Autism & NeuroSomatic Intelligence

Today we are going to be exploring the overlaps of complex trauma, autism, adhd and sensory processing with Doctor Megan Anna Knapp, a clinical psychologist, researcher and writer. They're the co host of the Neurodivergence podcast, author of multiple books including Self Care for Autistic People and embodying integration and a wealth of resources for folks looking to learn more about navigating a neurotypical world with neurodivergence.

Welcome to trauma rewired. I'm your co host, Elizabeth Christoph. I'm the founder of Brainbased.com and the Neurosomtic Intelligence Coaching certification. And I'm your co host, Jennifer Wallace. I'm a neurosomatic psychedelic preparation and integration guide, bridging the powerful modalities of nervous system health with medicine spaces and so, Doctor Neff, I am so excited to have you here and explore neurodivergence and the inner weavings of complex

trauma. And so I would love for you to just introduce yourself, if you would, to our audience and just share a little bit about yourself and how you got to being an expert in this field. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. And now my brain is frantically trying to locate that question in space. Tell me about yourself. That's a hard question for an autistic person, so that's maybe part of telling you about myself is letting me know. My brain struggles with questions like that. I

am a clinical psychologist. I discovered my autism and ADHD later in life after one of my children was identified, which that is becoming such a common story of parents who are learning this about themselves only after a child is identified. The research talks about the last generation of autistic and ADHD adults, so I'm very much in that camp. And then when I learned this about myself, it was a pretty powerful aha moment. So I really changed my professional trajectory quite

a bit. And neurodivergence has become kind of my special interest. It's what I do professionally and the thing I'm really passionate about is both educating the mental health world about non stereotypical presentations because our training is very far behind. And then also kind of the second prong of my, I guess, passion or mission is to provide wellness resources for the neurodivergent person in mind. So how did I deal with that question? You did great with that question.

What was it like for you? I was listening to you talk about on another podcast, finding your way to your diagnosis through your children like you talked about. And that that is a pretty common experience for people. Would you elaborate a little bit on that? And, like, what that was like for you, how that path unfolded? How did you see yourself in that diagnosis, and how did that change things for you? Our story is a little bit different just because I am a psychologist, so my child who

was first identified had already been diagnosed with ADHD. And it's really interesting to look back when they were diagnosed with ADHD. I wasn't curious about it, and I don't know if it's because they were young and I was so tired, but it was just like, okay, yeah, that explains things. But it didn't ignite, like, a special interest research rabbit trail. But there were just things that we kept seeing that were like, this doesn't feel like ADHD fully

captures this. Could this maybe be autism? And then as soon as I would think that I'd be confronted with the stereotypes of autism, be like, no, there's no way. But finally, after enough of these moments of, like, it just feels like there's something more. I actually started the conversation with my child. I was like, I wonder if this is maybe more than ADHD. Maybe this is autism. And they were the one that was very like, well, that would.

If that is the case, that would simply explain, like, it wouldn't change who I am. It would just explain some things. So together, we actually started kind of looking into autism, specifically girls and autism. And actually, within a night of starting that conversation, we were like, oh, my goodness. All of a sudden, your life makes sense. My experience of parenting, you make

sense. They were the one that was very adamant, like, I need to know yes or no. So can we pursue an official medical diagnosis that led me to a huge interest in understanding girls and autism, because here I was, I just graduated with my doctorate, feeling so surprised by this information that I just. I needed to know what was going on. And it was in the course of that that I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm autistic. And within a week of starting that research, I just knew I was autistic.

And again, I also wanted. And if because I have such a public presence, I wanted a medical. A medical person to anoint me with, like, yes, you're autistic. So we both had self identified before we went through the formal assessment process. So that's where it's a little bit different, is I was drawing on a lot of the research. I had a lot of test data on myself to look

at through the lens of a psychologist. And so it was less conventional route, although I will say, I mean, there's a lot of people who first self identify before they go on to get an official assessment. I was going to say, too, and, like, sometimes something can kind of be floating around in the atmosphere, but it doesn't really come into your realm until it's really necessary. Because it was like, for me, I'm trying to navigate this neurodivergent world, and, like, is it AdD

