The Neurodivergent Woman

This week we welcome Clem Bastow to the pod. Clem is an autistic author, cultural critic and screenwriting researcher from Naarm/Melbourne. Their work appears regularly in The Guardian, The Saturday Paper and The Big Issue, and their debut nonfiction book ‘Late Bloomer’ was published by Hardie Grant in 2021. They are currently completing a PhD in screenwriting and Autistic experience a...

This week we have Barb Cook on the pod. Barb is a neurodivergent author, speaker, and advocate, best known as founder of Spectrum Women Magazine and leading editor and co-author of the book, Spectrum Women, Walking to the Beat of Autism. Barb works in her own practice, the NeuroDiversity Hub in Gympie, as a Developmental Educator, Integrative Nutritionist and a Neurodiversity Employment Consu...

On this week’s episode we discuss Pathological Demand Avoidance, or PDA. We explore what PDA is, including the history of this construct, and the positives and negatives of the PDA concept. We cover what factors can contribute to demand avoidance amongst neurodivergent people, including personal, neurobiological, cultural, and social factors, and chat though how our stress response plays int...

This week we explore repetitive behaviours. We cover repetitive behaviours in autism, OCD, tics and Tourette’s Syndrome, and hoarding behaviour, including what causes and drives repetitive behaviours across these neurodivergences. We discuss the overlap of different neurodivergences that include repetitive behaviours, in addition to what distinguishes and differentiates different forms of re...

Content warning: This episode contains multiple references to sexual assault. Some listeners may decide to skip this one.    It is a disturbing reality that neurodivergent women are more likely to experience sexual assault in their lifetime compared to neurotypical women. In this episode we define sexual assault and sexual consent, and chat through the statistics around sexual assault am...

Dr Tanya Murray is an autistic woman and the principal project officer for the All Kinds of Minds team for the Department of Education in Queensland. This week we chat with Tanya about diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We cover what inclusion means in a workplace, ways that workplaces can work toward inclusion, make change, and embrace a different approach, how to create an inclusive cultu...

This week we welcome Dr Sarah Bernard on the podcast. Dr Bernard is a disabled autistic ADHDer doctor based in Perth. She is a research team member at Autistic Doctors International and is passionate about disability advocacy and neurodiversity in healthcare. We cover a lot in this episode, including Sarah’s experiences as a neurodivergent woman in university, medical training, and professio...

In this episode we explore two of the most common mental health conditions: depression and anxiety. We unpack what separates normal sadness and worry from clinical levels of depression and anxiety and what the ‘purpose’ of these emotional states are. We discuss the overlap of depression and anxiety in neurodivergence, including how common it is, and what factors contribute to depressio...

This week we discuss unusual and exceptional abilities in neurodivergence. We explore savant abilities, ‘splinter skills’, hyperlexia, and giftedness, as well as ‘twice exceptionality’.   Want polished copies of our episodes in pdf article format? Grab them here .   Enjoyed this episode and want more content? Join our Patreon community! Patreon subscribers receive...

This week Michelle and Monique talk with Anastasia McLean about Bipolar Disorder. Anastasia is the host of The Bipolar Diaries podcast. In this episode we cover what actually is Bipolar and Anastasia shares her experiences through adolescence, getting a diagnosis, and into adulthood. We talk about the difficulty teasing apart personality and neurodivergence, the overlap of some of the cognitive tr...

Welcome to Season 3 of the pod! In this episode Michelle and Monique discuss the overlap and the differences between Autism and ADHD. We cover the differences in presentation of the two, and what it looks like to have both an Autistic and ADHD brain, across executive functioning, special interest, social processing, and sensory processing domains. We also explore the diagnostic criteria for both A...

Content warning: This episode discusses disordered eating, weight loss, and diet culture, and Annie describes her experiences during periods of an active eating disorder. Some listeners may find this content triggering, particularly those currently experiencing an active eating disorder, and those in recovery from an eating disorder. Please consume with caution, and reach out to your local crisis...

