The Squarepeg Podcast

Dr Kate Tomas is a Spiritual Mentor who lives in mid Wales in the UK. Kate developed powerful psychic abilities from an early age, and by 22 had built a thriving international practice as a witch, healer and psychic for individuals, multinational brands, governments and CEOs. She holds a Doctorate of Philosophy in Theology from the University of Oxford, and is a world expert in Mysticism and Catho...

Aisha Edwards is a somatic trauma therapist, podcaster and writer from Vancouver, Washington, USA, and was diagnosed autistic last year, aged 39. ** Listen ad-free by joining my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/squarepegpodcast ** Somatic trauma therapy is a body-centred approach to treating post-traumatic stress disorder that rather than focusing only on thoughts or emotions associated with a tra...

Diane J Wright is an autistic advocate and the founder of Autastic, an online community that aims to help late diagnosed autistic adults, particularly those from minority communities, and is the only resource of its size founded by a woman of colour.  Diane was diagnosed autistic in her early 40s. Her career has been in the entertainment industry, and she now provides diversity, equity, inclusion,...

Claire Gardener is a homeopath and primary school teacher in London in the UK. She is 45 and self diagnosed as autistic five years ago, after experiencing burnout in her teaching role.  A special interest in children's literature lead to her first career in book editing, which came to an end as a result of workplace bullying. Since her burnout, she has trained in homeopathy, and continues to work...

Alma is an unemployed forager, food designer, artist, craftswoman and permaculture gardener from the Netherlands. She was diagnosed autistic in 2019 after self identifying the year before; she has also since been diagnosed with ADHD. When her then undiagnosed autistic and ADHD traits meant that she wasn't able to finish her degree, she was offered a management position at the student café she had...

Cloie Parfitt is a psychotherapist, originally from Tennessee in the United States, now living in Norwich in the UK. A former nurse, she switched to psychotherapy when she realised that she found the hospital environment and long shifts too much of a sensory challenge.  She now works with many neurodivergent clients, and is currently undertaking a professional doctorate in counselling and psychoth...

Nadia Dillon is a software engineer and entrepreneur from London in the UK. Diagnosed autistic at 27, after experiencing a burnout, she is now 30, and her brilliantly insightful - and beautiful - Instagram account about her post-diagnosis journey has grown to over 25K followers (you may know her by her Instagram handle, @autisticblackgirl ). She started her Instagram as an outlet to express her fr...

Elizabeth Williams is an acupuncturist from South Carolina, USA. She is 43 and was diagnosed autistic just a few months ago, in February this year. Like me, she started out her career as a teacher, before switching to acupuncture, which she says is a much better fit for her. Since her career change she has been on a journey of self discovery, exploring everything she could find about personality t...

Solgunn is a life coach from Oslo in Norway. She is 45 and was diagnosed autistic very recently, in April, following her husband's diagnosis last year. She has spent most of her working life in IT, web design, project management and consultancy, but after an unusual adverse reaction to medical treatment, which she believes is linked to her autistic physiology, she found herself suffering from ME a...

Dr Vanissar Tarakali is a Somatic and Intuitive Trauma Coach from British Columbia in Canada. She was diagnosed in 2017, when she was in her mid 50s. She describes herself as 'a queer autistic mystic misfit', and says she loves to work with people who embody contradictions of identity and community. She has a Ph. D. in Psychology, and she offers coaching to transform trauma and sustain social chan...

Heather Peak is an artist who lives near Hay on Wye in the UK. She came from a working class background, and was discouraged from making a career as an artist, but decided to go to art school in Brighton where she found a place she finally felt she fit. Now 48, she has established an art practice over the past two decades that combines art, architecture, theatre and social practice. She is co-dire...

Aishah-Nyeta is an advocate for climate, race, and disability justice from Virginia in the USA . She says she grew up feeling 'stupid' and different from her peers due to her dyscalculia and the social challenges of her undiagnosed autism.  Now 25, she was diagnosed autistic in 2020, when she began using her Instagram account to educate her friends and community – and the wider world – about autis...

