Hi.

So just before we get started on today's episode with Emily Katie, I just wanted to let you know that we do talk about quite serious mental health challenges in this conversation, including ocd.

We do talk about ADHD mainly, but we also talk about the many different mental health struggles that come with being neurodivergent.

So just wanted to let you know.

And here is today's fantastic episode.

Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.

I'm Kate Moore Youssef and I'm a wellbeing and lifestyle coach, EFT practitioner, mum to four kids and passionate about helping more women to understand and accept their amazing ADHD brains.

After speaking to many women just like me and probably you, I know there is a need for more health and lifestyle support for women newly diagnosed with adhd.

In these conversations, you'll learn from insightful guests, hear new findings, and discover powerful perspectives and lifestyle tools to enable you to live your most fulfilled, calm and purposeful life wherever you are on your ADHD journey.

Here's today's episode.

Today, I'm absolutely delighted to welcome Emily Katie.

You may know Emily from Instagram and she is now also a published author.

Now, Emily is an autistic 22 year old.

She's a mental health nurse and she also has ADHD and ocd.

She's an author, she's a blogger and she's also a trustee for the charity Autistic Girls Network.

And her book, Girl Unmasked, How Uncovering My Autism Saved My Life is out now.

So welcome to the podcast, Emily.

Absolutely delighted to have you here.

Hello.

I'm so happy to be here too.

It's lovely to finally meet you.

Absolutely.

And just, you know, huge, first of all, huge congratulations on the book.

Thank you.

What an amazing thing to bring out to the world and I know will be incredibly helpful for so many people.

And so I just wondered, I mean, like, I'd like to just maybe begin from the, from, from the start, from the beginning and ask you some questions.

You know, you, you're, you're 22.

That's right, yes.

Yeah.

So that's incredibly young for me.

I'm nearly 44 and I look at you and I think, wow, you know, like, you've obviously got so much insight and wisdom.

Obviously you're a mental health nurse working with, specifically with neurodivergent kids, so you're seeing it from that perspective.

But you're also, I guess you've got this embodied experience from your childhood and from understanding your own neurodivergence.

And originally being diagnosed with autism and then later on with adhd.

Is that right?

Yes.

Yeah.

The ADHD diagnosis came as a bit of a surprise, but, yeah, autism was.

I was.

You know, when I was diagnosed with autism, I.

I kind of.

I really took on that diagnosis and I just.

I knew that I was autistic from the minute they said that I was autistic.

Adhd, on the other hand, it took me a long time to get my head around that and to sort of believe that I had adhd.

How old were you when you were diagnosed with autism?

I was 16, nearly 17.

And I say nearly 17 because.

Oh, yeah, the whole year of me being 16 was.

Was a year I started off, kind of started my A levels, had kind of bit of a breakdown, ended up in a CAMS psychiatric unit.

I was sectioned, struggling a lot with my mental health and with ocd.

And then sort of by the end of that year was when I received my autism diagnosis.

So, yeah, it was a challenging year.

And I think it's interesting with the whole how people view the ADHD and autism, and I wonder if it depends on what comes first sometimes, I guess how you were introduced to it.

See, ADHD to me was something that, you know, people who struggle to concentrate at school, struggled to focus at school, struggled a lot of school was kind of my idea of what ADHD was.

I did struggle at school, and I can definitely see now how my ADHD impacted that.

But in terms of schoolwork and academics, I was always extremely academic.

I got very good grades, I loved learning.

So in my head, that stereotype of what I believed ADHD to be just didn't fit, though, I suppose neither did my autism one at the time.

Which part of the ADHD did you find hard to relate to?

And I guess what were the traits that brought.

Brought that diet, that sort of supplementary diagnosis?

A few years later, it's probably easier.

To talk a little bit about my autism first and that diagnosis.

So the reason I think I embraced the autism diagnosis so much was because I'd always felt very different.

I'd always felt, like, quite misunderstood and very different to my peers.

And I sort of attributed a lot of my anxiety down to my autism.

So, you know, difficulties in crowds, loud noises, social stuff.

Even though I had a lot of friends, I would overthink everything.

And now I know, I sort of come to understand how ADHD also plays a massive part in that because my brain is never silent and obviously that feeds the anxiety massively.

But autism at the time was almost like I don't know whether it was like, it was such a relief that actually there was a reason for why I was struggling so much, why I'd ended up sort of struggling at school and not being able to sit in lessons and ending up in the psychiatric unit.