ADHD? I've always identified as a highly sensitive person, but also maybe it's definitely, I really resonate with sensory deficit disorder or sensory processing disorder. And so I was reading a book, divergent mind, and it was all of a sudden, like, a light bulb went off. And I was like, wow, I'm. I started to cry. I was like, I'm really feeling myself in this book. Like, all this has sort of been around, but I haven't been in the place maybe to recognize it or honor it or have the

capacity to. What would I do with it now with this information? And so it was really resonant to read that there were other people that I was like. Other people have these sensitivities, not just to the world around them, but to the rooms that we're in with the devices and the electricity and all of those different experience things I experienced. It was really a beautiful time for me,

and I am in the process of self diagnosing right now. And I'm thankful to NSI because I have ways that I can work with my sensory inputs so that I can kind of lessen some of the outputs that come with being highly sensitive. And recently, I retook the quiz just to kind of see where I was at, and I was really blown away by how much I'd been able to pull it in. I guess in a way, even though I'm still very sensitive to people's emotions and the moods and the energies in the

room. But I really do understand how to look at that as a superpower now and as a guide to lead me in, to help guide me through a world that is somewhat overwhelming. Well, quite overwhelming, actually. Yeah, I'd love to explore a little bit more about that place you were saying, where we sometimes try to protect people from labels and diagnoses or, like, do everything we can before exploring this, but that it can actually be really powerful to

be able to identify and find community. Community and resources through that. And, yeah, just, I'd love to hear your experience a little bit more on that, about the ways that it was empowering or helpful or why you think it's important for people to be able to have these identities. Yeah, I mean, I think it names an experience. I think especially with autism. I think with some other labels, too, but I noticed this most pronounced with autism.

So I think in images, and it feels like when I was given the label autism, and it felt like all of the other things I had going on all of a sudden made sense. Like autism was like the sun, and all of the other things were kind of orbiting around it. And autism was the thing that explained all of the things. And that was so helpful, because before it was just these fragmented. Like, why do I feel like I can't be present to my life? Why do I struggle with relationships? Why do I struggle

with contentment? Why do I struggle with XYZ? And there were just so many mysteries that were fragmented and disconnected and didn't have a narrative to hold them together. And once I had autism, it created a narrative where my life and my body and my experience of my body made sense for the first time. I remember I have a really distinct memory. And again, this was just

a week after I'd opened the door of maybe autism. I was sitting across the room from my spouse, and I said to him, I feel at peace in my body for the very first time. Not that that means my body's an easy place to occupy. It's not. But it made sense to me. And just the fact that it made sense was so regulating because I understood it. I understood my experience. And so that's some of the power of having a lens, is we can now name a thing. I mean, you both work in trauma.

You know, this. Like, when we name a thing, our system can calm down. It's like, okay, I understand what's happening. I don't have to keep that hyper vigilance to be like, what is this? What is this? Is this scary? So the power to name a thing, I think, is a huge part of it. I think so too, because your body really knows when something is truth. And if you can understand, to listen to the way that your body speaks to you and the sensations, like you said, your body speaks to

you in images. Like, there are so many ways our body communicates to us. And to have a relationship with our body means that we can understand those sensations and interpret them accurately and be able to be in a deeper place of communication, which can lead to, from a foundational place, lead into an actionary place that feels more grounded, whether that's. Whether we're looking for, like, more resources or community. You know, I really. One of the things I've been thinking about this too.

In this conversation is the idea of a neurotypical world. And like what is that? Like, what does that mean really? Like what is that? Because like we live in all these constructs and boxes and we've got complex trauma and we've got brains that are all different from each other. No one brain is alike. And then we have this, the widespread, complex trauma wrapped up in our

institutions and structural forces and systemic trauma. And it's like what it all leads to is this non expression of the human at the light form. There's very big limitations in self expression and how much we're harming our society in growth because we don't honor people's self expressions. And I wonder, what's the neurotypical world, this structural trauma box that we all live in? Like, what does that mean? Can you help me with that? Yeah, my, like, sociology hat is

coming back on. I studied sociology in undergrad and I think I'd want to nuance it of the white neurotypical world. Like, I don't know about you all, if you've ever lived overseas, but when I. So I've spent a few times in immersive cultures like Malawi and Ghana most specifically, and especially Malawi. I spent six months there and I undergrad and I had such a profound experience of. And I was terrified to come back to the states. Cause I was just like, I feel like I'm learning what it is

to be human here. And I feel like that's not something I've had access to in my white culture. And so that's where the sociology comes in. I'm also thinking about modernity. I'm thinking about the industrial revolution. I'm thinking about like really the last 500 ish years of our history where we've done something really weird to our humanity. I think that sometimes gets missed. But this idea that when you create, when you woodwork a chair, you are expressing your human nature in

