00:00:00 Louise.

There is an assumption, I think, for lots of people, that the way they perceive the world is the norm, because it’s their perspective. But the whole umbrella, or the whole discussion around neurodiversity is opening that up. I suppose it’s encouraging that inquiry, that curiosity, empathy and kindness towards different people who perceive the world differently, who think differently, and who experience the world differently. That’s what I think neurodiversity is, just being aware that our brains are all wired differently and how that impacts how we engage with, relate to, communicate with and experience the world. Compassion always wins as far as I’m concerned, and it’s not that difficult to get your head around, but it’s just not the way this country’s often operated. Bully boys have got their way, violent men have got their way and they are still those bullying… I find there’s a lot of bullying at the community I was born into. I’ve got a lot of bullying. There’s a lot of bullying there, but I’m able to stand my ground and I have a lot of privilege. I was brought up middle class. So I’ve got that privilege, I’ve got that educational privilege, and I try and use my privilege to speak up for others who don’t have that privilege. But I know we are losing people. It’s quite a harsh environment for people who are different.

00:01:30 Rosemary
This is the Gifts of Trauma podcast, stories of transformation and healing through Compassionate Inquiry. 

00:01:51 Rosemary
Welcome to the Gifts of Trauma podcast. I’m Rosemary Davies-Janes, and I’m here with Kevin Young and we are speaking with Dr Louise Taylor. She’s a neurodivergent therapist and researcher who blends counseling, consultancy and coaching in her therapeutic practice. And in 2020, she received an Autism diagnosis and she also received a dyslexia diagnosis 2 years later. Now, Lou, I’ve got so many questions even starting with your bio… So I wonder if you’d like to jump in and just tell us what is a little less formal that you’d like our listeners to know?

00:02:37 Louise
Actually, I got late diagnosed with Autism, I think it was November 2020, but actually the dyslexia got diagnosed in February, I think it was in the final stretch of my PhD. So the last few words of my doctorate, I found out I was dyslexic, which as an eternal student, that would have possibly been quite handy to know prior, because of all the minor errors that I made in my masters and throughout my educational career.

So I  love nature. I love dancing, I love singing. I’m very, I feel, like, they talk about the eternal student, I feel like the eternal teenager. I feel like I was born to the night. I like this whole idea of dancing for no reason, but just that it’s lovely. And often lots of people need alcohol, but these strawberries sometimes. But I suppose informally, I just, I love to have fun. So I take what I do seriously, but I also think there’s a lot of joy and fun to be had in this work, and I like to enjoy my life as much as possible.

00:03:45 Rosemary
Beautiful, beautiful. I am very curious. One of the things that you do professionally is you work as an early career researcher. What kind of work is that? I’ve never heard that before.

00:03:59 Louise
That’s because, like, I’m a mature student, but I’m an early career researcher, and that’s my life all summed up. I’m doing everything back to front. Early career researcher is for… I suppose a lot of the younger, who come through, they’ve done the doctorate maybe straight after their bachelor’s degree, and then they did their masters. If they had a natural propensity for academia, which I wouldn’t have had, because I’ve had undiagnosed dyslexia for a start, which means delayed processing and I need longer and I interact with, and communicate very differently. So early career researchers are basically people who’ve finished their doctorate and they’re going on to start that research career. But I only finished my doctorate in my 40s. So it’s basically, it’s like the novice, it’s the novices of academia where the way, so I’m developing that. So I’m not an established researcher. I haven’t been doing it for decades or years. I got my doctorate in 2023, no 20… I can’t remember, but it’s quite recently so that’s what that means. Early career researcher, I’m early in that research.

00:05:03 Rosemary
OK, perfect. Thank you. I also, I highlighted a line that you have in your bio that you believe we must embody our work and live in such a way that we make our lives art. I absolutely love that. And you already touched on that a little bit when you were talking about your love of dancing and music and nature. Is there anything else you’d like to say about that line?

00:05:26 Louise
That’s a different way of talking about authenticity, I think. Connecting more with your authentic, your true authentic self, and make your way and in a bit of a way, it’s a sneaky way of connecting with creativity and the soul, which many people become… Maybe it’s more here, I think, where I live in Northern Ireland, or the north of Ireland. I suppose a lot of people, I’d hear a lot of people saying they’re not creative. Everybody’s creative and I find that really sad that people would think that they’re not creative. I think our true authentic selves living a life where we’re truly authentic and connected to our true selves would be art, as pure people who are fully authentic and they’re fully connected and it is, it’s beautiful to see, an actualized human being, somebody who’s self actualized they, they will be living in a way, they are true true who they are and it is, I think it’s a form of art.

00:06:28 Rosemary
Thank you. I love that explanation. Kevin, I think you had a couple of questions on what Lou does professionally.

00:06:35 Kevin
Yeah. And hey, Lou, thanks. And you’ll recognize, Lou, that I’m from here as well. I’m one of us and I have loads of questions. Sorry, but just what you were saying, I’m really keen then, in relation to trauma and counseling and therapy and when someone isn’t dancing or singing or being creative, what does that life look like, with the people that you work with? When that creativity disappears, what happens to people? Maybe I, if I’m maybe gonna ask that just a slightly different way, what happens for people in relation to their mental health, their lifestyle, their physical health when you do help them to dance and sing and play and create? What then happens for people when they’re given that opportunity by someone like you?

00:07:37 Louise
That’s what I do, I’m gonna be connecting with creativity more. First of all, the way I work is, right, I go, what do you want? Clients come to me and I’m like, OK, this is a service. I’m offering a mix and running very intuitively. What is it that you want? So the life I want is not necessarily going to be the life they want, but they will be attracted generally by my blogs or my writing. There’s something about me. Or they’ll often say they’ve seen my page and there’s something about it they want. And then I’m like, OK, what do you want? You’re the expert on you. What is it that I can help with? So it depends on each person. I will bring that joy at times and I’ll bring myself fully authentically into those sessions. But  they’re not necessarily going to want to be like me. It’s gonna be so unique for them. I’m, like, bringing it always back to them. What is it that you want? What do you want? And a lot of the time the creativity is, I think the spiritual… part of the spiritual practices that I’m often trying to connect people with. I think that’s it. So I suppose what… I hope I’m understanding what you’re asking. The way I work is they come to me and I’m like, if I’m not helping you get what you need, then I’m not the right person for you. But you’re the expert and I’ve got these skills. I’m obsessed with learning and I know a lot about this, so I’m going to help you get what you want. And sometimes they’re like, this isn’t working for me because they don’t like that. And a lot of the time if I’m working for people long term,  the results are just, they’re more content, they understand themselves more, they’ve more clarity on how their neuro type, as I call it, their neuro blend, impacts their life and impacts their relationships. And so I suppose it’s just more awareness and more understanding of themselves and others. And so just walking alongside them while they become more contented and happier with themselves, and their life. Does that make sense? So they might not be dancing. I hope they dance.

