Mental Health Matters 🧠 - "Are you Neurodivergent?"

What's up, folks? Welcome to another episode of Mental Health Matters. I wish I could have, like, words come up on the screen, mental health matters. You could just use your imagination. I'm Evan, your resident mental health and addiction therapist. This is my live stream talking about mental health, addiction matters around that, and because mental health is important, and I'm on a swivel chair. Speaking of, we're going to talk today about neurodivergence, which is basically what a lot of folks would refer to as ADhd, autism, basically, differences in the structure of someone's mind.

Now, this isn't necessarily like an official concept, like, you probably wouldn't find that word in the DSM or something like that, but it's. It's become a very common popular phrase to describe these different brain conditions and looking at it from a different angle, not so much to remove some of the stigma of it being a disorder versus just, this is how someone's mind is structured, doesn't necessarily need fixing. But oftentimes I could use some special attention. Sometimes that could be with medication and mitigating some of the symptoms that come from that.

Anyways, if you're just joining, every other week, I do an episode of ask me anything where I take questions that I receive from here, from social media. And so at any point, you could join that live stream this livestream, any of the topic ones too, and ask any questions. But I just bring this topic to cover in general, so feel free to bring those in. And without further ado, we'll see who jumps in. If you have a question for me, feel free to put it in the community feed and tag me. You could also comment on any of my videos.

I typically see those if you want to ask a follow up question, and I will for sure include that in my am name. So anyway, now, without further ado, let's talk about neurodivergence. So, like I mentioned, typically it refers to a set of disorders that individuals maybe attribute more to just a different type of brain versus a disorder. Now we're kind of getting into a little bit of gray area of like, can we consider any disorder just a different, you know, brain structure? Yes and no. Right? So, like something like depression that's brought on by largely circumstantial effects, or PTSD, which are directly related to things that, you know, much more environmental, then, yeah, that probably wouldn't fit the definition, and people typically wouldn't put that.

However, I've seen people include things like schizophrenia, and I think that one is debatable, but you know, very much that is a condition that you would want to get significant treatment for. That usually renders people pretty difficult to function, especially in modern society. I mean, people have schizophrenia for a while, but, like, typically they would just, like, make them shamans, and typically they would do better that way. But at the same time, like, it's not necessarily based in reality.

However, that's a whole other topic, one I should probably look more into because that's actually fairly interesting. But really, with neurodivergence, we go through some of the conditions we mentioned, ADHD. People with ADHD, these are neurodevelopmental disorder, and that basically means a disorder of brain development in childhood. So your brain develops differently. Now, it's difficult to say because some people would theorize, well, yeah, if individuals grow up in certain, like, chaotic type environments or have neglect, they're more likely to have it, too.

But really, it is thought more to be of a genetic predisposition that one has to it and that it's kind of, you're going to have it or not, for the most part. But some people may have a lot of the same symptoms, but for different reasons, not just that brain structure. So all things like ADHD, neurodevelopment are typically on a spectrum. But the way we diagnose it is basically in three categories of an ADHD that's more inattentive, more hyperactive. So I would say it's like of the mind, of the body or combined type.

I don't really think that's the best way to look at it, to be honest. But there's definitely truth to that. Some people have less of the hyperactive symptoms. So I have it. And people would typically, you know, if they were looking at me, they would just know, okay, I'm more in attentive, not like hyperactive running around. However, even though I have this very chill demeanor, I am told the hyperactivity is often in the mind. It's just not expressed in the body. So that could come out as things like impulsivity, compulsivity, hyper.

Yeah, like you're like racing mind and other ways that the mind could be hyperactive, and it doesn't express out the body. So anyway. But that's just how we do it. Good enough, let's say it, you know, spans the spell spectrum. You know, different symptoms, different severities diagnosed. And these tend to be diagnosed more in men. ADHD is kind of like a four to one, I think, ratio. It's more like two to one. For ADHD. The numbers vary some people argue, well, it's because we don't see it in women.

It's not typically diagnosed as much. It's overlooked, which is probably true to it. But still, at the end of the day, it's probably still more in guys. And I think when women have it, it tends to be a little more subtle. But women definitely, definitely have it. Many women do. And then we have autism. And that is a neurodevelopmental disorder as well of brain structure and development in childhood. And that is really, really characterized by, you know, difficulties in social, social understanding.

It could be difficulties with overstimulations, you know, so a lot of sensory issues, it could, you know, which translates often into emotional, sometimes difficulty managing emotions, being, you know, overwhelmed with people, places, things, hyper fixations, a little bit similar to ADHD, but maybe even more so. You know, these, like, really fixed interest type or fixations. And with autism, it really spans a spectrum as well, but even more so than ADHD, where it could be, you know, from someone who needs less support, they would say, like, at a level one, you know, meaning maybe these folks won't get diagnosed later.

They have, like, some of the signs and symptoms, but it is a little bit more subtle. And they're able to function on their own, you know, in their day to day without much support. But it does kind of create issues in their life. And they, with more awareness, often can figure that out later all the way up to individuals who need, like, full support, like, to the point where they're, like, nonverbal, where they're not even able to speak in the same way, and they are not able to function on their own.