Allie Mason is a talent coordinator and author from Cheltenham in the UK. She has a keen interest in sports – especially solo sports – and her children's non-fiction debut, The Autistic Guide to Adventure , is due to be published in 2023. Allie is 25 and was diagnosed autistic in 2020, whilst studying for her MA.  She is currently training to rollerskate the Berlin Marathon to raise money for the...

Amy Lee Lillard is co-host of a feminist book podcast, and also an author; her first book, Dig Me Out, a collection of short stories, was published in 2021.  Now 44, she lives in Des Moines, Iowa in the USA and was diagnosed autistic just last year. She wrote her book before she was aware of her autism, and found afterwards that she had essentially written a collection of autistic characters, with...

Rhonda Moore is a medical anthropologist in her early 50s. After self diagnosing as autistic in 2019, she was formally diagnosed the following year. She spent her childhood in Chicago, USA, and now lives in Bethesda, Maryland, where she is Program Director in Global Mental Health at NIH (the National Institutes of Health, the main US government agency responsible for public health research).  She...

Chloe Slater was diagnosed autistic aged 25, and has been in the mental health system since the age of 16, where she says she has experienced 'awful treatment, amazing care, and everything in between'. Content warning: Chloe and I cover some challenging topics in this episode, including eating disorders, self harm, medical trauma, suicidal ideation and suicide. So if you would rather not hear abou...

Nesceda Blake is a performing arts producer and creative energiser from Melbourne, Australia. In a bit of a departure from my usual guests, she was diagnosed very early, at just three years old. I found her insights as an early diagnosed woman fascinating - and I was struck by how familiar and relatable her experiences still were. We met on LinkedIn, after I came across a post about her experience...

Aisling Walsh is a queer feminist freelance writer and translator and PhD candidate living in Guatemala City. She is 37 and was diagnosed autistic in December 2021 and is self-diagnosed with ADHD. She was also diagnosed with epilepsy at 23, but now suspects that her seizures might actually be dissociative seizures linked to autistic shutdown. Aisling has spent over seven years working in communica...

Kira Young is a Native American poet, philosopher, activist and singer from Virginia, USA. She is 52 and was formally diagnosed very recently, after self diagnosing last year. She has held various different roles, both in corporations and the US Government, but her direct communication style and personal and professional integrity have often led to clashes with authority. She is now in the process...

Victoria is an autistic blogger and PhD student from Manchester in the UK. Diagnosed autistic aged 25, she started an Instagram account and blog called 'Actually Aspling' the same year, in 2017. Victoria also has dyslexia, dyspraxia, epilepsy and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. She has an MSc in Psychology and is currently a PhD student in autism research. In our conversation we talked about: ➡ Masking,...

Marie Ralph is an autistic, disabled single mum to two neurodivergent sons. She is 48 and was diagnosed five years ago. She lives in Newquay, Cornwall in the UK, where as well as being a full time carer, she is Director of Youth Art Connect and Cornwall Tourettes and Tic Disorder Group.  Marie has spent countless hours fighting for equality, promoting anti ableism in education and organisations, a...

Suzanna Chen was born in China and raised in Vancouver, Canada from the age of 9. She was diagnosed autistic in her final year of high school. She is now 18 and an undergraduate student at University College London in the UK.  Standing at the intersection of gender, racial, and ability minorities, she is passionate about advocating for the overlooked intersectionality of social justice issues. She...

Gilly McKeown is an autism researcher in Brisbane, Australia. Originally from Manchester in the UK, she is in her thirties and was diagnosed autistic in 2021, when she was already more than halfway through her PhD in autism. She also has suspected ADHD, and is a single parent to her young autistic and ADHD daughter. Like many autistic people she has pursued various different courses and degrees, i...

Lucy Pearce is an author, artist and publisher from East Cork in Ireland. She is 41, and when she was 37 she, her mother and her daughter were all diagnosed autistic within 6 months of each other.  Lucy is the author of ten non-fiction books for women, focusing on women's healing, and founded her own publishing company in 2014 to offer support to new women authors whose books are often ignored by...

Amanda Harrinauth is a disability empowerment coach and poet from California, USA. She was born premature, weighing just 1 pound 7ounces. She had h ydrocephalus and other health problems, and her parents were told she was unlikely to survive beyond a few days, and that if she did, she would need to be institutionalised. But against all the odds she survived - and her parents made the decision to r...