Episode 13: AuDHD - When Autism meets ADHD

Just a note, this episode does contain explicit language.

What do you call it?

It's just cotton wall tied into.

Bots and you take it everywhere.

I take them everywhere.

That's Rich Rowley talking about his homemade's dress ball.

We're in the.

Studios at endzedy me and he's taken me through some of his many silent dims things he does to help calm himself when he's uncomfortable, which is a lot of the time. There's a finger counting ritual.

I do it with my toes. You can't really see me doing that.

And the lip reverb, I.

Just vibrate my bottom. It's sort of vibrating inside. And that's just that's so common.

And so then.

I'm always uncomfortable when I'm out of the house, right, it doesn't matter where I am. I'm always everything's loud and bright and.

And I'm just thinking now, like you're sitting here and there's a shitload of lights. It's a weird environment. Are you okay?

I mean, it's the onest answer to that is no, right, it's horrible. The practical answer is, where isn't like this?

Right?

You get used to it, it does I'm never going to like it never going to be really comfortable. What does a world look like that's comforting to me? I genuinely don't know, because I've never heard it, never had it.

I'm diving into the complex and fascinating world of neurodiversity. I'm not an expert, but my daughter is neurodivergent and a few years ago I was diagnosed ady h D. In this series you'll hear from experts and from many wonderful people who experience the world in a unique way. We're looking at neurodiversity from the inside, Jelda, I'm Sonia Gray, and there's no such thing as normal. Series two. In

Stayful by routing book, desperate for it because I've got these constant internal narrative, like these like ampsters on wheels that never shut off.

Rich Raley featured in series one of this podcast, Gone Back because I love steeping inside his brain. And if anyone can describe their experience of AUDIHD, it's rich.

I've got lots of different sort of labels, right, so they sort of seemed to compete against each other, right, But like I got a formal diagnosis of ADHD like ten years ago or so, that was a journey in itself kind of come into grips with that. And then I met my new partner and we've got a beautiful blended family and our eldest he'd got he was formally diagnosed with autism. But it was like first time I met him, I was like that he's just like me, like really just like me.

And my partner was like.

It's so like ready you're autistic and idize like it's like no, I'm not.

It's ADHD.

And then you know it's going down that thing as well. You know, it's it's a lot.

When Rich God is initial diagnosis of ADHD, it's unlikely autism would have been recognized at the same time. This is pretty new for everyone.

There is still so much more for all of us to learn in that professional space because it is such a kind of a really emerging area in a lot of ways.

That's clinical psychologist Sarah Watson, who runs Totally Psyched in Parmackey Mikodo. She says her team are now recognizing and diagnosing more and more young people with what they call the combo.

It is actually such a current thing. How it used to be diagnostically was principally you could only be ADHD or you could be ASD. Anything like one had to be secondary to the other. So it meant what we were saying to people as professionals was you're only one thing and anything else is kind of a bit incidental, which is really what we understand now incorrect for those who have AUDHD, because have actually got aspects of each and that is part of what makes it the way their brain works.

To make sure they get it right, Sarah's team conduct really thorough assessments three or four hours long, because with these diagnoses there is a lot to tease out.

Our team had to upskill quite a lot around AUDHD. You know, we need to understand what this is because generally speaking it's been considered as it quite binary, like ASD and ADHD are quite separate things. The thing with AUDHD is that there's the diagnostic side, but then there's

Rich Rally has always been well aware of his struggles. In coming to Grips with his many diagnoses was an emotional rollercoaster, but he now recognizes his many, many strengths and there's a whole new understanding.

My will got bigger because of it. My worldview changed all of a sudden. I under like, I can see where I stand in relation to everything else. I can understand why you would look at somebody like me and go that shit's fucking broken. I can understand that because of where I now stand, because I can see that when you're over there looking at me, I do look broken, right. I can write a master's thesis in a day and get a distinction for it. You give me a form to fill in. I can't do it. Can't do it?

Right?

I still struggle with feeling bad about that. That's the challenge that we're up against light and that starts in schools. You go through a learning system that says, if you're not capable of doing this, you're bad, you're wrong, you've got problems, you've broken. It doesn't give you any opportunity or very very very limited opportunity to go. But look

Rich and I have often talked about the diagnosis of oppositional defiant disorder or ODD. My daughter hit that label at one point. There are so many things wrong with it, and we'll go into those in a future episode. And as school days, Rich might have been a kid who was given the odd label bick in the day. Well maybe I'm wrong, maybe he was a well behaved, compliant, high achieving student.

