AuDHD Flourishing

Maria Bowler recently published the book Making Time : A New Vision for Crafting a Life beyond Productivity. It's a relaxing take on doing what you want to do, and feeling okay while doing it. One of the main themes is being present, and being true to yourself even if you're doing boring stuff you don't want to do. Finding those moments of resonance that turn the entire activity into building self...

The Autistic community has taken many approaches to reframing what the diagnostic criteria calls "Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts." There's the double-empathy problem, for example, in which Autistic people have an easier time understanding each other where allistics struggle and vice versa. Childhood Emotional Neglect, while a relatively...

This episode is also on YouTube If our sensory needs are not met, even an otherwise okay day will still feel... off somehow. And then that gap between how we feel and how we think we "should" feel can make it even worse (that one's not a topic in this episode, just a thing that happens). If our sensory needs ARE met, sometimes even tough circumstances can feel not that bad. To be clear, this is no...

Lessons learned from ~17 years of therapy over the last 20 years. How I'd approach therapy now based on that. What to look for in therapists, goal-setting in therapy, and reasons to quit your current therapist. Also connects back to last week's interview with Joe about AuDHD therapy . Links mentioned: Book Decolonizing Therapy (also mentioned last week, affiliate link) Blog post on finding a neuro...

Joe Sosta is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and late-realized AuDHDer. He shares some of our questions about therapy as an AuDHD adult, and we talk about the ups and downs of therapy and modalities. Note: "The Discord" mentioned is part of the Like Your Brain (Patreon) community space This is the first of 7 interconnected episodes Connect with Joe: https://www.therapywithjoe.com https://...

Reposting popular episodes June 2025. Back atcha in July with some spicy takes! Original show notes:  Pasha Marlowe speaks brilliantly about how to navigate trauma, triggers, and sensory needs in relationships as an AuDHD person. Making it concrete, we both talk about a recent meltdown with our respective partners, and how we navigated those during and after. This is a deeply un-shaming episode—w...

In June I'm re-posting the most popular episodes from the show while I take a step back to look at the big picture. Update: the re-thinking has happened and retooling is in process :D Original show notes: Meltdowns and shutdowns appear to be a natural release valve for an overwhelmed autistic brain. They feel out of control and can be quite distressing. While there are ways to push them off, I exp...

In June I'm re-posting the most popular episodes from the show while I take a step back to look at the big picture (because my monotropic brain has trouble doing that while also pumping out new content). Original show notes: What do AuDHDers need (beyond the obvious needs all humans have)? And why do those needs matter? This episode covers some important ones: Being able to engage with our interes...

In June I'm reposting the most popular episodes from the show while I take a step back to look at the big picture (because my monotropic brain has trouble doing that while also pumping out new content). Mentioned in outro: Experimenting Your Way to an Extraordinary Life Original show notes: AuDHD = autism + ADHD... and also I experience it as its own neurotype, and not simply two "disorders." Here...

Time the body needs to transition, meet needs, rest and recover is NOT wasted time! I don't know that it's even possible to "waste time" outside of ableist capitalist structures. If you still have ableist thoughts, that's okay. We all do! It's worth resting anyway. Resources mentioned: Neuraluxe's post about parentification Car fundraiser for DV survivor (my sibling) When your abuser threatens sui...

If you have multiple interests, realistically you probably don't have enough time to develop all of them to the degree that you'd like. And even with more targeted pursuits, many of us are busy because of real life and capitalism. What this means is that we have to make tough choices. I talk about some of the ways I've worked through this, where I'm at with it currently, and some questions to ask...

To change something, I've been playing with telling myself I'll do "a little more or less." It is less exciting than a huge plan... but also easier on my nervous system! Love Your Brain course info & live round update Resources: Transcript Doc Email Newsletter : Nothing Wrong With Us Like Your Brain  community space (Patreon) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This year I've been trying to meet my intensity needs in more "healthy" ways, while also recognizing that sometimes that doesn't feel possible. And that's okay! Love Your Brain course info & live round update Resources: Transcript Doc Email Newsletter : Nothing Wrong With Us Like Your Brain  community space (Patreon) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Vanessa Gorelkin is an Occupational Therapist who often works with ND folks. She shares about compassionate approaches to daily life tasks. The main tool she shared is creating a crisis kit to use when experiencing distress in public, at work, or anywhere that you can't be fully unmasked. List of suggested items below. Crisis kit items suggested in episode: alcohol swabs (to smell for state change...