00:09:52 Kevin
Yeah, I think I mean dancing and singing metaphorically. I think what I’m leaning towards and maybe just keen to get your opinion, that when people do start to understand themselves, when they do start to realize, ah, the reason I do that is because of this. So there isn’t anything wrong with me. I’m not broken. What then usually happens, in my experience, and be interested in your take on it, that they do start to be more authentic. And in that authenticity comes their dancing or their singing, whatever that might be. It might be knitting, it might be painting, it might be cooking, whatever it might be. And I think that’s what I’m leaning towards when, just asking, when you help people to understand themselves, is that something that you see arising from them, their authenticity? Their dancing, their singing…

00:10:42 Louise
Their creativity.

00:10:43 Kevin
Their creativity, yeah.

00:10:44 Louise
So whatever way that is, it might be knitting or embroidery, it might be journaling or writing, it might be cooking. It’s just that exploration, that curiosity, that expression, play. Oh, definitely. I’m always encouraging it. Look, what do you want? Like, what’s the quirky…? What’s the things that you really like? What makes you tick? And then just really embracing that, rather than trying to be like everybody else. So yeah, it’s so funny, I was taking that literally. I do take things very literally. But they, yeah, they do it in their own way. They find their outlets, their ways of expressing their soul, their meraki, I call it. Do you know the word meraki? I love the word meraki and you can see it. You can see when people do things with meraki. It’s like an expression of your soul, like your creativity. And it can be very messy. Like it doesn’t have to be ‘kompeki’ it doesn’t have to be competing noise. I’ve got that tattoo, which means it doesn’t have to be perfect. I remember in Japan I was doing pottery a lot and everybody else had their pots so perfect, and mine were always so wonky. I used to be bad for my tutor. I’d be like, I’m really sorry, I can’t do… I couldn’t replicate the pots properly like everybody else. They like them because they’re a bit different and kooky and quirky and all. But I remember saying to my teacher, it’s no reflection on you, but I can’t replicate these pots, but they kept saying, “Kompeki Louise.” So don’t worry about it, it doesn’t have to be perfect. Just do it. And I think that’s a really lovely way of trying new things and experiencing life, just get stuck in. Enjoy yourself and you can only do the best you can. 

But creativity, I think that’s the education system and capitalism through the different things that they’ve said, that if you do something that has to be the creativity and the arts, it often has to be sellable. What’s the value of it? What’s the market value? Whereas singing a song, an impromptu song, having a memory like that, like a core memory of beautiful things, like how do you put value on that? And creativity is that expression, that freedom, that joy. But yeah, I do love that whenever I see clients, they come back and they’ll tell me about things that and sometimes they’ll like, they’ll show me or they’ll be inspired and they’ll show me this artwork they’ve made, and how it’s so just them, when they don’t want anybody else to see it. And I’m like, that’s beautiful. It’s really beautiful when people share that and they feel safe to share that with you. That’s the gift of what we get to do.

00:13:26 Rosemary
And what you said if, I can just insert something here. I’m an artist, and when my ex-husband started brainstorming with me to try and monetize my artistic expression, my desire to create art dropped exponentially. It’s just, the two do not mesh. So thank you for bringing that up.

00:13:47 Louise
Yeah, so sad too. I think that’s why people do think they’re not creative, because they’re not good at art or they can’t… I couldn’t copy. Like I say, I couldn’t copy at school. There would be an apple, so I couldn’t really draw the apple that well. So then, I internalized “I’m not good at art,” which took me years to unlearn that, and understand. But that’s not the point of art

00:14:14 Rosemary
No, it’s not to perfectly replicate a thing that you see. No, not at all. No, not at all. Beautiful. I’d like to just go back to the beginning because, all through putting my questions together, I started referring to neurodiversity as neuroD, because there are two ways of speaking about it. There is neurodivergent and neurodiverse and I’m wondering are those interchangeable? Are there different meanings to those? They seem to be used interchangeably. I wonder if you could shed some light on that.

00:14:48 Louise
Neurodivergent. This is the way I understand it, OK? The neurodiversity movement to me is a social justice movement. I remember when I was getting assistance for autism and I had to go private because my GP and everything, nobody in my family, I’m from a family of health professionals, GP’s and nurses. Nobody ever mentioned it, right? And then I went to my GP and they were like, no, there’s no point. You’re too smart, you’re too successful, you’re too intelligent. But it was actually quite dangerous for me, because I didn’t pick up on stuff and there was stuff… I had loads of blind spots. But when I went to get assessed privately, the woman said, you’re obviously autistic, right? You’re obviously on the spectrum. It’s just the way I turn up, the way I use communication and the way I use language, right? The way I communicate. I was like, OK. And she said you may be in the minority now, but in the future it’s gonna be the majority of people who are going to be considered neurodivergent. And it’s basically, to me, it’s a stance where we’re saying whatever these systems, are set as normal, now we should be able to function at that length. I’m not that. I’m basically going right, over here, because I can’t keep up with this. I can’t keep up with what’s expected of us, in us, in society. I can’t keep up with what’s expected for us to tick all the boxes, to work 9:00 to 5:00, to be able to go into the office, to avoid burnout. So whatever they’ve decided is a healthy normal person in terms of nervous systems and in terms of mental health, I’m not it. 