that creation, in that labor. So as soon as we put a price tag on that labor, like $8 an hour, and we divide it from the expression of our humanness, we're doing something quite detrimental to our human nature and how we express it. We've just done a lot to divorce ourselves from our human nature. And I think especially in kind of white neurotypical culture, you can

see that. And then once you get out of that, I think for a lot of us maybe have a similar experience of like, oh, this is what it is to be human, this is what it is to have a body and have connection and to be grounded in earthiness. But, yeah, as someone who does have children, I'm very concerned about what we've done to our experience of humanity, just as a society specifically, again, white, industrial, modern, capitalistic society. I gotta let that one sit for a second.

That's really profound to think about how much we have divorced ourselves from our humanity and the way that that impacts us, brain function, nervous system, health wise. Like, it's. It's a lot to take in. And, you know, on this podcast, we're always exploring primarily complex trauma and its impact on the nervous system. And this season particularly, we've been exploring more

diagnoses and neurodivergence. And I'm really in a place of trying to understand the overlaps because there seem to be so many. Right? Even if we just look at. If we define trauma as this overwhelm of the nervous system beyond the capacity to cope, and we are maybe even just born with a natural neurodiversity that makes our sensory processing such that it is constantly being overwhelmed by the world that we live in. Or maybe it's because of the society that we live in

now and the constant stimulus that. That just moving through the world is kind of traumatic in that nervous system. And so I don't know how to start parceling apart complex trauma and neurodivergence. And can you separate them, or are they just two things that are constantly intermingling? This feels

like. So here's the image in my head is like, I don't know if either of you are knitters, but, like, yarn, and it's like, when there's knots in it, and it's like, we could start this conversation so many different places and, like, pull up the thread at the most basic level. So CPTSD, complex trauma, or PTSD, they are forms of neurodivergence. If we take kind of that definition of neurodivergence as someone whose brain processes information differently than neuronormative culture,

these are forms of neurodivergence. If we're talking more specifically about autism and complex trauma, then those often do co occur, not always. Or ADHD and complex trauma, again, often co occur, but not always. There's reasons why autistic and ADHD people are more vulnerable to complex trauma and developing PTSD after a stressful encounter. And for exactly what you mentioned, just moving through the world, things that I'm sure you all have thoughts

on, big t, small taiden. Like, there's limits in that helpfulness, but things like, if we're looking at PTSD things that we would say, this is criteria a. So when you're diagnosing PTSD, there's criteria a, which is the presence of a traumatic incident. And there's kind of a list of things that fall under that. Some research that came out in 2020 was suggesting that even when autistic people don't meet criteria

a, they will sometimes still develop PTSD. So one of the things we're seeing is we're not capturing well what's traumatic for a sensitive system, which is, I think, what you were getting out there of sensory trauma, social trauma, like, these things are also, especially when done over a lifetime, are also traumatizing for the system. But we don't have, like, diagnostically, we don't have great language for that

yet. Megan Ann, when you said complex trauma is a neurodivergence, that just, like, hit me, like, totally. It made me kind of well up even a little bit, because I do think about the way that my brain developed under the chronic stress that I experienced as a well, up until my forties, probably up until 40, you know, 35 or really, like 37, really, because that's when I got diagnosed.

So we'll just say my stress level up to 37 was like, really big. And so, and we do know that complex trauma impacts brain development and sensory reactivity, and that complex trauma patterns the nervous system to have a higher sensitivity and to sensory stimulus in the world, and it shapes how our brains interpret information and integrate that sensory information, and that it's so malleable and adapting

to the relations and connections. And so it's just so interesting to think about how these patterns all persist into adulthood and shape the way that we respond in social situations now, the physical stimuli as adults, and then we've got all these potential diagnosis and identities out there now that the world is really, like, opening up for us. I

feel like, in this realm, I'm. Curious if it is interesting, because complex trauma, CPA, TSD, like, it's very much a diagnosis, and I don't really hear, I mean, I see a lot of community forming around this diagnosis, but I don't see it as, like, the shift to identity in the same way as I see happening in the neurodivergent world. So I'm curious for you holding, like, CPTSD, as in, like, I am someone who's experienced this, or I don't know if you would use like, I am versus