Reflecting on the interview with Anna, who shared about accommodations for her students and herself. Learning how to build our own systems/structures is often more useful than being handed a system. Because no matter how much dopamine we get initially from a new tool or system, it inevitably becomes stale. Instead of throwing the whole thing out the window every time, I've learned how to pull forw...

Anna is an educator who has developed an incredible approach with accommodations at the core (for the student AND herself!). It makes sense pedagogically, and it's working! With a core of psychological safety, students are able to explore writing and language with their own goals in mind. We've also known each other since I was 15... so we talk a bit about the mysterious backstory of living in a C...

Coping mechanisms can be a pathologizing term. What's the difference between coping mechanisms and intensity or interests? This episode also touches back to the interview on sobriety with Amy in ep. 92. As well as this note on a positive AA experience from a listener . Resources: Transcript Doc Email Newsletter : Nothing Wrong With Us Like Your Brain  community space (Patreon) Hosted on Acast...

Thanks Eric Tivers for interviewing me & allowing me to share the full episode here as well. His show notes : In this episode of ADHD reWired, Eric Tivers is joined by Mattia Maurée, an award-winning composer, poet, and host of the AuDHD Flourishing Podcast . Mattia shares their insights into the unique challenges faced by neurodivergent (ND) individuals, particularly those with ADHD and autis...

Thank you to guest Amy Knott Parrish for sharing about her unusual journey with sobriety. When she realized what her future was going to look like, she... stopped drinking. Because it wasn't about the drinking, it was about the problem that the drinking was self-medicating. After nine years of continuous sobriety, her therapist insisted that she try AA, but it wasn't the right fit. As with many in...

(Part 2 of 2. Part 1 here ) Being AuDHD + gifted is being an outlier of outliers. I'd guess most of us feel like aliens. And even when we start to understand the shape of our experiences, it can feel overwhelming to even begin to order our understanding in a satisfying way. (Autoethnography, anyone?) Our depth and intensity needs can be quite challenging to meet, especially if we have lower physio...

Being AuDHD + gifted is being an outlier of outliers. I'd guess most of us feel like aliens. And even when we start to understand the shape of our experiences, it can feel overwhelming to even begin to order our understanding in a satisfying way. (Autoethnography, anyone?) Our depth and intensity needs can be quite challenging to meet, especially if we have lower physiological capacity due to trau...

Emily Kircher-Morris is the host of the long-running and popular podcast, The Neurodiversity Podcast. (And she interviewed me last year .) She's a compassionate, incisive, and important voice in 2e and neurodivergent-affirming education. Also a delight to talk to! Building on what we talked about, she shared some additional resource links below. Connect with Emily & mentioned in episode: Emily...

Dr Chris Wells speaks & teaches about positive disintegration, Dabrowski's theory that (among other things) provides an alternate explanation for some mental illness. While the theory is not entirely about giftedness, it helps many gifted people make sense of their experiences. Dr Wells also talks about their journey, which included being on disability for many years. It's a reminder that whil...

Sheldon Gay shares about giftedness, in particular the intersections of being late-identified as a Black man. He hosts the I Must Be BUG'N podcast (Black, Underrepresented/Unidentified, Gifted and otherwise Neurodivergent). I absolutely love his term of having a sparkly mind! We weave through many topics, including education and melanated & marginalized kids not having their needs met. This is...

24:23 to skip specific American politics In this episode: Mutual aid Local connections Surveillance & privacy considerations for devices Resistance is working General strike & Mar 15 shutdown (#Shutdown315) Emotional survival: monotropic reset, alpha brain waves Being careful whom you listen to (accompanying Emily Science Journalism ep 82) Links mentioned: Surveillance guide for devices Ho...