So it was after years and years of me really struggling and telling people what I was experiencing, and them telling me, No, your grand, that I was like, no, I can’t do that. There’s something about the way everybody else is able to do things, and I get burnt out. So neurodivergent to me, identifying as neurodivergent is saying, whatever you’ve decided the normal is. I’m not it. And then, it’s like there’s this beautiful movement of being very neuro-affirming, neuro-respectful and that is what’s coming out. But also what I find is the amount of ableism there is in society. The amount of neophobia, is the biggest issue I’ve come up against and people are incredibly neurophobic. I find people who I’ve known for years, like, as soon as the diagnosis, I bought it, like I bought that term. They didn’t know how to communicate with me, but they’d known me. So what changed? I didn’t change. I had an awareness. Like I read my report and the first thing I thought was, how am I not dead? You know what I mean? I thought, how am I not dead? I can’t pick up on danger keys. That’s important to know, that’s important for me to pick up, and to understand what I don’t know so I can get the appropriate support. But I think because of the ableism, particularly within the medical profession, and because of the neurophobia within the medical profession, they thought they were doing me a favor, by shielding me from that diagnosis. Do you see what I mean?

00:18:05 Rosemary
Yeah, I do. And if I can interrupt here just for a second, I believe I probably need to get a diagnosis myself. And I remember when I was going through the Compassionate Inquiry training, we were talking about neuroception and I was making up stories to explain to myself why my neuroception was broken because I also don’t I, I think safe things are unsafe and I think unsafe things are safe. Like I just, I have no directional focus. I might think that’s north, but I walk that way and it turns out it’s not anywhere near north. So you’re offering another explanation to things, and I wonder how many of us just make up little stories and pick reasons that we are the way we are, when it could all be explained. And what you’re describing with your autism diagnosis, I experienced when I got diagnosed as a highly sensitive person, it’s, ah, that! Checkbox. Checkbox. It made me make sense to me, through a different lens. 

00:19:06 Louise
Wow, highly sensitive? Yeah, thank you for sharing that because that’s lovely neuroception, and that language and I’m making it up and being creative with it. Like, I made-up neuro blend, my neuro-blend, because I’m more ADHD than Autistic, but I haven’t paid for that diagnosis. And the highly sensitive person is another way that I think you’re yeah, people are looking at it, because there’s the medical model. So that Autism Spectrum Disorder. I think disorder, the word disorder is, that’s where they’re taking that… this is really exciting time, because it’s a difference. There’s a difference there and do I feel disordered? I think I sometimes create disorder for people who are used to… who like things to serve and are used to people communicating a certain way. But I think that’s quite offensive, that term. So, I feel like I have a great life and I have a lot to offer society, and everybody I work with has too. But that, calling it a disorder, for those who aren’t educated and informed, places us in danger of being stigmatized. And we are other, and if we don’t conform to what is deemed normal or healthy, we’re in danger of being abused. Whereas, I think I’m different. I think my brain’s wired differently, but in certain areas I’m celebrated and told gifted, gifted children, for like all of them, I think we’re pretty much all of them are gonna meet that criteria to get that diagnosis.

00:20:47 Rosemary
Yeah, I’m, I’m guilty of that as well. And it’s, I love what you’re saying about normal too, because Gabor’s latest book is the Myth of Normal. And you alluded to the fact that normal is going to be, yes, normal is going to be very much the minority as we move forward. And I wonder if we could just look at that, dig into that a little bit. I’d like to share a couple of quotes from Gabor and then I’m going to ask you to speak, on your perspective. So this is long ago. In a 2010 interview, Gabor linked autism to the impact of stress on brain development. And he said, “…the child’s brain development depends on the presence of non stressed emotionally available parents. In this country [meaning Canada] that’s less and less available. Hence you’ve got burgeoning rates of Autism. It’s gone up 20 or 30 fold in the last 30 or 40 years.” And when he was asked to explain autism, he said, “Autism is a whole spectrum of disorders, but the essential quality of it is an emotional disconnect. These children are living in a mind of their own. They don’t respond appropriately to emotional cues. They withdraw. They act out in an aggressive and sometimes just unpredictable fashion. They don’t know how to, there’s no clear sense of an emotional connection and peace inside them.” And I wonder what you would like to say about that perspective?

00:22:19 Louise
I know that… it’s from 2010?

00:22:21 Rosemary
Yeah, it was. It was an interview he did, Yeah.

00:22:24 Louise
So that’s very interesting. This is one of the reasons why, if somebody had said to me in the 1990s, I write comedy, right? So I’m writing about that the 1990s. I didn’t know what’s it’s… there’s no chance. I don’t think he would have found anybody, but look at the research and look at the knowledge and what he said. Emotional disconnect. It’s the unpredictability. I see autism as like almost an anarchist condition. I see ADHD is like an anti-capitalist, and autism, like an anarchist one right? But I do think it’s very connected to trauma, trauma and the brain, trauma and development. And I’ve written on this about Northern Ireland. Have you seen the rates we have for Northern Ireland? Kevin, you might know, they are… like the waiting list, the rates that we have, they’re off the scale, like we are, I think three times more than England. I think we’re three times more than the Republic. So we’ve had… it’s 30 years. Like they referred to it as the Troubles, which I find very offensive. It’s so 30 years of civil war, like 30 years of real intense, really chaotic, horrendous violence. If you think about it, Kevin, the things that we’d normalize,.. I don’t know how old you are? I’m 46, I was born in 78, and I was looking at this recently, while I was thinking about it. I was thinking, what was happening, what bombs went off… My mum was east Belfast and my dad was from Rathcole and they’re very strong Loyalist areas and they would have been really impacted by the trouble in those areas. There was the Lemond bomb actually went off in February 1978. Now, can you imagine the violence and the aggression, and you’re carrying a child, and bombs are going off, and the no.., nobody’s talking about it. Nobody, nobody really at that point in 1978, how much were they talking about PTSD? How much were they aware it was trauma? Was therapy… Like people still think your mad here in this country, has the highest PTSD and, and if you’re going to therapy, they say, oh, sure, there’s nothing wrong with me, but we’ve got the highest rates of PTSD because we’re 30 years of civil war. The rates of autism, to me, are telling us that transgenerational trauma is huge. But it’s not just Autism and ADHD, which ADHD is very much similar to complex trauma. They’re all varying degrees of trauma, but you meet one person with autism, you meet one person with autism. And I do think this is where there has been a lot of misogyny with regards to not picking up on females and tied severance. So 2010, that’s a quote, but that was looking on mostly they had men or males or boys diagnosed. They weren’t even looking at the difference. And that’s another thing as a neurodivergent therapist, females present very differently. They behave very differently. And to me, I think we’ve got to really open up to how these conditions are, how they impact differently, the genders, sexes, and what exactly it’s telling us about how things are changing and what we need to do to connect. Because you would think with people getting these diagnoses, that there would be support, and that people would be kind, and they’d be compassionate and they’d be understanding and be patient. Actually, that’s not the case. The masses of diagnoses are showing that our services can’t cope, that people aren’t really interested, and that people are still struggling. So my diagnosis taught me, it actually alienated people further from me, because they just didn’t know how to cope, right? But there was no support whatsoever in terms of, like, accommodations or anything. Autism, I think, is so badly misunderstood. It has been misappropriated because it’s often been given the labels being given of people, particularly males or boys, have been violent or disruptive and disco. So it’s got this stigma not only with meltdowns, with aggressive violent meltdowns, which means that often a lot of females who maybe have shut downs, who have anxiety, who exhibit like, other forms of behavioral disturbances, such as eating disorders, such as self harm. Really, there’s a real danger I think for a lot of females of getting into highly abusive, manipulative relationships with narcissists. That’s not what people are thinking when they think of autism.  From my perspective, what they should be thinking is often people who take things to the extreme, and that is the good and the bad. So that is the empathy, the compassion, the care, the love. They’ll take that to the extreme, as well as they might take other behaviours to the extreme too. Does that make any sense?