It was like, okay, this is why, like, none of this is my fault.

It was almost like an answer that I could put.

Put it on with the ADHD.

So I was referred for ADHD when I think I was kind of 19 and I was about to be discharged from the adult mental health team.

And obviously I'd.

I was very much already in the autism community on Twitter and Instagram, and I suppose there was always part of me that felt like autism didn't completely fit, you know, and again, this goes down to, I suppose, the stereotypes, but I've always been very outgoing.

I've always been very chatty, very loud.

Although I've been very outwardly organized.

You know, like, everything's.

I like things organized.

My brain is just a complete mess all of the time.

And I do know I was just struggling a lot with placements as a student nurse.

I'd get.

I'd get bored very easily, and that would make me agitated and anxious.

And I felt like a lot of my anxiety was because my brain was never, ever silent.

And I guess the more that I saw stuff come up on social media and I also got my mental health notes through, and there was a question mark of ADHD in there from when I was a teenager that I was like, okay, well, I want an assessment, at least.

Let's have an assessment.

But I, you know, I went into that assessment literally not knowing what was going to happen and not knowing what the outcome would be.

So when he said I had adhd, I suppose I sort of thought of a lot of the kids that I work with as well, and a lot of the kids that I've.

I've known and their children that really struggle to sit still and really struggle to pay attention in class, because I guess they're the ones that are picked up and referred, the ones that people notice as having adhd, whereas I would always be sat in the corner reading a book.

I loved reading.

Books were like my special interest.

And I sort of thought, well, if I can sit and concentrate on reading a book, how can I have adhd?

But actually, I couldn't really focus on conversations that I wasn't interested in.

In maths and science at school, I would always come home and, you know, my dad would have to go through the whole.

All of it with me.

And he'd say, were you not paying attention?

I'd go, I don't know, just somewhere between them saying that and them saying that, I just got lost and my brain, I was just daydreaming about something else.

And I would just always be so, you know, embedded in my own inner world and my own fantasies and stuff that was going on that I suppose I was just quite distracted.

Yeah.

I mean, it's so relatable.

And, you know, as a parent, I see it in my children, I see it in myself, but I hear about it so much from so many other people and what you're saying, and that's the difficulty, I think, hopefully, as we move through these times, these nuances and these kind of almost.

There's so many sort of polarities and, you know, it's never one size fits all with anything, with neurodivergence.

And so, you know what you say about you love reading.

I hear so much from other people saying, I can't read.

Like, I can't focus on the words on a book.

And it just shows you I love reading.

But I know so many other people with ADHD that just can't.

Just don't like it.

And that's why it's so important that we have these conversations to open up the awareness of that it can look different and also look very similar.

And, you know what you say about your very busy brain and having lots of friends, and we then sort of think about this stereotypical or there's a lot of people with autism who are very happy just in their own company, and they don't need, you know, a social circle and.

And they need a lot of decompression time, and they don't.

They're introverted and they sort of thrive off having their own sort of quiet space.

So it just shows, doesn't it, that we just have to have these conversations.

So can I ask, obviously, you know, you talked about the very sort of challenging time around 16, 17.

How did you then get through that?

And obviously then being sectioned, and then now you are a mental health nurse, like, how did you manage to pull through and carry on with your.

Your education and qualify?

Yeah, I don't know.

When I think about it, I'm like, I don't know how I did it, but obviously I did.

I feel very lucky to have a very supportive family and very supportive friends at school.

And I know so many other people don't have that, but I always had my parents, you know, fighting for me.

So while I was in the unit.

They would always be fighting for my rights and fighting for what they thought was best for me.

And I had a small friendship group at school that I became friends with on the first day of year seven.

And they're still my best friends now.

I was just very lucky that actually they all loved books.

We were all kind of in that nerdy book group gang at school, would kind of hide out in the library.

So I found them on the first day of year seven and actually they.

They helped me a lot through it.

They came and visited me in the unit.

It was sort of because of them that I wanted to go back to school because I love seeing them every day.

And that's where I just know, you know, I know I'm so privileged and lucky to have had those wonderful people around me that sort of fought for me when I couldn't fight for myself.

But then obviously there was also that determination from me as well.

A lot of it came from anger, I think, because I was so angry at what kind of happened because I felt like I was sectioned sort of unfairly.

I feel like it didn't need to happen.

So I was admitted to the unit, initially informally, so I agreed to go.

