#1555 Understanding Neurodiversity - Dr. Hannah Korrel

a really interesting conversation. Like for me, like, I would never go call a kid fat, right, because I understand, I understand the social context and the nuance of you know, you know, treating people well and being of course of course, but when I'm talking about myself, like I was ten kilos heavier than I am now when I was fourteen, So you can call it whatever you want, but I was morbidly obese. So for me, I I personally when

it comes to this, and this is about me. This is not about any other children or any other human But for me, I'm like, well, Craig, be real with yourself.

my history. This is not an attitude or a belief system or a perspective, right, So I think I think at the same time that and I know we've kind of taken a left turn before we even started, but we will, Like I think that you need to be aware and sensitive and kind and empathetic. But also you know, it's like I wasn't thick set, I wasn't big boned, I wasn't full figured, I wasn't voluptuous, I wasn't fucking any of that. I was morbidly obese. And people go,

that's so this or that. I go it' call it whatever you want to call it, but it's also true, like if I was six to two, people would go, fuck,

you're tall, but nobody's bothered by that. Or if I had long, blonde, beautiful hair, people go, fuck, you've got amazing hair, or like, but when you go, no, I was morbidly obese, I'm not saying I was a bad person or I'm you know, like this is something to be shamed or I get it, but it's also I think we need to be I don't know, like I understand what you're saying, but I feel like, when I'm talking about myself, that's the one time you get a

green light to be just brutally honest. And if I didn't acknowledge that, like if I just pretended like I needed to get to a point where I was honest with myself because I was just eating everything that wasn't nailed down, and I was literally twenty thirty forty kilos heavier than my friends at the same age.

of course you were. You couldn't fucking run of course, Like I'm not mad at anyone, and like there's no part of this story where I'm a victim, like a zero zero, because for me, anyway, I did certain things and I created a certain reality, which was a morbidly

obese body, and with that come certain practical consequences. And so I could go, oh, my genetics or my mum or my dad or these nasty or you could go, yeah, but you fucking eat twice the amount of food you eat you need every day, and you can pretend you don't, and you can feel sorry for yourself, or you can own your behavior and change your behavior and create a

different reality. And I know you don't think like that when you're fourteen, but for me, there's something in that because I think when we extrapolate not about obesity, but we extrapolate out from that kind of idea of you know, being responsible for your behavior and your outcomes where you go. You did that though, right now, that's not hateful or hurtful, that's.

talking about the neurodiversity today and feeling different. And it's so interesting when I hear adults talking about when they're a child and feeling different as a child and how

that's impacted them as an adult. You know, because I see you now and you're so I don't know, you're very like your character Craze, Like you have personality of charisma, You're larger than life, You've got the X factor, Like I'm not just blowing smoke, but you know that difference of feeling different, being different, which I'm sure wouldn't have been easy for you, contributed to so much. Well, I don't know, is that fair to say? Did it contribute to who you are today?

this probably twenty times in fifteen hundred episodes. For me, my kind of mediocrity was almost my magic pill because I wasn't super gifted, and I didn't have great genetics, and I couldn't run fast and jump high, and I can't fucking sing or dance, and I wasn't a brilliant student, and like it made me work hard because if I wanted to do well, I could have just I couldn't

just naturally do well. Yeah, you know, like this podcast, I did seven hundred episodes, seven hundred, six hundred before it made one dollar wow, like most people won't do. I'm not saying I am great, because I'm clearly if I was great, it wouldn't have fucking taken six hundred. What I'm saying is I will persevere like I will

when I'm clear about something. You know, I don't have the best genetics, but I am maybe the most disciplined motherfucker, you know, because I will do everything that I need to do to optimize my genetics. Now that's just a choice. I can't get great genetics, but I can get great discipline, self awareness, self control, and I can create habits and behaviors that support my genetic predisposition. Now, all of that is optional. You know, I can't wake up tomorrow and

have a one fifty IQ. But what I can do is I can optimize my cognitive abilities and my intelligence and intellect and creativity today. You know, all of these things are optional because otherwise we just become a fucking lifelong victim where we're like, ah, this happened to me that, And look, of course all of those things are true. I mean one of my friends that I've done some work with lately, Joel. He's a quadriplegic. He fell over a balcony. He was home from the war. He's a soldier.