00:27:36 Rosemary
100 percent, 100%, Yes. Kevin, did you want to say something?

00:27:41 Kevin
Just, first of all, that it makes total sense, Lou. I really thank you for speaking about that. I’m thinking of people that I know personally and, I’m really relating what you’re saying to some of those people. I’m already sitting here thinking I can’t wait to send this interview to certain people. So I really want to, I really want to thank you for that, and for mentioning the… We did a podcast, myself and a colleague of ours called Stephen Brown. We did a podcast based around… I love how you said that Northern Ireland, the north of Ireland. Because we spoke about that, our mental health, our autism rates, our addiction rates, etc are through the roof. And it doesn’t take someone with a doctorate to join the dots between 30 years of civil war and high rates of different mental health ailments. It doesn’t take someone with a doctorate to join those dots. But it seems like that’s not happening here Lou. And I don’t want to take the conversation there because that would be a whole different conversation there.

00:28:42 Louise
I love it, I would love to. It’s my passion. That’s why I moved back. This is my heart, my soul. We need to keep talking about this. It’s disgusting how we’ve been failed, as 6 county. They call it the occupied 6 counties, the North, the Northern Ireland, all three, name it but the people are such good people and I just feel like, I call it this a sacrifice zone. When people say, “Oh no, the Republic will make out that it’s us being difficult and the Westminster and the United Kingdom will make out it’s Ulster being difficult.” And I’m like this is colonialism and its unresolved legacy and it’s completely cruel how they… they just basically it’s a failed experiment of a country, where they refuse to take responsibility and protect the people and it’s not even, just… You look at our cancer rates. You look at our air quality.. I’m involved in a Loughney campaign everything… It’s just completely dysfunctional. The government, the departments, there’s levels of corruption, and we’re blamed. But how is this country… which was taken… How is this country, the Republic of Ireland won’t take responsibility and their people have been failed and they have had the worst discrimination. UK government blame us like it’s just, an and still we deal. But the people are such good people. Kevin, we bicker, Oh my goodness. But we’re not blowing each other up anymore. I always think that’s great, but we do bicker and we are fiery and feisty, but in terms of what we’ve had to overcome as a people, I think it’s remarkable. But I do feel thoroughly thin up with the Republic on Westminster. I think they both failed us all spectacularly and I don’t think enough is being done to deal with the mental health but also the public health crisis we have as a country.

00:30:39 Kevin
Thank you.

00:30:40 Rosemary
Thank you. Now I want to ask you, you published a short YouTube video titled What is Neurodiversity? If we can get back and fill in listeners who may be hearing about this for the first time, could you just give me a brief summary of what you cover in that 4 minutes?

00:30:58 Louise
What is neurodiversity? So, it’s looking at the neurology, it’s looking at the brain. So it’s a range of different brain wiring, a range of different ways of thinking, of processing and of disseminating information, but it’s also really looking at sensory issues, and that’s where you’re just bringing that to the awareness. There is an assumption, I think, for lots of people that the way they perceive the world is the norm, because it’s their perspective. But the whole umbrella, or the whole discussion around neurodiversity is opening that up. I suppose it’s encouraging that inquiry, that curiosity and that empathy and kindness towards different people, who perceive the world differently, who think differently and who experience the world differently. That’s something, that’s what I think neurodiversity is, just being aware that our brains are all wired differently, and how that impacts how we engage, relate, communicate and experience the world. 

00:32:04 Rosemary
That’s great. That’s great. Thank you. And I had the privilege of reading a couple of posts you wrote on people with neurodiversity and environmental activism. And since our listeners have not had that chance yet, I wonder if you could connect those dots for us, because I found that fascinating.