But then when I asked to leave three weeks later, they sectioned me.

That was all because I had a diary that I wrote down everything in.

You know, very, very autistic sort of hyper fixation.

And that was how I was coping.

And they took it off me because it had a ring binder on it, which was sort of a risk not to me, but potentially to others.

And I just, I had such big meltdown over it.

My consultant told me I was being hysterical.

I felt very misunderstood.

And then sort of my behavior sort of escalated.

And then that day I sort of said, I'm leaving, let me leave.

And then they sectioned me.

And so I.

I do sort of will feel that if that situation had been handled differently, I don't think I would have been sectioned.

So.

And there was kind of a lot of instances throughout my time there that I felt were on.

Were sort of unfair and that I didn't feel necessarily like I was being understood.

Though there was also some amazing staff who got me through a really hard time, so I don't want to kind of forget about them.

But that anger sort of really drove determination in me.

And when my doctor said to my parents that he didn't think I was well enough to go back to school, I was like, no, I'm going back to school.

I'm Not.

Not going back to school.

So I wanted to prove him wrong.

And sort of that desire to prove him wrong meant I went back to school.

And actually I found sick form.

Although my mental health was kind of rubbish, I found it so much easier than the years before that.

Wow.

Yeah.

I mean, it's amazing to hear that you had that support and you had those people advocating for, you know, whether it's your friends, your family, but also those teachers or the, you know, the mental health professionals.

But on the flip side, you know, when I hear you say you have this journal and that was your kind of, like, coping mechanism, that was a way, you know, we know now emotionally and psychologically to sort of write out our feelings and our emotions is such a strong tool to have to really be able to sort of help process what we're going through.

And then for them to take that away from you as a.

As a teenager is.

Is actually heartbreaking.

And I'm sorry that you went through that, but I'm also glad that you had that inner drive, that real sort of like, inner strength to keep going.

And now you're obviously using your experience to help other children and teenagers who, I guess, went through, you know, going through similar experiences that you did.

Now as a mental health nurse, something that you've sort of worked on recently is the Not a School Skiver campaign.

So maybe you can explain a little bit where that all came from.

Yeah.

So on 8 January, the government launched their attendance campaign, which was called Moments Matter, Attendance Counts.

And initially I kind of looked at it and was like, oh, you know, it's just another government initiative about attendance.

But then they started sharing these, like, posters and one of them was like, oh, this morning he had a runny nose, now look at him.

And this morning she was worried, now look at her.

Her.

And they made me quite angry because they were putting such a complex issue of school attendance onto something that just seemed.

I don't know, I was.

I was a bit.

I was quite angry by.

By it.

Because kids aren't not going to school because they've got a runny nose.

They go, they're not going to school because of so many other factors.

And then what happened was Good Morning Britain did a segment on it and it was titled School Skivers Whose Fault?

Parents or teachers?

And, you know, that was it.

I was like, why are being friends?

And I say we, because, you know, I was described as a child on the verge of school refusing.

So I was never actually a school refuser and I would actually go to school, but I would hide in the library and I would refuse to go to lessons and there were days I wouldn't go in.

But I just think that, why are they painting us as kids that are school skivers?

That suggests there's a element of sort of choice in it and also maybe maliciousness and as in, like, I'm just not going to school.

And there are so many reasons for it.

You know, 94.3% of school attendance difficulties are underpinned by severe distress, with 92.1% being neurodivergent and then 83.4% are autistic.

This is, you know, it's a campaign against neurodivergent kids, I feel.

And so that's where the hashtag came from.

So I responded to basically the government because I wanted to write a letter just to get all my thoughts out.

And then, surprisingly, loads of other people started using the hashtag as well.

And the stories that were shared, a lot of them were really sad, but also kind of gave me a bit of hope because, you know, the kids going through it, they're not alone.

You know, there's people like me that have been there and loads of other people using the hashtag that have been there and are now doing so much better out of the system.

But actually it's also that drive for we need change.

And through that hashtag, I started doing kind of research on actually what are the reasons behind the school attendance difficulties.

And over 400,000 children are waiting for a hospital appointment, which is a high, highest number ever recorded for pediatric services.

Financial difficulties have increased since COVID and there's a link between that and mental health difficulties which have increased more people having to use food banks, which links with the mental health and then that, the school avoidance as well.

Bullying is still a massive issue.

There's over 800,000 young carers in the UK and demand on them and stress has increased since COVID A lot of youth centres, funding has been reduced, so a lot of them have shut down.