He was home from Afghanistan on a couple of weeks break no pun intended, broke his neck. Now he's a quadriplegic right now, if anyone has a right to fucking wing silk moan, he does. He never winged silks or moans. I'm not when I I've met him, not when I've worked with him, not when we've hung out. Like his overwhelming energy that I get from him as gratitude and curiosity. Now, if he can have great days, well then I don't have any problems. You know. It's like, I know, there

are you know, lots of variables like genetic variables, sociological variables, environments. Yes, we're not saying those things don't factor in, but we at some stage we've got to go. I'm driving the bus. I'm not a passenger. My life is the bus and

I'm fucking driving it. And yes, I've got limitations and genetic issues, and I've had some bad experiences and my old man was a prick and that person did that shit thing to me, and we empathize and we understand, but we can't undo any of that in the moment. You know.

And I always find out I like to use the saying of like, well, what's the difference between a seventeen year old and three hundred and sixty four days and an eighteen year old and one day? Like we go from being a child to being an adult who then has to make all these really responsible decisions and take ownership of our behavior. And hopefully we've been fostering that from when we're a young you know, a teenager, like growing up older, we our parents have been helping us

to foster independence. But so many times it's such a difficult little ven diagram of what you're talking about, where it's difficulty with genetics, difficulty with trauma. Then you're own autonomy to make a decision and whatever we want to put in that then diagram of your background. The only thing you truly have control over is that part of the diagram of your behavior, your choice. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? To

make things different tomorrow. And it's a fascinate like what is it that clicks you over to that point of realizing if we could put it in a bottle, Craig, if we will put it in a pill, wouldn't that be amazing?

to make at home. She addressed things, she acknowledged some stuff, she made a life changing decision or two. She subsequently did the work, and now her life is infinitely better. She's better, she's a bowl, she's grown. Her life situation

and her life experience are much better. And she was kind of saying, if not for you, blah blah blah, right, and I said, thank you, but that's not true because there were probably three hundred other people there who heard the same thing on the same day who didn't change their life. Now, the fact that they're in the same spot is not my fault. And the fact that you are now this new fucking two point zero version of you.

Congrats by the way. Also, I don't I don't deserve the praise for that because, like you think about, we have fifteen one hundred and fifty episodes in that's fifteen hundred and fifty episodes of information, inspiration, education, conversation, a bit of bullshit, a few laughs, right, and there are people who are quite different. It's quite different because they

listen to the show, but then they go do the work. Yeah, right, So you know, insight, information, awareness, recognition, you know, personal ownership, all of those things. You and me can't make anyone do that or be that. You and I are going to have a chat today, and for some people it might be fucking life changingly transformational, you know, and for somebody else it could be the biggest crock of shit they've ever heard and they've already tuned out. But that's

not about you or me. That's about how people interpret it and then what they do with it, yep, which is well, and again, like you know, you've given people advice and prescription and they've got amazing results. And other people you've given just as much love, energy, care, and they don't. They's a variable. There's a variable that's out of your control, and that's their behavior.

my twenties, I saw three different psychologists. I took antidepressant anti anxiety medication Craig like I was taking Ssrise for a while because I was struggling with crippling, crippling anxiety, which you know, everyone would say to me, Oh, you'll be fine, you'll be fine, You'll be fine. And it's interesting because a lot of my closest friends and family, their advice would be things like, you don't need medication,

you're fine, you're fine, you can do it. Yourself and talking about any inner resilience and me getting through it myself. But actually, at the time, I really did need help, like I really did need assistance. And when I finally had the courage because there's a lot of stigma around mental health. There's a lot of stigma around getting help for depression, anxiety, ADHD, autism, there is so much stigma around it still to actually finally go, I need to talk to a doctor. I need to go and see

a psychologist. I need some help. And when I did finally do that, which was actually the more courageous decision then to just plow through it like everyone was recommending I did it. It took more guts to go and see the doctor, go and see the psychologist. When I finally did do that, my life completely changed and I was finally able to go, oh, my god, is this

how other people live every day? Like well, up into my thirties, Craig, I had no idea how calm you could be inside and that life wasn't a constant anxiety race inside. I didn't realize that my internal state was so anxious until someone showed me what a new baseline was, and then I could work on those skills myself therapy and apply those I don't need that medication anymore in many years since I have. But that's because I made a choice to go and get the right kind of help.

You know. It wasn't making excuses. I'm not saying that I you know, I just was charming off the choices or the behavior to something else and popping a pill to make it all better. It was the choice and the action and the effort to go and get that assistance, go and get that therapy so that I could then apply those skills without needing that, you know, that help from the medicine.