00:32:22 Louise
Yeah, I wrote some on the environment, the climate and ecological crises. We’ve got Greta Themburg. They could diagnose Aspergers, at level one. That was the same with me, even though they don’t use that term anymore. You’ve got Chris Packham, he’s one of the most famous ones here. He’s on the spectrum. So I think that’s again, taking things to the extreme. Those people who live in that kind of ‘this is not right and I must do something about it.’ And they’re really challenging the status quo, really challenging the norm and they’re challenging the norm in terms of our relationships, not just with each other, but with the natural world, with the more than  human or the non human world. And a lot of people, I’d say most people in the environmental movement, are neurodivergent. Have you ever heard of Roger Hallam? I could listen to and watch Roger Hallam all day. To me he is just, so… the way he experiences the world. He’s so passionate about his activism, but he’s incredibly radical. He started Extinction Rebellion. He’s relentless in his activism. Cause he experiences the world differently, but also the anxiety connected with that ecological grief, that ecological trauma, whatever that, that kind of, that motivation, that energy of… he can’t not… as a creative, as expression. He’s got that in him, that internal experience of being that highly educated, being that aware of the science, of the issues, to function or to find peace or..  they must act. And that was my research, actually my doctorate. It was saying, in times of a climate and ecological crisis, when you’re that well educated, you’re even observing it yourself. Roger Hallan was a farmer. He noticed, he became aware because his crops kept failing. Then the best way to reclaim your health and your power is to become activist, and do pro environmental activities. So I would do that. I would be very involved in campaigns and stuff. But I would be involved in local campaigns to protect the environment. And that’s because some people can see a burning fire, a house, or some people can see something’s wrong with the world, and not act. But I think for a lot of neurodivergents, a lot of people I work with, a lot of people I know, that’s not it. They can’t live with themselves if they don’t do something. So a lot of nerodivergents can’t forget. They can’t let go. They can’t… they need to do something, if they know something, because I think a lot of them have a different, their interactions, their life is guided by different values and different morals. Now that might sound like trying to say, you feel like you’re really morally superior and different things. I remember a close relative of mine saying, oh, you always behave like you’re morally superior. And I was like, no, I don’t think I’m morally superior. It’s just the way I think. It’s just, I’m like, that’s the right thing and we’re supposed to do that. And that can be really, that can be really annoying for people if they don’t have that, kind of, they don’t have that urge, they don’t have the desire, and they don’t think or see, they don’t maybe take those as seriously. But I think for a lot of neurodivergents, again, they’ll take things to the extreme. So if they believe something, I think it’s like a moment of lightening. If somebody’s got a core belief, I work with, if somebody on the spectrum has a core belief and it’s tapped in, they’re not going to shift it. They’re going to stand firm and it can’t get them into a lot of trouble. That’s why Roger Hallan, he’s not diagnosed, I don’t think, but he, to me, he’s clearly neurodieurgent, but he is so committed to that. But that can get them into a lot of trouble because when they believe something, they, they find it very hard to shift. And you can see they might be the emperor’s new clothes, they call it. They’ll be… whistleblowers will be on the spectrum. Anybody could tell I’m speaking the truth in really quite dangerous ways.

00:36:33 Kevin
They could. Could I pause you Lou, for just a wee second? Would that be OK?  I noticed in myself. I’m really, I’m just absolutely fascinated listening to you. I noticed in myself a real arising of sadness. I can still feel it in my voice, this idea of someone who sees and speaks things differently because it’s right, and how that can be misconstrued, or people can say that you’re taking a moral high ground. And that is something that I have often been accused of myself, that I’m taking a moral high ground. And in all of my being, I just want to scream. The thing is wrong, the thing that we’re… it’s wrong. How am I taking a moral high ground? So I really noticed a well of sadness in that, being mirrored from me. And then I had a question that you were about to… you just started speaking about. Tell me, if you will, for someone, I’m gonna say like me, or like you or anyone else that sees the world differently. They see this pain and they see this suffering. They see that things aren’t right. They’re speaking out about it and they’re getting shut down. They’re told that they’re taking a moral high ground.That must be really difficult for people to live in that space. What is the impact of that on people, in your opinion? So when they’re coming to you, they’re seeing the world as they see it and they’re getting shut down. What happens to that person? They get into trouble you were about to say. Tell me more about that.

00:38:13 Louise
Well, this is where you find the community and this is where this movement and what’s happening and people seeking out a diagnosis. So they’ll begin to shut down if they’re not accepted or they can’t have that connection or they’re told they’re being morally superior, they’re being wrong. And many of us will have beaten, abused or bullied. Like for instance, I got arrested for writing what I thought. That’s one of the things that lead to my diagnosis, for my safety. And I hadn’t committed any crimes. But it was shocking enough for people, the status quo in this area. And this is like a real Bible Belt, really a misogynistic place. We are one of the least safe places in Europe to be a woman. OK, so I was writing A blog. It was called Musings of a Wild Woman. And I remembered 2 police officers. First, I had a six year old here, and this is years ago, and it was called Musings of a Wild Woman, and it wasn’t great and I was like, 2 police officers coming up to my house, and I’d never ever had any trouble with the law. That’s the kind of thing, do you see what I mean? And I knew I hadn’t committed any crimes because I’d worked in the probation service. I understood the law. I worked as a legal advocate. So there’s two police officers. You’d have sworn I’d murdered somebody by the look on their faces. But it was because I terrified people because I was so different. So I was writing what I thought was very critical of the system. I was writing what was happening. But men in this area were used to women not… and I lived away and travelled back and all this year I had travelled the world and I got educated and then I came back with my new mindset. But I just wrote very progressively, and lived in Brighton, and that… the tactics they used to silence me. I was de-arrested. My bucket list didn’t have arrest on it. But I got arrested. And my child thought it was a dishwasher man. I was able to keep them away from my child because that would have been… I was very traumatized by it. Believe me, The PS I have been told off for years because of that because I said how dangerous it was to people. But they did apologize and I got de-arrested. But it was definitely because I was on the spectrum. And they bullied me and it was really dangerous and the things they did and the things they said were so offensive and horrible. But they just wanted me to stop, right? They didn’t want me to… They didn’t want me to write about how I saw the education system. They didn’t want me to write when they were bullying me. That didn’t make it. They didn’t want a feminist in the area. They wanted… the status quo was misogynistic men, right? And violent men. Remember 30 years, those violent man got a lot of what they wanted. They terrorized us. They, their violence, their aggression, their terror got results. So when I came in, with my ways and I was very different. They used violence, they used systemic violence, they used systemic terrorism to try and stop me. OK, so this is where the gift of trauma comes in. So when that event like that, a traumatic event that happens, and  you understand you’re different, but you know yourself, right then, what I didn’t… to this day, I am grateful that I’m not any of them. I am so grateful that I was the person who they did that to, and I wasn’t the person doing that to others. Do you see what I mean? So if you take the moral high ground, I’m like, yeah, cause I would never do that to anybody. I would never lie about people. I would never use services to abuse people. I will choose me, every day of the week, rather than be a violent aggressive bully who lies to the police. So that’s where I think the moral high ground, you turn it, you go, OK, it’s not an insult. There is that nice, is a good to be somebody in quite an immoral, corrupt, violent place who stands by their morals? They went no, but I stayed true to me, even though it was very painful. It was traumatic. But actually the more I went into myself, the more I went into my body, the more I was like, give me that evil. I’m going to pay for that label. There’s nothing wrong with being autistic. There’s nothing wrong with being disabled. It led me more and more to me. Does that make sense? So it can be sad, it can be traumatic, it can be awful, but it also can bring you closer to who you are and… say, if I conformed to what they wanted, is that better, or is that, do you know what I mean, Who’s sad in that story, I think in that story, the story of the event with me, I’m always going to love who I was in that story. I wasn’t the bully.