And actually periods and the issues surrounding them continue to be the biggest cause of school absence for young people with periods in 2020, which I just think is crazy.

Why is the government not targeting some of these actual things that could help school attendance rather than just, you know, posting offensive posters that are just quite upsetting for people to read?

Yeah, sorry, a bit of a raffle there.

No, no, not, not at all.

I mean, I've written down these statistics from your blog and I'm going to put the link to the letter that you wrote on the show notes so people can read it and really understand, you know, all the different statistics.

And it's heartbr because I see it, I understand it, I hear about it.

And you know, we speak to sort of forward thinking and progressive teachers who are bound by schools that haven't moved forwards for 20, 30, 50 years.

We're bound by sort of Ofsted head teachers who are having to kind of fulfill certain targets.

And we're not looking at these children who are desperate in need for more support and not just looking at them as a statistic.

What are we going to do with children who are ADHD and autistic?

Like we can't expect them to be bound by these conformities and hopefully support them to maybe come to school.

And when they are in school it feels like they've got more autonomy.

You know, we talked before about pda which is pathological demand avoidance and something that I'm learning more and more about, something that I know you've discussed on social media.

And actually this desire for autonomy can be so strong within us that when we're told how we need to sit, be, eat, learn, revise and it doesn't sit well with us, we're then deemed as the problem.

So there's so much to unpack there.

But I mean coming back to, you know, your the hashtag not a school skiver, what came from that and I guess what have you learned from that?

Hearing from a lot of people who are maybe going through this themselves, but also maybe parenting children who are refusing to go to school.

I think what came from it was reassurance for a lot of people that they're not the only ones going through the system and feeling the way they are about education.

I don't think there's been any tangible change.

You know, the people that can help with the system, I really doubt have probably read it.

And I think it's difficult because I don't know what the answer is to our current education system.

You know, there are a lot of children, there aren't enough teachers.

How do you meet the needs of every individual's, of every individual sitting in that classroom?

There are things that can definitely be done.

You know, I had a lot of adjustments and stuff put in place for me at school.

So I was allowed to go into the library whenever I needed to.

I had a timeout pass.

I could just get on with the work on my own.

But I think that the reason I was allowed to do that was because I got very good grades.

I think I was I was lucky in that because I.

I think they probably took a different approach with me than they would have done with someone else, which isn't fair.

Other kids, you know, need that too.

But I wasn't.

I suppose I wasn't forced into lessons as much as maybe other children are.

I had kind of regular mentoring sessions at school with at first the teacher, then the senko.

I didn't have to go into assemblies.

I didn't have to attend unstructured days, you know, like when sometimes there's like, school events.

I found those very difficult.

At one point when I went back to school in sick form, I had an agreement with my teachers that they wouldn't give me the grades or the marks of my work because I got very obsessed over them.

So they would just, you know, write what I'd done well and how I could improve.

And it's hard because maybe we need to look at how the education system is set up.

Going to school five days a week was.

Was hell.

It was exhausting.

I couldn't do that.

Now I work four days a week, two days I work from home and two days I work in the office or in and in clinic.

So as an adult, I have so much more control and autonomy over what my week looks like and how I manage my energy levels.

As a child and a teenager, we didn't have that.

You're forced to go into a classroom every single day.

And for those neurodivergent kids, that can be really exhausting and really traumatizing, but yet they're made to go in every day.

And maybe some of them do need a day working from home.

So what?

But our current education system, there's sort of no room for that, is there?

It's such a.

Our system hasn't really progressed with society, I don't think.

Let's go to the book.

What was the book for?

And was the book specifically to start helping to implement change from a grassroots level?

So my book started because I was angry at what I'd been through.

So I started writing it when I was 19.

So I'm 22 now.

Now.

I actually wrote the first draft in three weeks because I hyper focused on it and didn't do anything else for three weeks.

And I've always loved writing, so I've done that before.

Hyper focusing on writing kind of novels, obviously, which haven't been published, but like novels and books and stories for weeks at a time.

So, yeah, it was because I was angry and also because I wanted to sort of get all my knowledge into One place.

And originally it was very nonfiction based.

So it was very much sort of very educational and it still is.

But when we were going through sort of the publication process, my editor said, look, I wonder if you can just try and write it in this way or in a slightly different way and see how it goes.

So he wanted it sort of in half being told as if it's happening now.