So they're looking so they're they're judging and evaluating, not in a bad way, what you're going through through their lens or their window of understanding, right and so and so It's like when someone says, to somebody who really has significant food issues, for example, which are real, and I had fucking massive food issues, when someone says, just eat less and move more, like you most just tounched me in the face, because if it was like and I know that theoretically that is part of the answer.

You know, it's like telling someone like you can't often how often how often the well meaning people say don't worry to someone who's worried. It's like, and I've said this before, it's like saying someone who's tall, don't be tall. It's a fucking comment because if I could turn off the worry, it would be turned off. So you saying something stupid, all be it well intended, it's probably gonna make it worse because now I realize how much you don't understand what I'm feeling.

Australia is She'll be right, no worries. That's what it is to be Australian and it's ingrained from a young age. You know, big boys don't cry, big girls don't cry. We don't show those feelings. So you grow up kind of being reinforced and reinforced and reinforced it's not okay

to have mental health issues. And the amount of people who I'll see in the clinic who will be finally, finally, you know, I'll see people in their twenty thirties, women in their sixties, Craig finally coming forward to say I think I have ADHD sitting in the clinic, you know, breaking in front of me, because they've had a lifetime of you know, this inerttention, this this restlessness, this inability to do all this, this need to put one hundred

and fifty percent effort in when everyone else can put one hundred percent effort and they have to put one hundred and fifty in. They're exhausted, and of course they're anxious. Of course they're stressed. Of course they feel down. But that's all people see is the anxiety or the depression,

and tell them, you know, cheer up, cheer up. Why don't you just try, you know, don't worry about it, and never actually dealing with the root cause of what was going on, which was, oh, actually, you know, maybe your brain's a little bit neurodiverse, and that's why things have been so difficult for you, and that's why you haven't really felt like you've met your full potential yet.

So just that that active, being courageous and reaching out to get a little bit of assistance can in some ways be quite life changing because you don't know what you don't know, especially in a culture where we are brainwashed into thinking, you know, maybe maybe I just need a hard art.

then you just tell us what it is. Because we're going to do a little bit of a because I think that there are so many things that kind of fall in that neuro atypical or neurodivergent kind of area that it can be confusing for us who are not you, right, So let's just start with autism spectrum disorder ASD.

So there are three levels of autism Craig. There's level one, two, and three, and a person can also have verbal or non verbal autism. So a really high functioning person, they'd have level one, and somebody who perhaps couldn't speak and was nonverbal and was very severe, that person would have level three. So we used to have a term called aspergers. You know that word asperges. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we used to have that term in our diagnostic statistic statistical manual.

That was the previous one. They got rid of that term aspergers and they've replaced it with these levels one, two, and three. So level one is like the highest level

of autism where you're very high functioning. A person might not realize that you have autism if they met you, and those people can carry on in life and you know they have difficulty socially, they have sensory sensitivities, they have rigid patterns of behavior, but you might not know that that person has autism until you've spent a fair

amount of time with them. So I see a lot of people with level one autism who have realized inside themselves something, something feels different, something feels different in the way that they're relating to people. They often will report wearing a social mask, so that they put a mask

on to fit in with other people. They're very sensitive to sounds around them and they want to know what's up, Like, something feels different, I'm not quite sure what it is, So that that's a lot of the people that I see in the clinic are coming to see if they have a level one autism.

to learn Arabic, for example. You know how when you see the symbols of a language that you're not familiar with, Eventually they start to look like little patterns and you're like, oh, that's giggly one that means this, and you're not really recognizing the letter, but you start to recognize the pattern of the shape of the symbol, and you can kind of wrote learn and eventually memorize what those symbols are to sort of kind of start to learn the language.

But it doesn't really come naturally when you're learning a second language, does it. For people with dyslexia, that's what they're doing from a very young age. They're wrote learning what is an A well sound as an A, make what sounds as a B make, and they can forget. It doesn't come naturally to them. Takes a very long time for them. So reading can be really difficult. Spelling can be really difficult, but they can often mask it really well by having very good verbal skills, so they're

often good talkers. They're often very articulate. They can be very charismatic, very bright, very very intelligent. But it's like if you've ever met someone who can't tell they're left from their right. You know, it's just this part of their brain that you know, it's not connecting, it's not firing. Yes, I can think about what hand do I write with. I can do my left, you know, doesn't make the L shape with my hand. I can wrote learn left from right, but it doesn't naturally come to me which

way is left from right. So it's just this this kind of little missing bit that won't allow them to do it as quickly as people who are not dyslexic.

he could still get stuff done. But it's funny how many dyslexic people who can't just read things the way that you and I can read, or look at maps or look at street signs or just you know, look at the back of a pack of whatever and read the nutritional info. But they're so great because they have to spend their life to an extent, surviving, improvising, and adapting.

