Living with Autism and ADHD with Emily Katy

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:00:00

Hi.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:00:00

So just before we get started on today's episode with Emily Katie, I just wanted to let you know that we do talk about quite serious mental health challenges in this conversation, including ocd.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:00:12

We do talk about ADHD mainly, but we also talk about the many different mental health struggles that come with being neurodivergent.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:00:19

So just wanted to let you know.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:00:21

And here is today's fantastic episode.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:00:25

Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:00:29

I'm Kate Moore Youssef and I'm a wellbeing and lifestyle coach, EFT practitioner, mum to four kids and passionate about helping more women to understand and accept their amazing ADHD brains.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:00:42

After speaking to many women just like me and probably you, I know there is a need for more health and lifestyle support for women newly diagnosed with adhd.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:00:51

In these conversations, you'll learn from insightful guests, hear new findings, and discover powerful perspectives and lifestyle tools to enable you to live your most fulfilled, calm and purposeful life wherever you are on your ADHD journey.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:01:07

Here's today's episode.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:01:13

Today, I'm absolutely delighted to welcome Emily Katie.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:01:17

You may know Emily from Instagram and she is now also a published author.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:01:23

Now, Emily is an autistic 22 year old.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:01:26

She's a mental health nurse and she also has ADHD and ocd.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:01:31

She's an author, she's a blogger and she's also a trustee for the charity Autistic Girls Network.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:01:38

And her book, Girl Unmasked, How Uncovering My Autism Saved My Life is out now.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:01:44

So welcome to the podcast, Emily.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:01:46

Absolutely delighted to have you here.

Emily Katie: 00:01:48

Hello.

Emily Katie: 00:01:49

I'm so happy to be here too.

Emily Katie: 00:01:50

It's lovely to finally meet you.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:01:54

Absolutely.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:01:55

And just, you know, huge, first of all, huge congratulations on the book.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:01:58

Thank you.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:01:59

What an amazing thing to bring out to the world and I know will be incredibly helpful for so many people.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:02:06

And so I just wondered, I mean, like, I'd like to just maybe begin from the, from, from the start, from the beginning and ask you some questions.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:02:14

You know, you, you're, you're 22.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:02:16

That's right, yes.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:02:17

Yeah.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:02:17

So that's incredibly young for me.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:02:19

I'm nearly 44 and I look at you and I think, wow, you know, like, you've obviously got so much insight and wisdom.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:02:26

Obviously you're a mental health nurse working with, specifically with neurodivergent kids, so you're seeing it from that perspective.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:02:33

But you're also, I guess you've got this embodied experience from your childhood and from understanding your own neurodivergence.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:02:42

And originally being diagnosed with autism and then later on with adhd.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:02:48

Is that right?

Emily Katie: 00:02:49

Yes.

Emily Katie: 00:02:49

Yeah.

Emily Katie: 00:02:50

The ADHD diagnosis came as a bit of a surprise, but, yeah, autism was.

Emily Katie: 00:02:55

I was.

Emily Katie: 00:02:56

You know, when I was diagnosed with autism, I.

Emily Katie: 00:02:59

I kind of.

Emily Katie: 00:03:00

I really took on that diagnosis and I just.

Emily Katie: 00:03:02

I knew that I was autistic from the minute they said that I was autistic.

Emily Katie: 00:03:06

Adhd, on the other hand, it took me a long time to get my head around that and to sort of believe that I had adhd.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:03:12

How old were you when you were diagnosed with autism?

Emily Katie: 00:03:15

I was 16, nearly 17.

Emily Katie: 00:03:17

And I say nearly 17 because.

Emily Katie: 00:03:19

Oh, yeah, the whole year of me being 16 was.

Emily Katie: 00:03:22

Was a year I started off, kind of started my A levels, had kind of bit of a breakdown, ended up in a CAMS psychiatric unit.

Emily Katie: 00:03:30

I was sectioned, struggling a lot with my mental health and with ocd.

Emily Katie: 00:03:34

And then sort of by the end of that year was when I received my autism diagnosis.

Emily Katie: 00:03:38

So, yeah, it was a challenging year.

Emily Katie: 00:03:41

And I think it's interesting with the whole how people view the ADHD and autism, and I wonder if it depends on what comes first sometimes, I guess how you were introduced to it.

