May 1, 2025 • 55 mins
What happens when you discover your neurodivergence decades into adulthood? In this unfiltered, candid conversation, Narelle and Tess open up about receiving their diagnoses in their 40s—Narelle with ADHD and Tess with autism—and how this knowledge transformed their understanding of themselves.
From the roller coaster of emotions that followed diagnosis to the practical realities of navigating daily life with ADHD and autism, they share experiences that many late-diagnosed adults will recognize instantly. "I thought I just wasn't as smart as everybody else," Narelle reveals, discussing how her ADHD masked itself as academic struggles until she discovered that her brain simply processes information differently—sometimes even advantageously, as when her heightened awareness made her an exceptional basketball point guard.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Ember Connect acknowledges all Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islandertraditional custodians of
country and recognises theircontinuing connection to land,
waterways, culture and community.
We pay our respects to Elders,past and present, their wisdom
and knowledge that guides ourjourneys through life.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hiya, I'm Narelle Henry, a Noongar woman living
out here in Perth in the wildwild west.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Hi, I'm Tess Hayes and I am possibly the whitest
woman in Australia, also livingon Noongar country.
Also living on Noongar country.
Hey guys, after recording parttwo of our work episode, narelle
and I left the mic on while wechatted about ADHD and autism.
We were both late diagnosedNarelle with ADHD and me with
(00:57):
autism just a few years ago andwe're the lucky ones because we
had the opportunity to discoverour neurotypes and find ways to
better support our own needs.
Many women, non-binary peopleand people of colour are
overlooked by the healthcaresystem or simply cannot afford
the cost of a diagnosis.
And then when you do receive adiagnosis, as an adult, there is
very little to no support.
This is a bonus uncut episodeand so includes mind blanks, ums
(01:22):
, you knows, and some swearing,but we hope it also provides
community and inclusion forother neurodivergent members and
allies who speak, talk andthink like us.
Please note this episodeincludes discussion of
depression and suicidal ideation, so take care while listening.
Look, I've got conflicting viewsaround.
(01:42):
When you hear people say youknow, like my autism or my ADHD
is a superpower, you know whichis super common and you know and
it's obviously meant in a verypositive way getting by, you
(02:03):
know, who are just sort ofstruggling to live day by day,
you know, or who are goingthrough burnout and can barely
do anything, or that sort ofthing.
So it's like it's and it alsomeans that it's only, I feel
like it only then means that youknow your autism or ADHD is
worthwhile if it's productive,which just feeds back into the
(02:24):
capitalist view that we have tobe productive, you know, to be
worth anything productivemonetarily, I suppose, to be
worthwhile.
So, yeah, it's just conflictingviews.
But, as you were just saying,you know, like you do, you have
(02:45):
identified ways in which youryou know your own ADD has
assisted you and has worked inyour benefit.
You know, on the basketballcourt.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah, I mean I've you know I turn, I'm 47.
I think I was diagnosed aboutfour or five years ago.
So there was some grief in that, because there are some other
conditions associated with ADDas well that I struggled with
and I could clearly see a lot ofpatterns emerging, you know, a
(03:14):
little bit later in life butreally couldn't identify them
and actually damaging in termsof my progress.
So you know, two steps stepsforward, three steps back, type
behavior, um, self-sabotage,lack of belief, all of those
things.
And if I'd known then what Iknow now and how many people say
(03:34):
that um, but that's really thewhole point of um.
You know going, challenges,learning and trying to figure
out and navigate and Reallysometimes you just think it's
the only point to just figureout how to love yourself or the
people.
Yeah, so I think at the age of,you know, 43 or so.
This is after I'd had a youngone too gone through serious
(03:56):
postnatal depression and knowingthat I was, you know, depressed
so deeply that it was kind oflike I need to get my daughter
into daycare so that I don't, sothat she doesn't have to
recover later down the trackfrom being able to stay home and
being the mum that she needed.
(04:16):
I just had to get out and getgoing.
But I realised, the more youtalk about those types of things
and the more you talk aboutwith other people, you
understand what they're goingthrough and they might have
sought help.
And then you finally get thecourage to go.
You know what.
I just need to figure it outand I need to go talk to
somebody.
And then you do, and then Iguess that mixture of grief but
(04:37):
like, oh, I'm not, I'm not a badperson.
Yeah, yeah, I'm not rubbish.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I'm not stupid, yep, yep, my brain just works this
way.
Yeah, and I think the you knowthe discourse that we're seeing
at the moment um, you know, Imean coming out of the us with
rfk jr um, announcing that hewill find a cure for the autism
epidemic by September.
As someone myself, I was thesame diagnosed autistic at age
(05:09):
42, 43, after a reallysignificant burnout, you know,
which stopped me from doingeverything you know, from
working, from following mypassions, from being on the
Rottnest Channel swim board, andjust sort of completely broke
me.
And you know, and through thatburnout I realised that I was
(05:35):
autistic, took that to my GP whoimmediately dismissed that and
was like no, no, you couldn't be.
You work in communications andyou know all these sorts of
things.
And I was like no, no, please,like, I insist, please, give me
a referral because I want totalk to a psychologist about
this.
And lo and behold, of course youknow, as soon as I showed the
psychologist some notes that Ihad from when my eldest son was
six months old and I left fivepages of notes from my mum on
(05:58):
how to look after him, whichstarted off with we don't have
much of a routine and thencontinued with what we do every
15, five to 15 minutesthroughout the day.
It's just a guy, it's justguidelines.
And then, yeah, you know,looked back through lots of my
stuff, you know, as lots ofpeople do.
You know, there's, I guessthere's a view that people might
see something on TikTok orInstagram and go, oh, I relate
(06:21):
to that.
Therefore, I'm autistic andsort of seek out a diagnosis
because of I don't know why, youknow, because they want
attention or whatever, whennobody who's actually
questioning that is going to,you know, spend $3,000 and a
whole bunch of their time to geta diagnosis when there's also
(06:44):
no supports at the other side.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Anyway, but, um, I can't remember what I was saying
, I'm just rambling now and thatthere's me like, oh, let's talk
about the, just the day-to-daystuff, because, like I think
when I, when I see you, I'm likethat test gets me here, it's
fine, like I can just lay it allout there.
(07:06):
Same thing with Warren, likeWarren knows me as well.
So I mean for me, like I canpretty much look at things now
and I kind of laugh a lot andnot make fun of myself, but just
like that's how my brain worksand that's how my brain works,
yeah, yeah, you know.
So, like day to day, for peoplethat don't know, and it could
(07:31):
just be that people, some peopleare struggling.
They're like man, I just wantto get through to Friday, but
I'm dealing with this and I'mdealing with this and I just
can't do this.
Like what are some of thethings that you feel, like you
experience during the week thatmight help other people kind of
go?
Oh, so that's what she'stalking about.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I guess for me, coming out theother side of burnout and sort
of, you know it's been three orso years of burnout and during
that time I was diagnosed,diagnosed.
But during that time I've alsogone through a huge amount of
grief, you know, whileprocessing the fact that I'm
(08:12):
autistic and you know what thatmeant growing up when I didn't
realize, and how that's impactedthe ways I feel about myself
and, you know, being able totrust myself, myself and all
that sort of thing.
So for me, day to day, it'sdealing with the mental health
aspects of being late diagnosedand you know, having to deal
(08:33):
with all that stuff.
It's then trying to work out atnow, age 45, like what do I
need?
And understanding what my needsare, because in the past I'd
always just based it on externalvalidation and external sort of
feedback from people if I wason the right path or not,
instead of sort of lookinginternally.
(08:54):
So you know it, for me at themoment it's a lot of reflection,
it's a lot of work with mypsychologist, it's a lot of
learning from my daughter whowas diagnosed when she was
autistic, when she was nine, andthen you know, and retraining
myself to understand that I doneed rest and that's fine.
(09:19):
You know, I don't need to beworking 24-7.
I don't need to be pushingmyself to the very limits of
what I can do, which is whatI've done in the past.
So, yeah, rest it involveswatching a lot of Real
Housewives and just leaning intobut leaning into the things
that make me happy and notfeeling guilty about that, and
(09:39):
understanding why these thingsdo.
You know, it involves, yeah,it's just for me now.
Yeah, it's just for me now.
It's just the way I live mylife with.
Everything sort of comes backto, um, what I need to be able
to function effectively as a,you know, as an employee, as a
mother, as a friend, um, andbeing able to properly
(10:05):
prioritise those things and makedecisions based on those.
So it's hard, I guess it's.
You know, there's theday-to-day stuff of, you know,
accidentally, info-dumping, youknow, on someone about
Vanderpump Rules or RealHousewives of Beverly Hills, and
there's also the holistic sideof it of just understanding who
(10:29):
I am and that there's actuallynothing wrong with me and then,
yeah, and giving myself gracebecause of that.
So, yeah, I'm still very muchin the depths of that
post-diagnosis, sort ofpost-burnout, you know sort of
raising like self-awareness,gaining that self-awareness.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
So how do you feel when then you you know you see
news stories like autism beingan epidemic that word epidemic.
How do you feel about that?
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Probably angry and sad like I.
I worry, then, for, you know,for kids who, kids and adults
who are undiagnosed and whodon't understand why they react
the way they do, don'tunderstand what drives them,
what causes them to, you know,have a meltdown, to be
(11:25):
emotionally dysregulated, andthat might not ever have the
chance to get that knowledge andthat understanding, because
it's seen as something reallynegative.
It's seen as something that weneed to stamp out.
You know, with RFK Juniorsaying it's an epidemic that
he's going to find the cause forby September, rfk Jr saying
it's an epidemic that he's goingto find the cause for by
(11:46):
September, when you know allresearch points very much to
there being a very stronggenetic component.
It just reinforces that this issomething that's wrong with
people and that we shouldn't,that people shouldn't be, you
know, and that's scary becausethat means that I'm wrong.
You know, and just as I'velearnt, you know, and just as
(12:10):
I've come to accept that I'm notand that I'm a valid human
being and that you know I'mworthwhile and all those sorts
of things, you know, you havethese people saying, well, this
is bad.
You know, and I do.
You know, jump on the commentson Instagram sometimes, and you
know, just sort of try and steerpeople in the right direction.
(12:30):
You know, if people are talkingabout their kids and trying to
fix their kids or that sort ofthing, and just say, look, we
don't need to be fixed, we justneed to be understood and
supported, and that's not thathard, you know, like it's, it's
as supporting an autistic personcan, as a friend, can be as
(12:50):
simple as just, you know,thinking about them when you're
making plans to go somewhere.
You know, like it's, is thisenvironment going to be really
noisy?
Is it going to be really busy?
You know, like, what sort ofactivities can we do?
Like it's, it's not, it's not adifficult thing at all.
Um, and that just makes all thedifference.
Yeah, but, yeah, I worry about,yeah, I just understood.
(13:12):
Yeah, yeah, I do.