I am neurodivergent. Like, do those feel different in how you hold them? Would it feel different to be like, I am neurodivergent versus. Does that question make sense? I think it does. The idea of being neurodivergent has just kind of come into my realm in the past six months, and so I've been holding so much space for the complex trauma, understanding ace scores. I'm a breast

cancer survivor. Like, looking at the way that my life has been, the inflammatory responses have been impacted by the stress, and so neurodivergence has just come into my realm. But the idea that my brain has shaped through these experiences in various ways and understanding, like, I do have, I've known for a while that I have a low executive functioning and that I work to lighten up my prefrontal cortex. Like, I have to do intentional exercises every day so that I'm, like, activating that

higher order systems of thinking. So I've been doing this stuff along the way, but the label of neurodivergence, that's very new for me. So I'm trying to not have them in different spaces, but I'm trying to integrate them together. But you just. You just opened my world up. Like, now I feel like that marries them. That makes sense for me. I don't have to think about, oh, I have complex trauma, and I'm neurodivergent. Like, complex trauma is a neurodivergence. The end. I feel

fuller with that. Yeah. When I first started learning about complexity, PTSD, a lot of my life made sense to me. A lot of my behavior, my addiction, my past, my history, my autoimmune. But now, as I've been exploring neurodivergence more, and I was someone, you know, I was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD as a kid, but never really identified too much with that. And now, as I'm coming back and revisiting that as an adult, I do feel a little bit different about my relationship with both.

Like, I have this relationship with my CPTs, where I understand that I will sometimes have reactions or emotional flashback. There's a different level of self compassion for myself with this diagnosis and

understanding how my nervous system was shaped. But now, as I'm exploring neurodivergence, it's more like I'm seeing patterns in my partnership or, like, in the expectations that the world and my partner and other people maybe have of me that I'm like, now I'm a little bit more like, no, I don't need to fit into this because I have other ways of being. My brain maybe just works a little bit differently. And that's not something I

even really want to try to change. It's something that I'm just like, maybe this is just who I am, and I'm getting more comfortable with navigating through the world differently, if that makes sense. It makes so much sense. And I'm fascinated by the. Because this whole neurodivergence conversation sits at the intersection of diagnosis and

identity. So I'm really fascinated by this conversation because I do the same thing where for me, with my anxiety or my OCD or my depression, it's helpful for me to do some of that externalizing of like, oh, that's my depression talking right now, or that's my OCD acting up to distance from it. I could imagine the same thing with CPTSD of like, oh, that was a. That was a trigger on my system right now. Whereas with neurodivergence, like, as an identity, it's something I'm able to take pride in.

It's something I'm able to connect with my culture through it. Even in this conversation. Right. Like, a few years ago, I wouldn't have started our talk with, like, I struggle with that question, but even being able to be comfortable enough with, like, here's a communication difference I have that comes from embracing a

neurodivergent identity. And it is interesting, just the nuance of how we hold and experience these diagnoses, these identities, and how we can find empowerment through the identity of neurodivergent. There is something interesting here happening in the conversation around the idea of being able to identify with a neurodivergence, or this is the way that I'm built, I'm shaped. This is the way I'm wired.

Expressing what our needs are is very empowering. But there's something around complex trauma that has a more of a limitation around it. Is that how we're kind of, like, shaping this a little bit, like. Or that complex trauma is more about. There's two energetic shifts here between what we were just, like, what y'all were just saying. I like that language of energetic shift because I don't know if I have words for it

fully. You know, it is interesting, like, I've heard a critique of, especially in the states, this movement to over identify with medical diagnoses. And I do think it's possible to end up having, like, a fixed mindset. Like, if I was like, oh, that's my OCD, and there's nothing I can do about it, I don't think that's going to be helpful for me versus kind of a more growth oriented mindset of the being able to identify. This is an unhelpful thing that is part of me I'm not judging myself for,

but it's here. It's kind of hijacking me in this moment. Okay, I'm going to name you, I'm going to see you, I'm going to acknowledge you, and then I'm going to move on. That does feel energetically different than like, I'm neurodivergent. This is how my brain works. This is how I communicate. This is how I do relationships. Yeah, yeah, I do feel that, too. Like, it's kind of what you were saying, jen, of, like, the cpTs. It is a part of who I am now. And there are some assets that come

from the way that my nervous system is reactive. And then there's some things like a big emotional flashback or where I feel like that is a trauma pattern that has shifted my filters, the reactions inside of my body, an inflammatory response that I don't necessarily want, that I'm not necessarily like, oh, I'm going to just embrace this as part of my experience. I do want to work with it. I want to have compassion for. For it, but that there is sometimes limitations that comes from the

trauma. And I do want to work with my system to re pattern and to make navigating through that easier versus maybe some of the just inherent differences in my brain that I'm more inclined to want to embrace and set boundaries around and create a world that fits with that better. Do you think this idea or desire to be identifying as something or, like, having an identity to something over diagnosing self, diagnosing self, do you think it has something to do with the DSM not recognizing?