Emily Katie: 00:03:50

See, ADHD to me was something that, you know, people who struggle to concentrate at school, struggled to focus at school, struggled a lot of school was kind of my idea of what ADHD was.

Emily Katie: 00:04:03

I did struggle at school, and I can definitely see now how my ADHD impacted that.

Emily Katie: 00:04:08

But in terms of schoolwork and academics, I was always extremely academic.

Emily Katie: 00:04:12

I got very good grades, I loved learning.

Emily Katie: 00:04:15

So in my head, that stereotype of what I believed ADHD to be just didn't fit, though, I suppose neither did my autism one at the time.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:04:22

Which part of the ADHD did you find hard to relate to?

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:04:27

And I guess what were the traits that brought.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:04:30

Brought that diet, that sort of supplementary diagnosis?

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:04:33

A few years later, it's probably easier.

Emily Katie: 00:04:37

To talk a little bit about my autism first and that diagnosis.

Emily Katie: 00:04:41

So the reason I think I embraced the autism diagnosis so much was because I'd always felt very different.

Emily Katie: 00:04:47

I'd always felt, like, quite misunderstood and very different to my peers.

Emily Katie: 00:04:51

And I sort of attributed a lot of my anxiety down to my autism.

Emily Katie: 00:04:56

So, you know, difficulties in crowds, loud noises, social stuff.

Emily Katie: 00:05:00

Even though I had a lot of friends, I would overthink everything.

Emily Katie: 00:05:03

And now I know, I sort of come to understand how ADHD also plays a massive part in that because my brain is never silent and obviously that feeds the anxiety massively.

Emily Katie: 00:05:13

But autism at the time was almost like I don't know whether it was like, it was such a relief that actually there was a reason for why I was struggling so much, why I'd ended up sort of struggling at school and not being able to sit in lessons and ending up in the psychiatric unit.

Emily Katie: 00:05:27

It was like, okay, this is why, like, none of this is my fault.

Emily Katie: 00:05:29

It was almost like an answer that I could put.

Emily Katie: 00:05:31

Put it on with the ADHD.

Emily Katie: 00:05:34

So I was referred for ADHD when I think I was kind of 19 and I was about to be discharged from the adult mental health team.

Emily Katie: 00:05:41

And obviously I'd.

Emily Katie: 00:05:43

I was very much already in the autism community on Twitter and Instagram, and I suppose there was always part of me that felt like autism didn't completely fit, you know, and again, this goes down to, I suppose, the stereotypes, but I've always been very outgoing.

Emily Katie: 00:05:56

I've always been very chatty, very loud.

Emily Katie: 00:05:59

Although I've been very outwardly organized.

Emily Katie: 00:06:01

You know, like, everything's.

Emily Katie: 00:06:03

I like things organized.

Emily Katie: 00:06:04

My brain is just a complete mess all of the time.

Emily Katie: 00:06:07

And I do know I was just struggling a lot with placements as a student nurse.

Emily Katie: 00:06:12

I'd get.

Emily Katie: 00:06:13

I'd get bored very easily, and that would make me agitated and anxious.

Emily Katie: 00:06:16

And I felt like a lot of my anxiety was because my brain was never, ever silent.

Emily Katie: 00:06:20

And I guess the more that I saw stuff come up on social media and I also got my mental health notes through, and there was a question mark of ADHD in there from when I was a teenager that I was like, okay, well, I want an assessment, at least.

Emily Katie: 00:06:34

Let's have an assessment.

Emily Katie: 00:06:35

But I, you know, I went into that assessment literally not knowing what was going to happen and not knowing what the outcome would be.

Emily Katie: 00:06:42

So when he said I had adhd, I suppose I sort of thought of a lot of the kids that I work with as well, and a lot of the kids that I've.

Emily Katie: 00:06:48

I've known and their children that really struggle to sit still and really struggle to pay attention in class, because I guess they're the ones that are picked up and referred, the ones that people notice as having adhd, whereas I would always be sat in the corner reading a book.

Emily Katie: 00:07:01

I loved reading.

Emily Katie: 00:07:02

Books were like my special interest.

Emily Katie: 00:07:04

And I sort of thought, well, if I can sit and concentrate on reading a book, how can I have adhd?