This week we chat about interoception and alexithymia. We unpack what these concepts mean, and the difference between the two, including understanding our embodied experiences and emotional awareness. We describe some activities to build interoceptive awareness.    A handout detailing the interoceptive activity described on the podcast will be available on our Patreon this month!  ...

Our guest this week is Paige Krystal Wilcox. Paige is an award-winning activist and author, and she uses the Intentional Storytelling method to create compelling stories that counter unhealthy or unhelpful bias, tropes, and stereotypes in mainstream media. Paige is a neurodivergent woman who was assigned male at birth, and she does not use the labels trans or transgender.   In this episode we...

This week we discuss some of the strengths and challenges in parenting neurodivergent kids, whilst being neurodivergent yourself. We talk through the heritability of neurodivergence, intergenerational impacts of this, and the importance of knowing yourself to best know and support your child. We address boundary setting, managing conflicting sensory needs, teaching interoception, and managing expe...

In this week’s episode we interview clinical psychologist, Amanda Donnet. Amanda works at the intersection of infant feeding, mental health, and early parenting, and she works from a Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) framework. She champions finding solutions that honour the needs of both parents and baby, bringing fierce compassion to perinatal mental health.   For those who are new to...

This week is part 2 of our two-part series on sleep. In this episode we discuss issues around chronic disordered sleep. We chat about the impact of sleep on emotional regulation and the feedback loops between other disorders or health conditions and sleep, including trauma, anxiety, depression, and pain conditions.   Monique takes us through how sleep disorders are actually assessed and treat...

This week Monique and Michelle interview neurodivergent woman, epidemiologist, and mental health researcher, Dr Holly Erskine. Holly’s PhD research focussed on the global epidemiology of ADHD and conduct disorder as well as the long-term outcomes associated with these. She now leads an international project looking at mental health in adolescents in Kenya, Indonesia, and Vietnam.   In t...

In this episode we discuss the overlap between neurodivergence, chronic pain, and autoimmune conditions. We review information on the prevalence of chronic pain and autoimmune conditions in neurodivergent women and discuss what can contribute to these conditions in neurodivergent women. Finally, we go through some strategies on how to manage the ‘boom and bust’ of chronic health condit...

This week is part 1 of a two-part sleep series. We discuss sleep cycles, common sleep issues and sleep disorders in neurodivergent people, and what can contribute to or cause sleeping issues. We go through some strategies to support healthy sleep, and what to do if you’re worried about your sleep.   In part 2 of the sleep series, to be released on 21st March, we will dive into clinical...

In this episode Monique and Michelle interview schizophrenia and psychosis researcher, Dr Ilvana Dzafic. We unpack how psychosis and schizophrenia fit into the neurodiversity framework, what is the psychosis continuum, and how psychosis and schizophrenia are experienced and perceived cross culturally. We also explore some underlying biological mechanisms of psychosis, including the predictive codi...

This week we unpack executive functioning – our brain’s ‘admin team’. We talk about how neurodivergent brains manage and act on information, covering working memory, planning and organising, and getting started on tasks. We also discuss differences between executive functioning in ADHD and Autism, and strategies to support executive functioning.     Want polished...

Kicking off our second season, we explore the history of neurodivergence. In this episode we discuss the idea of a ‘normal’ brain, the adaptive functions of various neurodivergencies, how cultural narratives can impact how we see our effectiveness in society, and the historical evolution of Autism and ADHD.    Want polished copies of our episodes in pdf article format? Grab t...

Welcome to Season 2 of The Neurodivergent Woman Podcast! Episode 1 coming February 7th! Join us, clinical psychologist Monique Mitchelson and clinical neuropsychologist Michelle Livock, for the second season of The Neurodivergent Woman Podcast – a podcast showcasing neurodivergent women from all walks of life. Covering Autism to ADHD and everything in between, we aim to educate and inspire women w...

In our final episode for season 1, we talk about relationships and communication. We discuss making friends as an adult, communication barriers in neurotypical-neurodivergent relationships and in neurodivergent-neurodivergent relationships, attachment theory, and navigating intimate relationships.    In this episode we briefly discuss attachment theory. It is important to flag that regar...