00:43:32 Kevin
Lou, can I ask you something else because I’m… my heart is really open to a group of people. And when I read your CV, so to speak… It would be fair to say you are a highly educated woman. And when we, we don’t need to read all that off. People can read that in the show notes. Where my heart tends to go right now is for people who are being diagnosed with ADD, ADHD, autism, highly sensitive people. And these things that you’re talking about are happening to them too, but they’re not you. They don’t have a really strong sense of self. They’re not highly educated, and where we’re from in the north of Ireland and all around the world, they’re probably living in low income areas. So they probably don’t have that sense of self, and I’m wondering, what happens to them in these situations? When they don’t have your wisdom and brain and connections and what happens to them?

00:44:35 Louise
Oh, and I know. This is why the police were very good to me. I said, that’s a suicide risk. The first thing people should think when they hear Autism is off-the-scale levels of anxiety, OK, because they’ve had to try and fit into… square… whatever… they’re trying to get by, while they’ve got these disadvantages or these differences and these difficulties. That’s the first thing. 

First thing they should think when they hear ADHD is increased risk of suicide. So I was really advocating, and really telling services off, and I do this with… people will come to me, especially young people in the education system, on all the services. I think the services are terrible in this, and I do think that people have completed suicide who’ve been wrongly arrested, who’ve been wrongly treated. I think social services are causing incredible harm because the ableism and neurophobia. So I do think we’re losing a lot of people who aren’t being supported. I have written to the PS and I have written all services saying you’re not trauma informed and you’re not compassionate. You’re not… you need to be compassionately led. All of the police officers should be compassionately led. Look at the levels of neurodivegence in this country. If they’re not trained in compassion, policing compassionately, and don’t know what they’re doing and trauma informed. Now the police and I, I’m going to give it to them. I find them really good in terms of engaging with me, because I have gone up because of what? Because of how, how, reckless and unnecessary their actions were, and how much it impacted me and it took me to get over, and how much it was just unnecessary. It was ridiculous. I said, look, paramilitaries running the country and your arresting bloggers. I said come on now, two male police officers. I was like, I’ll come later. And they’re like, no, you’re coming now. Because they wanted to get home early. But I’ve never been arrested in my life. So, we are losing people because these services and the institutions do not know how to lead with love, how to lead with compassion and how to engage. People see people’s pain. They’ll see a behavior, especially with autism, they’ll see a behaviour and they’ll project a meaning onto that behavior. It’s distress, this person’s distressed. And I’ve heard some of the most disgraceful kinds of casing in terms of very vulnerable, mentally unwell, traumatized women, right. Compassion always wins as far as I’m concerned. And it’s not that difficult to get your head around, but it’s just not the way this country’s often operated. Bully boys have got their way, violent men have got their way, and there’s still those bullying.. I find there’s a lot of bullying at the community I was born into. I’ve got a lot of bullying. There’s a lot of bullying there. But I’m able to stand my ground and I have a lot of privilege. I was brought up middle class. So I’ve got that privilege, I’ve got that educational privilege, and I try and use my privilege to speak up for others who don’t have that privilege. But I know, we are losing people. Our suicide rates are very high here, and it’s quite a harsh environment for people who are different. It’s a harsh environment anyway, but it’s a harsh environment for people who are different. So that’s why I do, whenever possible, if anybody asked me for support, I’ll always stand by them while I challenge the services if they have been mistreated. And I will always believe the people, over those who are paid by the institutions. Now that might sound harsh, but I have too much experience of people who are defending institutions, abusing people, service users and things like that. So I just think, yeah, we are losing people. There’s a hell of a long way to go, and it is heartbreaking.

00:48:35 Kevin
Look, could I ask for your opinion on something else? And it’s particularly for our listeners as well. I would be very surprised if there’s anyone listening to this podcast that doesn’t hear your passion and your drive and your enthusiasm for yourself, for justice, for compassion, for the rights of people that are being diagnosed with neurodivergence. And I’m very conscious as well of, the compassionate inquiry lens. I’m wondering how people who are growing up like you and, and others who are, who are being diagnosed with neurodivergence that don’t have your wisdom and skills and education, don’t have the privilege. They’re not middle class, They’re maybe not white, they’re maybe not westerners. And what I would love to highlight as well, is how those people will be managing that distress, probably via addiction, probably through other types of behavior. And I wonder, would you speak a little bit about that, and really why I’m asking you to do that, Lou, is to, you know, if there’s someone listening to us who is experiencing what, what you’ve experienced, and they’re managing themselves by self medicating with whatever it is. I would just love for us to be able to wrap an arm around them and say, we get it. We, we understand, we hear you. Would you speak a little bit about how people might self manage neurodivergence?

00:49:56 Louise
There’s addiction directed by living. So I think that’s a form of addiction that comes in that need, for the desire for safety, the desire for love or connection, for acceptance. I think for me, a lot of it was about shame, and acknowledging where the shame had come from and processing that and writing and creativity and connecting with nature, and sitting will cups of tea, in silence, and accepting yourself fully, and knowing yourself, knowing yourself to the point where anything anybody else says about you, it doesn’t get in, because you know who you are and who’s the most important person in terms of knowing you and who you are. So I think if you’ve gone through trauma, if you’ve been wrongly arrested for writing, I think it was crimes against writing. I was like, I don’t think writing was that bad. If you’ve been told that you’re not enough or you’re not good enough, or you’re wrong. Connect with yourself. That’s an invitation to connect more with yourself and decide who you want to be. I think we get to decide a lot more than we often think. We get to decide, who do I want to be? Point-of-power is in the present moment.  Can’t take back all what’s been. The future is… what is it… the future is promised for nobody. So point of power in the present moment. So who do I wanna be? So if you’ve been wounded or you feel broken or you feel really damaged, get a cup of tea, and try and enjoy it. Sit with yourself, watch the birds, enjoy about… honestly, the simple things are not simple. But in those moments, I forget the scholar. Sorry, but he says, times are urgent, we must slow down. And not just even at all times. I’m like, I’m feeling a bit stressed. I’m going to chill. You’re gonna double down on the self care. And for a lot of divergents, the anxiety and everything. And the addictions might make us want to run and hide from ourselves. Whereas actually, what I’m saying is, walk into it gently, as slowly as possible. Feel the feels, sit with yourself. Honor yourself and the cure for the pain is in the pain. That’s really hard to hear, for people here in deep pain but I’m telling you that as the truth. The cure for the pain is in the pain, and if you can be as compassionate with yourself as possible, you will slowly but surely, things will..the cracks will start to appear and you’ll be quite shocked at what can come out of it. For instance, the highly traumatic arrests and the shame. Shame a woman, a middle class woman, being arrested, whole heart and not. As I said to the police, I didn’t do anything wrong, but everybody saw you did it and you did it to mortify and humiliate me, and it had an impact. But, it also led me to the place to advocate for neurodivergence and to use that to… I was ignorant to that. Now I’m not. I’ve been shown, and that has helped me. They’ve all learned from and we’ve all learned from it. And we’re walking on… and I don’t have any shame. The shame was not on me. It was on those people who used the police to abuse a woman. So you may be sitting in shame right now, but if you can get a cup of tea and you can sit with yourself and you know yourself, then you might, if you process it, come to learn that the shame was never for you. You might have been targeted, you might have been abused. People might be offloading scapegoating on you. They might be using you to project. They see you as vulnerable, they see you as something different, and they might be using you for all their unprocessed pain. So if you can sit with it an honor yourself enough, it might be incredible what you can go on to do. Post traumatic growth. So hold on, and if you can’t get that compassion from others, give it to yourself.