Oh fuck no, I would argue with me, teachers, like constantly pushing against all those back, always, always, always pushing, even in an environment where if you pushed you got physically abused, like beyond the mental beauty, I mean, the mental abuse in that system was constant. Right, you're an idiot, you're stupid, you're dumb, that's teachers. You're a waste of space all the time. And then like you know, like if you push too org you get hit. Couldn't stop pushing,

So yes, defiant, But in a way it says this isn't working. A refusal to accept the status quo. This is something I really admire in so many and you're a divisent people. Rich is also incredibly comfortable uncertainty. Sometimes such as the oxymoronic nature of AUDIHD.

In the UK where I grew up, there wasn't a lot to do at the weekend other than go to the football. And you go to the football, and then there's all the extraneous stuff that was happening around the football, right the fight, in the violence.

I loved that even though.

I was tiny. I used to love just being in it because of the danger and the excitement and anything that was just rolled, like, rather than running away, I'd run towards it. It's like I still have that insa of me today. I'm really great when the shit's hitting the fun it's everything's calm. It's my best.

Yeah. And yet so you're great with uncertainty and yet were you telling me a while ago about a workshop you were doing and the room changed? Yeah, and it really through.

It throws me. Yeah.

If it's something where I've gone in with an expectation and it's changed, it will it'll throw me.

So you've got a whole lot of other things that you're thinking about, and so you're like, well, at least don't know the rooms there, and then the room changes and it's like I was a fuck.

It's like God, and I'm trying to It's not deal with it.

It's just I.

Can't deal with it in my normal way of dealing with it because it would actually me and a crisis. I'm amazing, but like it's not really for like musk consumption.

Yeah yeah, yeah, like many autistic people or audyhd is, there is a passion for very niche special interests.

I'm very weird.

I can obsess about the granular detail if I'm interested in it. I've got deep interest in all technology ancient through to modern, very very very special interesting industrial chimneys.

I don't think you're going to find many people that will jump on the industrial.

I'll just talk about or steam trains or and I've got loads of them. And it's like I just thought that everybody had that, that they had lots.

Of these like unusual.

Small leash things that they were very very interested in. Everybody turns out now it's but it's I.

Love it though, Like there's nothing better than someone that's passionate about something. Do I want to know every detail? Probably not. And I think it's weird. It's a struggle.

I don't even know how to describe.

I'm like more than interested it, I'd be desperate, Like I say, it's that desperate to talk about them more, you know, I like I I mean, I think I'm bloody lucky where I live, right, I live, and ponds and b and there's there's two.

Where I walk. The dogs are walk past two.

Of the only like Edwardian industrial chimneys that are left.

Probably in New Zealand, right.

And I love walking past them, I like, and I do it deliberately because I just a light looking at them, and a light that they're part of the landscape still and that there's a couple of them that have survived.

And I don't care about chimneys, but I love that you love them. Does it kind of give you a sense of joy?

Oh?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I don't know how many ponds and by residents even clock the industrial chimneys, but that passion for the chimneys is an example of the magic we often miss with different cognition, wonderment, finding unfiltered joy and things most of us don't even notice. But I think I'm walking with a nineteen year old Annavelle in central Wellington. We're at the bottom of the terrace, an area I know really well, or I thought I did. But walking with Annabelle is

I should not an interview. Walking outside this giv anything's look at.

You might remember annabel from the first episode in this series when she talked about her sensory challenges. What I didn't get a chance to celebrate then it was her wonderment. Spending time with her is life affirming, but annabel also apologizes and second guesses herself a lot, which is perhaps common for alldhds, and maybe also because the your just too much message is something she's had her entire life.

I didn't get up.

I sat.

I was I was in a sack. Remember I was in a sack on the floor. Remember, Yeah, I wasn't. I wasn't standing up.

No, it was it's so beautiful about it. You're in your onesie. Was it a onesie? I don't know.

It was like a set it's called it was called a sensory sack. And I was like, this is the best thing because I climbed into it and its like I'm in backing the worm or something.

So on that day, Annabel made an impromptu speech at an event she was in who sensory sack. She lay down, she totally forgot what she actually wanted to say, but it was a beautiful moment that has stuck with me because everybody there just embraced it. Everybody was grateful to her for just being herself, And I thought, why isn't the world more like this?

That's so interesting because that was like the first sort of time I had kind of actually felt being around a bunch of people like who were also on your A division because that's not normal. I didn't think you were, you know, like, that's not something that we're taught.

Is okay, we're taught, it's not okay. In fact, it's very rare for those like Annabel to feel truly comfortable to be their version of normal. Afterwards, did you go, oh, yes, okay, tell.

Me about that.

I just immediately went and I felt you absolute prefer you idiot. But that's kind of a commonality. I realized subconsciously that every time I contribute something to discussion, I always apologize after at the end of my discussion point, I'll say something like, but I'm probably totally wrong. I'm so sorry. That wasn't. That was terrible.

