many people think we have bipolar. or borderline, you know, when there's relational trauma involved. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or just labeling someone a narcissist, which I think is an incredibly lazy thing that people have been throwing around to where I'm just like, that's so effortless to just be like, they're a narcissist. It's like a way to dismiss people without recognizing that actually there's something more under that layer of what you're just perceiving. And I also think like, as humans, we are very selfish. And often, when people are interacting with a neurodivergent person, they're perceiving what's being done to them instead of ever saying to themselves like, well, what is their experience?

2:20:15And it's something that I will often say of like, you know, when somebody is behaving in a certain way, like, what has happened that has led to this behavior. Like, why is this the expression in this moment? It's, you know, going back to like the autistic moms who like lash out, like what, what's the, okay. At the, at the root of that, if we go back, like these are people who are not being supported, who feel helpless, who feel like they're, um, you know, trying their best and it's getting them nowhere. Like, and that is leading to this behavior. And it's not that this is, well, it's being directed at me.

2:20:50It's not being done to me with purpose. This is an expression of somebody who has this internal trauma, this grief, this dynamic in their life that they cannot have any control of or fix. Yeah, and especially when you are maybe also autistic caring for an autistic child, you've got to think about the sensory challenges as well of that. The thing you said about when your child is regulated, and if you are not in a place where you have energy, then it's going to be quite hard for you to be there for them you know and traditionally our parents weren't taught to hold space no we grew up with none of that yeah well I don't I don't know how it is uh for your family I come from a Hispanic family and it very much was like chocolate culture like you're gonna get a slipper upside the head like a sandal I'm like what do you call we call them flip-flops you know like you're gonna get smacked with that like if you you do not behave I look at like um how well you've been able to mask and camouflage through my whole life and it's like well I grew up in a culture that there was I mean even you know a lot of like Mexican culture is not you don't you think you have mental health no you don't you have mental health issues no you don't like no no no like you need to drink water take a nap like it's that's just not what's happening yeah exactly and that that's the culture control you know because everyone says it doesn't make it normal you know and and if you know how it feels like in your body and if you then go into a different culture then you see actually other people seem to validate that as a challenge but not my culture and yeah that's still something that I I recognize from my Asian roots you know being in the UK people don't see therapy as necessary you know and yeah so it still feels like a big privilege to have but yeah well then we were talking before and you were like, wow, you got your autism diagnosis.

2:22:44And I was like, I had to private pay. You were in the UK system, which I just hear horrific things about people trying to get an autism diagnosis. And it's not, I think people think like, oh, people are trying to get this diagnosis. They want this diagnosis. No, they just want to know why they operate in this way. As you were talking about, you cried during your assessment. I cried during mine. And I can't even remember the question, but I remember my answer of just being like, everyone, my whole life has felt like everyone else has had like the rules to the game of life. And I have been spending my entire life trying to figure out how to play this game right.

2:23:23And I can't, like, no one will just tell me like, what are the rules? How am I supposed to operate? And so I feel like I'm constantly failing. I'm constantly putting so much effort in, but then like, I miss the mark on that. And then as you were saying, the rumination happens and then you're dwelling in that. And I just remember crying in that moment. And I'm also someone who's like, I don't like to cry in front of strangers. Like, yeah. But it was just, you know, people often ask, like, why bother getting the diagnosis now? Like, you've gone your whole life. What do you say to that? Oh, because of all the potential recurring conditions that I could find out how to manage.

2:24:04So it was only last year that I learned about POTS. I lived my whole entire life not knowing about that. And that was why I nearly had what I thought was heart attack. And I know that an autism diagnosis doesn't give you much more than a brochure. You know, so really like, okay, what is the point? The point is actually, if you know that that is you, then it's quite nice to be validated for it. But it's also quite strange when you're getting it from a system that actually doesn't know what it's like to be you, you know. So there is absolute point because there are so many, you know, transitions and stages in our lives where being autistic, ADHD, you know, that can throw a spanner in the works.

2:24:50I want to know and I want to be prepared, you know, because I actually have that anticipatory preparation thing, you know, anticipatory anxiety. And as to your point about not having a manual to life, I felt it as well. And I've heard other ADHD women told me the same. Like they feel like they're an alien who's landed on Earth and have to watch humans, you know, and it's by watching that we learn to camouflage. And then now I realize more and more that actually perhaps I'm just built a different way. And it is something that I need to get comfortable with. I'm never going to be palatable to everyone.

