Tom - What Changes When You Stop Measuring Your Brain By Neurotypical Rules

I had the amazing opportunity to talk to Dr Tom Nicholson on the podcast #NeurodiverseDialogues. On this we hear a story in mark contrast to when I spoke to Sally Ingram MBE regarding the impact that having support or not has on young people (and then through life).

Sally talked of a teacher who came alongside her and supported her and endeavoured to understand. Tom had the opposite brutal experience, but he battled his way through and now uses this experience to talk nationally and beyond, and to encourage and support others who are neurodivergent and those who aren't but seek to support those who are.  I strongly urge you to engage with his work, and heady combination of evidence and experience based work.

Between the two this is a real insight into the difference that we can make in our students, our colleagues, our friends, our families and neighbours lives. 

I strongly recommend you listen to both and find your own messages, and hacks and advice within, he can be found via his website:

 https://www.drtomnicholson.com/

Over all these 2 are stories of how people have taken their real life experiences, good and hard, and turning them into opportunities to support and encourage others.

Apologies but I set the wrong release date so this came out a week early!

Transcript

Why These Conversations Matter

SPEAKER_01 0:00

There you go. Hello and welcome back. Um, if you listened before, and welcome for the first time, if not. My aim in these is to have as many conversations as possible with people in academia who identify as being neurodiverse in some way. I want to talk to as many people as possible because that way we have the opportunity to emphasize the diversity of neurodiversity, both within and between given labels. But also we get to see the common struggles and highlight the incredible successes of individuals. The aim is to hear the individual personal experiences and to get an understanding of what their journey's been and a chance for people to tell their own story in their own words beyond what they feel they're supposed to say in terms of labels and what's applied to them. As a result, in every episode, we get the opportunity to see diversity. Since we're hearing personal journeys, the terminology or wording will be theirs based on their experiences and will be describing their own personal journeys. And it's important not to lose the impact of this generosity in sharing by getting lost in semantics and worrying about the words that we don't personally like or would not choose to use. What's important is we get to hear authentic voices in ways that people feel comfortable in expressing themselves. So

Tom’s Work And Lived Experience

SPEAKER_01 1:18

hello Tom.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Hello. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you for having us. I'm really excited to have an interesting conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Yeah, me too. Um so, first of all, tell us a little bit about yourself beyond your neurodiversity.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

So that's a tricky one to answer in the sense of beyond my neurodiversity, because my neurodiversity is very much enmeshed in a lot of the work that I do. So as an introduction. Who are you? Who am I? Who are you? Um my name's Dr. Tom Nicholson. I have a number of hats which I wear. One is as a neurodiversity consultant, trainer, keynote speaker. I've spoken live on neurodiversity to over a hundred thousand people total in the last 12 years. All across education, health and social care, corporate. I've spoken just this week in uh just last week, sorry, in the Anglophone West Africa on neurodiversity from an Afrocentric perspective. And I'll be hopefully speaking in Poland later this year. So very much enmeshed and immersed in the neurodiversity discussion internationally. That's my business. I'm also an assistant professor of mental health nursing at Northumbria University, where I teach nurses how to be nurses, and all of my research is around the lived experience of neurodivergence, so the experiences of parents of ADHD children and going through that diagnostic process and what that means and how you make a sense of identity as a parent when your children are getting diagnosed, perhaps when you also get diagnosed. And just recently uh did a paper looking at grief responses to diagnosis and late life diagnosis and whether or not grief theory is relevant. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. So that's me now. Prior to that, I was a mental health nurse and an ADHD in autism assessment service. And I'm a father of a three and a half-year-old boy. I'm a husband. I at one point competed in Olympic weightlifting and powerlifting, and not at a Olympic level, but as a I competed in uh powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting and across the UK. I wasn't that good, but I did compete. Um absolutely it's just showing up that matters. And again, but uh I think to understand my perspective on all of this, which I'm gonna talk about a little bit more later, is I grew up working class, and my mum was a nurse, my dad was a policeman and in rural Northumberland, and yeah, I've been the first person in my family to access academia at all, in the sense of the first person in my extended family to even have a degree, undergraduate degree. And I've I have a PhD, so I've had a very interesting journey into academia, quite an atypical one, I think, when we get talking about that potentially later.