I don't know.

It just feels like that's kind of a safety nit hmm, because in case it is terrible, well that wasn't.

It really wasn't. But that shows the stop, go, push, pull, speak out, apologize perpetual cycle that many audhds live with daily.

I think for me, my brain is kind of like a giant contradiction. There's my ADHD part of my brain going I love novelty and new things and spontaneity, and then there's the autistic part going, you're insane, like what are you doing? That's you know, you panic blah blah blah blah blah. So it kind of externalizes and spontaneity only on Annabel's terms. Anyone else's terms, Annabel will melt down and panic. So it's kind of a huge contradiction.

So on one hand, you like predictability and structure. Yes, But on the other hand, you love spontaneity, and so it's almost within that structure, this conflicting brain. Yes, a brain that's kind of a war with itself. Sometimes tell me what that was? Sometimes all the time for you and your family? Oh yeah, my poor family. Um, yeah, I feel a little bit.

I feel looking that respectively, I feel a little bit sorry for them. How do I put this? I was very difficult, but I wasn't intentionally difficult. I was very difficult because I couldn't articulate and I didn't realize why my brain was the way it was. So holidays were an absolute nightmare because you know, it's lifting me out of my routine.

And did you have meltdowns as a kid.

Yes, my parents have, you know, like along with me, learnt so much since my diagnosis, you know, because I couldn't control it. Used to go like, oh, Annabel, you're acting like a four year old.

Psychologist Sarah Watson says, it's so difficult for far though, to understand that this is not about behavior. It's an intense internal experience.

But it's not because I don't want to It's not because I'm being willful. It's not because I'm intentionally trying to be defiant, you know what I mean. The thing is is parents of those with AUDHD, once you understand the processes and what AUDIHD is, you're able to then come to see the behavior that your child is exhibiting as with compassion.

So how did the whole AUDHD discovery come about for Annabelle.

I don't think I ever suspected I was autistic, because in my head, the autistic stereotype was young Sheldon and autestic people couldn't have empathy or something like that, and they were blunt. And I was like, well, no, I'm not blunt. I'm almost too empathetic. I get way too involved in how other people are feeling, and if they're feeling sad, I want you to jump off a cliff.

I get it.

I know what you're saying.

Yeah, And to tell people I was autistic was way harder than telling people why I had ai ishue. Yeah.

Because of the stereotypes. Yeah, because of the stereotype and it will probably take a long time to shake.

Yeah.

Have you ever had any really low points in your life?

Yes?

Do you want to talk about those?

You don't have to?

Well?

I think especially in high school, especially before I was diagnosed. Yeah, yet ten and eleven, which is like fifteen sixteen, And I realized now looking back, the issues that arose were because of an undiagnosed neurdivid and it was for a child told every day without malicious intent. People would just go, oh, you're so much in a belt like you're and there's

Yeah, and why everything was such a struggle.

Yeah.

I was like, why can't I pull myself together? And I didn't ask for help because I was like, this is not something that you should need help.

Worth. Did you get any sort of anxiety or depression diagnosis? Yeah?

I got, Yeah, my first diagnosis, actually, my first ever diagnosis was in year ten generalize anxiety disorder and social anxiety. When I was diagnosed with autism, the psychologist was like, I don't actually think you have anxiety. I think the anxiety that is that manifest as a result of.

Well, I think all those things generalize. Anxiety, any sort of depression is not inherent. It's like it's caused by the fact that you're just as you say, years of not getting things right, of being too much of I.

Think it's easier to go with that anxiety than to look and go maybe that's something else.

So many people, especially women and girls, are diagnosed with anxiety or depression before discovering their brain differences. And it's not wrong. There are mental health struggles there. It just seems to take way too long to get to the underlying cause. For Annabelle it got serious as a fifteen year old. She was hospitalized with anorexia.

It was never that I looked at myself when you're fat starve. It was more I needed something to control in my life. I didn't start intentionally starving myself. It was kind of like, Okay, things feel extremely out of control. What can I control? Okay, I can control my food and take and then it kind of spiraled from there. Yeah, it's the whole control thing. Feeling completely out of control is just finding something to leture onto.

Did you want help?

Well, I don't think there was anything wrong like I was like, I don't know, I just I didn't really see any sort of future, not in like a like I want to die kind of way. Just was like this, I just don't I don't see like I don't know, just I don't really see the point. And I think that was from, you know, my brain was starving. I just lost any sense of kind of care. It's interesting looking back.

The anxiety and anorexia, then the autism ADHD discovery all happened in high school. Annabelle had one close friend who she's still type with today, but apart from that, friendships are terrible. Okay, teachers were great.