Emily Katie: 00:07:08

But actually, I couldn't really focus on conversations that I wasn't interested in.

Emily Katie: 00:07:12

In maths and science at school, I would always come home and, you know, my dad would have to go through the whole.

Emily Katie: 00:07:17

All of it with me.

Emily Katie: 00:07:18

And he'd say, were you not paying attention?

Emily Katie: 00:07:19

I'd go, I don't know, just somewhere between them saying that and them saying that, I just got lost and my brain, I was just daydreaming about something else.

Emily Katie: 00:07:27

And I would just always be so, you know, embedded in my own inner world and my own fantasies and stuff that was going on that I suppose I was just quite distracted.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:07:37

Yeah.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:07:38

I mean, it's so relatable.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:07:39

And, you know, as a parent, I see it in my children, I see it in myself, but I hear about it so much from so many other people and what you're saying, and that's the difficulty, I think, hopefully, as we move through these times, these nuances and these kind of almost.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:07:54

There's so many sort of polarities and, you know, it's never one size fits all with anything, with neurodivergence.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:08:00

And so, you know what you say about you love reading.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:08:03

I hear so much from other people saying, I can't read.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:08:05

Like, I can't focus on the words on a book.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:08:08

And it just shows you I love reading.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:08:10

But I know so many other people with ADHD that just can't.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:08:13

Just don't like it.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:08:14

And that's why it's so important that we have these conversations to open up the awareness of that it can look different and also look very similar.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:08:23

And, you know what you say about your very busy brain and having lots of friends, and we then sort of think about this stereotypical or there's a lot of people with autism who are very happy just in their own company, and they don't need, you know, a social circle and.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:08:38

And they need a lot of decompression time, and they don't.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:08:41

They're introverted and they sort of thrive off having their own sort of quiet space.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:08:47

So it just shows, doesn't it, that we just have to have these conversations.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:08:51

So can I ask, obviously, you know, you talked about the very sort of challenging time around 16, 17.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:08:57

How did you then get through that?

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:09:01

And obviously then being sectioned, and then now you are a mental health nurse, like, how did you manage to pull through and carry on with your.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:09:10

Your education and qualify?

Emily Katie: 00:09:15

Yeah, I don't know.

Emily Katie: 00:09:15

When I think about it, I'm like, I don't know how I did it, but obviously I did.

Emily Katie: 00:09:19

I feel very lucky to have a very supportive family and very supportive friends at school.

Emily Katie: 00:09:26

And I know so many other people don't have that, but I always had my parents, you know, fighting for me.

Emily Katie: 00:09:32

So while I was in the unit.

Emily Katie: 00:09:33

They would always be fighting for my rights and fighting for what they thought was best for me.

Emily Katie: 00:09:39

And I had a small friendship group at school that I became friends with on the first day of year seven.

Emily Katie: 00:09:46

And they're still my best friends now.

Emily Katie: 00:09:47

I was just very lucky that actually they all loved books.

Emily Katie: 00:09:49

We were all kind of in that nerdy book group gang at school, would kind of hide out in the library.

Emily Katie: 00:09:55

So I found them on the first day of year seven and actually they.

Emily Katie: 00:09:58

They helped me a lot through it.

Emily Katie: 00:10:00

They came and visited me in the unit.

Emily Katie: 00:10:01

It was sort of because of them that I wanted to go back to school because I love seeing them every day.

Emily Katie: 00:10:05

And that's where I just know, you know, I know I'm so privileged and lucky to have had those wonderful people around me that sort of fought for me when I couldn't fight for myself.

Emily Katie: 00:10:15

But then obviously there was also that determination from me as well.

Emily Katie: 00:10:20

A lot of it came from anger, I think, because I was so angry at what kind of happened because I felt like I was sectioned sort of unfairly.

Emily Katie: 00:10:29

I feel like it didn't need to happen.

Emily Katie: 00:10:30

So I was admitted to the unit, initially informally, so I agreed to go.

Emily Katie: 00:10:35

But then when I asked to leave three weeks later, they sectioned me.

Emily Katie: 00:10:38

That was all because I had a diary that I wrote down everything in.

Emily Katie: 00:10:42

You know, very, very autistic sort of hyper fixation.