2:25:28I'm not going to be like them. and it's constant work to show up just as me and be authentic. And it's to find people like me as well. And when you do, oh, so nice. You can tell each other, oh, I understand when you're overwhelmed and, you know, I'm not going to call you because I know you're working. And also, if I'm sitting in a corner, you know, in a group event, it's because I really can't be bothered. And that's okay. And it's like when you find those people, then you don't feel like you have to be different than you. And that can feel so nice and you can sleep at night, you know. And there's a lot of relationship audit, you know, that we have to do for like the girl.

2:26:09Yeah. And I think your point about the co-occurring conditions is so important to understand that you're going to be at higher risk for so many things. I mean, it wasn't until my endometriosis diagnosis that I was like, wait a minute. And I went and looked. And there is research showing that autistic women, ADHD women, and when we talk about this, OCD, Torent, these other neurodiversion conditions, they do fall into these buckets a lot of times. And we've seen there is a higher incidence of endometriosis among these women. And so one of the predominant theories of endometriosis, what I think is the best at this time, is that during embryological development, something went awry and cells that were to become the uterine lining migrated and ended up other places and then responded to our hormones.

2:26:59And so this is how we end up with endometriosis. If you think about that, from embryological development, something was different in the programming. I think you can start to understand how someone can develop into a neurodivergent full being and it not being something that like was just, you know, just because it was trendy or just because like, you know, some environmental insult got introduced. I think, and I'd love to hear your thoughts very much, that of all these environmental insults that we've seen that people are trying to attribute to the cause of autism, I do believe that what it is is that genetically we report detoxification.

2:27:42We have an overreactive immune system. We already genetically have these differences and they've absolutely never been studied with some of these medical treatments that we are administered. And so people often look to that and say, well, that must be the cause because things got worse. A switch was flipped overnight and things were so different. I have a child who experienced PANDAS, pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with strep. He got strep, it flipped his immune system and overnight he was a completely different child. And that's, having lived through that and having seen the research very much, my thought of like what we're attributing to the cause really, it always existed.

2:28:27This was a neurodivergent being in utero, but these environmental insults came in And this individual did not have the capacity to detoxify, to regulate the immune system, to protect the nervous system. And now we're chasing these as causes when really they are exacerbating what actually existed. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I love that. I love everything about that. I have so many thoughts and I'm trying to organize it in my brain. And yeah, so I love the fact that you brought the biological systems into the discussion about, you know, how much we know in the medical profession, because there is a disconnect here.

2:29:09And I've always struggled with the fact that, you know, people who diagnose and treat and support neurodivergence generally don't have enough knowledge of how everything connects. And there is more of that, you know, kind of like connection, you know, now, you know, in conferences. And there is a need to link scientific research with medical profession and the lived experience community. Because I give so many folks to the community because I love it. I just love women who are just like me and there's no hierarchical difference. because when we go to the medical profession, there is a power dynamics that we are immediately disempowered.

2:29:56And the thing is, we're not being heard here. Maybe we're looked at like, oh, your body, your brain, the system. You're actually like, oh, what's in the medical textbook? What did the conference say? Hello, human. And then there is that scientific research. It's always been there. So I found these papers that looked at the biochemical metabolic pathways that are impacted in autistic and ADHD individuals. There were a lot of things that you mentioned, you know, neuro system, immune system, melatonin synthesis, GABA, and the body calming system is dysregulated. and so much more detoxification, like you say, you know, oxidative stress, the cell-to-cell connection, and so much more.

2:30:48There is also that inflammation that they believe to be the cause, you know, for a lot of the co-occurring conditions that happen, right? But inflammation is a system, a process. What is inflammation, you know? And that's when you look at the connection, right, between the brain, the heart, the gut, you know, in the rest of the body. And what do we do, you know, to support somebody who has, you know, these challenges? And for your son, like, you know, perhaps there are very specific, you know, treatment and support that supports the symptoms. And then we look at long-term, you know, management.