So half of it sort of reads like a story, like more creative writing.

Obviously it's real, but so it reads as if it's happening and then it goes to the nonfiction bits and then back again.

And I think it just keeps, hopefully will keep the reader a bit more engrossed and of, you know, enjoy the reading it a little bit more as it reads more like a story rather than just non fiction.

But yeah, it started because I was angry, wanted a way of processing.

I realized so many other young people were going through the same thing.

There were so many especially autistic ADHD girls in the mental health system who weren't being recognized, you know, from that CAMS ward that I was on.

I reckon half of us on that ward were autistic and I know some of them have been diagnosed since and probably the same with adhd, but it just wasn't being looked at and wasn't being picked up.

And that has to change because otherwise you've got cycles of young people and adults too being in and out of the mental health system, you know, and every time they're in, in that ward or that unit, they're gathering more and more trauma and.

And then they've got to unpack that and work through that too.

So somehow the cycle has to stop.

And that starts with professionals being able to recognize where there might be undiagnosed neurodivergence and looking at how they can support that and how that contributes to the mental health difficulties.

Because like, even for me, I know since starting ADHD medication my anxiety has reduced a lot.

It is much easier for me to work through OCD cycles now.

I don't get so anxious during the day when it's working because my brain is slower and I can apply those strategies to rationalize a little bit better.

And my just my brain is slower so it's not spiraling quite as quickly.

And I wonder what a little bit of what that medication might have done back for me as a teenager, whether it would have helped some of that a little bit.

So yeah, do you mind me asking about the medication and how did you have to try different ones or which one Are you on now?

That feels right for you.

You.

I'm on lvans.

There's been obviously a national ADHD medication shortage, which has been an absolute nightmare.

I had three weeks off before Christmas, off meds, and I, you know, I'd been on them for sort of a year and then had the three weeks off and my mood just crashed because it was suddenly dealing with all of that overload again that it had sort of, you know, adjusted to.

I probably would have got used to it again at some stage, but then I got the meds back again, but now I can't fulfill my next prescription, so I've got till Wednesday, and then who knows what's going to happen, But I'm trying to take one day at a time and focus on what is in front of me.

I knew I wanted to try lvanse because, you know, just personal preference, because you can either go with sort of LVANs or one of the methylphenidates as the first line in adults.

So, yeah, I tried that and, yeah, it really helped.

So I've just sort of.

I've been on that since.

And you talk about ocd, you know, looking back retrospectively, when do you think your OCD started showing up as a child?

This is an interesting question because until about two or three years ago, I would have said when I was about 13, 14, and my contamination OCD kind of kicked in.

But actually, I'd say from about the age of eight or nine, I was obsessed with the idea that I could have nits.

It sounds disgusting.

And that is what fueled it, was that disgust and that shame.

And I think I had nits once as a child, and after that it was.

I was so worried about going near other children, I was.

It just built up and I would think about it all the time.

I would worry about it.

I would try and try and get rid of them, even though there was nothing there.

And actually that was really consuming as a child.

And then that sort of shifted to contamination OCD when I was in my teenage years, then it latched on to sort of religion and moral morals and thinking, I'm going to go to hell, even though I don't know if I believe in God and what can I do to stop me going to hell?

And.

And, yeah, it just sort of shifts, I think, the theme of OCD to whatever it can get its hands on.

And until you recognize that it's ocd, it's very hard to start working through it.

Yeah.

And it's absolutely exhausting and draining for the Person that has to live with that.

All these constant intrusive thoughts going back to what you said before is, you know, being able to recognize these first line symptoms and these traits of, okay, there's anxiety, there's ocd.

Really, instead of just treating that as like something, you know, separate, is starting to understand that that could be part of autism or ADHD or both.

And starting to understand that we can see this, especially in girls, that we see these non stop restless brains.

Did you go through sort of any cbt?

Is any specific therapy or coaching worked for you?

I know we've talked about the medication.

What else has helped you kind of gain a little bit of control or empowerment around your mental health?

Yeah, I've sort of had it all and whether it's helped or not has sort of depended on what stage of life I've been in and how well I've understood my own neurodivergence.

So When I was 13 I had CBT, but the stuff that was making me anxious was loud noises, crowds, school, you know, CBT wasn't going to change that environment and which was triggering my anxiety day after day.

When I was sort of 16, I had DBT, dialectical behavioral therapy, which very much works on emotional regulation and distress tolerance.