Emily Katie: 00:10:45

And that was how I was coping.

Emily Katie: 00:10:47

And they took it off me because it had a ring binder on it, which was sort of a risk not to me, but potentially to others.

Emily Katie: 00:10:52

And I just, I had such big meltdown over it.

Emily Katie: 00:10:55

My consultant told me I was being hysterical.

Emily Katie: 00:10:58

I felt very misunderstood.

Emily Katie: 00:11:00

And then sort of my behavior sort of escalated.

Emily Katie: 00:11:02

And then that day I sort of said, I'm leaving, let me leave.

Emily Katie: 00:11:06

And then they sectioned me.

Emily Katie: 00:11:07

And so I.

Emily Katie: 00:11:08

I do sort of will feel that if that situation had been handled differently, I don't think I would have been sectioned.

Emily Katie: 00:11:14

So.

Emily Katie: 00:11:15

And there was kind of a lot of instances throughout my time there that I felt were on.

Emily Katie: 00:11:19

Were sort of unfair and that I didn't feel necessarily like I was being understood.

Emily Katie: 00:11:23

Though there was also some amazing staff who got me through a really hard time, so I don't want to kind of forget about them.

Emily Katie: 00:11:29

But that anger sort of really drove determination in me.

Emily Katie: 00:11:34

And when my doctor said to my parents that he didn't think I was well enough to go back to school, I was like, no, I'm going back to school.

Emily Katie: 00:11:42

I'm Not.

Emily Katie: 00:11:42

Not going back to school.

Emily Katie: 00:11:44

So I wanted to prove him wrong.

Emily Katie: 00:11:46

And sort of that desire to prove him wrong meant I went back to school.

Emily Katie: 00:11:49

And actually I found sick form.

Emily Katie: 00:11:51

Although my mental health was kind of rubbish, I found it so much easier than the years before that.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:11:56

Wow.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:11:57

Yeah.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:11:57

I mean, it's amazing to hear that you had that support and you had those people advocating for, you know, whether it's your friends, your family, but also those teachers or the, you know, the mental health professionals.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:12:08

But on the flip side, you know, when I hear you say you have this journal and that was your kind of, like, coping mechanism, that was a way, you know, we know now emotionally and psychologically to sort of write out our feelings and our emotions is such a strong tool to have to really be able to sort of help process what we're going through.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:12:27

And then for them to take that away from you as a.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:12:29

As a teenager is.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:12:31

Is actually heartbreaking.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:12:33

And I'm sorry that you went through that, but I'm also glad that you had that inner drive, that real sort of like, inner strength to keep going.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:12:43

And now you're obviously using your experience to help other children and teenagers who, I guess, went through, you know, going through similar experiences that you did.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:12:54

Now as a mental health nurse, something that you've sort of worked on recently is the Not a School Skiver campaign.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:14:29

So maybe you can explain a little bit where that all came from.

Emily Katie: 00:14:32

Yeah.

Emily Katie: 00:14:33

So on 8 January, the government launched their attendance campaign, which was called Moments Matter, Attendance Counts.

Emily Katie: 00:14:41

And initially I kind of looked at it and was like, oh, you know, it's just another government initiative about attendance.

Emily Katie: 00:14:47

But then they started sharing these, like, posters and one of them was like, oh, this morning he had a runny nose, now look at him.

Emily Katie: 00:14:53

And this morning she was worried, now look at her.

Emily Katie: 00:14:56

Her.

Emily Katie: 00:14:56

And they made me quite angry because they were putting such a complex issue of school attendance onto something that just seemed.

Emily Katie: 00:15:04

I don't know, I was.

Emily Katie: 00:15:05

I was a bit.

Emily Katie: 00:15:05

I was quite angry by.

Emily Katie: 00:15:07

By it.

Emily Katie: 00:15:07

Because kids aren't not going to school because they've got a runny nose.

Emily Katie: 00:15:11

They go, they're not going to school because of so many other factors.

Emily Katie: 00:15:16

And then what happened was Good Morning Britain did a segment on it and it was titled School Skivers Whose Fault?

Emily Katie: 00:15:23

Parents or teachers?

Emily Katie: 00:15:25

And, you know, that was it.

Emily Katie: 00:15:26

I was like, why are being friends?