2:31:26And so, yeah, there definitely is a need to connect biology with you know how it manifests in the live experience community and I feel like we need to be the bridge for that. How do you think it's possible that we build that bridge? Oh I think the thing is there's so many people who are working in the private sector who are trying to solve a problem but it also looks like trying to profit from the situation but But like, how do we build a bridge? I believe that we need a personalized care framework, you know, and that's because from everything that we've discussed, if we're going to bring that, you know, into the community, then they're going to have to find out what their unique way of being is like, even within the ADHD and autism spinotype, you know, then from there we can work on it.

2:32:25and then we look at the bio cycle emotional relational perspective and for me like I always think in systems you know and but then yeah getting the biology you know in the regulated state is the first step and a lot of education and for me I've always thought of that personalized care uh support yeah it's what people are clamoring for and yet this is another way that the system really has to be completely dismantled to be able to set out to do that. You mentioned melatonin differences. I know people listening are going to be like, say more. Yeah. So our body may have challenges producing melatonin at the right time and maybe also getting rid of it.

2:33:10And so that can cause all sorts of issues like, you know, delayed sleep phase, which I know you've talked about and getting up at wild times, you know, especially when we You got to the her menopausal stage. Some women getting up at 2 a.m., you know, having something. I can't remember the actual term now, but it's a form of insomnia where you fall asleep really early and then you wake up at 1 or 2 o 'clock in the morning and then you don't sleep again until 5. And then the next day you're like a zombie. And so, you know, we know also if we don't sleep well, everything breaks, you know, like breaks apart.

2:33:50we know that with ADHD there is that was that the glymphatic system like the brain goes into a bit of a car wash and maintenance when we are asleep and if we go to bed late then there's less of that and if we you know don't have sleep then that's even worse so yeah we have this regular upkeep that's very necessary but when we have the melatonin imbalance that is not just innate but also can be brought upon in our life stage of being perimenopausal, like having hormonal difference, then that can really throw us back in the works. What are your thoughts in it? Yeah, well, the other piece of it, so there's the delayed and then there's the fact that people aren't just getting sufficient melatonin, is that that's also a really important antioxidant.

2:34:37And so, you know, as you were talking about how medicine likes to be like compartmentalizing things and just being like this for that and that is all, but melatonin being a part of sleep is also protecting your cells and it's protecting your brain cells. And if you think about, you know, the neurodivergent brain tends to have more free radical oxygen species. This is very dangerous. And I think that this may be a contributing factor of why we see such a higher risk of dementia, especially among those with ADHD and who are untreated, is that yes, there's not the sleep, but there's also not the antioxidant protection happening in the brain.

2:35:14Then you add on the fact that there's eating issues among ADHD and autistic people, right? Like you're like, eat a rainbow. And they're like, but it's yucky or it's boring or I don't want to have to prep it or I'm overwhelmed by the produce section in the store. That I think that's another area that we really have to bridge. And I think that that's also been an issue with ultra processed food coming in. people will say like oh it's the ultra processed food that's causing ADHD. I don't think that ultra processed food is causing ADHD or autism just by fact that it existed before we had ultra processed food but I don't think it's helping and I definitely do think it can make symptoms worse.

2:35:59If we go to the gut brain connection we know that's huge. There's a lot of gut dysfunction. It's interesting because when I got my diagnosis of autism, I was like, all the digestive issues I had my entire childhood. And I looked at that and I was like, oh man, that was a sign right there. I don't think actually back in the 80s and 90s we understood the gut dysfunction that can come with being neurodivergent. But I look at that piece and I'm like, of course, of course. Can you talk, you know, a little bit about the, because you mentioned the gut aspect of autism and ADHD. Yeah, so definitely is a huge, huge part in how inflammation can take place in our body and how, you know, the neurotransmitters are kind of like produced and sent to the brain as well.

2:36:58And the autistic individual, the research has shown that we're born with gut dysbiosis and that the microbiome composition in your gut is potentially more predisposed to mental health challenges. and so with that then you have that different um gut like structure where there is a higher level of leaky gut you know where um i can't remember the exact definition of that now but it's when like the food doesn't get absorbed you know in the right way and then it can kind of leak into like a system that isn't right to be there intestinal hyperpermeability i think so yeah that's the term no no that's what leaky gut is but yeah you said you couldn't remember the term so yeah i'm bridging a gap here great awesome because i can't remember all the terms and then no and it's also your work is working so much in community that you adopt the language it's like i say leaky gut all the time but if i'm speaking at a medical conference yeah it's intestinal hyperpermeability i feel like i do a lot of code switching in that in that degree yeah you'd be a translator uh so then there is that gut and brain connection right that we know is vital because it's not just one direction as it turns out it is bi-directional so whatever that you're feeding your gut you know will help your brain or not and whatever you're thinking will help your gut or not you know so that is a bi-directional relationship and in the UK I don't know what it's like here but I have heard that it's a problem as well it's the mycotoxin gut dysbiosis, mold toxicity, you know, that people tend to get in the house that they live in.