And I did actually find that quite useful because there was some practical skills I could use there to help with my, with regulating my emotions.

And also it talks you through kind of how to identify different emotions, which I really struggled with being autistic, so that was quite helpful then.

I've had sort of counseling and other things since.

I've had ADHD coaching now with Leanne from ADHD works for kind of the last six months and that has been amazing.

I think what's probably been most helpful from ADHD coaching is learning how my ADHD affects my anxiety because anxiety is what has like it's ruined days of my life and taken over at times and that's what's been really challenging.

And she said something to me last week about how our brains lend ourselves so well to anxiety and OCD because unsolvable problems are a never ending source of dopamine.

Our brain loves an unsolvable problem because it just keeps producing that dopamine and our brains just go round and round in spirals and we can't stop.

It's that racing mind and it's almost like we need something to worry about because our brain never stops.

So our brain needs to latch onto something because otherwise it's bored and it's restless and actually that boredom can trigger the anxiety because it needs something to think about.

And just reframing stuff like that has.

Yeah, has been life changing because I can understand the source of where different worries are coming from.

And actually it's less about the worry and more about my brain needing to.

Be occupied when you reframe it like that.

And Leanne's fantastic.

She's been on the podcast and she's really, really great, and she's training coaches now, and it's fantastic what she's doing.

So it's understanding, isn't it?

You know, when we've spent so many years of our life not understanding and not being able to make sense of why, you know, why we're anxious or why our brain's doing this or why we.

This constant sort of like, feedback loop that we're getting.

But when we have this awareness and we're able to almost separate from it and look at it and go, okay, now you understand that this is why you're overthinking.

This is why you're worrying or catastrophizing.

And you know what I do that I find very helpful for me is I almost talk to myself in the third person.

It's like, right, Kate, I can see that you're really worried right now.

I can see that.

You know, it's taking over, but let's just break it down and, you know, let's try and sort of find whether or not there's a solution.

Sometimes there isn't a solution, but just kind of breaking it down and looking at it straight on as opposed to kind of burying it and pushing it away.

And listen, you know, a lot of people do that to us, maybe have been historically invalidated and dismissed and told to stop being silly and to stop worrying, get over it.

And all these little things, like I'm sure you would have done.

You know, when people talk about knit, so many people just go, whatever.

But for us, you know, when we're going through that, that it's all consuming.

It's exhausting and draining.

I have it.

I've talked about on the podcast before.

I've got a metaphobia, which is a fear of vomit, and I couldn't even say the word.

And it's, It's.

It is all consuming because there's so many different what ifs constantly going through my mind of, you know, if you're out, you're on transport with other children.

Yeah, there's bugs, there's hospitals, all sorts of things.

And.

And, you know, only the other day we were on a.

On A flight.

And my husband saw what I was doing because I was scanning, I was being hyper vigilant.

He, I didn't want to sit on a certain seat because there was a young kid behind me and he can, he knows my, my brain process now.

And I said can I swap seats?

I want to stay over there.

And he then told me, he went, listen, this is ridiculous.

You need to go and get this sorted, you know.

And I know he's coming from a place of caring, but when he says this is ridiculous, I can't, you know, I can't help that those consuming thoughts and I can't help that my body responds in this sort of fight or flight mode.

So this is something now I'm going to, I really do want to get sorted and helped with because it's been with me my whole life and it takes away the pleasure of so many things.

But it's just a recognition though, that awareness of understanding and seeing how it impacts us and you know, little physiological things that we can do.

So I find like breath work can really help.

I use eft, I use tapping, which calms down my nervous system, the stress response in the moment.

And even though it may not solve everything when we're in that very sort of stressful fight or flight mode, it feels empowering to know that we can maybe breathe through it or we can talk, you know, talk to ourselves through it and try and rationalize something.

Yeah.

But yeah, it's just maybe a recognition that even if someone is saying this is ridiculous or sort it out or deal with it, it's not that easy and we just have to give ourselves quite a bit of self compassion as well.

Yeah.

And I think sometimes our brains look for almost logical reasons for the anxiety that we're feeling from overwhelm or from something that we don't, we don't know why we're feeling anxious.

So sometimes my OCD will be triggered and it will be because I'm feeling quite overwhelmed, or maybe I'm just anxious because of the environment.

But then actually it will place that anxiety onto this thought and this obsession.

But it's because it needs something to focus on because it can't work out what else it's anxious and overwhelmed about.