I worry about, I worry aboutkids, I worry about then the
discourse coming out andtherefore, um, it reinforcing
the negativity, the reinforcingthat you know that by labeling
kids as autistic, it's, it'snegative for them, um, and it's
only negative for them, becausesociety, you know, sees it that
(13:34):
way.
Um, when, really, yeah, it'sfor me, I love it, I love being
autistic, I love, you know theway I think I love um
understanding myself.
I love my autistic.
I love you know the way I thinkI love understanding myself.
I love my interest in the worldand you know the way I see
things and my sensory stuff.
Like I love that I canexperience things intensely now
(13:55):
that I know how to manage myselfso that it doesn't become too
much, and I think it'sexceptional and it's amazing.
And, like in all things, weneed diversity of thought and
experience and belief to makethe world a better place.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
And I always go back to the sense of belonging and
inclusion.
It worries me that there'd beany child that is different,
that wouldn't feel like theybelonged in they belong well,
that there was no place for themin this world.
That to me, is devastating and,uh, really frightening as a, as
(14:35):
a parent, to yeah, yeah, to trylike, because you know, as
adults we can navigate, um, cannavigate things.
We've figured it out somewhat.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
But when we've got beautiful little, innocent young
people who haven't yet had to,haven't been nailed with
society's expectations, and it'sscary because you just kind of
(15:06):
want things to be easier yeah,100, yeah, yeah, I think, um, I
think the stats in australia are, um, that and again, I'm, I
think this is about autistic,not necessarily neurodivergence
in general, but autistic peopleare nine times more likely to
die by suicide.
And for me, I've been throughtwo times in my life now, when I
(15:33):
was 19 and just last year,where I was hospitalised for
suicidal ideation, and, yeah,that's something that nobody
should ever have to go through,full stop, and that definitely
nobody should have to go through, um, because, you know, because
of their neurotype, um, becausethat lack of understanding and
(16:00):
um, you know it, just, it's easyto lose hope when you, when you
don't, when you think that youare broken and that something's
wrong with you, um, and then, asI said, when you don't look
after yourself, you don't followyour own internal cues, you're
only looking externally, it'seasy to just to burn yourself
out and not, you know,understand, they don't think you
belong anyway, yeah, yeah,exactly, and not have that sort
(16:23):
of wellness, um, and that's, youknow, and it's all avoidable.
It's all avoidable and you know, yes, being a parent to an
autistic child can beexceptionally difficult.
Being an autistic person can beexceptionally difficult, um,
and you know, but that's.
It comes back to communityunderstanding and support.
(16:44):
More than trying to fix, youknow the person themselves
because we're not broken.
Different, not broken.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
It's a really good example of systems having to
change, society and spaceshaving to change.
It's really, really, reallyimportant.
Yeah, absolutely yeah.
We've talked about genderbefore.
We've talked about um, you know, first nations, people, but
yeah, it's, it's, it's the same.
I think society and spaces needto change to make sure that, um
(17:16):
, everybody's included.
I think for me, I reallystruggled, um, you know, with
school, probably when I wasyounger, was younger.
I always thought that I justwasn't as smart as everybody
else.
There was a little bit of youknow, I didn't feel like the
same expectations were there forme that there were for others,
(17:39):
but it was very easy for me tobelieve it as well, to believe
that I wasn't an academic um andI loved.
I mean, now I can kind ofembrace, uh, where I'm at and
there's a bit of humor that'skind of involved.
(18:00):
So if I'm talking to my partner, carice, who is very much,
everything has its place and itstime.
You know it's very, veryopposite.
So I am okay with chaos, Ithink, and with things being
crazy and messy and loud, and tohave a place for things that
(18:24):
are convenient but might not.
Also, you know, like all thesticky tape might not be in the
sticky tape drawer that's nextto the scissors and the gift
wrap stuff.
The scissors will be in a place.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
I'm getting tense just listening to you.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
The scissors will be in a place where I can easily
reach them if I even need themwhile I'm sitting in a place
Like that's me.
But I'm also aware.
So, while there was some griefinvolved with what I could have
done had I known, there was alsothe realisation that I would
not have nearly been assuccessful on the basketball
court if I wasn't ADD, becauseADD what I'd realised is not
(19:03):
that you can't pay attention, isthat you pay attention to all
kinds of shit.
Yeah, everything all at once,yeah.
So if I'm a point guard and Iwas a point guard on the
basketball court I knew that Icould move and shift defence
whilst also keeping an eye onspace, whilst also keeping an
eye on whether or not ateam-mate would fill that space
so that I could throw the ball,you know, to bring people into
(19:27):
the game.
So that was the thing I wasalways most proud of in doing,
and I guess I created a wholelife out of basketball.
So I'm proud of that and Iwouldn't have been able to do
that had I not been ADD.
I think the sense to being ADDis like you're going, going, I
think of it and I always go backto the sporting analogies.
(19:47):
One I'm a t.
One I'm a teacher.
Two is a teacher.
Three, an athlete.
Like there's got, there's lotsof life's lessons that you can
learn through sport.
I'm really passionate aboutthat.
So, being add as well, it'slike I'm bored with routine.
Do you know how routinebouncing a basketball is?
Bounce, bounce, bounce.
The basketball does the samething if you push it in the same
(20:08):
angle, whereas my ad break goes.
What are the limits?
of a dribble where I could doall kinds of dribbles.
I could change the length ofthe dribble, the angle of the
dribble, the way that my handmoves, um, to create something
far more interesting andeffective on the court.
And then it became okay, I canchange the way that my hand
moves to create something farmore interesting and effective
on the court.
And then it became okay, I canchange the way I can dribble.
(20:29):
I've defined it differently andnow let's see what I can do
with timing and explosivemovements, all of those things.
And then basketball became fun.
It's more fun, yeah, but Ithink, too strangely, I can see
some really different patternsthat are occurring, not
(20:52):
necessarily things thatsometimes practically matter,
you know, to the average person,but again, sport I can
recognise very quickly about howa person moves and adjust to
being able to defend a person orto match a movement, which is
(21:13):
really fun.
Now, this conversation is forWarren, because it's going to
probably Warren shout out to youbecause, as Warren knows, he
works with us one of the bestdudes ever.
He knows that I love to thinkabout the picture.
Yes, I call it purposefullydreaming.
I love that I'm trying to sortof be a bit of a visionary, and
(21:37):
for no one else but myself,because I just love to do it,
but I think there's a purposebehind it.
Now I go this is amazing and Ican smell what that smells like
and I can feel what it feelslike and I know what it looks
like like shit.
How do we get there?
yeah, that's relatable it's awarren yeah, he won because that
(21:58):
is his um, his, his detail umas well, and he didn't.
He can do both, but um, yeah,that's always been my challenge
as an add person.
Yeah, because I like to exploreall the different pathways to
those things.
Yeah, and sometimes you haven'tbeen on that pathway long
enough to explore how far itcould possibly take you before
(22:19):
you get bored with that actualroutine of doing things to then
go.
I'm going to change, yeah, yeah, I'm going to change a
different type.
I think of it as, like, I'mgoing to write a list in this
amazing new notebook that I'vegot.
I'm bored with this notebook.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
I need a new notebook .
I hate lists.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
I don't want to follow directions Give me a
black pen, ooh, differentcolored gel pens.
So, yeah, different notebookevery month, yeah, um, yeah,
I'll cross out the differentnotes, the various notes that
I've got.
Uh, work in progress plan.
I'm still working on it.
I see the value in it,absolutely, um, but boy it's it.
(23:01):
Just it's my brain to do it, um, on a consistent basis.
Yeah, but I also find as well,like, uh, I do not like to be
bothered with boring stuff.
Um, like, the scissors belongin this drawer, yeah, um, or
please use this type of fabric,something with it, yeah, I just,
(23:22):
yeah, it's so boring.
I've got far greater things todream about.
And you know the other thingtoo, and if you haven't already
noticed from the podcastconversations that we've had, I
think that, as a mid-sentence,trying to get to my point, that
there's a side story that'sreally highly relevant that
(23:43):
y'all should know about, or itjust could be funny, um, just to
get a bit of a, you know, tohave a bit of a laugh.
So, yeah, I could take you, Icould me and you all through the
inner workings of my brain in apodcast and you're going, what
the actual where is she going?
Speaker 3 (23:57):
but yeah, that's actually a great idea, just just
let a couple of add.
People just tell the stories, Imean I guess that's what we're
doing, but yeah, I mean, I did.
I, you know, get caught tellinga story and then I get
distracted by like a light orsomething and then just
completely lose my train ofthought, which is always fun.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
There's a show up.
Yes, you know, when you look atthe dogs, it's like it's well,
I'm lost, that's me, and youknow.
When the dogs is like 12, yeah,I'm off, that's me.
And you know, it's usually a mrwhippy van and my two kids are
chasing me like mommy, you wantice cream.
So yeah, I'm like off, I go andum, yeah, I could be in the
(24:42):
middle of you know teaching.
Uh, lennox, maybe you knowtoilet training.
Back in the day my head used toappear.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Bye baby, I'll be back in a minute, If you get
that done, I'll bring you an icecream.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, anyway, the other thing too, that.
I do like about how my brainworks and I like and I don't
like how my brain works is thatI think too far into the depth
of things.
Sometimes I don't come out.
Now, if I'm thinking too farinto the depth of things, that
(25:12):
I'm thinking my own thoughts,that that can be a hell that I
don't necessarily want to be inall the time because I don't
always have the greatestthoughts about what I'm telling
myself.
I've got to coach myself out ofthose um.
In terms of um, I could getreally deep into things, like
I'll get a hyper focus now.
You and I, we talk aboutAmerican politics, yeah, and
(25:34):
it's like we, no matter how fastwe run, we're like we, we can't
get away from it, we are allover.
It same thing with if.
If someone tells me somethinglike, uh, a theory or a
conspiracy, or or if someonesays, hey, there's no files that
have been released for jfk, I'mlike, oh, my god, I'm gonna be
(25:56):
awakened before am and I'm gonnalove every minute of it.
As I pick through the fbi filesabout how you know Lyndon B
Johnson is possibly responsiblefor, you know, the assassination
of JFK, like, do I need?
But that stuff is somind-blowingly amusing I can't
(26:20):
let it go until.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
I've figured it out.
It's good for your brain to dothat, though right Like it's,
you know as much as when you'reawake at 3am, scrolling or
reading something when you knowyou've got to get up at you know
seven.
But yeah, I think and I thinkthat's what I'm sort of trying
to learn to do is to lean intothose things and recognise that
(26:42):
it's okay.
It's okay for me to hyper-focuson something.
Or, you know, for me, I spend alot of my time at home, around
the house, wearing headphonesand listening to podcasts, even
black podcasts that I'll have onrepeat and listen to again and
again, because it sort ofquietens my mind and just allows
me to focus on one thing ratherthan a million different things
(27:02):
, and I'm very sensitive tosound as well.