Emily Katie: 00:15:28

And I say we, because, you know, I was described as a child on the verge of school refusing.

Emily Katie: 00:15:34

So I was never actually a school refuser and I would actually go to school, but I would hide in the library and I would refuse to go to lessons and there were days I wouldn't go in.

Emily Katie: 00:15:42

But I just think that, why are they painting us as kids that are school skivers?

Emily Katie: 00:15:48

That suggests there's a element of sort of choice in it and also maybe maliciousness and as in, like, I'm just not going to school.

Emily Katie: 00:15:55

And there are so many reasons for it.

Emily Katie: 00:15:57

You know, 94.3% of school attendance difficulties are underpinned by severe distress, with 92.1% being neurodivergent and then 83.4% are autistic.

Emily Katie: 00:16:09

This is, you know, it's a campaign against neurodivergent kids, I feel.

Emily Katie: 00:16:14

And so that's where the hashtag came from.

Emily Katie: 00:16:16

So I responded to basically the government because I wanted to write a letter just to get all my thoughts out.

Emily Katie: 00:16:22

And then, surprisingly, loads of other people started using the hashtag as well.

Emily Katie: 00:16:26

And the stories that were shared, a lot of them were really sad, but also kind of gave me a bit of hope because, you know, the kids going through it, they're not alone.

Emily Katie: 00:16:34

You know, there's people like me that have been there and loads of other people using the hashtag that have been there and are now doing so much better out of the system.

Emily Katie: 00:16:41

But actually it's also that drive for we need change.

Emily Katie: 00:16:45

And through that hashtag, I started doing kind of research on actually what are the reasons behind the school attendance difficulties.

Emily Katie: 00:16:53

And over 400,000 children are waiting for a hospital appointment, which is a high, highest number ever recorded for pediatric services.

Emily Katie: 00:17:00

Financial difficulties have increased since COVID and there's a link between that and mental health difficulties which have increased more people having to use food banks, which links with the mental health and then that, the school avoidance as well.

Emily Katie: 00:17:11

Bullying is still a massive issue.

Emily Katie: 00:17:13

There's over 800,000 young carers in the UK and demand on them and stress has increased since COVID A lot of youth centres, funding has been reduced, so a lot of them have shut down.

Emily Katie: 00:17:23

young people with periods in: 2020

Emily Katie: 00:17:32

Why is the government not targeting some of these actual things that could help school attendance rather than just, you know, posting offensive posters that are just quite upsetting for people to read?

Emily Katie: 00:17:46

Yeah, sorry, a bit of a raffle there.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:17:48

No, no, not, not at all.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:17:50

I mean, I've written down these statistics from your blog and I'm going to put the link to the letter that you wrote on the show notes so people can read it and really understand, you know, all the different statistics.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:18:00

And it's heartbr because I see it, I understand it, I hear about it.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:18:07

And you know, we speak to sort of forward thinking and progressive teachers who are bound by schools that haven't moved forwards for 20, 30, 50 years.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:18:19

We're bound by sort of Ofsted head teachers who are having to kind of fulfill certain targets.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:18:24

And we're not looking at these children who are desperate in need for more support and not just looking at them as a statistic.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:18:32

What are we going to do with children who are ADHD and autistic?

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:18:36

Like we can't expect them to be bound by these conformities and hopefully support them to maybe come to school.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:18:44

And when they are in school it feels like they've got more autonomy.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:18:47

You know, we talked before about pda which is pathological demand avoidance and something that I'm learning more and more about, something that I know you've discussed on social media.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:18:58

And actually this desire for autonomy can be so strong within us that when we're told how we need to sit, be, eat, learn, revise and it doesn't sit well with us, we're then deemed as the problem.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:19:16

So there's so much to unpack there.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:19:18

But I mean coming back to, you know, your the hashtag not a school skiver, what came from that and I guess what have you learned from that?

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:19:27

Hearing from a lot of people who are maybe going through this themselves, but also maybe parenting children who are refusing to go to school.

Emily Katie: 00:19:36

I think what came from it was reassurance for a lot of people that they're not the only ones going through the system and feeling the way they are about education.

Emily Katie: 00:19:47

I don't think there's been any tangible change.

Emily Katie: 00:19:49

You know, the people that can help with the system, I really doubt have probably read it.

