AuDHD Flourishing

Anna is an educator who has developed an incredible approach with accommodations at the core (for the student AND herself!). It makes sense pedagogically, and it's working! With a core of psychological safety, students are able to explore writing and language with their own goals in mind.

We've also known each other since I was 15... so we talk a bit about the mysterious backstory of living in a Christian sorority ;)

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Coping mechanisms can be a pathologizing term. What's the difference between coping mechanisms and intensity or interests?

This episode also touches back to the interview on sobriety with Amy in ep. 92. As well as this note on a positive AA experience from a listener.

Resources:

1. Transcript Doc
2. Email Newsletter: Nothing Wrong With Us
3. Like Your Brain community space (Patreon)

Thanks Eric Tivers for interviewing me & allowing me to share the full episode here as well.

His show notes:

In this episode of ADHD reWired, Eric Tivers is joined by Mattia Maurée, an award-winning composer, poet, and host of the AuDHD Flourishing Podcast. Mattia shares their insights into the unique challenges faced by neurodivergent (ND) individuals, particularly those with ADHD and autism, as they navigate trauma, self-e...

Thank you to guest Amy Knott Parrish for sharing about her unusual journey with sobriety. When she realized what her future was going to look like, she... stopped drinking. Because it wasn't about the drinking, it was about the problem that the drinking was self-medicating.

After nine years of continuous sobriety, her therapist insisted that she try AA, but it wasn't the right fit.

As with many institutions, it wasn't built for her!

T...

(Part 2 of 2. Part 1 here)

Being AuDHD + gifted is being an outlier of outliers. I'd guess most of us feel like aliens.

And even when we start to understand the shape of our experiences, it can feel overwhelming to even begin to order our understanding in a satisfying way. (Autoethnography, anyone?)

Our depth and intensity needs can be quite challenging to meet, especially if we have lower physiological capacity due to trauma/CPTSD, a...

Being AuDHD + gifted is being an outlier of outliers. I'd guess most of us feel like aliens.

And even when we start to understand the shape of our experiences, it can feel overwhelming to even begin to order our understanding in a satisfying way. (Autoethnography, anyone?)

Our depth and intensity needs can be quite challenging to meet, especially if we have lower physiological capacity due to trauma/CPTSD, and other intersectional i...

Emily Kircher-Morris is the host of the long-running and popular podcast, The Neurodiversity Podcast. (And she interviewed me last year.)

She's a compassionate, incisive, and important voice in 2e and neurodivergent-affirming education. Also a delight to talk to!

Building on what we talked about, she shared some additional resource links below.

Connect with Emily & mentioned in episode:

1. Emily Kircher-Morris, LPC
2. The...

Dr Chris Wells speaks & teaches about positive disintegration, Dabrowski's theory that (among other things) provides an alternate explanation for some mental illness. While the theory is not entirely about giftedness, it helps many gifted people make sense of their experiences.

Dr Wells also talks about their journey, which included being on disability for many years. It's a reminder that while labels can change, they can al...

Sheldon Gay shares about giftedness, in particular the intersections of being late-identified as a Black man. He hosts the I Must Be BUG'N podcast (Black, Underrepresented/Unidentified, Gifted and otherwise Neurodivergent).

I absolutely love his term of having a sparkly mind! We weave through many topics, including education and melanated & marginalized kids not having their needs met.

This is the first of 5-6 upcoming ep...

24:23 to skip specific American politics

In this episode:

• Mutual aid
• Local connections
• Surveillance & privacy considerations for devices
• Resistance is working
• General strike & Mar 15 shutdown (#Shutdown315)
• Emotional survival: monotropic reset, alpha brain waves
• Being careful whom you listen to (accompanying Emily Science Journalism ep 82)

Links mentioned:

1. Surveillance guide for devices
2. How to change Meta settings...

Mini episode on my experience with intrusive thoughts and how/when they stopped being distressing.

Monotropic brains tend toward thought loops and thus can make intrusive thoughts pretty easily.

In my case, I think my brain was in part trying to generate interest when my needs were not being met. Dopamine is also a learning chemical that tells the brain to pay attention right now.

This is just my experience... Please seek professi...

Last week I was interviewed on WHYY, Philly's PBS/NPR radio station, about the rising diagnosis rates of Autism & ADHD. Here are a few additional thoughts and my favorite moments, and you can find the full interview below

Mentioned in episode:

1. YouTube PBS interview (& Patreon post about it)
2. WHYY.org page with the audio only version
3. Public Patreon post w YouTube link if you'd prefer to comment there (link coming soon)
4. Re...

Dr Matt Zakreski is 2e (ADHD & gifted) and also a clinical psychologist supporting neurodivergent folks.

His recent book, The Neurodivergent Playbook, aims to meet that social gap in which we often feel we missed the "instruction manual" for how to approach people.

Connect with Dr Matt: 

1. The Neurodiversity Collective for therapy & assessments
2. Dr Matt's website for speaking engagements
3. Facebook
4. Instagram @drmattzakreski
...

As I describe at the beginning, this goes along with episode 83 about AI & tech tools.

The latter 15m of this episode was an AI "podcast conversation" based on AuDHD Flourishing principles and my overall work and approach.

I was impressed by how it was pulled together, as well as pronouncing my name & getting pronouns right!

Note: if you have misophonia, you may find the AI vocal artifacts irritating... heads up!

If you...

It's okay to have strong feelings about AI! Yes, we touch on ethics in this episode.

It's also okay to use accommodations and tools that work for you, especially in the short term to feel better first.

This episode covers a number of AI and tech tools suggested by other AuDHDers.

When there's a blog post to go through all of them (plus any others added in the meantime) I'll add that link below as well.

AI & Tech mentioned i...

Emily is a science writer, AuDHDer, and ND-affirming coach.

They share online about neurodivergence topics and accuracy in science journalism as The Neurodivergent Well.

In this episode, we talk about best practices as a consumer of science info online, especially via social media. If you don't have time or capacity to read journal articles, what CAN you do?

Emily shares multiple approaches to being a better online citizen when we tak...

This week I pushed my body way too far, even though I was having trouble parsing that in the moment. The story is also a great analogy for how other ND internal needs feel (including PDA).

Even with all the info, self-kindness, and support, I still struggle to find that exact line of capacity. It's okay that it's hard to figure out!

This is the perfect and slightly ironic follow-up from last week's episode about giving up on ...

Is this the year to give up on neurotypical and ableist nonsense that is causing you harm??

I hope so, for all of us.

There are so many layers to unraveling internalized ableism.

Here's your permission to do that a little more :)

p.s. of course you know I never mean to give up on life ;) If you're in crisis, there are crisis links below <3

Links mentioned in episode:

• Psychology Today article on Relational Trauma: Beyon...

It's okay if your sleep and energy vary wildly during the seasons! Or at least... it's okay with me ;)

Obviously there can be real world effects to having a chronotype outside of the 9-5.

But if your body is going to make you rest anyway... may as well enjoy it and get the most out of it, in my opinion!

Resources:

1. Transcript Doc
2. Email Newsletter
3. Like Your Brain community space