So, yeah, you know's, itprobably looks bizarre on the
outside that I'm working away onsomething while listening to
the podcast I've listened to 50times already and I know back to
front.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
but it's, you know, it's just finding those ways
that that your brain works andrecognizing that that's okay
yeah, I get a lot of um when I'mworking on something, and it
can be really detailed, I mighthave something playing in the
background and I'll always getsomeone come along and go how
come, how can?
(27:35):
How can you have that in thebackground and like work and
concentrate?
Well, I need to.
It's like having a part of methat, having a part of my brain
that needs to stay occupied onsomething so that I can focus.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah .
Speaker 2 (27:50):
It's so crazy, and whenever I say that, the person
I'm talking to is like oh, okay,yeah, and it's just left at
that.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Yeah, no, I completely relate to that.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
I think the one part that I've realized that I've
always, uh, struggled with interms of um, what, what comes
along with it, um, which is whatthey call rsd.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Yes, yeah, um and that's not my favorite, that's
rejection, sensitivity,dysphoria, yeah oh it's also um,
yeah, sorry, sorry, no, I wasthinking of something else then.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
No, no it's.
I think.
I've always thought of it as Ithink it probably got worse when
you know puberty came along andinto high school.
So I think generally if you'vegot some things going on and
estrogen comes into the house,and you're like hey it's like,
holy, everything goes upeverywhere.
(28:50):
But, yeah, I've been trying toreally understand it.
But when I sat down in terms ofthe diagnosis for ADD, I
described some of these thingsand it was really.
I thought that I was justdeeply depressed.
I got depressed arounddifferent things and so I had to
be medicated for that.
But I think of it as a fear offailure, or a perceived sense of
(29:18):
failure.
Yeah, and because having RSD,you know it, what it?
What it sounds like in terms ofrejection, like if you don't
feel like you fit somewhere oryou're rejected in a certain way
friendship group or criticizedharshly.
Uh, it's difficult to get over.
(29:38):
Um, now, if you don't know, ifyou don't know what it is, then
it's really hampering and it canreally take you to a dark place
and you can really convinceyourself that you've really got
not a whole lot to offer.
I think it turns you into amore insular person where it's
(30:03):
like gosh, I'd really love totry that activity, but I don't
want to be embarrassed.
Yeah, I don't want to follow myface.
I don't want people to make funof me.
I don't want to see, I don'twant people to see me fail.
Yeah, and it's putting yourselfout in your most vulnerable
moments, when you're tryingthings, challenging yourself.
You kind of just want to dothat alone to assess where
(30:26):
you're at and then and then takeit outside of things.
The only time I didn't havethat was on the basketball court
yeah, right, which was a littlebit weird, um.
But when it came time to um,you know, trying out for
different teams and stuff likethat, it it was just I felt like
I was absolutely vulnerable andI didn't know what I would do
(30:49):
if I didn't make it.
But it feels like an actualwound that you carry around,
although a physical wound, it'seither a Band-Aid or it can be
fixed, but something that youcan't see and it just keeps
coming back at the mostinopportune times.
And generally you're weakestwhen you have to do the most
(31:13):
yeah, like when you have kids.
It comes back and it challengesyou, yeah.
So I think between you know theruminating and replaying things,
failures in your head,humiliations, perceived
humiliations.
I mean a lot of the time, youknow, I would perceive a
(31:33):
humiliation that wasn't.
People saw it far differentlyto what I saw it, but that would
take me backwards.
I'd be more insular, wouldn'tput myself out there, wouldn't
try new things because Iwouldn't want to disappoint
anybody, could barely speak,intensely shy in a lot of ways
when I'm meeting new people.
(31:54):
And then you know, when youdon't challenge yourself and put
yourself out there, you'repretty much destined to
underachieve, because you don'tsee hard and challenging
circumstances as learningexperiences.
You see them as like fuck, it'sthe end of the world.
Yeah, and that's how I saw it.
(32:15):
Yeah, and strangely, I've seenlots and lots of young women
dealing with the same thing.
But that is a very commonaccompaniment to ADD.
It's not amazing.
Is a very common accompanimentto ADD?
Yeah, it's not amazing.
I think it can be somewhataccounted for with medication,
but you've got to get the rightdose, the right combination, I
(32:38):
think for your biology.
I feel like I don't have thattoo much anymore.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Sometimes it creeps in and I've really got to
massageager back um, I've got todo a lot of work, but the
awareness of it, I suppose, hasmade a big difference, just in
you being able to recognize it,be aware of it and therefore
pull yourself up on it when youor you know.
Not pull yourself up on it, butjust work with it, I suppose.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah and just if I've made a mistake, I mean made a
mistake, yeah, yeah, yeah, ohshit.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
And say sorry, sorry, I just if I've made a mistake.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
It's like man, you made a mistake.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh shit, andsay sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry I
made a mistake.
Yeah, yeah, sorry, I've beencalling your brother the wrong
name for a year.
Sorry about that, yeah, but Imean there's like you can be.
The other thing with that, too,is that you're you just set
(33:32):
standards piece of that areimpossibly high, yeah, that no
one can reach.
Um, yeah, and then you'll, yeah, you'll.
You'll set lots of uh, I guessboundaries and guiding
behaviours for you not to reachthat impossible target.
Yeah, yeah, lots ofself-sabotaging and trying to
(33:55):
make people pleased too, whichis never great, yeah, but the
playing things over and over isalways difficult too.
It's not good for anybody.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have a lot of sort of, I guess,
rumination and things, but Ialso realise now that I need
time.
After pretty much any socialinteraction, I need time to just
to let myself go through thatprocess, you know, instead of
fighting it.
You know, and I also recognizenow it will also take me a
(34:27):
couple of days, you know, beforeI actually properly process
something.
I had a conversation recentlywhere I intellectually at the
time I recognized that it didn'tmake me feel comfortable, but
it took me.
It was two days later until Iactually cried, you know, until
I actually sort of emotionallyprocessed it and went, yeah,
right, that really didn't sitwell with me and you know, and I
understand why and that sort ofthing, and in the past I've
(34:51):
never allowed myself that timebecause I didn't realise I
needed it.
And for me that's meant thatthere's been a lot of things
over the years that I, you know,hadn't emotionally processed.
You know, which is why it'sbeen such a.
You know it's been.
My mental health has sort ofstruggled since I was diagnosed
because, well, up until recently, because, see, I did it again,
(35:18):
I lost the train of thought.
I looked up to the thing and Ilost train of thought Okay, I'm
coming back.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
And I had a question to ask you and I'm like, and
then I said to myself, don'tinterrupt.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Oh, this is the good thing, we can edit all this out,
yeah, anyway.
But yeah, just that's right,the amount of time I need to
process stuff.
And yeah, and recogn,recognizing that I, you know
that I'm allowed to give myselfthat time, um, because you know
what happened to me, I guess, isthat I sort of, you know,
(35:55):
growing up not really knowingwhat was wrong with me in air
quotes, um, therefore, I reallydid shut down.
So my um dad died very suddenlyin a plane crash when I was 21.
Uh, last time I saw him was my21st birthday and I've only just
actually processed all thatrecently.
So I've only processed thatsince I've been diagnosed and
(36:17):
since I've been going throughall of this, because that was
just such a.
I was already in a, in avulnerable state when he died,
like I you know, had been sortof had severe anxiety and
depression sort of around thattime in my late teens, and then,
you know, he dying so suddenlyand so unexpectedly and in such
(36:38):
a sort of traumatic way.
It was just too much, you know,and I did, I just shut it all
down and that sort of, and I'vealways, and then I've always
felt so sad, you know,especially certain milestones
like the anniversary of hisdeath or the anniversary of his
birthday or that sort of thing,and I've never been able to get
(37:01):
past that until now.
Like this year, on theanniversary of his death was the
first time where I've felt sad,but I haven't let it consume me
, you know, like it's just beensomething that I've been able to
and I've felt good feelings onthat day as well, you know, as
opposed to just sort of feelingoverwhelmed and almost a bit
blank and yeah, and that's soimportant.
(37:23):
I said that to my psychologistrecently.
I was like, whoa, feeling yourfeelings is really good, like
it's so helpful, and he was like, yes, yes, that's right.
So yeah, it's been life-changingfor me and I do feel worried
for I mean other, particularlywomen, people of colour, you
(37:45):
know, marginalised groups whohaven't been recognised.
You know the signs ofneurodivergence haven't been
recognised in them because allthe you know, the initial
studies and things were all doneon boys, on white boys.
So the understanding we have ofautism in particular is very
much based on the presentationof one particular group of
(38:05):
people and that's led to lots ofpeople like myself, like
yourself, being overlooked andnot realising until we are,
excuse me, in our 40s, you know,have kids and they get
diagnosed, or we're goingthrough perimenopause and, you
know, shit starts to flyeverywhere, just because you
think you've got it together.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Someone tells you you need some.
What the hell?
Speaker 3 (38:29):
yeah, exactly so.
It's just you know, and thenyou know, and then we finally
sort of realize and you knowthere's, and then that's, that's
sort of um thought of as a, asan epidemic, when in fact it's
not.
It's just a, a correction ofpeople being recognised as what
they are just way later in life,and the prevalence of autism
(38:52):
and ADHD diagnosis increasing isseen as a negative thing and
something that we need to sortof control, when actually it's
just a reflection that peopleyou know, just because you know
like to be autistic, doesn'tmean you have to line up toy
trains and you know all thatsort of stuff.
It's all different ways that itcomes across and they're all
(39:15):
equally Spectacular.
Yeah, exactly I thinkspectacular.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Yeah, I think I like to think about the, because you
talked about feelings and it'sgood to feel.
I feel the opposite sometimes,because I just don't feel too
much.
Yeah, yeah, it's just too much.
I've got everything from seeinghow people get together around
(39:41):
the world to.
Gaza to what's happening in theUS.
Like I cannot switch off theinjustice of everything.
Um, yeah, if you put everythingtogether, it's just too much.
I call it the too muchness.
Yeah, stuff, um, which usuallymeans I need to take a walk or a
run, um, or go shuffle aroundon the basketball court, but
(40:07):
yeah it's.
I think I'm really sensitive inthis Sometimes, like I've got
to really make a concertedeffort too.
If someone's got, oh, let's gowatch this movie, it's a true
story, and I'm like, oh, hell,no, yeah, yeah, there's no way I
can watch that right now.
I've got to make space toprocess that because I can't
have it add to too muchness,because it's already too much.
(40:27):
Um, yeah, I think the otherthing, um, that used to drive me
crazy was the um, well, it'snot.
I had a really hard time thatto coach myself when.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
I was younger how?
Speaker 2 (40:39):
do you?
How do you go with compliments?
Speaker 3 (40:41):
I can't oh, yeah, no, I, I, um, I no, just straight
away, like I'll just never, I'llnever believe it, you know.
And whereas a criticismstraight away, yep, of course
that makes sense, you know, likeI believe that 100% Compliments
, yeah, struggle with massively.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
And there's a compliment yeah, but in your
head.