They're really good at intuitively and instinctively figuring shit out, which we don't have to so much because we guess, we get told how to do everything and how everything works. But in their world, and again, because not everyone experiences dyslexia, in the exact same way. All right, let's move on. I'm going to ask you a hard one. It's not really hard. Dyspraxia.

Mistook His Wife for a Hat. It's another book, and one of it's about all of Sacks is this amazing neurologist, and some of the stories are from his experience treating very unusual neurological conditions. And a gentleman who had a type of dyspraxia couldn't recognize objects. So he's reaching for something. He's trying to reach for his hat, but he couldn't recognize that what he was reaching for was his wife and it wasn't actually his hat. It was trying to

pick his wife to foot on his hat. But it was actually completely wrong because his brain couldn't connect what it was looking at with the meaning of what it was, which is a very a more rare type of neurological condition that's less of a neurodiversity and more usually associated with like a brain injury or some kind of acquired insult to the brain. So injury or an infection to the brain.

So it's like part of their brain is saying, don't swear, don't swear, don't swear, don't swear, and it turns into a bit of a compulsion until that sort of erupts out of this person in an uncontrollable fashion, which results in inappropriate behavior or expulsions coming out of them. So often it's associated with swearing, saying phrases that might be

really inappropriate. Whatever that person's thinking off the top of their head, and they can't help but that thing come out of their mouth, which can obviously cause them a lot of social difficulty even issues.

But he has turets and so he's very quirky and he I mean, he's spoken about this, so I'm not throwing him under the bus, but he has these little ticks and screws up his face and twitches his mouth and strokes his shoulders and but once he starts talking, all that goes away, Like when he's on stage, it goes away. Wow, it's super interesting. There was also a dude on whatever it's called The voice or one of those shows maybe six to eight years ago. Now, a

guy who had a beautiful voice. He also had turetts and he was this young dude and he Delta Good Room. Delta chose him to be on her team, and she came up and gave him a hog and said, you know, and he's just standing there and he goes like in the middle of this thing, and this was it was beautiful. So I'm not throwing him under the bus because they spoke about his turets and Delta gives him a hug and he's just standing there and he goes, Delta's hot, Delta's hot, Oh my god, like on National Telly.

And we're realizing that the way a woman, yeah, the way a woman presents is very different to how a man presents. So ADHD has three types. So there's predominantly inattentive ADHD, which means you have trouble paying attention. You might be quite disorganized. You might, you know, constantly be that person who does a million different tasks at the

same time it gets nothing done. That person who really struggles to kind of focus in their attention, but at the same time have this amazing ability to do hyper focus when under pressure. So right before the assignments due, they pull the all nighter. They work you know, the twelve hours or the twenty hours to get the report done, and then they somehow managed to get a distinction and do amazing at university even though it was a blur

of last minute procrastination. So that's predominantly inattentive. The second one is predominantly hyperactive impulsive. Now this is the one that typically little boys would present as, which is if you think about like swinging off the chandelier, Craig, like jumping off the furniture, that classic picture of a child who is hyperactive. That's why boys got picked up because

they were very obvious. If you have a little girl who's daydreaming and staring at a window, you're going to notice the boy who's jumping up and down off the desks over the little girl staring out the window. So boys get detected quite early on, but women tend to get missed until much later in life and usually self present. The third type of ADHD is a combination of the two, So you can get ADHD inattentive but also hyperactive impulsive.

So that's people who experience both of those conditions together. So yeah, that's in a nutshell ADHD, which is awfully Also, I should say, all of those conditions dyslexia, autism, ADHD. That type of neurodiversity means your brain is different, yeah, to be one in one hundred a different brain. It means you think differently. And I think this is why

it's associated with giftedness, very higher IQ. People who are you know, entrepreneurs, people who are you know, amazing creators or inventors, because they know how to think outside of the box, they know how to they think differently. There's

something different about the way that they think. They're not like the typical the neurotypical population, and they're usually the ones who come up with really innovative ideas or you know, answers that somebody hasn't seen before because they approach it from a different angle. So today is all about sort of advertising that you can get a diagnosis. There are ways of getting diagnoses. There are people out there who

are willing. We talked earlier about making choices to help yourself and to take the steps to help yourself, and I think over the last four years I've in my clinic, I've really seen a lot of people after COVID come forward and take some steps to really take it to ownership. In their life and change their life for the better by getting some help, actually getting some help. And part of that sometimes is getting into the diagnostic process and

figuring out what's going on for me. Maybe my brain's a little neurodiverse.