Nuance In A Polarised Debate

SPEAKER_01 4:20

So um, so that's what's really exciting is you kind of you've seen you kind of see new diversity from the outside as well as from the inside. Yeah, you've got your own journey, but you see other people's journeys too. And uh I think it's really powerful to have that voice have the triumvirate slider.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Sorry, the true the I call it the triumvirate of personal experience. The triumvirate. So the triumvirate was a um uh in ancient Rome, the Crassus Pompeii and Pompey and Caesar, where it's like a joint group of skilled, skilled um um leaders, if you will. So I my triumvirate is lived experience, it is clinical expertise and what I like to describe as academic excellence. So the intersection of all three of those things to get hopefully a more nuanced perspective on neurodivergence and neurodiversity. And a lot of my work now is about trying to manage nuance in this increasingly polarized world of social media and projection of the other side, whether whatever side you're on of the discussion.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

So the more you spend time doing all this, do things become clearer or more complicated in your head?

SPEAKER_00 5:38

I think both aren't, in the sense that it becomes clearer that there's more complexity. So I think the a lot of the social media discussion is all about trying to bring clarity in often simplistic sort of Instagram, TikTok reels, um clickbait discussions, people are really wanting clarity on a particular definition of a particular thing at a particular time, but the reality is that clarity does not exist for almost all areas of neurodivergence, and so I try to bring not the answer, but a way to think about the potential answers. So, what I mean by that is like how can we navigate this conceptual tension? How can we navigate definitions? How can we take what is helpful from one way of thinking or one conceptualization? How can we take something from another to create our own understandings or to challenge some of the public, political, or even academic discourse on neurodiversity? Because there are very, very strongly opposing different ways to think about neurodivergence, to think about every individual trait, to think about every individual uh diagnostic category or diagnosis. And I think what's important are critical nuanced discussions where we don't end up harming the neurodivergent people in the middle who are stuck in the middle of all of this, you know.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

So there's a there's a everyone wants anything to be black and white, but actually it's just not not as clear as that.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Not

Beyond The Superpower Narrative

SPEAKER_00 7:15

at all. We've seen it in the superpower narrative stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I I will I never describe my own neurodivergent. I'm also neurodivergent myself, I'm ADHD, I know we might talk about that more later. But I would never describe ADHD autism, any neurodivergent condition as a superpower. But what I also wouldn't do is describe them as the most disabling disorders of childhood and adulthood, as some uh academics have used the terms. What I would say use a term is contextual strengths. A trait like impulsivity, a trait like inattention, hyperactivity can be wonderfully beneficial, one give you an incredible strength in one context, in one environment. But that exact same trait to the exact same level can be deeply impairing and deeply disabling in a different context. And from a that doesn't feel like superpowers for those with the most severe impairment, those with the highest support needs. And these superpower narratives often ignore some of the other aspects of someone's maybe who how fortunate they've been or how privileged they've been or how lucky they've been. And so I think to describe it as a superpower can invalidate and sometimes infantilize people, but it doesn't mean it's not a strength in some areas. Hyperactivity can be a wonderful strength in athletics and sports. Uh if you're working sales, if you're a lecturer at the front of the room, brilliant. That same hyperactivity can be really frustrating and difficult for you personally when you struggle to relax at the end of the day, when people are self-medicating to try and manage that hyperactivity, or when you want to just go to the cinema and watch a film when you struggle to sit still and you're constantly shifting and moving around and disturbing the people around you, and and you feel that that social shame and you feel embarrassed, and that in that context, it's it doesn't feel so yeah, much of it.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

It's a really tough balance, isn't it, between um encouraging and supporting and then minimizing.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