So yeah, it's interesting.
You know the things that wetell ourselves.
That can be really hard for usand we don't do that.
And the negative things thatpeople might say never, yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
I mean, yeah, but the compliments that people have um
really good things we tend tojust let escape um our minds as
if it's um insignificant andunuseful, um is that a word?
Useless, unuseful?
Speaker 3 (41:45):
what is my brain?
Everybody, the only person whojust makes up words that don't
actually.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
It's a word now.
Yes, unuseful.
Unuseful is useless.
Okay, um, adding unto useful iscompletely useless.
Just used useless.
Uh, amazing, gosh, I'm justastounded by my ability to make
up new words.
It's incredible, um, yeah no Iremember younger is that I would
(42:11):
rather melt into the floor if,um, if somebody, I still feel
the same absolute discomfort andto a point where I could, um, I
knew what a compliment soundedlike and I like, I like giving
compliments.
But because'm so like, I'mvisibly uncomfortable with
anyone giving me a compliment,and especially as sort of a.
(42:34):
You know, like my partner'sfamily very American, so
Carissa's aunties they're like,oh like, really big and
enthusiastic about theircompliments and I'm like, oh my
God, this is the worstcompliment I've ever been given.
I've got to deal with all thisbeautiful emotion and process it
(42:54):
.
But yeah, it kind of taught mea little bit to go.
Hey, people actually likecompliments.
You're probably like one of thefew people that don't like
compliments.
But just because you don't likethem doesn't mean that other
people don't like them.
So just because you don't likethem doesn't mean that other
people don't like them, so getused to giving them.
So I had to learn how to showappreciation and give
compliments.
Sometimes I struggle with itbecause I don't want anybody to
(43:16):
give me that same appreciationand compliment.
I'm good without it.
Yeah, in fact, I'd prefer ifyou just didn't say it all.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Yeah, In fact.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
I'd prefer if you just didn't say it all.
Yeah, but it forced me to tryto be a better communicator,
with saying how I feel, whichstill doesn't happen as often as
I'd like.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Yeah, and for me, because it takes me a couple of
days sometimes to process stuff.
It's like after you think ofsomething really good to say
when someone said somethingshitty to you or whatever, and
after you think of somethingreally good to say, you know,
when someone said somethingshitty to you or whatever, and
then you think of something acouple of hours later.
Oh, I should have said that.
It's like for me as well.
If someone says something andit takes me two days to process
it, it's hard to come back, youknow, into that same
(43:58):
conversation that other person'smoved on.
But, um, I think in regards tocompliments, like I just never
in regards to compliments, Ijust never sort of believed them
because my own self-worth wasso low.
And then it's only, yeah, it'sjust been recently I did the
(44:24):
worked on the Rottenness ChannelChannel swim with a good friend
of mine and it actually fellexactly a year to the day since
I took myself to emergencybecause of suicidal ideation.
And you know she pulled measide at one point and just said
you should be so proud of, like, how far you've come.
(44:44):
And in the past I would haveprobably dismissed that, but I
really, you know, took it in andlistened, but then almost
straight away it was like no,let's not do this now, you know
because you know no time to getemotional sort of thing, but
when I got home that night and Isort of really thought about it
and I did, I let myself feel, Ilet myself cry, you know, I let
myself actually recognize thatI did feel proud of myself, um,
(45:05):
and that's probably the firsttime in 45 years where I've had
that experience and let myselfdo that, and it's yeah, and it's
super liberating.
And so when people, you know,when people do talk about, you
know, autistic people needing tobe fixed or needing to act more
(45:27):
like neurotypical people or allthose things, I just I get
really defensive for all theautistic people out there who,
um, you know, because we deserveto be able to experience, you
know, good feelings as well,right, like and putting us in a
box and thinking that we need toact like everybody else.
And this goes for everyone,this goes for, you know, any,
(45:50):
any community.
Um, it's just, it's, it'sdeadly in the literal meaning of
the term.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
You know, like not in the black, not in the no it's
undeadly um.
So yeah, it's uh yeah, I'm justthinking about that.
I mean that's, I've been in aplace before where I felt like I
(46:20):
could be here.
If I'm not here, um, but atthat point in time I was aware
of my movement in medication,where those types of thoughts
and feelings would feelartificial.
So the brief moment and theunbearability of that moment
(46:40):
where I was able to call mypartner for help, who was there
within 30 minutes, where I hadthe support that I needed
immediately, but, having youknow, thinking about what you
might have gone through at thatparticular time, yeah, the
length of time that I might havegone for.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
Yeah, well, when I went last year year, I was over
on the Gold Coast, I'd justmoved there, and so I didn't
have any sort of support systemsaround or anything which
obviously all you know, whichall contributed, and my partner
at the time sort of was just,you know, doing his best just to
(47:23):
get along with life in general.
But it was it, it took friend,it was three friends over here
in Perth who actually helped meeven get to the hospital, you
know like calling an uber andthings like that, because by the
point at that point that I wasin, I'm completely non-verbal.
I was like just panicking, likejust beside myself, because I
(47:44):
knew that, you know that I wasreally, really unwell and I
really needed, you know, helpand I had no idea how to get it
and yeah, and so if it wasn'tfor them, then you know, it
would have just been, yeah, Idon't know, a bit of a disaster.
But you know, I guess thedifference last year to when I
(48:06):
went through a similar thingwhen I was 19 was that I knew
that I didn't have to feel thisway.
You know, when I was 19, I wasjust overwhelmed by the feeling
of, you know, just feeling likeit was too hard, I didn't belong
, you know, all those sorts ofthings, whereas this time,
because I had that awareness ofmy neurotype and everything else
(48:27):
, it's like no, it's, there'snothing.
Actually, there's nothing badabout me, it's just that, yeah,
I'm just, I'm well and I needsupport, I need help.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
so, yeah, on another note, tess on a brighter note,
um, you did the rodney swim, yes, the actual swim when I like, I
swim it.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
Yes, that was that's 10 years ago now.
So I need to um the solo in2015 and a team in 2019.
And I paddled once and it washorrible.
Never paddle, I just wanted tobe in the water the whole time.
I was just like paddling, justgoing, I just want to be
swimming.
But you know, I did, I did asolo in 2015, um, and I um yeah,
(49:16):
I mean that's that's, you know,that's where you can pull out
the whole superpower thing.
I guess, because you know myability just to focus on my
training and I was living in theBarossa and training on my own
in a 25-metre indoor pool.
I actually hadn't done any openwater swimming until I did my
10K qualifier swim over here in.
Perth.
I flew over for it.
(49:37):
So whether that's stupidity orhyper-focus I'm not sure, but
yeah, it was an experience.
It took nine and a half hours.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
I was a slow swimmer but I got there, couldn't, I
couldn't do it.
Um, yeah, I mean, I've alreadytalked about, I've already
talked about paying attention toway too much.
Um, so, firstly, I'd have to belistening to myself.
Um, in the water, yes, that'sproblem number one.
Problem number two shark sea.
(50:11):
No, that's not a shark.
Well, it's dark over there.
There's something that I pan.
Yeah, too much deep water forme.
Too much movement going on.
I'd never be able to.
I think I'd use up half myenergy looking at all of the
things that I'm moving to makesure that I didn't get eaten by
a shark.
Speaker 3 (50:31):
Yeah, and it's pretty clear, the water as well.
I mean, you can see the bottompretty much the whole way across
, apart from when you're goingthrough the actual channel, and
that's which can be good, but itcan be problematic.
There was one point where Idon't know how many hours in
sort of, because I did the first10ks in three and a half hours.
The second 10ks took me sixhours, um, because I think the
(50:52):
skipper, who I'd hired offGumtree don't do that people um,
he took us on a very northerlytrack and the current, as it
sort of came in in the afternoonor, yeah, in the late morning
afternoon, was pushing us northas well.
So there was a time whereswimming against the current and
just not actually gettinganywhere, and I sort of was
(51:13):
swimming and, to your point,sort of paying attention to what
was going on, and there wasthis starfish, um on the bottom
of the, you know, on the ocean,and I was just swimming for ages
.
It felt like just watching thesame starfish going nowhere, you
know um, which I had now gottattooed on my arm and as a
reminder.
It was a reminder at first tojust keep swimming, and now
sometimes I take it as a as a um, as a sign just to also, it's
(51:36):
okay just to stay stillsometimes, um, but yeah, that
was, that was a moment.
I wonder what that starfish wasthinking.
You poor bastard, someone pullher out already.
I know.
And my friend who was paddlingshe was on I had a sister and my
friend paddling and my friendwho was on the boat shout out to
(51:56):
Christy Piker.
She was like at one point youwere going backwards, you know,
like the current was pushing youfaster than you could swim.
So she was like we thought wewere going to have to pull you
out.
But but I didn't know any ofthis, you know, I was just just
swimming, um, but to your point,listening to your own thoughts,
absolutely like swimming up anddown the black line every day.
Um, so what I did is I taught.
(52:19):
I learned all the melbourne cupwinners um, I've forgotten them
now, but for a time there I, ifyou said to me who was the
melbourne cup winner in you know1980, and I'd be like belldell
ball or you know 1934, whateverit was.
So, yeah, that's how I gotthrough.
I just taught myself by, yeah,every Melbourne Cup winner from
(52:40):
when it started to 2015.
That's useless information.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
The only information that I can remember honestly
yeah, the phone numbers yes, soyeah, it's, um, it's been nice
and refreshing.
this would have been a goodtherapy session actually, so,
and I hope that people listeninghave gotten something out of it
because, um, yeah, I think Idon't.
(53:07):
I don't think that there's sucha thing as neurotypical at all
anymore.
I think that we just haven'treally talked enough or explored
enough what everybody thinkslike yeah, so the more that we
do that, the better it is.
It will be for everybody, yeah,yeah.
And then we can, all you know,start to evolve language like
(53:30):
unuseful and yeah, unuseful andundeadly yeah um, yeah, but I
hope.
I hope that there are.
You know, some of our listenershave gotten something out of
this.
There might be, you know, partof our conversation that
resonated with you.
All of it might have resonatedwith you.
In that case, give us a wholelot.
You might be able to have alonger conversation.
(53:51):
Um, yeah, but it's lovelyhaving a chat and yeah, thanks
for being so vulnerable andsometimes feels like every day
sometimes, but uh, yeah, yeah,no, it's something I, I, I, I
guess enjoy talking about it.
Speaker 3 (54:06):
I guess guess to a degree and I can see the
benefits.
You know, like I myselfconsumed, have consumed a lot of
media, I found a lot of solacein you know Chloe Hayden and
Hannah Gadsby and you know a fewother people, autistic women
who are, you know, out and aboutand talking about their
experience and I think, yeah,can, it can only be beneficial.
(54:28):
Yeah, I agree.
Hey guys, thanks for listening.
Wildfire is about sparkingmeaningful conversations that
matter to Ember Connect'smembers and allies.