I loved my teachers. I loved my school, genuinely adored my school, and I adored my teachers, especially during high school. I've realized I was kind of non as I don't know if you call it the class clown, but I was kind of like the doozy like whacked one. But I kind of developed this persona which I think was a shield in a way that people could sort of make fun of me, but like I'd laugh along with them.

You put yourself out as the class clown, yeah, so then.

People could like insult encodition much insult me or go like you're so you know, blah blah blah, and that would be fine because I would just laugh it off.

Annabelle is a gifted student with an intelligent, inquiring mind, top of the class throughout primary school, but then the wheels fell off.

I understood the content perfectly well. It was the whole realization that you need age appropriate executive functioning skills. So at that point I needed to be able to study organize myself, and I couldn't do those things. And that's when I started falling behind. And at the same time, because the things that I was struggling with seemed so superficial and seems so fixable, I didn't ever ask for help, even if I had just known that you weren't dumb

Oh, can I ask you something. We've done this whole interview. You've been lung on the floor, which is absolutely fine, But I'm just thinking when you were at school, it's not really you can't courage no, So how did you cope with having to sit in a cheer for I.

Don't looking back, I don't know how I did it because I couldn't focus on the actual content because also I was, you know, in my cheer, and like, if you lean back on your cheer set up, you're going to break the cheer. And sometimes in some classes I go to the toilet like ten times just to walk back and forth because I couldn't sit still. And in classes where I couldn't do that, I'd sit there and

Really.

Yeah, So I'm very lucky with the school I went to.

Annabelle says she had teachers that changed her life, which is why she's now studying to be a primary school teacher herself. Relationships are so key to positive outcomes, but they're not always straightforward for those with AUDHD.

I could quite happily spend all of my time on my own, not really having external relationships.

Not coming to do interviews.

And be okay, I don't need that kind of contact, but actually.

I'd thrive with it as well.

This is the kind of weird thing about being pulled two different ways at the same time. Right, there's never kind of a happy in the middle. I do actually crave human contact. It's like I miss it when I haven't got it, but only when I think about it. I'm very good at not thinking about it and turning it off.

So really, you're a walking contradiction kind of.

Yeah, it's odd. It's odd desperate for social contact. When I've got it, I was like, right, I want to go. What I've found is I really enjoy spending any time with people who think like me. It doesn't like conversation like this with you, even in this environment is not taking my.

Spoons away, thank god.

Right, exciting and fun and yeah, fills me up. Yeah, I really enjoy conversations when you're atypical people as well. It's just it's hard to work because I'm constantly like, quite like what they're talking about?

What like, what do I have to say next?

The conversation sort of has to start at A and go through BCD all the way to ZE, right, And it's like with spicyer people, it's like you might go to A and then like just forget the alphabet and talk about something else for an hour and then come back to it, or maybe even not get back to it because you've forgotten about it and chill out.

Like I love that stuff.

It's like I love meandering conversations. I like the fact that they can go anywhere because it keeps me interested. And it's exactly it's how I talk, right, It's I go all over the place, and it's just a joy.

It is a joy. Often those with an AUDIHD type brains shunned because their way is seen as not normal, and Sarah Watson says it's society that's missing out on their magic.

Those with AUDIOHD have often felt really misunderstood. It's important that we understand now that that is truly special, truly unique, and an absolute blessing in many ways. And one day this world will come to enjoy what we know and love what we know as AUDIOHD. I'm sure of it.

Self.

Compassion, you nice to yourself? Are you kind to yourself? You're getting better, it's your journey.

Try.

I have riches scales good rich, by rich, and in my head at the moment, bad Rich is still kind of like slightly slightly winning. Good Rich is not balanced, and it drives me right. I use it to motivate me, but on the balance, do not consider myself a good person. And it's years and years and years have been told that narrative, and I don't know if I'll ever think about myself as a good person really because that stuff's really, really, really deeply baked in. But like I say, I've found

Well? That stuff gives me.

That shit fuels my rocket engine, right, because I don't want my kids when they're fifty thinking the same thing. Whatever I can do to help that, I will do, you know, because it's still at the stage of perception where we've got deficits, disorders and that, and so whatever I can do to disabuse as many people of the fallacy, I'm just going to do it, and I'll never stop.

If you like this podcast, please rate and review it. It helps people find it. No such thing as normal as produced and presented by me Sonia Gray. Nathan King is the editor. Owen O'Connor and Mitchell Hawke's our executive producers. Production assistant is Beck's War. The series is brought to you by The New Zealand Herald and team uniform and it's made with the support of New Zealand. On air, new episodes of No such Thing as Normal are available every Saturday wherever you get your podcasts.