I think um, yeah, because uh I I can really see the power in I mean made in dyslexia used a lot, the superpower uh superhero thing for dyslexic kids, and I can see why you can say you actually you've got these strengths, but I think it's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Yeah, you you there is a nuanced middle ground in the middle where you can take the strengths and and celebrate the strengths and extol the strengths and prioritize the strengths without ignoring the impairment, the difficulty, without recognizing that yes, environment has a significant role to play in how hard it can be to be neurodivergent, but sometimes it's difficult independent of environment. Sometimes it's really hard when you're inattentive or you're hyperactive or you're impulsive, when you're by yourself, yeah. Trying to do some work that you want to do. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and and that that can feel like almost you're failing at being neurodivergent when everyone's talking about superpowers, and if you struggle, you feel like you're failing somehow, or some people can feel like they're failing because oh well, I don't feel like I have a superpower. Does that mean I'm I'm doing autism? I'm not a good neurodivergent person, yeah. Like and and as I say, the the people who are excluded from these narratives, the people who are excluded even from the discussion around superpower on on social media, are those in the prison system, are those uh homeless, those in 24-hour care, those in um institutions, you know, the types of people that I used to work with when I was a nurse.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

And so having that insight in the most impaired people in our population, I think is really helpful to be able to have a realistic conversation here.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Cool.

ADHD Childhood And School Trauma

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Anyway, so back to you. Okay, so how would you describe yourself in terms of your neurodiversity?

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Yeah, so I uh the so the different definitions of neurodivergent that you could use. Um a definition that I kind of use is a the individuals who have um neurocognitive differences of which you are born with, which are unchanging. So I do not include mental health difficulties and mental illness in my conception of neurodivergence. I know some people do, but that's just for clarity.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Yeah, it's it's competition.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

It is, yeah, because it's a socio-political term, it's not a diagnostic term. And how I so for me, I was diagnosed ADHD at five years old, I was diagnosed very early, 1996. I was medicated incredibly early, I was medicated at six years old. I was in research trials for medication because I uh at the time when I was, and I was very severely impaired as a child. I described my early life as loving in a from a family perspective and institutionally abusive and traumatic through education. I had an incredibly challenging educational journey. Was told I would be in prison by the time I was 16. I was told that it's six years old. I for four years my seat was at the back of the classroom facing a wall with a blackboard in between me and the normal children. That's the words that were used. And teachers would say, imagine that there is an invisible wall between you and Tom, and words cannot get across. So my educational journey from through primary and middle school was horrific. And I also recognized that I was autistic at about 29, so semi-recently. And I also encounter giftedness as neurodivergence, and I would recognize giftedness, so uh giftedness, so being a gifted child, okay, okay, I was recognized as gifted at 15 years old, so sort of high IQ, above average IQ, um, cognitively gifted, high potential, those are the types of words we actually don't have a really strong gifted wing of our sort of discussion in education in the UK now, but in America, it's a much it's a much bigger thing. And but in the 90s, yeah, I was on the gifted and talented program, center oxbury. That was a bit of a flip. It was a flip, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

Yeah, from being the back of the class facing the the the wall to being gifted.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Well, and again, I so I I believe gifted giftednesses were born with these like sort of high potential, uh high capacity. And so although I was really struggled behaviourally, I really struggled in terms of friendships, and I was deeply I was traumatized by um the bullying from teachers and adults as well as by other peers, but I could show up at an exam having done no revision and get 100%. Okay, and so I performed incredibly well, and I think there was a protective factor to that of you know, schools didn't want to expel me because I was pretty good for the stats. I got 100% of my year six stats, I got a hundred percent in my history A level, like I did very well academically, which is part of the reason why I'm in academia now. But there was this like real dichotomy, this real oxymoron of like I'm exceptional in one area, but really impaired in another. Yeah, and most of the focus was on the impairment, and there was very little support on the opportunity and my potential until I got to high school, and then things things shifted. Okay, it's one of the reasons why I do the work I do now, is I want no child to have the experiences that I had, and I want the adults who had those experiences to know that that wasn't okay and that they can change their narrative and change their story as adults and have a more helpful one.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Well, what I'm hearing a lot with um people I talk to who kind of are the in the potentially the less young age group is a diversity of experiences at school. Because I was talking to someone last week and she had an absolutely amazing experience at school because one teacher got alongside her and supported her and understood her. Whereas yours is kind of the opposite to this, really.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Yeah, well, it was very much systems problems, including individual teacher problems. But then when I went to high school, there were three individual teachers who completely changed my narrative, who were very positive role models. I always named them Mr. McGowan, my physics teacher, Mrs. Wright, my history teacher, and Mr. Spues, who's my IT teacher.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