This podcast creates a space toamplify voices, share stories
(54:48):
and explore topics that drivechange, connection and personal
and professional growth.
By bringing these conversationsto life, we aim to inspire
action, deepen understanding andstrengthen the collective
impact of the Ember Connectnetwork.
A huge thanks to our guests forsharing their knowledge,
insights, time and passion withus, and to find out more about
Ember Connect, visitemberconnectcomau.
Ember Connect acknowledges all Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islandertraditional custodians of
country and recognises theircontinuing connection to land,
waterways, culture and community.
We pay our respects to Elders,past and present, their wisdom
and knowledge that guides ourjourneys through life.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hiya, I'm Narelle Henry, a Noongar woman living
out here in Perth in the wildwild west.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Hi, I'm Tess Hayes and I am possibly the whitest
woman in Australia, also livingon Noongar country.
Also living on Noongar country.
Hey guys, after recording parttwo of our work episode, narelle
and I left the mic on while wechatted about ADHD and autism.
We were both late diagnosedNarelle with ADHD and me with
(00:57):
autism just a few years ago andwe're the lucky ones because we
had the opportunity to discoverour neurotypes and find ways to
better support our own needs.
Many women, non-binary peopleand people of colour are
overlooked by the healthcaresystem or simply cannot afford
the cost of a diagnosis.
And then when you do receive adiagnosis, as an adult, there is
very little to no support.
This is a bonus uncut episodeand so includes mind blanks, ums
(01:22):
, you knows, and some swearing,but we hope it also provides
community and inclusion forother neurodivergent members and
allies who speak, talk andthink like us.
Please note this episodeincludes discussion of
depression and suicidal ideation, so take care while listening.
Look, I've got conflicting viewsaround.
(01:42):
When you hear people say youknow, like my autism or my ADHD
is a superpower, you know whichis super common and you know and
it's obviously meant in a verypositive way getting by, you
(02:03):
know, who are just sort ofstruggling to live day by day,
you know, or who are goingthrough burnout and can barely
do anything, or that sort ofthing.
So it's like it's and it alsomeans that it's only, I feel
like it only then means that youknow your autism or ADHD is
worthwhile if it's productive,which just feeds back into the
(02:24):
capitalist view that we have tobe productive, you know, to be
worth anything productivemonetarily, I suppose, to be
worthwhile.
So, yeah, it's just conflictingviews.
But, as you were just saying,you know, like you do, you have
(02:45):
identified ways in which youryou know your own ADD has
assisted you and has worked inyour benefit.
You know, on the basketballcourt.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah, I mean I've you know I turn, I'm 47.
I think I was diagnosed aboutfour or five years ago.
So there was some grief in that, because there are some other
conditions associated with ADDas well that I struggled with
and I could clearly see a lot ofpatterns emerging, you know, a
(03:14):
little bit later in life butreally couldn't identify them
and actually damaging in termsof my progress.
So you know, two steps stepsforward, three steps back, type
behavior, um, self-sabotage,lack of belief, all of those
things.
And if I'd known then what Iknow now and how many people say
(03:34):
that um, but that's really thewhole point of um.
You know going, challenges,learning and trying to figure
out and navigate and Reallysometimes you just think it's
the only point to just figureout how to love yourself or the
people.
Yeah, so I think at the age of,you know, 43 or so.
This is after I'd had a youngone too gone through serious
(03:56):
postnatal depression and knowingthat I was, you know, depressed
so deeply that it was kind oflike I need to get my daughter
into daycare so that I don't, sothat she doesn't have to
recover later down the trackfrom being able to stay home and
being the mum that she needed.
(04:16):
I just had to get out and getgoing.
But I realised, the more youtalk about those types of things
and the more you talk aboutwith other people, you
understand what they're goingthrough and they might have
sought help.
And then you finally get thecourage to go.
You know what.
I just need to figure it outand I need to go talk to
somebody.
And then you do, and then Iguess that mixture of grief but
(04:37):
like, oh, I'm not, I'm not a badperson.
Yeah, yeah, I'm not rubbish.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I'm not stupid, yep, yep, my brain just works this
way.
Yeah, and I think the you knowthe discourse that we're seeing
at the moment um, you know, Imean coming out of the us with
rfk jr um, announcing that hewill find a cure for the autism
epidemic by September.
As someone myself, I was thesame diagnosed autistic at age
(05:09):
42, 43, after a reallysignificant burnout, you know,
which stopped me from doingeverything you know, from
working, from following mypassions, from being on the
Rottnest Channel swim board, andjust sort of completely broke
me.
And you know, and through thatburnout I realised that I was
(05:35):
autistic, took that to my GP whoimmediately dismissed that and
was like no, no, you couldn't be.
You work in communications andyou know all these sorts of
things.
And I was like no, no, please,like, I insist, please, give me
a referral because I want totalk to a psychologist about
this.
And lo and behold, of course youknow, as soon as I showed the
psychologist some notes that Ihad from when my eldest son was
six months old and I left fivepages of notes from my mum on
(05:58):
how to look after him, whichstarted off with we don't have
much of a routine and thencontinued with what we do every
15, five to 15 minutesthroughout the day.
It's just a guy, it's justguidelines.
And then, yeah, you know,looked back through lots of my
stuff, you know, as lots ofpeople do.
You know, there's, I guessthere's a view that people might
see something on TikTok orInstagram and go, oh, I relate
(06:21):
to that.
Therefore, I'm autistic andsort of seek out a diagnosis
because of I don't know why, youknow, because they want
attention or whatever, whennobody who's actually
questioning that is going to,you know, spend $3,000 and a
whole bunch of their time to geta diagnosis when there's also
(06:44):
no supports at the other side.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Anyway, but, um, I can't remember what I was saying
, I'm just rambling now and thatthere's me like, oh, let's talk
about the, just the day-to-daystuff, because, like I think
when I, when I see you, I'm likethat test gets me here, it's
fine, like I can just lay it allout there.
(07:06):
Same thing with Warren, likeWarren knows me as well.
So I mean for me, like I canpretty much look at things now
and I kind of laugh a lot andnot make fun of myself, but just
like that's how my brain worksand that's how my brain works,
yeah, yeah, you know.
So, like day to day, for peoplethat don't know, and it could
(07:31):
just be that people, some peopleare struggling.
They're like man, I just wantto get through to Friday, but
I'm dealing with this and I'mdealing with this and I just
can't do this.
Like what are some of thethings that you feel, like you
experience during the week thatmight help other people kind of
go?
Oh, so that's what she'stalking about.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I guess for me, coming out theother side of burnout and sort
of, you know it's been three orso years of burnout and during
that time I was diagnosed,diagnosed.
But during that time I've alsogone through a huge amount of
grief, you know, whileprocessing the fact that I'm
(08:12):
autistic and you know what thatmeant growing up when I didn't
realize, and how that's impactedthe ways I feel about myself
and, you know, being able totrust myself, myself and all
that sort of thing.
So for me, day to day, it'sdealing with the mental health
aspects of being late diagnosedand you know, having to deal
(08:33):
with all that stuff.
It's then trying to work out atnow, age 45, like what do I
need?
And understanding what my needsare, because in the past I'd
always just based it on externalvalidation and external sort of
feedback from people if I wason the right path or not,
instead of sort of lookinginternally.
(08:54):
So you know it, for me at themoment it's a lot of reflection,
it's a lot of work with mypsychologist, it's a lot of
learning from my daughter whowas diagnosed when she was
autistic, when she was nine, andthen you know, and retraining
myself to understand that I doneed rest and that's fine.
(09:19):
You know, I don't need to beworking 24-7.
I don't need to be pushingmyself to the very limits of
what I can do, which is whatI've done in the past.
So, yeah, rest it involveswatching a lot of Real
Housewives and just leaning intobut leaning into the things
that make me happy and notfeeling guilty about that, and
(09:39):
understanding why these thingsdo.
You know, it involves, yeah,it's just for me now.
Yeah, it's just for me now.
It's just the way I live mylife with.
Everything sort of comes backto, um, what I need to be able
to function effectively as a,you know, as an employee, as a
mother, as a friend, um, andbeing able to properly
(10:05):
prioritise those things and makedecisions based on those.
So it's hard, I guess it's.
You know, there's theday-to-day stuff of, you know,
accidentally, info-dumping, youknow, on someone about
Vanderpump Rules or RealHousewives of Beverly Hills, and
there's also the holistic sideof it of just understanding who
(10:29):
I am and that there's actuallynothing wrong with me and then,
yeah, and giving myself gracebecause of that.
So, yeah, I'm still very muchin the depths of that
post-diagnosis, sort ofpost-burnout, you know sort of
raising like self-awareness,gaining that self-awareness.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
So how do you feel when then you you know you see
news stories like autism beingan epidemic that word epidemic.
How do you feel about that?
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Probably angry and sad like I.
I worry, then, for, you know,for kids who, kids and adults
who are undiagnosed and whodon't understand why they react
the way they do, don'tunderstand what drives them,
what causes them to, you know,have a meltdown, to be
(11:25):
emotionally dysregulated, andthat might not ever have the
chance to get that knowledge andthat understanding, because
it's seen as something reallynegative.
It's seen as something that weneed to stamp out.
You know, with RFK Juniorsaying it's an epidemic that
he's going to find the cause forby September, rfk Jr saying
it's an epidemic that he's goingto find the cause for by
(11:46):
September, when you know allresearch points very much to
there being a very stronggenetic component.
It just reinforces that this issomething that's wrong with
people and that we shouldn't,that people shouldn't be, you
know, and that's scary becausethat means that I'm wrong.
You know, and just as I'velearnt, you know, and just as
(12:10):
I've come to accept that I'm notand that I'm a valid human
being and that you know I'mworthwhile and all those sorts
of things, you know, you havethese people saying, well, this
is bad.
You know, and I do.
You know, jump on the commentson Instagram sometimes, and you
know, just sort of try and steerpeople in the right direction.
(12:30):
You know, if people are talkingabout their kids and trying to
fix their kids or that sort ofthing, and just say, look, we
don't need to be fixed, we justneed to be understood and
supported, and that's not thathard, you know, like it's, it's
as supporting an autistic personcan, as a friend, can be as
(12:50):
simple as just, you know,thinking about them when you're
making plans to go somewhere.
You know, like it's, is thisenvironment going to be really
noisy?
Is it going to be really busy?
You know, like, what sort ofactivities can we do?
Like it's, it's not, it's not adifficult thing at all.
Um, and that just makes all thedifference.
Yeah, but, yeah, I worry about,yeah, I just understood.
(13:12):
Yeah, yeah, I do.
I worry about, I worry aboutkids, I worry about then the
discourse coming out andtherefore, um, it reinforcing
the negativity, the reinforcingthat you know that by labeling
kids as autistic, it's, it'snegative for them, um, and it's
only negative for them, becausesociety, you know, sees it that
(13:34):
way.
Um, when, really, yeah, it'sfor me, I love it, I love being
autistic, I love, you know theway I think I love um
understanding myself.