I know some of the neurodivergences are now starting to come into more visibility, but not the complex trauma. And so there seems to be an underground movement of somatic therapy, somatic healing, nervous system work, and that, like, we are part of a really big movement because there's not a recognition somewhere else. And so maybe there's this desire there for the identity and that's coming from. From community. Yeah, I appreciate I hadn't made that connection

before. I think it's absolutely possible. First of all, like, oh, my goodness, I don't know why the DSM has not adapted. I mean, I do know why, but like, right, I've read why, but like, yes, I think that is a very. That's short sighted, that they have not yet adapted it, and I hope they will on their next edition. So. And yeah, that is really interesting. Like, because it's unrecognized officially that there's been this kind of grassroots movement around

sematic. I also think. I think that in the last, especially, like, 2030 years, we're seeing more conscious awareness of a critique of that industrial modernization, white, neurotypical culture we were talking about a moment ago. More and more people are longing to reconnect with their humanity, with their bodies, with their nervous system. So I think somatic practice is also a way of, people are saying, like, this is not enough. This is not how we want

to live. And then, especially if someone has been alienated from their body through trauma or through innate wiring, there's even more of that drive to find community and practices that are, that are supporting that work. I want for listeners to allow them to see some of the stuff that connected the dots for you guys because you were both talking about things that you read that started to turn on these light bulbs for you of like, oh, I am autistic

or I have ADHD. What were some of those things that came up for you that you saw in yourself that helped you start opening that door? Oh, that's a great, let's see. I have to go back in history a little bit, so it's easier to say the reasons I thought I couldn't be autistic. I thought I couldn't be autistic because of that myth out there that autistic people aren't empathetic. I have hyperempathy. I feel people's emotional tone very

sensitively. So once, first, once I read enough to learn some of those myths were debunked, that was really helpful. I think for me, the thing I resonated with the most was the special interest. That's my highest autistic trait. I tend to, I'm very monotropic in my brain and will get a special interest, and that becomes my filter for the world for, like, often for years. So that I definitely resonated with the sensory sensitivities. It's interesting.

I had grown very dissociated from my body because of my sensory experiences. But at the same time, I could point to like, well, I can't be around someone in striped shirts, or I can't go to the grocery store through the laundry. Like, I knew there were things I just didn't like doing, but I hadn't connected the dots that that would be related to sensory, I think, other. Just once I started learning about masking, too. So autistic masking this is more

common in. In women and girls, but anyone can mask. It's also very common among Bipoc and genderqueer folks, but also cis het men can mask. And so once I started learning about masking and realizing it was more like, I realized, you mean, not everyone's doing this. Like, not everyone's rehearsing conversations for hours. Not everyone is, like, practicing facial expressions in the mirror. Not everyone

has a script when they go into small talk. So that was the big ah ha moment, was when I learned about masking and realizing how much labor I was doing socializing that other people weren't doing. That is so relatable. Like, high fear of criticism and being judged and thinking, like, I have to do something so many times to try and get it right, and yet I can never, like, quote, get it right. And, like, some of the was really relatable. Like, some of the funny sensitivities, like, sensory

stuff, would be like, I cannot put my hands in dishwater. And I really do create a very nice atmosphere for myself because I am very visually stimulated, and I feel very calm by colors and different patterns and smells. And then, like, for me, some of the organization and disorganization that is very relatable for me. Like, I can just put my hands right into one of my places, one of my cabinets or cupboards or bags of

whatever it is. And, like, I know exactly kind of where something is and the, like, inability to sort of organize or get, like, I don't know how you would call it, but, like, missing dates, missing times, getting confused on calendar, always late. Like, I cannot get. It is so hard for me