And even just reframing it like that has been really helpful for me in terms of those like techniques weeks.

I love a weighted blanket.

I use headspace a lot of my phone, sort of that mindfulness, trying just to take a step out of that situation and focusing on what's in front of me.

You know, nature and I love getting out for walks and just trying to take a step back from everything that's going on in my brain and getting a bit more perspective.

And I've started journaling again, which has been good.

And do you find that sleep for you?

I mean, first of all, do you struggle with sleep, but do you find that it really impacts if you've not slept well on your ADHD and autism and anxiety?

Like how.

Because I notice so much with my kids, but also with me, that sleep is imperative because everything else just feels so much more difficult if we've not slept properly.

Yeah, massively.

I've always struggled to sleep.

I mean, I slept well as like a baby and a toddler, but as soon as the anxiety and the worries and the overthinking started.

So probably for about the age of six, I always struggled to fall asleep at night.

I started taking melatonin, was prescribed Melatonin when I was probably about 15, 16, and then just couldn't.

Yeah, just couldn't sleep unless I had that.

But my sleep since COVID has been better.

When I was in, during COVID I stopped taking melatonin and I found that because I didn't have so much to stress about the next day, I actually started to get into a better sleep routine.

Now, sleep, oh, it's very variable.

Some days I have to take melatonin and other days I can just fall asleep.

My weighted blanket has been amazing.

I put sensory lights on before bed.

I listened to Headspace before bed and I think I used to always try and fall asleep to silence because that was what you, you know, that's what you're typically meant to do.

But I can't.

I can't fall asleep to silence.

And since I started listening to kind of bedtime stories on Headspace, you've just got something to kind of think about and focus on, which has been really helpful.

But, yeah, sleep, yeah, definitely not good.

If I don't sleep well, the next day will be an anxious, an OCD type day.

And then the problem is, is that then that might stop me sleeping the next night.

And that's how I get into a bit of a bad mental state.

So, yeah, imperative.

Effy, do you ever take my magnesium?

No.

So I.

That's something that I swear by.

It's something that I take every single night and I give it to again to my youngest daughter.

It's very calming on the nervous system.

It's really good to help with sleep.

So there's lots of different types of magnesium, but the one that's recommended for sleep is magnesium glycinate and it's just very calming, it's regulating, you can get it in, you know, if you ever have a bath and you it's in Epsom salts, you can get creams, you can rub it on topically onto your skin.

I really recommend it because melatonin, from what I know is great for a couple of nights, but long term use I think does impact our sleep.

Then you kind of get a little bit dependent on it.

But where magnesium.

Some people are a lot more deficient in magnesium and the studies now that are saying that there are links to less magnesium for neurodivergent people.

So we have to sort of top that up.

Yeah, I think our brains naturally seek, we seek stimulation and we.

Getting to bed at night can be very hard when you have ADHD because you're having to lie still in the silence and that is boring and our brains don't want to shut off.

So having something to focus on that's also calming if that's music, if it's an audiobook, sometimes even doing like I think crossword puzzle in bed at night, some people say, oh, it'll break, it will wake you up.

But actually it can be quite calming because it gives your brain something to focus on.

It's about keeping our brains busy, I think, in the lead up to bed whilst not too much overstimulation.

Yeah, I think what you've sort of illustrated really well in this conversation is that, you know, our experience, what we go through is valid and you know, hopefully we'll get that, we'll get more self awareness, we'll get more support, external support, help, you know, hopefully family, friends, partners.

We bring this all together with the help of medication, with coaching, with understanding ourselves more and more as we get older and bringing in the tools that work for us and not because that's what we've been told to do or that we've deemed, you know, that society says is the right thing to do and if we can create some form of blend or recipe that works individually for us, for our individual neurodivergence, whether it's more autism, more ADHD or some periods of our life.

I hear this a lot with clients, is that their ADHD is much more prominent and some periods, their autism is a lot more prominent and we have to ride these waves through our hormones as well as women and girls, pregnancy, post pregnancy, then we go through perimenopause and we have all these different waves and ebbs and flows that we have to feel empowered to know that we can lean on different tools, that we can bring in things that feel right for us at the time that maybe six months ago didn't feel right for us, but right now it does.

You know, whether we say no to medication and actually in a year's time, you think, actually, I really need the medication.

Like, it feels like I'm going through a bit of a tough time, you know, whatever we're faced, you know, externally with the life world that we have to sort of be open to knowing that we're on this.