I love my autistic.
I love you know the way I thinkI love understanding myself.
I love my interest in the worldand you know the way I see
things and my sensory stuff.
Like I love that I canexperience things intensely now
(13:55):
that I know how to manage myselfso that it doesn't become too
much, and I think it'sexceptional and it's amazing.
And, like in all things, weneed diversity of thought and
experience and belief to makethe world a better place.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
And I always go back to the sense of belonging and
inclusion.
It worries me that there'd beany child that is different,
that wouldn't feel like theybelonged in they belong well,
that there was no place for themin this world.
That to me, is devastating and,uh, really frightening as a, as
(14:35):
a parent, to yeah, yeah, to trylike, because you know, as
adults we can navigate, um, cannavigate things.
We've figured it out somewhat.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
But when we've got beautiful little, innocent young
people who haven't yet had to,haven't been nailed with
society's expectations, and it'sscary because you just kind of
(15:06):
want things to be easier yeah,100, yeah, yeah, I think, um, I
think the stats in australia are, um, that and again, I'm, I
think this is about autistic,not necessarily neurodivergence
in general, but autistic peopleare nine times more likely to
die by suicide.
And for me, I've been throughtwo times in my life now, when I
(15:33):
was 19 and just last year,where I was hospitalised for
suicidal ideation, and, yeah,that's something that nobody
should ever have to go through,full stop, and that definitely
nobody should have to go through, um, because, you know, because
of their neurotype, um, becausethat lack of understanding and
(16:00):
um, you know it, just, it's easyto lose hope when you, when you
don't, when you think that youare broken and that something's
wrong with you, um, and then, asI said, when you don't look
after yourself, you don't followyour own internal cues, you're
only looking externally, it'seasy to just to burn yourself
out and not, you know,understand, they don't think you
belong anyway, yeah, yeah,exactly, and not have that sort
(16:23):
of wellness, um, and that's, youknow, and it's all avoidable.
It's all avoidable and you know, yes, being a parent to an
autistic child can beexceptionally difficult.
Being an autistic person can beexceptionally difficult, um,
and you know, but that's.
It comes back to communityunderstanding and support.
(16:44):
More than trying to fix, youknow the person themselves
because we're not broken.
Different, not broken.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
It's a really good example of systems having to
change, society and spaceshaving to change.
It's really, really, reallyimportant.
Yeah, absolutely yeah.
We've talked about genderbefore.
We've talked about um, you know, first nations, people, but
yeah, it's, it's, it's the same.
I think society and spaces needto change to make sure that, um
(17:16):
, everybody's included.
I think for me, I reallystruggled, um, you know, with
school, probably when I wasyounger, was younger.
I always thought that I justwasn't as smart as everybody
else.
There was a little bit of youknow, I didn't feel like the
same expectations were there forme that there were for others,
(17:39):
but it was very easy for me tobelieve it as well, to believe
that I wasn't an academic um andI loved.
I mean, now I can kind ofembrace, uh, where I'm at and
there's a bit of humor that'skind of involved.
(18:00):
So if I'm talking to my partner, carice, who is very much,
everything has its place and itstime.
You know it's very, veryopposite.
So I am okay with chaos, Ithink, and with things being
crazy and messy and loud, and tohave a place for things that
(18:24):
are convenient but might not.
Also, you know, like all thesticky tape might not be in the
sticky tape drawer that's nextto the scissors and the gift
wrap stuff.
The scissors will be in a place.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
I'm getting tense just listening to you.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
The scissors will be in a place where I can easily
reach them if I even need themwhile I'm sitting in a place
Like that's me.
But I'm also aware.
So, while there was some griefinvolved with what I could have
done had I known, there was alsothe realisation that I would
not have nearly been assuccessful on the basketball
court if I wasn't ADD, becauseADD what I'd realised is not
(19:03):
that you can't pay attention, isthat you pay attention to all
kinds of shit.
Yeah, everything all at once,yeah.
So if I'm a point guard and Iwas a point guard on the
basketball court I knew that Icould move and shift defence
whilst also keeping an eye onspace, whilst also keeping an
eye on whether or not ateam-mate would fill that space
so that I could throw the ball,you know, to bring people into
(19:27):
the game.
So that was the thing I wasalways most proud of in doing,
and I guess I created a wholelife out of basketball.
So I'm proud of that and Iwouldn't have been able to do
that had I not been ADD.
I think the sense to being ADDis like you're going, going, I
think of it and I always go backto the sporting analogies.
(19:47):
One I'm a t.
One I'm a teacher.
Two is a teacher.
Three, an athlete.
Like there's got, there's lotsof life's lessons that you can
learn through sport.
I'm really passionate aboutthat.
So, being add as well, it'slike I'm bored with routine.
Do you know how routinebouncing a basketball is?
Bounce, bounce, bounce.
The basketball does the samething if you push it in the same
(20:08):
angle, whereas my ad break goes.
What are the limits?
of a dribble where I could doall kinds of dribbles.
I could change the length ofthe dribble, the angle of the
dribble, the way that my handmoves, um, to create something
far more interesting andeffective on the court.
And then it became okay, I canchange the way that my hand
moves to create something farmore interesting and effective
on the court.
And then it became okay, I canchange the way I can dribble.
(20:29):
I've defined it differently andnow let's see what I can do
with timing and explosivemovements, all of those things.
And then basketball became fun.
It's more fun, yeah, but Ithink, too strangely, I can see
some really different patternsthat are occurring, not
(20:52):
necessarily things thatsometimes practically matter,
you know, to the average person,but again, sport I can
recognise very quickly about howa person moves and adjust to
being able to defend a person orto match a movement, which is
(21:13):
really fun.
Now, this conversation is forWarren, because it's going to
probably Warren shout out to youbecause, as Warren knows, he
works with us one of the bestdudes ever.
He knows that I love to thinkabout the picture.
Yes, I call it purposefullydreaming.
I love that I'm trying to sortof be a bit of a visionary, and
(21:37):
for no one else but myself,because I just love to do it,
but I think there's a purposebehind it.
Now I go this is amazing and Ican smell what that smells like
and I can feel what it feelslike and I know what it looks
like like shit.
How do we get there?
yeah, that's relatable it's awarren yeah, he won because that
(21:58):
is his um, his, his detail umas well, and he didn't.
He can do both, but um, yeah,that's always been my challenge
as an add person.
Yeah, because I like to exploreall the different pathways to
those things.
Yeah, and sometimes you haven'tbeen on that pathway long
enough to explore how far itcould possibly take you before
(22:19):
you get bored with that actualroutine of doing things to then
go.
I'm going to change, yeah, yeah, I'm going to change a
different type.
I think of it as, like, I'mgoing to write a list in this
amazing new notebook that I'vegot.
I'm bored with this notebook.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
I need a new notebook .
I hate lists.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
I don't want to follow directions Give me a
black pen, ooh, differentcolored gel pens.
So, yeah, different notebookevery month, yeah, um, yeah,
I'll cross out the differentnotes, the various notes that
I've got.
Uh, work in progress plan.
I'm still working on it.
I see the value in it,absolutely, um, but boy it's it.
(23:01):
Just it's my brain to do it, um, on a consistent basis.
Yeah, but I also find as well,like, uh, I do not like to be
bothered with boring stuff.
Um, like, the scissors belongin this drawer, yeah, um, or
please use this type of fabric,something with it, yeah, I just,
(23:22):
yeah, it's so boring.
I've got far greater things todream about.
And you know the other thingtoo, and if you haven't already
noticed from the podcastconversations that we've had, I
think that, as a mid-sentence,trying to get to my point, that
there's a side story that'sreally highly relevant that
(23:43):
y'all should know about, or itjust could be funny, um, just to
get a bit of a, you know, tohave a bit of a laugh.
So, yeah, I could take you, Icould me and you all through the
inner workings of my brain in apodcast and you're going, what
the actual where is she going?
Speaker 3 (23:57):
but yeah, that's actually a great idea, just just
let a couple of add.
People just tell the stories, Imean I guess that's what we're
doing, but yeah, I mean, I did.
I, you know, get caught tellinga story and then I get
distracted by like a light orsomething and then just
completely lose my train ofthought, which is always fun.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
There's a show up.
Yes, you know, when you look atthe dogs, it's like it's well,
I'm lost, that's me, and youknow.
When the dogs is like 12, yeah,I'm off, that's me.
And you know, it's usually a mrwhippy van and my two kids are
chasing me like mommy, you wantice cream.
So yeah, I'm like off, I go andum, yeah, I could be in the
(24:42):
middle of you know teaching.
Uh, lennox, maybe you knowtoilet training.
Back in the day my head used toappear.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Bye baby, I'll be back in a minute, If you get
that done, I'll bring you an icecream.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, anyway, the other thing too, that.
I do like about how my brainworks and I like and I don't
like how my brain works is thatI think too far into the depth
of things.
Sometimes I don't come out.
Now, if I'm thinking too farinto the depth of things, that
(25:12):
I'm thinking my own thoughts,that that can be a hell that I
don't necessarily want to be inall the time because I don't
always have the greatestthoughts about what I'm telling
myself.
I've got to coach myself out ofthose um.
In terms of um, I could getreally deep into things, like
I'll get a hyper focus now.
You and I, we talk aboutAmerican politics, yeah, and
(25:34):
it's like we, no matter how fastwe run, we're like we, we can't
get away from it, we are allover.
It same thing with if.
If someone tells me somethinglike, uh, a theory or a
conspiracy, or or if someonesays, hey, there's no files that
have been released for jfk, I'mlike, oh, my god, I'm gonna be
(25:56):
awakened before am and I'm gonnalove every minute of it.
As I pick through the fbi filesabout how you know Lyndon B
Johnson is possibly responsiblefor, you know, the assassination
of JFK, like, do I need?
But that stuff is somind-blowingly amusing I can't
(26:20):
let it go until.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
I've figured it out.
It's good for your brain to dothat, though right Like it's,
you know as much as when you'reawake at 3am, scrolling or
reading something when you knowyou've got to get up at you know
seven.
But yeah, I think and I thinkthat's what I'm sort of trying
to learn to do is to lean intothose things and recognise that
(26:42):
it's okay.
It's okay for me to hyper-focuson something.
Or, you know, for me, I spend alot of my time at home, around
the house, wearing headphonesand listening to podcasts, even
black podcasts that I'll have onrepeat and listen to again and
again, because it sort ofquietens my mind and just allows
me to focus on one thing ratherthan a million different things
(27:02):
, and I'm very sensitive tosound as well.
So, yeah, you know's, itprobably looks bizarre on the
outside that I'm working away onsomething while listening to
the podcast I've listened to 50times already and I know back to
front.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
but it's, you know, it's just finding those ways
that that your brain works andrecognizing that that's okay
yeah, I get a lot of um when I'mworking on something, and it
can be really detailed, I mighthave something playing in the
background and I'll always getsomeone come along and go how
come, how can?
(27:35):
How can you have that in thebackground and like work and
concentrate?