And they really believed in me, they acknowledged I had difficulties, but they showed that there were some areas that I was really strong in. They was they taught me in different ways, they taught me like life lessons as well as as well as educational ones. And I have them to thank for being in the position I am today because I I think it takes individuals as well as systems and structures and policies to make a difference. And I genuinely believe individuals can make a difference, and I've seen it happen with the thousands of people I've worked with over the years. That's awesome.

Late Autism Insight And Diagnosis Limits

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Okay, so you got ADHD diagnosis about five years. That's that's quite young, isn't it? Really? Very young.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

It typically doesn't happen. Yeah. And it's certainly nowadays you would expect it to wait until seven years old. Yeah. Uh, but I was incredibly impaired. I I was like very obviously incredibly hyperactive, impulsive, and inattentive from a very early age.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

You're kind of a traditional ADHD boy at school, really.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Oh, yes. I was the naughty boy, the rolling around on the floor, made of chaos, having a wonderful time.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

But and then and then the autism when you're 29, was that a diagnosis, or are you so not not officially?

SPEAKER_00 16:53

What it was is uh I'm obviously in my position, I'm friends and colleagues, colleagues with some very experienced clinicians.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Yeah, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

And one of my closest friends, or two actually, two of my closest friends, both of which are specialist diagnosticians, one's a consultant psychologist, and the other is also an academic and trauma and ADHD specialist and autism specialist. And both of them at separate times went when at one point in my when I was about 29, you do know you're autistic, don't you, Tom? And I was like, What are you talking about? I was like, No, no, I don't fit I don't fulfill the B criteria for for autism. Right. And they're like, Tom, you do this, this, this, this, and this. And I was like, Oh, yeah, oh crap, okay, yeah, no, no, actually. And then I think what had happened for so many years is I diagnostically overshadowed myself with ADHD. So what that means is when one diagnosis becomes an answer to everything, so when I struggled with sensory experiences and sensory sensitivities, I would say, Oh, that's part of my ADHD. Of course, it's not part of the ADHD diagnosis diagnosis, it's actually part of the autism diagnosis. When I've struggled socially and emotionally with social understanding, but I'm also an award-winning nurse, mental health nurse, and then I've realized that no, I'd spent a lot of time reading books, reading books on social experiences, reading books on how to be more effective socially as a teen and as a child. I read a lot about trying to understand how to do this social stuff, and then realized that actually most people don't do that. Not a typical thing.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Um that's a common that's a common theme I'm picking up is oh, people don't do that.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Yeah, and then again, my wife's a trauma therapist as well. And it was during my PhD that I started really exploring these things in a bit more. You know, what is the intersection of trauma, what's the what's the ADHD, what's OCD, because I've also got OCD, uh, what's more autistic traits. And then realizing that I fulfilled the criteria, I very clearly fulfilled the criteria for what would historically have been more of like an aspergazzy kind of high functioning, yeah gifted, twice exceptional presentation for neurodivergence. Um but a diagnosis would not necessarily, a formal diagnosis would not necessarily give me anything helpful. Okay. Uh it doesn't give you any additional. No, I'm not I have no plan to. Uh I'm already classified as neurodivergent. I've already got the ADHD diagnosis. It's diagnosis is only as helpful as it's helpful to you. So if it helps with self-understanding, great. I'm I'm incredibly confident in my neurodivergent identity. I'm very confident in where I meet the criteria and where I don't, and where I could I'm effective at masking. I know how I could answer the questions to ensure I got a diagnosis, so I have no interest in that. Yeah. It's it it it I don't need it in my life right now. Fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Um but what I do know that once you kind of got that um that diagnosis for one your diversity, there's not necessarily a benefit in the second one because you've already got the yeah, for me personally, it it I know it's different for others, but I think there is this there's this dilemma we can end up in where we collect diagnoses and we collect labour. I was on the edge of saying that, but then I thought, oh, I probably shouldn't say that. Well, uh it's but it's true, and I think for some people it's really helpful, and I think for others it's less helpful.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Yeah, because if I were to be diagnosed formally as autistic, what would change in my life? Nothing would change, legally, nothing would change because I already have legal protections. Uh employment-wise, nothing would change. I describe myself as I I all DHD, ADHD, autistic, and I'm not gonna do any new interventions, I don't get access to any new interventions, yeah. Because I already do all the things that would be beneficial.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Uh I guess you also have the benefit of being in the environment where you're in, the mental health teaching environment where people understand you.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Yeah, although the understanding of mental health nursing is is less than you might think around neurodiversity.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

