In today's episode, we're delighted to welcome on Simon Nichols, who's the founder of Thrive Mental Health and Neurodiversity. So welcome, Simon.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited about today.

Fantastic. So Simon, I suppose the best place to start is at the beginning. So what do we mean when we say neurodiversity?

There we go. Straight for the, uh, straight for the neurodiversity. Jugular there. Neurodiversity is one of those words that everybody probably thinks they know what it means, but are quite shocked when. They, they think about the real reason behind it. If you think of the word biodiversity, what typically comes to mind is everything. When we think about biodiversity in nature, we're talking about all forms of nature. Neurodiversity was a term coined around, around 1998. And neuro, as we know, is sort of, you know, of the brain. Uh, there's Probably a much more, uh, succinct Latin name than that, but it's about how we think. And when we think about diversity and thinking, neurodiversity means all of us. It means every single human on the planet that thinks differently. Now that's much difference to neurodiverse. Or neurodivergent, but your question was purely around what does neurodiversity mean? And neurodiversity encompasses umbrella. All of us, every single species, human species on the planet. that's what neurodiversity how we think and how we think differently

So that's fantastic. So we've got this umbrella. So you mentioned neurodivergent there. So what's, what's the difference between those two then?

by. So, and, and here we here, we already, uh, Kev, we've walked into this minefield of, of English language. Neurodiverse and neurodivergent are, again, two terms that typically people intersperse or interuse. And if you think around the term neurodiverse, and then again, we're sort of splitting the word again. We've still got the neuro at the front, but now we've got diverse. What that means is, uh, different, different pathways, different different channels, different movements. So when we think about a neurodiverse thinker, we've already, everybody already thinks differently anyway because we're, we're all human. We've got our own brain. All our lived experiences, thoughts, feelings, emotions, all of that merg into who we are. When we think of Neurodiverse, we are actually thinking of a subset of thinking. And what I mean by that is we're now talking around. Um, identifiable and also diagnosable differences in the way that the neural pathways are set up and what we mean by that. Um, the one that most people will have heard of, which is autism, uh, people might have also heard of a DHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, uh, dyspraxia, Tourette syndrome. All of these are preformed neural pathways in our brain from birth. So what that means is. These individuals are slightly different, different thinking to, uh, let's, let's, let's get it out there and straight in the open, normal, typical, um, which is quite unusual when we all think differently anyway. But what we tend to have is we tend to have forms of thinking, and we all, we all go down different, you know, similar pathways, things that it's acceptable to do, or things that's acceptable to think. Sometimes neurodiverse thinkers Think so differently. They have a different viewpoint. They have a different angle, and that's not to say that they're thinking is different, you know, wrong or broken or anything like that, but it's just a different pathway. I'm realizing this is a rambling answer, but what fascinates me about neurodiverse. is that psychologists and research actually believe it's a form of evolution. We're actually thinking differently so our species can survive. Now to answer your neurodivergent and what we have here, and there's actually a divergence of thought at this point, because a lot of when we describe neurodiverse thinkers, ADHD, we put people into that group. So those individuals over there. With A DHD are neurodiverse, there's a lot of them. 2 million, 3 million diagnosed in the uk, A DHD individuals over there. Neurodiverse. When we think about neurodivergent, we tend to make it about an individual, so that person is neurodivergent. They have a neurodivergent way of thinking, and a lot of neurodiverse people identify themselves as neurodivergent. If you ask them around their thinking styles, the reason it's. Cut down the middle is that a lot of people don't actually like the word divergence, because when you think of divergent, you actually think of a completely almost a different parallel. And in some ways alien, if you think about the film Divergence, it's a different, you know, but some people love that they grasp that I think so differently to others. But I'm perfectly willing to be that divergent form of society, whereas other other individuals prefer to identify themselves as neurodiverse. I. As an undiagnosed A-D-H-D-I prefer to describe myself as a neurodiverse individual rather than a neurodivergent, but that's just my point. That's my personal, principles, I guess.

wow, thank you.

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