Well, I need to.
It's like having a part of methat, having a part of my brain
that needs to stay occupied onsomething so that I can focus.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah .
Speaker 2 (27:50):
It's so crazy, and whenever I say that, the person
I'm talking to is like oh, okay,yeah, and it's just left at
that.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Yeah, no, I completely relate to that.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
I think the one part that I've realized that I've
always, uh, struggled with interms of um, what, what comes
along with it, um, which is whatthey call rsd.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Yes, yeah, um and that's not my favorite, that's
rejection, sensitivity,dysphoria, yeah oh it's also um,
yeah, sorry, sorry, no, I wasthinking of something else then.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
No, no it's.
I think.
I've always thought of it as Ithink it probably got worse when
you know puberty came along andinto high school.
So I think generally if you'vegot some things going on and
estrogen comes into the house,and you're like hey it's like,
holy, everything goes upeverywhere.
(28:50):
But, yeah, I've been trying toreally understand it.
But when I sat down in terms ofthe diagnosis for ADD, I
described some of these thingsand it was really.
I thought that I was justdeeply depressed.
I got depressed arounddifferent things and so I had to
be medicated for that.
But I think of it as a fear offailure, or a perceived sense of
(29:18):
failure.
Yeah, and because having RSD,you know it, what it?
What it sounds like in terms ofrejection, like if you don't
feel like you fit somewhere oryou're rejected in a certain way
friendship group or criticizedharshly.
Uh, it's difficult to get over.
(29:38):
Um, now, if you don't know, ifyou don't know what it is, then
it's really hampering and it canreally take you to a dark place
and you can really convinceyourself that you've really got
not a whole lot to offer.
I think it turns you into amore insular person where it's
(30:03):
like gosh, I'd really love totry that activity, but I don't
want to be embarrassed.
Yeah, I don't want to follow myface.
I don't want people to make funof me.
I don't want to see, I don'twant people to see me fail.
Yeah, and it's putting yourselfout in your most vulnerable
moments, when you're tryingthings, challenging yourself.
You kind of just want to dothat alone to assess where
(30:26):
you're at and then and then takeit outside of things.
The only time I didn't havethat was on the basketball court
yeah, right, which was a littlebit weird, um.
But when it came time to um,you know, trying out for
different teams and stuff likethat, it it was just I felt like
I was absolutely vulnerable andI didn't know what I would do
(30:49):
if I didn't make it.
But it feels like an actualwound that you carry around,
although a physical wound, it'seither a Band-Aid or it can be
fixed, but something that youcan't see and it just keeps
coming back at the mostinopportune times.
And generally you're weakestwhen you have to do the most
(31:13):
yeah, like when you have kids.
It comes back and it challengesyou, yeah.
So I think between you know theruminating and replaying things,
failures in your head,humiliations, perceived
humiliations.
I mean a lot of the time, youknow, I would perceive a
(31:33):
humiliation that wasn't.
People saw it far differentlyto what I saw it, but that would
take me backwards.
I'd be more insular, wouldn'tput myself out there, wouldn't
try new things because Iwouldn't want to disappoint
anybody, could barely speak,intensely shy in a lot of ways
when I'm meeting new people.
(31:54):
And then you know, when youdon't challenge yourself and put
yourself out there, you'repretty much destined to
underachieve, because you don'tsee hard and challenging
circumstances as learningexperiences.
You see them as like fuck, it'sthe end of the world.
Yeah, and that's how I saw it.
(32:15):
Yeah, and strangely, I've seenlots and lots of young women
dealing with the same thing.
But that is a very commonaccompaniment to ADD.
It's not amazing.
Is a very common accompanimentto ADD?
Yeah, it's not amazing.
I think it can be somewhataccounted for with medication,
but you've got to get the rightdose, the right combination, I
(32:38):
think for your biology.
I feel like I don't have thattoo much anymore.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Sometimes it creeps in and I've really got to
massageager back um, I've got todo a lot of work, but the
awareness of it, I suppose, hasmade a big difference, just in
you being able to recognize it,be aware of it and therefore
pull yourself up on it when youor you know.
Not pull yourself up on it, butjust work with it, I suppose.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah and just if I've made a mistake, I mean made a
mistake, yeah, yeah, yeah, ohshit.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
And say sorry, sorry, I just if I've made a mistake.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
It's like man, you made a mistake.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh shit, andsay sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry I
made a mistake.
Yeah, yeah, sorry, I've beencalling your brother the wrong
name for a year.
Sorry about that, yeah, but Imean there's like you can be.
The other thing with that, too,is that you're you just set
(33:32):
standards piece of that areimpossibly high, yeah, that no
one can reach.
Um, yeah, and then you'll, yeah, you'll.
You'll set lots of uh, I guessboundaries and guiding
behaviours for you not to reachthat impossible target.
Yeah, yeah, lots ofself-sabotaging and trying to
(33:55):
make people pleased too, whichis never great, yeah, but the
playing things over and over isalways difficult too.
It's not good for anybody.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have a lot of sort of, I guess,
rumination and things, but Ialso realise now that I need
time.
After pretty much any socialinteraction, I need time to just
to let myself go through thatprocess, you know, instead of
fighting it.
You know, and I also recognizenow it will also take me a
(34:27):
couple of days, you know, beforeI actually properly process
something.
I had a conversation recentlywhere I intellectually at the
time I recognized that it didn'tmake me feel comfortable, but
it took me.
It was two days later until Iactually cried, you know, until
I actually sort of emotionallyprocessed it and went, yeah,
right, that really didn't sitwell with me and you know, and I
understand why and that sort ofthing, and in the past I've
(34:51):
never allowed myself that timebecause I didn't realise I
needed it.
And for me that's meant thatthere's been a lot of things
over the years that I, you know,hadn't emotionally processed.
You know, which is why it'sbeen such a.
You know it's been.
My mental health has sort ofstruggled since I was diagnosed
because, well, up until recently, because, see, I did it again,
(35:18):
I lost the train of thought.
I looked up to the thing and Ilost train of thought Okay, I'm
coming back.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
And I had a question to ask you and I'm like, and
then I said to myself, don'tinterrupt.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Oh, this is the good thing, we can edit all this out,
yeah, anyway.
But yeah, just that's right,the amount of time I need to
process stuff.
And yeah, and recogn,recognizing that I, you know
that I'm allowed to give myselfthat time, um, because you know
what happened to me, I guess, isthat I sort of, you know,
(35:55):
growing up not really knowingwhat was wrong with me in air
quotes, um, therefore, I reallydid shut down.
So my um dad died very suddenlyin a plane crash when I was 21.
Uh, last time I saw him was my21st birthday and I've only just
actually processed all thatrecently.
So I've only processed thatsince I've been diagnosed and
(36:17):
since I've been going throughall of this, because that was
just such a.
I was already in a, in avulnerable state when he died,
like I you know, had been sortof had severe anxiety and
depression sort of around thattime in my late teens, and then,
you know, he dying so suddenlyand so unexpectedly and in such
(36:38):
a sort of traumatic way.
It was just too much, you know,and I did, I just shut it all
down and that sort of, and I'vealways, and then I've always
felt so sad, you know,especially certain milestones
like the anniversary of hisdeath or the anniversary of his
birthday or that sort of thing,and I've never been able to get
(37:01):
past that until now.
Like this year, on theanniversary of his death was the
first time where I've felt sad,but I haven't let it consume me
, you know, like it's just beensomething that I've been able to
and I've felt good feelings onthat day as well, you know, as
opposed to just sort of feelingoverwhelmed and almost a bit
blank and yeah, and that's soimportant.
(37:23):
I said that to my psychologistrecently.
I was like, whoa, feeling yourfeelings is really good, like
it's so helpful, and he was like, yes, yes, that's right.
So yeah, it's been life-changingfor me and I do feel worried
for I mean other, particularlywomen, people of colour, you
(37:45):
know, marginalised groups whohaven't been recognised.
You know the signs ofneurodivergence haven't been
recognised in them because allthe you know, the initial
studies and things were all doneon boys, on white boys.
So the understanding we have ofautism in particular is very
much based on the presentationof one particular group of
(38:05):
people and that's led to lots ofpeople like myself, like
yourself, being overlooked andnot realising until we are,
excuse me, in our 40s, you know,have kids and they get
diagnosed, or we're goingthrough perimenopause and, you
know, shit starts to flyeverywhere, just because you
think you've got it together.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Someone tells you you need some.
What the hell?
Speaker 3 (38:29):
yeah, exactly so.
It's just you know, and thenyou know, and then we finally
sort of realize and you knowthere's, and then that's, that's
sort of um thought of as a, asan epidemic, when in fact it's
not.
It's just a, a correction ofpeople being recognised as what
they are just way later in life,and the prevalence of autism
(38:52):
and ADHD diagnosis increasing isseen as a negative thing and
something that we need to sortof control, when actually it's
just a reflection that peopleyou know, just because you know
like to be autistic, doesn'tmean you have to line up toy
trains and you know all thatsort of stuff.
It's all different ways that itcomes across and they're all
(39:15):
equally Spectacular.
Yeah, exactly I thinkspectacular.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Yeah, I think I like to think about the, because you
talked about feelings and it'sgood to feel.
I feel the opposite sometimes,because I just don't feel too
much.
Yeah, yeah, it's just too much.
I've got everything from seeinghow people get together around
(39:41):
the world to.
Gaza to what's happening in theUS.
Like I cannot switch off theinjustice of everything.
Um, yeah, if you put everythingtogether, it's just too much.
I call it the too muchness.
Yeah, stuff, um, which usuallymeans I need to take a walk or a
run, um, or go shuffle aroundon the basketball court, but
(40:07):
yeah it's.
I think I'm really sensitive inthis Sometimes, like I've got
to really make a concertedeffort too.
If someone's got, oh, let's gowatch this movie, it's a true
story, and I'm like, oh, hell,no, yeah, yeah, there's no way I
can watch that right now.
I've got to make space toprocess that because I can't
have it add to too muchness,because it's already too much.
(40:27):
Um, yeah, I think the otherthing, um, that used to drive me
crazy was the um, well, it'snot.
I had a really hard time thatto coach myself when.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
I was younger how?
Speaker 2 (40:39):
do you?
How do you go with compliments?
Speaker 3 (40:41):
I can't oh, yeah, no, I, I, um, I no, just straight
away, like I'll just never, I'llnever believe it, you know.
And whereas a criticismstraight away, yep, of course
that makes sense, you know, likeI believe that 100% Compliments
, yeah, struggle with massively.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
And there's a compliment yeah, but in your
head.
So yeah, it's interesting.
You know the things that wetell ourselves.
That can be really hard for usand we don't do that.
And the negative things thatpeople might say never, yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
I mean, yeah, but the compliments that people have um
really good things we tend tojust let escape um our minds as
if it's um insignificant andunuseful, um is that a word?
Useless, unuseful?
Speaker 3 (41:45):
what is my brain?