But I'm a very strong advocate for both myself and for others like me. So I'm very comfortable to have those conversations at any level. Um, but I also have the the knowledge and the language and the evidence to support a lot of what I'm saying, which I think is sometimes where it's harder for others. And with confidence of age, and the confidence. I mean, I've I've always been this confident, I've already been hyper confident as a child. All of my report cards is loves to be the center of attention, loves to play to an audience, and now I'm a professional public speaker. So we're yeah, I think the confidence has already always been there, but now there's a maturity of being able to back up some of that confidence, and also recognize where perhaps maybe I don't.

Impulsivity As Adventure Fuel

SPEAKER_00 22:00

things or I I have a lot of areas for areas to learn and that's well there's less false confidence I think or a comfort a comfort bravado yeah definitely okay back back back to the questions because time's moving on um can you as an a specific anecdote either positive or negative you could share about your experiences so I'll go positive because I've talked a bit more about the negatives already yeah there's a couple of different things I like to think about here one there's a story I tell very regularly and I'm talking about the positives of AD because I did a big positive ADHD project it was called the positive ADHD project we looked at the research around the title it's great yeah it was brilliant the the irony being myself and another um academic we spent over a year doing this scoping systematic literature review uh we looked at oh what was it like tens of thousands of papers and did all the data analysis and then covet hit my co-researcher Dr. Laura Coultod um some she she changed role I had a son and that paper never got written so we've got we spent a year with all of this wonderful data I presented it at the ADHD foundation conference and we just never actually wrote the paper and so now it's out of date and we've been trying to um update it by getting someone else on board to try and update that. So there was like this this wonderful absolute power energy to do something amazing as a two-person team eurodivergent team and then at the last hurdle that finishing task just kind of fell apart uh that wasn't even supposed to be the anecdote that was just it came to my mind as I was talking uh the actual anecdote was my wife and I were in Vietnam for 10 days when we were students on a like shoestring budget yeah and we'd been in Vietnam for 10 days and I turned to my wife and we'd been canyoning that day and I went darling should we go somewhere else what are you talking about and I was like well we're we were thinking about going to Cambodia but should we just go somewhere else so I literally got my phone out looked at Google Maps to see which countries were nearby yeah and then the next day we flew to Borneo and then the day after that we were on a seven hour jungle trek in the jungles of Borneo like that's not normal that's not typical but it what it is is evidence of spontaneity of chaos of impulsivity that wonderful ADHD experience when you have the scaffolding to be able to do those things yes and so there's wonder I've had some wonderful experiences because I'll just say okay do you want to go skydiving? Yeah sure do you want to go and climb a mountain in Borneo okay let's do that and I've had some brilliant having a partner alongside who's willing to go with that yeah not not always quite exhausting for a neurotypical partner yeah no it's not always just just no willing a lot of the time but not always willing sometimes there's a level of let's just see how it goes and that excitement maybe she'll watch on the sidelines sometimes when I'm doing throw myself out of a plane or something I mean on our honeymoon uh because I can't just sit by a pool I can't do a relaxing holiday so we both became qualified scuba divers on our honeymoon in the Philippines like that's the type of again positive wonderful positives that you can have in your life but of course if my partner was not into all of those things or if if I was younger and my parents were much more sedate you know that's when this conflict can arise when there is a mismatch between what is helpful for you and what you want to do and what those around you