sometimes to just get myself out the door. And I get really highly stimulated by sounds, really by the auditory stimulus can really be very provoking in my body and, yeah, logistical challenges and then that coming with, like, never feeling good enough, not feeling capable. Yeah, yeah. Incompetent. That's, like, intrusive word that comes, and it still does, but I work with it differently. But, like, that was a

constant. Like, you're incompetent, you're incompetent, you're incompetent. Like, that was a constant kind of meta story I was telling myself that. Inner critic of complex trauma comes in. Right. This is where some of the overlaps come through. Right. Because then it's like, now you have this very punishing, bullying voice in your mind that's

like, you suck. You can't do anything. Yeah, yeah. One of the things you said, too, also really kind of lit up some dots for me, when you were talking about having been pretty dissociated and then also realizing that that might be because of the heightened sensitivity to sensory. I think I have also been. I move into dissociation very, very fast. It's a well worn path, well worn

protective mechanism of my nervous system. And I've for so long thought I'm just someone that needs a lot of sensory stimulus to get a response from my nervous system because I do a lot of sensory training, and I'm like, I got to stack it on. I need lots of stimulus for my nervous system to have any kind of response. And I'm really starting to think now that may be true now, but that comes from the sensitivity that was there before and that that dissociation has

been patterned on top of that sensitivity. So now I'm not very sensitive to a lot of stimulus, but actually I am. It's just the dissociation that's been layered on top of that. I love that insight. Yeah, I mean, I'm very. My system's very similar to you in that way of. I respond to sensory overwhelm by shutting down. Once I learned about dorsal state, it was so helpful. And once I realized that. So this was actually. I have kind of a flip

narrative to both of you in the sense that. So I'm so thankful for what the mental health world has done around trauma and aces. And there's been kind of a cognitive bias that has formed. Like, if we see certain traits, it's like, oh, it's trauma. So I was actually in the process. Before I discovered my autism, I was in depth therapy, and I was like, is there repressed trauma here? Because I'm dissociated a lot of the time. I'm not in my experience, and my life didn't make

sense. And the only narrative I had access to was trauma. So I was gently exploring if that was a possibility. And then when I discovered autism, all of those things made sense through this new lens, and the biggest one being dissociation. Because when I'm sensory overloaded, I don't have a meltdown. I shut down. I feel like I'm in a dream. And I would tell my mom that since I was a young girl, like, every time I go to

the grocery store, I'd be like, I feel like I'm in a dream. And that just became kind of something I would say throughout my life, and I didn't know what was happening. I would just be like, oh, the dream is here. Like, I'm back in the dream. But what I was explaining was dissociation, which absolutely can be a response to the sensory world being too much. Wow, you guys, I'm the meltdown type. Huge emotional. Yeah, I'm definitely. I just.

Even now, if I just get overwhelmed, I just, like, I'll just start to cry. I just start to cry. But as a. I was really on a swinging pendulum. But this is really fascinating to hear you guys talk about this, your experience with dissociation and sensory overwhelm in this way. Well, and it's interesting, too, because I was. I had

huge meltdowns as a kid, huge tantrums. And then at some point, it, like, switched, the switch flipped, and I now, like, it's been a very long process for me to come back, to be able to experience any emotion or to express any emotion and to stay present in my body. But there were huge meltdowns and big emotional expression. And then at some point, I guess that was not adaptive and not safe and was causing too much

stress, either to my system or to my caregivers. And so I think I learned over time that deep repression, and now it's a really different experience of, yeah, I'm definitely more of a dissociator. It's not an uncommon pattern. I see that. So masking is associated with a more kind of hypoarousal stress response, because that's part of masking, is masking that overwhelm. And so I hear that a lot. I see that a lot where it's, at some point, it

flips and kind of how the body responds to stress. Can I ask, do you have alexithymia, or is that a concept you all have covered on your podcast? We haven't covered it. I think I do. I think I do. I do, too. I have a very difficult time feeling emotions in my body, understanding what they are, being able to express them. Like, when I first started somatic therapy, because I knew I needed to. Like, I knew cognitively, I have

all these ace scores. There's stuff going on. And then someone would ask me, like, a very simple question of, how does it feel in your body? Where do you feel that? And it was like I was gone for days, you know, and couldn't come back. Couldn't come back from that stage. Did it feel intrusive when they'd ask you that? Oh, yeah, panic. You know, panic. And then I wanted to get out of there. I probably never went back to the

therapist. If I did express emotion, the shame I felt afterwards, and then sometimes my body would react really violently. I'd have like a. I'd finally get to a place where I could express anger or vocalize or shake, and I would get a rash all over my body, my joints would swell up and my body was very resistant. So that's interesting. I don't know if you know this, but alexithymia is correlated with

chronic pain and a lot of chronic health things. And the idea being kind of like, if we can't express the emotion, then our body has to kind of ramp it up, the communication. But it's a personality trait and it's difficulty identifying and labeling and expressing emotions. About 10% of the population has it, although within the neurodivergent population, it's much higher. So about like 50% of autistic people have alexithymia.