So one is so typically, not always, but typically boys kind of for one of the more neurologically accurate term, boys mature later than girls, and the brain develops at a different rate in boys versus girls typically, so you know, and sometimes like I remember when we were at school and we were seventeen, the boys, we were fucking idiots, and it was like the girls were four years older

than us. There was so much more responsible, studious mature, Like we're all climbing all over each other, wrestling and being dickheads and catching footies and you know, And it was funny because when I was in year twelve, I had a girlfriend called Karina who wanted to be a doctor. I was a fucking idiot, and she was just I don't know what she saw in me. I think she maybe it was like she just felt compassion or something.

But like when I look back at how I was and how she was in terms of our attitude about things and our application and the way that she studied versus the way that I didn't study. Yeah, there's a at that stage of development, there typically is quite a gap right in the development of refronts or cortexs am, I.

There are a much more statistically high likelihood of a young male driver being in a very significant car accident than there is to a female driver because of the propensity for young male brains to take greater risks, to engage in more risk taking behavior and more sensation seeking behavior. I risk your driving on the road, speeding on the road, and driving under the influence, Like so making a dysregulated choice, I'm going to get behind and we all laugh open

having some drinks. So yes, it is a very real thing. That's not to say that men aren't as smart as women or that anyone's better than the other. It's just to say, yes, you're right, brains developed differently, and we know people with autism are different between male and female. You know, males tend to be more clear and obvious

social difficulties, females tend to socially masked. In ADHD, males tend to have that more hyperactive presentation and inattentive presentation, whereas females might tend to have more of just an intentive presentation or restless presentation. We know that their brain are different and it makes and that's because your frontal lobes are different, which is what's affected in autism and

eighty HD your frontal lobes. So yeah, there are clear signs to tell us that there are a bit different between males and females.

It doesn't make bad behavior. Okay, of course, bad behavior is bad behavior, no doubt. Stupid choices are stupid choices, no doubt. But unless you're a sixteen seventeen year old boy and experienced like the overwhelm of testosterone, like it's a biological fact, now, that doesn't make bad behavior. Okay, I'm underlining that. But it's like when you know somebody's got a a biochemical issue in the brain, we we factor that in and we go, well, no wonder you're anxious,

no one, because all this shit's happening right. Also, when you've got testosterone flooding through your body, fucking there's an inverse correlation between that and IQ for a period of time. Like I don't know people once, but it's like the propensity for young guys full of testosterone to do dumb shit just look out, you know.

And even though yesterday you're a kid, today you're an adult. Off you go, try not to fuck up. Well, good luck with that. That's why I think kids should be able to drive from sixteen or seventeen, at least a year or so. And I know it's seventeen in New South Wales, but in Victoria, I think in Tazzi it

might be. In South Stralia, I think it's sixteen. And I think it's a great idea because you give them one or two years of driving experience and skill before they're allowed to before they're allowed to legally drink booze, you know, all right, Well, that's all amazing information. You're amazing and I know we're just by the way. None of this was prescriptive anyone. We're just opening the door. We could probably do a ten hour podcast on neurodiversity.

But I think it's good that we educate ourselves. We get a little bit informed. Every time I talk to Hannah, I learn now speaking of learning and maybe even being assessed in some way. I know that you're doing a workshop soon and tell us all about what is that? What is going on?

a neuropsych or a psychiatrist. A lot of peop there's a lot of infusion about how do I get a diagnosis? So I'm doing a little webinar for people to learn information. We're doing an hour on ADHD and how do I get a diagnosis? Where do I go to get a diagnosis?

What does it mean? So that'll be at seven o'clock on the twenty fourth of June, that's the Monday, And I'm also going to do an autism autism webinar at eight o'clock straight afterwards on the same day, the twenty fourth of June, where we talk about what is autism? You know, what are the signs I need to look out for and how would I go about getting a diagnosis of that. So just running through the process of understanding neuropsyche assessments in autism and ADHD. So if you're interested, guys,

come along check it out. We've kept the cost down as much as we possibly can. It's like forty bucks. Come and join us, Come for the evening and we'll yeah, I'll just be deep diving for the whole hour on ADHD and the whole hour on autism.