Everybody, the only person whojust makes up words that don't
actually.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
It's a word now.
Yes, unuseful.
Unuseful is useless.
Okay, um, adding unto useful iscompletely useless.
Just used useless.
Uh, amazing, gosh, I'm justastounded by my ability to make
up new words.
It's incredible, um, yeah no Iremember younger is that I would
(42:11):
rather melt into the floor if,um, if somebody, I still feel
the same absolute discomfort andto a point where I could, um, I
knew what a compliment soundedlike and I like, I like giving
compliments.
But because'm so like, I'mvisibly uncomfortable with
anyone giving me a compliment,and especially as sort of a.
(42:34):
You know, like my partner'sfamily very American, so
Carissa's aunties they're like,oh like, really big and
enthusiastic about theircompliments and I'm like, oh my
God, this is the worstcompliment I've ever been given.
I've got to deal with all thisbeautiful emotion and process it
(42:54):
.
But yeah, it kind of taught mea little bit to go.
Hey, people actually likecompliments.
You're probably like one of thefew people that don't like
compliments.
But just because you don't likethem doesn't mean that other
people don't like them.
So just because you don't likethem doesn't mean that other
people don't like them, so getused to giving them.
So I had to learn how to showappreciation and give
compliments.
Sometimes I struggle with itbecause I don't want anybody to
(43:16):
give me that same appreciationand compliment.
I'm good without it.
Yeah, in fact, I'd prefer ifyou just didn't say it all.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Yeah, In fact.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
I'd prefer if you just didn't say it all.
Yeah, but it forced me to tryto be a better communicator,
with saying how I feel, whichstill doesn't happen as often as
I'd like.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Yeah, and for me, because it takes me a couple of
days sometimes to process stuff.
It's like after you think ofsomething really good to say
when someone said somethingshitty to you or whatever, and
after you think of somethingreally good to say, you know,
when someone said somethingshitty to you or whatever, and
then you think of something acouple of hours later.
Oh, I should have said that.
It's like for me as well.
If someone says something andit takes me two days to process
it, it's hard to come back, youknow, into that same
(43:58):
conversation that other person'smoved on.
But, um, I think in regards tocompliments, like I just never
in regards to compliments, Ijust never sort of believed them
because my own self-worth wasso low.
And then it's only, yeah, it'sjust been recently I did the
(44:24):
worked on the Rottenness ChannelChannel swim with a good friend
of mine and it actually fellexactly a year to the day since
I took myself to emergencybecause of suicidal ideation.
And you know she pulled measide at one point and just said
you should be so proud of, like, how far you've come.
(44:44):
And in the past I would haveprobably dismissed that, but I
really, you know, took it in andlistened, but then almost
straight away it was like no,let's not do this now, you know
because you know no time to getemotional sort of thing, but
when I got home that night and Isort of really thought about it
and I did, I let myself feel, Ilet myself cry, you know, I let
myself actually recognize thatI did feel proud of myself, um,
(45:05):
and that's probably the firsttime in 45 years where I've had
that experience and let myselfdo that, and it's yeah, and it's
super liberating.
And so when people, you know,when people do talk about, you
know, autistic people needing tobe fixed or needing to act more
(45:27):
like neurotypical people or allthose things, I just I get
really defensive for all theautistic people out there who,
um, you know, because we deserveto be able to experience, you
know, good feelings as well,right, like and putting us in a
box and thinking that we need toact like everybody else.
And this goes for everyone,this goes for, you know, any,
(45:50):
any community.
Um, it's just, it's, it'sdeadly in the literal meaning of
the term.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
You know, like not in the black, not in the no it's
undeadly um.
So yeah, it's uh yeah, I'm justthinking about that.
I mean that's, I've been in aplace before where I felt like I
(46:20):
could be here.
If I'm not here, um, but atthat point in time I was aware
of my movement in medication,where those types of thoughts
and feelings would feelartificial.
So the brief moment and theunbearability of that moment
(46:40):
where I was able to call mypartner for help, who was there
within 30 minutes, where I hadthe support that I needed
immediately, but, having youknow, thinking about what you
might have gone through at thatparticular time, yeah, the
length of time that I might havegone for.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
Yeah, well, when I went last year year, I was over
on the Gold Coast, I'd justmoved there, and so I didn't
have any sort of support systemsaround or anything which
obviously all you know, whichall contributed, and my partner
at the time sort of was just,you know, doing his best just to
(47:23):
get along with life in general.
But it was it, it took friend,it was three friends over here
in Perth who actually helped meeven get to the hospital, you
know like calling an uber andthings like that, because by the
point at that point that I wasin, I'm completely non-verbal.
I was like just panicking, likejust beside myself, because I
(47:44):
knew that, you know that I wasreally, really unwell and I
really needed, you know, helpand I had no idea how to get it
and yeah, and so if it wasn'tfor them, then you know, it
would have just been, yeah, Idon't know, a bit of a disaster.
But you know, I guess thedifference last year to when I
(48:06):
went through a similar thingwhen I was 19 was that I knew
that I didn't have to feel thisway.
You know, when I was 19, I wasjust overwhelmed by the feeling
of, you know, just feeling likeit was too hard, I didn't belong
, you know, all those sorts ofthings, whereas this time,
because I had that awareness ofmy neurotype and everything else
(48:27):
, it's like no, it's, there'snothing.
Actually, there's nothing badabout me, it's just that, yeah,
I'm just, I'm well and I needsupport, I need help.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
so, yeah, on another note, tess on a brighter note,
um, you did the rodney swim, yes, the actual swim when I like, I
swim it.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
Yes, that was that's 10 years ago now.
So I need to um the solo in2015 and a team in 2019.
And I paddled once and it washorrible.
Never paddle, I just wanted tobe in the water the whole time.
I was just like paddling, justgoing, I just want to be
swimming.
But you know, I did, I did asolo in 2015, um, and I um yeah,
(49:16):
I mean that's that's, you know,that's where you can pull out
the whole superpower thing.
I guess, because you know myability just to focus on my
training and I was living in theBarossa and training on my own
in a 25-metre indoor pool.
I actually hadn't done any openwater swimming until I did my
10K qualifier swim over here in.
Perth.
I flew over for it.
(49:37):
So whether that's stupidity orhyper-focus I'm not sure, but
yeah, it was an experience.
It took nine and a half hours.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
I was a slow swimmer but I got there, couldn't, I
couldn't do it.
Um, yeah, I mean, I've alreadytalked about, I've already
talked about paying attention toway too much.
Um, so, firstly, I'd have to belistening to myself.
Um, in the water, yes, that'sproblem number one.
Problem number two shark sea.
(50:11):
No, that's not a shark.
Well, it's dark over there.
There's something that I pan.
Yeah, too much deep water forme.
Too much movement going on.
I'd never be able to.
I think I'd use up half myenergy looking at all of the
things that I'm moving to makesure that I didn't get eaten by
a shark.
Speaker 3 (50:31):
Yeah, and it's pretty clear, the water as well.
I mean, you can see the bottompretty much the whole way across
, apart from when you're goingthrough the actual channel, and
that's which can be good, but itcan be problematic.
There was one point where Idon't know how many hours in
sort of, because I did the first10ks in three and a half hours.
The second 10ks took me sixhours, um, because I think the
(50:52):
skipper, who I'd hired offGumtree don't do that people um,
he took us on a very northerlytrack and the current, as it
sort of came in in the afternoonor, yeah, in the late morning
afternoon, was pushing us northas well.
So there was a time whereswimming against the current and
just not actually gettinganywhere, and I sort of was
(51:13):
swimming and, to your point,sort of paying attention to what
was going on, and there wasthis starfish, um on the bottom
of the, you know, on the ocean,and I was just swimming for ages
.
It felt like just watching thesame starfish going nowhere, you
know um, which I had now gottattooed on my arm and as a
reminder.
It was a reminder at first tojust keep swimming, and now
sometimes I take it as a as a um, as a sign just to also, it's
(51:36):
okay just to stay stillsometimes, um, but yeah, that
was, that was a moment.
I wonder what that starfish wasthinking.
You poor bastard, someone pullher out already.
I know.
And my friend who was paddlingshe was on I had a sister and my
friend paddling and my friendwho was on the boat shout out to
(51:56):
Christy Piker.
She was like at one point youwere going backwards, you know,
like the current was pushing youfaster than you could swim.
So she was like we thought wewere going to have to pull you
out.
But but I didn't know any ofthis, you know, I was just just
swimming, um, but to your point,listening to your own thoughts,
absolutely like swimming up anddown the black line every day.
Um, so what I did is I taught.
(52:19):
I learned all the melbourne cupwinners um, I've forgotten them
now, but for a time there I, ifyou said to me who was the
melbourne cup winner in you know1980, and I'd be like belldell
ball or you know 1934, whateverit was.
So, yeah, that's how I gotthrough.
I just taught myself by, yeah,every Melbourne Cup winner from
(52:40):
when it started to 2015.
That's useless information.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
The only information that I can remember honestly
yeah, the phone numbers yes, soyeah, it's, um, it's been nice
and refreshing.
this would have been a goodtherapy session actually, so,
and I hope that people listeninghave gotten something out of it
because, um, yeah, I think Idon't.
(53:07):
I don't think that there's sucha thing as neurotypical at all
anymore.
I think that we just haven'treally talked enough or explored
enough what everybody thinkslike yeah, so the more that we
do that, the better it is.
It will be for everybody, yeah,yeah.
And then we can, all you know,start to evolve language like
(53:30):
unuseful and yeah, unuseful andundeadly yeah um, yeah, but I
hope.
I hope that there are.
You know, some of our listenershave gotten something out of
this.
There might be, you know, partof our conversation that
resonated with you.
All of it might have resonatedwith you.
In that case, give us a wholelot.
You might be able to have alonger conversation.
(53:51):
Um, yeah, but it's lovelyhaving a chat and yeah, thanks
for being so vulnerable andsometimes feels like every day
sometimes, but uh, yeah, yeah,no, it's something I, I, I, I
guess enjoy talking about it.
Speaker 3 (54:06):
I guess guess to a degree and I can see the
benefits.
You know, like I myselfconsumed, have consumed a lot of
media, I found a lot of solacein you know Chloe Hayden and
Hannah Gadsby and you know a fewother people, autistic women
who are, you know, out and aboutand talking about their
experience and I think, yeah,can, it can only be beneficial.
(54:28):
Yeah, I agree.
Hey guys, thanks for listening.
Wildfire is about sparkingmeaningful conversations that
matter to Ember Connect'smembers and allies.
This podcast creates a space toamplify voices, share stories
(54:48):
and explore topics that drivechange, connection and personal
and professional growth.
By bringing these conversationsto life, we aim to inspire
action, deepen understanding andstrengthen the collective
impact of the Ember Connectnetwork.
A huge thanks to our guests forsharing their knowledge,
insights, time and passion withus, and to find out more about
Ember Connect, visitemberconnectcomau.
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