Responsibility Without Shame

SPEAKER_00 25:56

want to do. Yeah we surround yourself with people.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

We have to think about kind of um the difficulties and the stress and the tiredness that's caused for people neurodivergent but I often sometimes think actually the people that we're with is quite difficult for them too.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

Not totally it's it can be exhausting to them and I think the good quality neuroaffirmative therapy might explore that of how that that that exploration of your own impact and not necessarily talking about it being your fault because I think that's where it's unhelpful when when this when neurodivergent people believe it's all their fault and they're making they're a burden on other people and I don't think that's helpful. But we can also take a level of personal responsibility and go look I know as Tom that I am quite difficult to live with at times I if you're doing a quiet task by yourself I'm probably going to interrupt you and tell you about something totally tangential and I know that's impactful. Yeah so I can apologize for that but I know it's never going to change it's never going to go away and so there's this balance of acknowledging it can be really hard. So what are you going to do about it without blaming yourself and being filled with shame and feeling lesser as a human being and I think so many people are in that self-blame self-hatred self-dislike space and if we can bring them over to the without just saying it's all wonderful and it's all brilliant sometimes it's incredible when you've got a distractive partner. Sometimes it's not yeah it's a part of diagnosis as well isn't it being able to say I'm this is how the person is because of this and having that kind of mutual understanding that is a yeah surrounding yourself with people who understand that who acknowledge that neuroaffirmative neuroinclusive perspective of you know this idea we've got an issue we lost that for today you're back we've got an issue there was um you you started for me a lot in that last bit okay what I was talking about is just the trying to find the boundaries of yeah the technology broke yeah I'm back where we're we're cruising we're grooving yeah these these boundaries of when is hyperactivity how much of it should be just fully accepted and acknowledged as as part of the course of being friends or a partner with someone who's ADHD for instance and how much of it is actually you should also be doing something to try and ameliorate or reduce the impact of this the example I always give is I do not remember birthdays I do not remember names and I never remember birthdays and I and I never will but it's in knowing that I have a level of responsibility to do something about that because I can't just forget everyone's birthday all the time. Yeah so on my calendar on my app on my phone I have a a week before everyone's birthday I have a reminder saying it's your dad's birthday your mom's birthday buy a present and then the day of the birthday it's your uncle's birthday give them a ring and say happy birthday and give them the present yeah so I know I will not remember so I outsource my executive functioning to my phone my phone tells my watch my watch tells me in the morning and that's the balance of it's a diagnosis is totally gives me an understandable reason excuse for forgetting but it does not give me the allowance to not do anything about it.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

Yeah excellent yeah yeah yeah it's kind of that's where kind of learning comes in doesn't it kind of yeah I I can't do this therefore I'm gonna do this to mitigate that and take responsibility for for that and the in the in the limit of that might be at a certain level where actually no matter what intervention you do there's still going to be some impact.