2:38:43It's very damp and often can, you know, cause a infection in your gut that causes difficulty in absorbing like the nutrients from the food. So you could be eating really well, you know, but your body isn't absorbing everything that could really help it from the food that you eat. On that, apparently, mycodoxin gut dysbiosis can also send vapors to the brain that increases inflammation. And that in itself already causes mental health challenges. But we don't talk about hypermobility, you know, in the autistic ADHD community, where, yeah, there's hypermobility, EDS, Alladenloff syndrome. And then the POT seems to be a trifecta of conditions that can also affect this gut-brain connection.

2:39:33In that, yeah, so there is like when you have like hypermobile tissues that can also cause challenges, you know, with bringing like kind of signals to the brain and thereafter. So then we're looking at a system imbalance. It's funny when you talk about disregulation, because I've always wondered if it is good to call anything disregulated, but that's what we deal with, right, in medicine. I prefer to see it as a system that is in flux, that is constantly striving to achieve homeostasis, but that is far between. Yeah, so that's how I see it. Yeah, I mean, well, that's, I mean, exactly, it's in flux.

2:40:18I think about when people will say, oh, there's no such thing as a hormone imbalance because your hormones are always in flux. And I'm like, well, what do you call hypothyroidism? An imbalance of thyroid. It's low thyroid. What do you call insulin resistance? Like these are like, you know, hormone imbalances and the body is no longer able to get back to that place of balance. And we need to have assistance. And I think, you know, as you talk about dysbiosis in the gut, for people who don't know what that is, it's an imbalance of your normal flora. So things that should be there, it's not pathogenic organisms, but stuff that should be there, but it's in the wrong numbers.

2:40:59And if anyone's ever had a yeast vaginitis, yeast infection, then you know. You have yeast in the vagina. It just takes an opportunity to overgrow sometimes. And in that dysbiosis, sometimes we, you know, there's that dysregulation of gut health. we have to bring in things to help that system get back into that flux, like to find its homeostasis again. And sometimes it's as simple as increasing your fiber. And I love when it's just water and fiber. So love that. But other times it's like, no, actually opportunistic organisms have overgrown. And we know that in some studies, autistic and ADHD individuals don't have enough of the beneficial flora that they should have so you know we need lots of biodiversity in the gut we have studies on when you're born but then there's also the eating behaviors that can develop later that can then further contribute to the dysbiosis that we're seeing yeah the number of autistic children who love white beige food early in life or bread that feeds like you know the growth of microorganisms that aren't healthy but also chocolate sugar yeah you know well who doesn't love chocolate I mean come on no but it is um yeah the beige diet for sure and that's where you know sometimes like I like as a mom I totally get when it's like it's so much I mean there's definitely times at a restaurant where my kid is eating french fries like that's what this toddler is going to eat so he doesn't have blood sugar that crashes and then everybody's in their nightmare there.

2:42:36But that's, you know, also where it's like, sometimes you're going to give and sometimes you have to get creative and you have to, you know, make a smoothie. And sometimes it has to be, this is where it gets like so aggravating. I think when you are a neurodivergent adult dealing with neurodivergent children, it's like, no, the smoothie's too thick this time. Now the smoothie's too thin this time. Like it's, it's not, you know, this, the sensory needs are always changing, but you still have to like give it your all and get creative to get them the fibers, to get them the phytonutrients. Yeah, I definitely find that when you introduce probiotics, the right ones, like their appetites do increase.