There's innate alexithymia, or there's thought to be innate alexithymia, which is like, for me, I'm pretty sure it's connected to my brain wiring. And then there's secondary lexithymia. So like in the aftermath of trauma, a lot of people will develop it. And again, it's a protective mechanism, right? Like if I'm having overwhelming emotions, I'm just going to shut them off.

So it's not something that's diagnosed, it's considered a personality trait, but it occurs with depression and trauma at high rates. And then it's just more prevalent in adhd and autistic populations in general. Oh, it's also connected to interoception, which is the sensory system around picking. So when a person has differences in interoceptive awareness, the ability to identify like thirst, hunger, emotions, then it makes sense that they'd also have a lexithymia because

that's internal signals. Yeah, it's so interesting because so funny how the work always brings us like it comes from our own stuff. Because so much of my work has been dedicated to emotional expression, learning how to process emotions in the body, interoceptive training, passive tools for interceptive stimulus, wearing an ab belt, or doing gentle sensory stimulus for the non myelinated fibers, or working with my vagus nerve, or just all these kinds of ways to heal my intraceptive

deficits. And it is probably from my own journey. Yeah, yeah. It is interesting how much of what we're gravitated toward professionally is also. It's part of our own healing. Yeah. Always on the path. Always on the path. Could we talk a little bit too about you were mentioning with your daughter, looking at some of the research and the information about women and being diagnosed with autism and some of the differences there. I feel like women are

often under diagnosed or there's not as much research. There's different hormonal components there. And I'd love to just speak to all of that a little bit because I'm so interested in it. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and again, part of it goes back to the myths and just the bias, the gender bias in research. So a lot of early research was on white cis het boys. And so that then we created, you know, research scales, and we created, like, based on that experience. And so that really

solidified, like, this is what autism looks like. A really interesting study came out, I think, in 2022 that used a statistical analysis that I can't fully wrap my mind around, but it was looking at the true prevalence of autism in females. And so there's often this. It's often quoted like, there's four autistic boys to every

one autistic girl or three to one. And that what they were finding is that the true ratio is actually three to four, meaning three autistic boys to four autistic people, meaning there's more autistic females than males. Also, this is a great place to say a lot of autistic people don't fall into the gender binary, myself included. So females, males, but then also knowing that a lot of folks will identify either as trans or

genderqueer. So basically, we just haven't known kind of what autism, like, how it presents in girls. And there's been this bias. So historically, a girl would have to have more autistic traits to get the diagnosis. So part of that is kind of bias of providers. But then also, we do now know that girls are much more likely to mask their autism or camouflage their autism, and that's where they are. The way I describe it, it's like they're using their prefrontal

cortex to move through social space. So they're analyzing and they're studying. They've become little social scientists of like, okay, who's cool? What are they saying? What's the language they're doing? And then they can blend in a bit more easily. And so that's one of the reasons that they also go unidentified. The group that goes most unidentified are autistic females without a co occurring intellectual disability. And again, these are the ones that are going to be masking

quite a bit. So. And that used to be. That used to be diagnosed as Asperger's. That's not a diagnosis that's used anymore. So, like, when they looked at the statistics back when Asperger's was used. I think it was nine autistic or Asperger boys to one girl. And again, that's not because that's the prevalence rates. That's because that's the identifying rates. Meaning what that suggests is we were really, really bad at identifying the smart autistic

girls. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense when you think of masking. I mean. Yeah. Isn't that how we all got here? Yeah. And then some of the cultural condition. Right. Like sensory sensitivities, that's often a more prevalent rate among autistic females. It's often interpreted as like, oh, she's sensitive or she's oversensitive, or she's dramatic. She wants attention. So there's also the cultural

conditioning or even the measurements. Like, they ask about lining up trains, they don't ask about lining up dolls, they don't ask about, like, the play, even though it can have that same, like, I'm collecting things or I'm lining things up. It's not necessarily as noticeable if it's something that culturally blends in and our special interests are often ones that also blend in more. So it might be social justice, it might

be psychology, it might be animals, but they're things that are often. It could be books, they're things that are often praised by society. So even though they're intense, they're less likely to kind of raise thought that this might be autism. Do you think that with this higher presentation in women, do you think that gives rise from the hormonal place of our body and all the different ways that we are kind of shaped biologically? I mean, the chemical places and.