Sensory Seeking And Hyposensitivity

SPEAKER_00 30:34

Yeah so at that point it becomes the other personal's responsibility for how allowing are they going to be how neuroaffirming are they going to be how much are they going to accept and finding a a compromise in the middle between your effort and their allowance or their effort as well and and I think that's a really interesting discussion and the discussions we need to be having uh both in our families and our friends but also at a wider level yeah because I think those sorts of discussions can lead to more effective solutions and longer term solutions where nobody feels like they're putting unfair levels of effort in on either side yes gonna be a balance gotta find the balance the nuance the nuance I like that okay so um time time's pressing on so um I'm just looking at what okay so is there anything uh specific that you kind of experienced which you think will becomes a surprise to other people which is based on your neurodiversity oh great question anything specific yes actually so I uh one thing I will talk about um when we talk about sensory sensitivities uh you know predominantly an autistic experience but we say it a little bit in ADHD as well so when we talk about sensory sensitivities and sensory experiences so much of the prioritization of the discussion is on those who are hypersensitive so hypersensitive oversensitive noises turned up to 11 we talk about ear defenders wearing sunglasses indoors turning off the big light putting up your hood all that sort of stuff yeah I'm the opposite of that what we also have in hypersensitivities is hype and in sensory sensitivities sorry is hyposensitivity hyposensitivity is this under-sensitive reaction yeah so neurodivergent people like myself can also be very very sensory seeking as opposed to sensory avoiding so I'm very sensory seeking in the sense that I would have the tele on with the big light on in the living room with other lights on with the windows open and loads and loads of sound and I find that very soothing I will do a big talk on a stage to a few hundred people very very stimulating very very overwhelming and then I'll get in the car wind the windows down play music really loudly and have a lot of like sort of ambient sensory noise and again I find that very soothing and so sensory sensitivities is not just avoidance and hypersensitivity it's also can be seeking in hyposensitivity and that's seeking stuff I do a lot of it's complicated isn't it yeah it's amazing that's I just love it.

Building A Better Self Narrative

SPEAKER_00 33:28

It's kind of the whole diversity of it I think is mind blowing okay um last couple of minutes um advice or insights that you'd like to share advice or insights so my number one piece of advice is about finding a story a narrative that of of self of identity of who you are that is helpful and that is likely to allow you to flourish so what I mean by that is so often our our narratives are filled with failure weird odd ditzy blonde airhead could have tried harder broken those sorts of narratives which we often are are given to us a lot of the time as children by adults and by our environment and they they stay with us for years. Now we can change those there is work we can do to change that predominantly it happens in a therapy space but not always and so trying to adjust that narrative as best you can to one which does not minimize and ignore your difficulties but also allows you to celebrate your strengths and to find your strengths and to find what you're great at and to adjust the yardstick of expectation so if we're holding ourselves to these neurotypical expectations of I should be able to do this I should be able to do my university course by being attentive in three hour lectures I should be able to perform as as my peers do in this certain task we are going to fail. We are going to fail by those standards because those standards are not meant for our brains so it's finding new and more helpful standards for what it is to you. When I worked with families so many neurodivergent families would talk about how they they don't look like typical families their holidays look different their idea of what a weekend break is is different. Their morning routines are different from typical routines because they've had to find ones that work for them. And when they stop blaming themselves and shaming themselves about that they have these much more healthy experiences and as one participant said in a research study of mine this will be the last thing I say they said after a diagnosis I'm not an abnormal normal person. I'm a normal neurodivergent one I'm not an abnormal normal person I'm a normal neurodivergent person. Okay they saw themselves as an abnormal person for so long and they were diagnosed autistic and they went I'm just a normal autistic person. They were also diagnosed ADHD I'm just a normal ADHD I've been using the wrong metric.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Excellent and we've got 30 seconds left so I'm gonna say thank you very much Tom that was amazing I've learned a lot I'm gonna have to go back and listen a lot. I don't normally listen to these but I'm gonna have to try and digest things and um but that was really amazing.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Cheers. Thank you very much thanks for having us and again it's hard to get all of this discussion in just a short it is I talk about this for hours and hours and hours I write I post three times a week on LinkedIn I write blogs on neurodiversity and I also publish.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

Is that you'll have to come back and do another one absolutely excellent cheers Tom take care.

SPEAKER_00 36:50

Bye bye