2:43:16And it's like when you give them the right, you know, kind of microbial composition, they even start to taste a bit differently, you know, because the challenge with that, you You know, being born with a certain type of microbial composition is that food that tastes one way to someone may not taste the same to you. And so like in my experience anyway, like I've seen with my own child who only like beige fruit, he started eating broccoli after starting in probiotics. And so that was really good. Yeah, and they've also done research on that to show like probiotics can support mental health. Yeah, it's so interesting because we've even got research on very particular strains.

2:44:02It's not just lactobacillus rhamnosus. It's the particular strain of that organism and how that can influence mental health or weight. It's funny, as you were saying, your child then ate broccoli. I had Dr. Elisa Song on. We talked about picky eaters. She talked about zinc being a big issue. And once you get zinc in, because it changes taste receptors. How that can be so helpful. But I was like, man, all my kid will eat sometimes is broccoli and beef. I just want to eat broccoli and beef. So I'm grateful for that. But also my oldest is like, I'm going to eat bone marrow. And like, oh, we were just somewhere this weekend.

2:44:42He's like, I'm going to eat ribs and I'm going to get all this stuff. And my youngest is like, I don't even want to look at that. And he's like, I will eat a piece of steak. I'm going to be good with that and then i'm going to eat some cucumbers and i'm like i'm gonna call that a win right now yeah okay i've actually known like like mothers um who had like kind of turned into the entire career to find out how to give their children neurodivergent children the right foods and um this um friend of mine she she went um to seek occupational therapy yeah is that the right right right term yeah i think again they can be phenomenal for their children yeah but also textures like the idea in relationship to food textures um she said after a few sessions they completely changed like the child was now is now able to eat like lots of lots of different food and and she also like i don't have the time for that but like you know create food out of like bone broth that has been seeping for 12 hours and then you know kind of she's doing the gabs diet yeah potentially without knowing it you know she's got like lots of tips and like really good stuff but you know I don't have the time for that I'll just have to go to the butchers yeah are there pretty have you seen anything in the research about particular strains or anything that's been particularly um I couldn't I don't remember it but I have done researched on this when I was buying probiotics for my own child and definitely like recognize the strain that you mentioned but no not not in detail.

2:46:23So I wanted to ask you how can a neurodivergent woman advocate for herself at work and in life without falling into the trap of feeling fear or shame or like there being too much? Yeah so that's interesting because often And when we're in a situation, our brain might see that as, oh, I'm in this new place. It's a liminal state of actually having been diagnosed, maybe trying to unmask. But also then how do I deal with that request or relationship that asks of me something that I can't guess. And I love one of the results of our ADHD women survey is what ADHD women want in relationships. which was so validating because it had all the elements that are really important to us as a collective it wasn't just me being difficult or me being like too much like we all need emotional safety we need um intellectual stimulation we need um yeah the ability to be able to like um actually not be someone's caretaker came up quite quite quite top and but often without knowing all this if something makes you feel uncomfortable even if you cannot explain it just yet you just say like i'm a bit uncomfortable about this i'm gonna have to get back to you and and that is in the context of a personal relationship and maybe you will take some time to process that or you get you know a coach or somebody to help you kind of work it out but then in the workplace that's where it can get a bit difficult because as women, anyway, we tend to need to appear like we're functioning really well in order to go up the ranks at work.

2:48:08And for autistic ADHD women, this takes on a whole new level of being very functional, hyper-functioning without people knowing that maybe you're burning out left right and center inside and and so I talk a lot about burnout and people have asked me to talk about resilience how do we you know make ourselves more resilient to deal with the system and then how do we advocate for ourselves is that um I suppose there comes a point where you need to help people understand that what you're dealing with isn't just you know in the brain it's biological and it's hormonal um and that's why education in the workplace is really really helpful but also like being able to advocate for ourselves in the workplace like I would always say bring your whole self in there don't shoot yourself in the foot and focus only on the butt and you need to bring your strengths to it as well but you say in order for me to do my best work I need this adjustment and sometimes you don't even need to expose you know or open up as autistic or ADHD, but it certainly helps if you do because then the law is supposed to be on your side.

2:49:20Although it's a bit of a gray area there in terms of whether companies are inclusive. So yeah, I hope that answers the questions. Yeah. No, well, thank you so much. This has been such a wonderful conversation. I can literally talk to you for hours. I feel like we can talk. And it's really nice to be able to talk to you on a level that like I know you know what I'm talking about. So thank you. Thank you for this opportunity. Yeah. Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class.

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