00:54:15 Rosemary
Absolutely. Beautiful. Thank you. And thinking there may be a number of people listening right now that are wondering about their own diagnosis. And I wonder if you could speak to us a little bit. Like how does one go about getting a diagnosis? And I think you mentioned something earlier that ADHD is separate, Autism is separate. Like how would someone who’s just getting really excited, listening to this conversation because they relate to one or many things you’ve said, how do they approach that? Because they may not even know which form of, which type of neurodiversity, might be affecting them because you could have said they could be many things. So can you speak a bit to that?

00:54:58 Louise
I think the experts, Michael J Fox says this. “The experts are the people living with the conditions,” and think about how you’re drawn to… and things. I know that diagnosis is a privilege, and it’s denied to many, so I will accept people who self diagnose. I think the whole diagnostic process, or the whole searching for answers, or searching and deciding that you’re like, I need a bit of help here. I want to know more about myself. I want to be more self aware. I want to manage this, but I would say manage your expectations straight away. For the diagnosis does not necessarily mean that… I was quite naive. I was very naive. There’s no services and there’s a big stigma. Now that’s in this area. Be mindful. If I had got a diagnosis, for instance, much earlier, would I have been allowed? I say, but I mean that… Would I have been encouraged to go to do my undergraduate in Manchester, travel the world and live in Japan for two years? Actually, every job I ever applied for, I was getting interviews and things. I applied for two jobs post diagnosis. I didn’t get an interview.  So I would say if you can self diagnose but be mindful that an official diagnosis, society might not have caught up with you, you know what I mean. So be mindful of that. People think they’re really progressive and they’re really accepting my experience is most people don’t understand these conditions and they’ve…. they’re stigmatized. So that would be my first. I would be, just be like, manage your expectations of what you think that diagnosis will do, because it is a label, and people can be really judgmental and unfair. But find your people and self diagnosis is valid. So if you feel like you’re autistic and you made this, and you feel like you felt like you’ve never fit in or, that’s ok. Yeah, get the label if it can get you, go and pay for it if it can get you what you want, if it’s gonna serve you well. I remember one of my friends, saying, but it hasn’t kept you safe, Louise. I’m like, it has been really problematic in many ways when I’m dealing with, when I’m dealing with, I would get…  Kevin, you were very kind, about my level of education. But there’s a lot of derogatory men who would call me looney. She lives in cuckoo-land. She’s crazy. So they don’t care that I’m highly educated or smart. They just stigmatize me. So that… be mindful that you might be very accepting. You might be very progressive. You might not have all of these prejudice, but that doesn’t mean that society is going to treat you well. Actually, there’s a good chance you might come up, once you get that official diagnosis, there might be other obstacles depending on the area. So that would be something I’d say. Just explore it and have fun. I just use it. People come and they’d say about ADHD, autistic or whatever. I’m just there to help them understand. I don’t actually care. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, right? I’m like, I’m using that to understand how that might impact their relationships and their life and how that knowledge can help them have the best life possible. So I’m coming out right. OK, so it’s like with my Aspey brain and I’m like, oh, this means that. So look up the patterns and then go, have you tried this? Have you tried that? So we’re thinking in terms of accommodations, in terms of blind spots, and in terms of improving the quality of life, and improving their relationships, and their life, you know, the quality of life experiences. So that’s how I use it, but many people look at me like I’m less, but I’m less because I’ve got that diagnosis. But that’s just discrimination. Does that make sense?

00:58:58 Rosemary
That was a wonderful answer. So I guess the message is Curb Your Enthusiasm, do a little bit of exploration, and make sure that the benefits outweigh the costs.

00:59:09 Louise
Yeah, Curb Your Enthusiasm. He was definitely on the spectrum, but yeah, that’s kind of lots of comedians, lots of comedians, cause they’ve very different perspectives. Yeah, Curb Your Enthusiasm, manage your expectations, and just you decide, you’re the expert on you.

00:59:25 Rosemary
Perfect. My next question, I think you can have a little bit of fun with – this podcast is called The Gifts of Trauma. So I’m going to ask you to share a little bit about the gift of Autism or a little bit about the gifts of neurodivergence, however you’d like to take that.