So it's much more of a wide span. However, like, with ADHD, autism, and any of the other ones I talk about, there's typically a double edged sword. So some folks with autism have incredible abilities, incredible, incredible levels of intelligence in certain areas, like, they used to say, like a savant. I don't know if we'd still use that term or not. I haven't heard it much. I don't know if it's offensive now, but, you know, savant in one particular thing, like math or some ability, sometimes these folks could, like, it's like they're into wrestling.

They can list every wrestler from 1974 till now in alphabetical order. You know, think of, like, rain man, the movie, who I believe was depicted with autism, who could do, like, incredible math and stuff in his head, even though he struggled in many of these other areas, you know, so that would be. And so then the question is, a lot of the folks that are being diagnosed now with more awareness, sometimes folks can identify with a lot of the symptoms, but whether that's autism or just maybe social awkwardness or having some of those features.

So that's why they say it's on a spectrum. And it's hard to say. And we don't know what it's caused from. You know, it's all observed from the outside. So even maybe if it isn't the same brain mechanism of, you know, someone who has a more lesser level, who's more functional. People get mad when I say that, but sometimes I don't have another word for it, you know, ability to manage their day to day. Let's just say, you know, the normal, if you want to say the word, functions, but forgive me, I have the best of intention.

So, you know, then, like, with the superpower thing with ADHD, a lot of folks have, like, higher levels of creativity, able to think fast on their feet, coming up with ideas, connecting different concepts. That would be difficult otherwise, inventing things. A lot of very famous people have ADHD. Now, another one, you know, we just talked about those two, which are the main ones. But, you know, other things like dyslexia, which is a learning disorder that's characterized by trouble with, like, reading organ, you know, and certain types of mental organization around words and numbers.

It's those folks sometimes, I mean, obviously, really struggle often when they're younger, but often are able to adapt and become extremely successful and finding in those adaptations. So people like, I was just listening to a podcast with, what's her last name? Barbara from. From shark Tank, and she was talking about how she, you know, built this real estate empire, but she would use, like, color coding because she could not. Like, she would not write or, like, you know, really read as little as possible, but would find these ways around and build a real estate empire.

Richard Branson, Dax shepherd. There's many, many other famous folks who've had dyslexia who've been. So there's, like, a disproportionate amount of success, but also a disproportionate amount of struggle. For example, people in prisons, like a disproportionate amount, have had learning disabilities and that kind of thing, too. But that's another example of maybe a form of neurodivergence, of having a brain with different abilities, different structure. That is a double edged sword. There's a lot of those dyslexia, dyspraxia.

Someone like Daniel Radcliffe has a lesser, I believe, it's dyspraxia, which is actually, they call it the klutzy disorder, where it's actually triggered couple of certain motor movements. And, you know, obviously these are things probably rather not have. But sometimes there are these adaptations, like I said, that can lead to ability and different types of abilities that you otherwise wouldn't, I don't know necessarily for that one, another one. And this is, like, my theory that I believe has some validity to it, that I believe actually should meet this category.

And that is dysthymia. It used to be called. It's interesting because it kind of sounds like dyslexia, but it's now called persistent depressive disorder, which is a kind of like a more, you say, like, mild form of depression. You don't have these major depressive episodes. Like, if here's like. Like the kind of your average mood state on a graph, a major depression would be these deep dips, but then inevitably coming back up, hopefully, where you'd have these major depressive episodes. Whereas persistent depressive is not really an episode.

It's just here's the baseline, and here you stand and operate. And very often, like, it's known to be, like, a little bit more difficult to treat because it's almost like someone's baseline. And that's why I think I would maybe consider that to be a form of neurodivergence, because it's just somebody has a different baseline. And I'm gonna look more into it to see if, like, there is any correlation with persistent depressive and any personality characteristics. But I have met some individuals who have it.

They tend to be kind of funny, like a good sense of humor, a little bit dark, you know, because they're like, in this one, I mean, it could be the different brain structure. I mean, I think some people could have that from, like, childhood trauma. Thinking of some of the people who I've worked with who have had it, it's hard to say is it because of that or that just played into it. But I do think a lot of that with the persistent depressive is different brain stretches, and they just have, like, less of the ups and downs as well.

So they don't necessarily have. I mean, they definitely could have, like, depressive episodes, for sure. They tend to, like, kind of be in this, like, consistent lower state where they're, like. It's hard to get them, like, really happy and excited. But also there's, like, a protective mechanism of not being quite as protected, perturbed. It's kind of like this something bad happened. Whatever. Something good happened, whatever. So that's another one I think is really interesting and worth looking into.

But again, the definition of neurodivergence is pretty open ended. It's not. You can maybe make arguments for different disorders being included or not. Anyway, so, I mean, if this is something you're interested in, I know a lot of folks have, have ADHD, I'm sure plenty on the app. And if you check, I believe this series is up. But I have like a, I'll just say 15 video series about managing adult ADHD that I definitely put a lot into, spent a lot of time on and I think, you know, would be a benefit.

There's whether you watch a couple of the videos or the whole thing, I did a pretty in depth series on that, so check that out. And anyway, feel free to comment on this if you're watching it later. Feel free to again post in the community feed and tag me post in the or any of my videos comment and I'll answer it next week. So join us next week for the ask me anything where I'm going to bring a handful of topics from you all. Anyway, I hope you have a great rest of your evening. Take care of yourself and talk to you later.

Bye.