As cheesy as it sounds, we're on this journey and I hope as time goes on, you know, we're going to get more support externally and we're going to have more knowledge and the mental health professionals are going to be much more aware.

But also like, like the school system is going to be more aware and teachers and parents and we're going to get these diagnoses much earlier on.

So girls like you and me, when I look back at the younger version of ourselves and all these things that no one knew, like, hopefully these girls are going to be like, oh, okay, you've got a bit of anxiety, you've got this, well, let's get you assessed.

And the assessment process is much quicker and much cheaper and much easier to access and it's not such a taboo or a stigma and we're then able to get this support at school and we can go through our life and choose our careers and our jobs and the way we want to live and parents and it just feels so much more effortless as opposed to what feels right now is just a constant grind and, you know, going uphill.

But I think speaking to you, it's given me a lot of hope because you're, you know, that, that, that bit younger and to see how empowered you are and to see how you have written a book and you're helping other people and you're working the mental health professional who really gets it.

So I just want to thank you for, for your work, this really important work and, yeah, tell people how they can access what you're doing and maybe what your plans are for the future.

I just want to say to what you said, it's the dream, isn't it, to live a life that we feel in charge of and life doesn't feel like it's dominating us and living a life that works for our brains.

I could not have imagined being where I am now a year ago or two years ago.

I mean, I know I had the book deal and things, but then I got, you know, I got the new job and more opportunities came up and I just.

Sometimes.

Yeah, you just need to take life one day at a time.

Yeah.

I also want to travel a little bit and enjoy my 20s as well and not focus too much on work, because I know we're so.

We are so prone to that.

You know, it's so easy to be a workaholic when your brain is just so driven and busy and focused.

It's like, I want to do that and I want to do that, and I want to do that, but I also want to slow down and try and prioritize slowing down and actually being offline and having life experiences that, you know, are quite fulfilling as well as, you know, plowing forward and in.

In work and hustle culture.

So I don't know exactly what holds, but we'll see.

Yeah, wise words.

Because as you say, you know, we are prone to burnout, we're prone to workaholism.

We are prone to thinking, like, what next?

The constant.

This drive that's this sort of like, internal drive that we have.

This.

We can be very ambitious, but it's often a detriment to our own health.

And so it's.

Yeah, it's something that we have to be really aware of.

And yes, enjoy your 20s.

And my goodness, if I.

Someone that told me back then, enjoy your 20s and just go and have fun.

And.

Yeah, and especially the social media side as well, it can be really hard to have to keep up with that.

But this is where I feel super privileged to know that I have.

Have.

That I'm autistic and have adhd in my 20s because so, like, obviously so many people who came before me didn't have that.

Like, loads of autistic women and ADHD women and.

And men as well.

Anyone, you know, loads of people didn't know until they were so much older.

And so I want to make sure I, you know, make use of that knowledge the best that I can.

And actually, I know that already my.

My life the last couple of years is.

Has been different to if I hadn't have known.

And I've put, you know, strategies in place and I make sure I take more breaks and I prioritize, you know, downtime and stuff or try to do I all the time.

No, but, yeah, knowing that, I think makes me feel more positive about my 20s and, you know, moving forward in life because I've got knowledge that other people didn't have and hopefully I can use that.

Yeah.

To hopefully I can use that to the best of.

I don't know what the saying is.

That's my brain.

I don't know sayings.

But you know what I mean, I.

Think remove all the pressure.

Don't put the pressure on you.

And you know, what you've achieved already is going to be so helpful for so many people.

So just know that and don't feel guilt for forgetting that because what you're going to be doing is modeling to so many people and we can know it all and we can be privileged and have these diagnoses and we can still fall by the wayside and make the wrong choices and you know, kind of in the moment forget everything that we know and you know, no one's perfect.

So just, yeah, continue with a lot of self kindness and don't overwork and enjoy your twenties and enjoy the book launch and you know, the achievement that you've, you've done because it's massive and it's gonna really, it really will help lots of people.

So thank you so much.

Emily, thank you so much for having me.

It's been lovely to chat to you.

I really hope you enjoyed this week's episode.

If you did and it resonated with you, I would absolutely love it if you could share on your platforms or maybe leave a review and a rating wherever you listen to your podcasts.

And please do check out my website, ADHD womenswellbeing.co.

for lots of free resources and paid for workshops.

I'm uploading new things all the time and I would absolutely love to see you there.

Take care and see you for the next episode.