00:59:45 Louise
I find – awww –  autistic joy. I understand why people find it very intense, and it can be exhausting for people or what… I just see when somebody’s autistic joy or sometimes people and their special interests and they’re info dumping. Cus they’re really sharing what they love, and such unique perspective and they’re just going into wormholes and really enjoying the minutia and the detail of different things. I just think that’s wonderful. I think that really, I love seeing people here on the spectrum or neurodivergent, excited about their things, finding their things, the things that make them alive, that bring them so much joy. I think that’s lovely. And yeah, we might experience it. I say ‘living in high definition’, we might experience it more intensely. There’s something really beautiful about that, but there’s something really tragic. The word nature, what does it mean? It’s like everything. So the word autism to me is just, it’s so big. It’s like gender and nature and autism, like the root of the word means isolate itself. So what I’ve come to learn, is for me to do my… the things that I’m talented at, I have to spend a lot of time alone. If I’m contaminated by the culture too much or too much by other people or too… I can’t, I can’t really express that thing, the different way I see it. So if you can really connect with somebody on the spectrum and really connect them with what fills them with joy, with what makes them feel well, with their unique perspective, like the gifts are enormous, but also it does come at a cost. It’s a double edged sword, that solitude, that the autism is an isolated itself. So I don’t know, it’s a hard one. It’s not better, it’s not worse, it’s just different. I wouldn’t have it any other way. But It can be really… It can be really tragic, because many people feel very alone. I actually find that my solitude is essential for me to create and to express and to do what I do.

01:02:17 Rosemary
Yeah, for sure. I just have one comment and then I’m going to let Kevin wrap us up. I loved in your article Autism and Friendships that you credited Jane Austen with perhaps being autistic because of the quote. There’s nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves. It’s not my nature. So what you’ve just described is this intensity, intensity of everything, intensity of joy. And you’ve spoken too, about maybe not having many friends, but the friends you do have, you are deep friends, you are intense friends. And maybe that’s the balance for the solitude when we can find our people, because that’s a lot. I have some friends like that and I need a rest after spending a few days, like they’re the best days ever, and I do need a rest to get my balance back when I return home. So I just love that that is one of the benefits, because it almost seems like a built in safety mechanism for those of us who pushed through and get to that point.

01:03:25 Louise
Of the friendship, yeah. I’m also going through a divorce, which is, I think, my experience is. I can’t really mix my friends very well. Well, I don’t have a friend that I do this, but they’re good, but they’re not like friendship groups. I used to do that and I don’t, I was always like the only weirdo and I say that affectionately, but just a bit. I think the whole time I was pretty much dissociated from the relationship, and trying to conform. But no, I prefer, I have a friend and I do this and we go for a walk and we’ll do this or I’ll do this and I like it, but they don’t really mix that much. But I am interested in an intimate… like I really do believe… I would love a partner, but I actually think that I would be best suited to a partner who we don’t actually talk that much. You know when we have a communication, because also for our nervous systems are really, because we’re like whole my whole environments, right pieces. So I think the most effective, a really good partner for me, would be somebody where we’re not actually talking with each other, or that animated or intensely, at the beginning. Like I do that in academia or in my not research, but when I’m in my home, I want to be chilling a lot. So that’s the other thing about getting to know yourself and having relationships autistically, which means doing them atypically, doing them differently and having, you know, neurodivergent, you’re autistic close intimate relationships. I actually do think a really good partner is somebody my nervous system’s regulated in a lot and we’re not always, we might communicate in very different way, but we are chill all a lot of the time, whereas with my friends, like we’re up to mischief, we’re playing, we’re like, what are we going to do this campaign or not? And we’re like having loads of fun. But I think making out what is really good for you in an intimate relationship, might not be too much, and will deal for them going and things.

01:05:40 Rosemary
Fair enough. Fair enough. Thank you. Kevin, do you have any last questions for Louise?

01:05:44 Kevin
I don’t have a last question, but what I do have, Lou, is a lot of gratitude. I’m deeply grateful for the topics that you’ve discussed and I’ve been well aware of my own. We have, Rosemary and I have, a shared friend Jordan Decker and Jordan is neurodiverse and he likes to call it neuro spiciness. Yeah, and I’m very aware of my own neurospiciness. And just some of the things that you have been speaking of today. The light bulbs have been going off in my head, especially that thing you just mentioned. I never knew that thing you just mentioned about not mixing friends. You have completely shone a light into my friendship relationships, completely. And I ask this question a lot of guests. And it’s a playful question, but with, with a serious slant. Maybe if we’re speaking to you, an audience of people who are interested in or affected by neurodivergence, maybe that’s themselves their family members, people. They’re living with sons, daughters, husbands, wives, partners, whatever. If you could whisper a few words into the ear of people living with neurodivergence, what would you whisper into the ear of those people?

01:07:06 Louise
Oh wow, you’re not, your life was not a mistake. I remember my affirmations. I love Louise Hay. I remember… I should just think so beautiful woman. And I remember when I really hated myself. I really hated myself and I just was trying so hard to not be me, to just be everything that everybody else wanted me to be. Like I was too loud. I was too, I thought too much. I was too this, too that… I remember those affirmations. I remembered Louise Hay. My affirmations were “I am love, I am light, everything is exactly as it should be.” And I remember, I started saying that, and I thought “What load of bollocks.” I am love, I am light, everything is exactly as it should be. I am not bloody love. I’m not bloody light and everything is bloody awful, right? I am love, I am light. Everything is exactly as it should be. And I said those until I believed them. So to anybody who hates themselves or thinks that their life is a mistake, it’s not. You’re love. You’re light. Everything is exactly as it should be. Say it, and repeat it until you believe it.

01:08:42 Kevin
Beautiful. Thank you. I really appreciate you Lou, and thank you for being here.

01:08:46 Louise
Thank you.

01:08:48 Rosemary
I’m also very grateful for all of the dots you’ve connected for me this evening, and I’m so excited to get this podcast out to the world so that our listeners can have either lights shone or dots connected however they see the world. Thank you so much for being with us today.

01:09:06 Louise
Totally my pleasure. I was lovely. Thank you.

01:09:15 Rosemary
If you’ve been listening to our podcast, you may have heard guests connect their birth experiences with enduring, subconscious behavioral and emotional patterns such as how they react, the roles they take on, how they view the world, and what they believe. To minimize the trauma experiences of infants entering this world. Compassionate Inquiry offers The Portal a 28 week trauma informed online training for perinatal health professionals such as obstetricians, midwives, nurses, and doulas who want to empower the people they serve to trust their innate ability to birth, bond with, and nurture their child. Use the link in the show notes to access the course details. Registration closes on February 23rd. 

The Gifts of Trauma is a weekly podcast that features personal stories of trauma, healing, transformation, and the gifts revealed on the path to authenticity. Listen on Apple, Spotify, all podcast platforms, rate, review and share it with your clients, colleagues and family. Subscribe and you won’t miss an episode. 

Please note this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for personal therapy or a DIY formula for self therapy.