Yeah, I don't know. There's different theories around that. I don't think I know it well enough. The one thing I do know about ADHD is that ADHD often becomes more pronounced after puberty. And so some of the diagnostic criterias, it's now twelve, but a lot of it really emphasizes early childhood. And so that disadvantages females who might have more obvious ADHD traits after puberty. But, yeah, I'm less. I'm less aware of kind of autism and how that influences. I

mean, we're all both autistic and ADHD. Females are more prone to, like, PMDD and all kinds of hormonal sensitivities, which again, I think does make us more likely to it get interpreted as a mood disorder versus a neurology.

One of our big topics this season that we're exploring here on the podcast and that we're exploring personally, is rest and so I was listening to divergent minds one day on a walk, and it was an episode on rest, and I did pick up a new tool from you where you say a word and then, like, the word that you gave was ocean. And then you name as many things as you can with o, with c, with e. It works. I just wanted you to know, and I just wanted to say thank you. That's been

a really. That's been a tool that I use probably most nights. Oh my goodness, that makes me so happy. When I learned about cognitive shuffling, I've always had insomnia. I was like, it feels a little bit magical how like, I mean, maybe people don't tell me when it doesn't work, but everyone who I've introduced it to was like, oh my goodness, it actually works. Yeah. I was laying in, in bed with my z vibe in my mouth, vibrating my jaw, trying to drop into parasympathetic state

and like, do my, what did you call it? Cognitive shuffling. So you're basically shuffling your thoughts through a structured way because that mimics that first stage cycle of sleep and it. And we can't ruminate and get in our anxious mind when we're shuffling our thoughts. Yeah, I hadn't thought of it until you were talking about it, but it could also be a really powerful grounding technique during, like, in moments where we need to ground. Yeah. The Divergent

conversations podcast has some. I was listening to a bunch of episodes before we recorded this. And you guys have such great practical little tips, just little ways for people to ground when you were talking about, like just holding a smoothie and feeling the cold and letting that be a way to start very gently training your introception and the cognitive shuffling. And it's a really good resource. I hope people will check it out because there were some great conversations on there. Aw, thank

you. Thank you. Thank you so much for all this conversation today. It's been expansive. I do have a thought. It's circling back to the conversation about kind of the overlap of complex trauma and autism or ADHD. I think there's a lot of reasons. I think these overlap at high rates, partly because our more sensitive systems, but I also think neurodivergence is very genetic and a lot of our parents would have been unidentified, unsupported, and our divergent people.

And so I think that is another reason that these walk together so often, is because of the generations that didn't get identified, that didn't get supported, that didn't have tools to support themselves when they're having a sensory meltdown, when they were having an emotional meltdown, when they were underemployed, and having the stress of that. And so I think I. That is part of the picture is this kind of multigenerational process, and I think that

part often doesn't get highlighted in the conversation. So that was a thread that I had in my head, but that doesn't feel like a sign off, I think. I'm really glad you brought it up, because there are so many ways that these things continue to be passed down and compounded through the generations because of the lack of resources and. And information and tools and acceptance

that people have in different generations. And so I think, absolutely, that has to be something that's considered when we think about trauma being passed down generationally, also the different divergences in our brains and our sensory processing and how. Yeah, I mean, our parents did not have the tools to navigate that, and so, so we're being shaped by a nervous system that is under that constant dysregulation as well. Thank you so much for all of this.

I feel like it was just a really, really powerful conversation. You have so much knowledge, and it's really an honor to have you on the show. Thank you for having me. I've really. I felt alive and engaged during this conversation, and I've really appreciated it. Thank you so much. It's been really enjoyable. This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not

be considered medical or psychological advice. We often discuss lived experiences through traumatic events and sensitive topics that deal with complex developmental and systemic trauma that may be unsettling for some listeners. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice. If you are in the United States and you are, or someone you know is struggling with their mental health and is in immediate danger, please call

911. For specific services relating to mental health, please see the full disclaimer in the show notes.