Emily Katie: 00:19:54

And I think it's difficult because I don't know what the answer is to our current education system.

Emily Katie: 00:19:59

You know, there are a lot of children, there aren't enough teachers.

Emily Katie: 00:20:02

How do you meet the needs of every individual's, of every individual sitting in that classroom?

Emily Katie: 00:20:08

There are things that can definitely be done.

Emily Katie: 00:20:10

You know, I had a lot of adjustments and stuff put in place for me at school.

Emily Katie: 00:20:15

So I was allowed to go into the library whenever I needed to.

Emily Katie: 00:20:18

I had a timeout pass.

Emily Katie: 00:20:19

I could just get on with the work on my own.

Emily Katie: 00:20:21

But I think that the reason I was allowed to do that was because I got very good grades.

Emily Katie: 00:20:27

I think I was I was lucky in that because I.

Emily Katie: 00:20:29

I think they probably took a different approach with me than they would have done with someone else, which isn't fair.

Emily Katie: 00:20:35

Other kids, you know, need that too.

Emily Katie: 00:20:37

But I wasn't.

Emily Katie: 00:20:38

I suppose I wasn't forced into lessons as much as maybe other children are.

Emily Katie: 00:20:41

I had kind of regular mentoring sessions at school with at first the teacher, then the senko.

Emily Katie: 00:20:47

I didn't have to go into assemblies.

Emily Katie: 00:20:49

I didn't have to attend unstructured days, you know, like when sometimes there's like, school events.

Emily Katie: 00:20:54

I found those very difficult.

Emily Katie: 00:20:56

At one point when I went back to school in sick form, I had an agreement with my teachers that they wouldn't give me the grades or the marks of my work because I got very obsessed over them.

Emily Katie: 00:21:04

So they would just, you know, write what I'd done well and how I could improve.

Emily Katie: 00:21:10

And it's hard because maybe we need to look at how the education system is set up.

Emily Katie: 00:21:14

Going to school five days a week was.

Emily Katie: 00:21:16

Was hell.

Emily Katie: 00:21:17

It was exhausting.

Emily Katie: 00:21:18

I couldn't do that.

Emily Katie: 00:21:19

Now I work four days a week, two days I work from home and two days I work in the office or in and in clinic.

Emily Katie: 00:21:24

So as an adult, I have so much more control and autonomy over what my week looks like and how I manage my energy levels.

Emily Katie: 00:21:31

As a child and a teenager, we didn't have that.

Emily Katie: 00:21:33

You're forced to go into a classroom every single day.

Emily Katie: 00:21:36

And for those neurodivergent kids, that can be really exhausting and really traumatizing, but yet they're made to go in every day.

Emily Katie: 00:21:44

And maybe some of them do need a day working from home.

Emily Katie: 00:21:46

So what?

Emily Katie: 00:21:47

But our current education system, there's sort of no room for that, is there?

Emily Katie: 00:21:51

It's such a.

Emily Katie: 00:21:52

Our system hasn't really progressed with society, I don't think.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:21:57

Let's go to the book.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:21:58

What was the book for?

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:21:59

And was the book specifically to start helping to implement change from a grassroots level?

Emily Katie: 00:22:05

So my book started because I was angry at what I'd been through.

Emily Katie: 00:22:08

So I started writing it when I was 19.

Emily Katie: 00:22:10

So I'm 22 now.

Emily Katie: 00:22:11

Now.

Emily Katie: 00:22:12

I actually wrote the first draft in three weeks because I hyper focused on it and didn't do anything else for three weeks.

Emily Katie: 00:22:18

And I've always loved writing, so I've done that before.

Emily Katie: 00:22:21

Hyper focusing on writing kind of novels, obviously, which haven't been published, but like novels and books and stories for weeks at a time.

Emily Katie: 00:22:29

So, yeah, it was because I was angry and also because I wanted to sort of get all my knowledge into One place.

Emily Katie: 00:22:35

And originally it was very nonfiction based.

Emily Katie: 00:22:37

So it was very much sort of very educational and it still is.

Emily Katie: 00:22:40

But when we were going through sort of the publication process, my editor said, look, I wonder if you can just try and write it in this way or in a slightly different way and see how it goes.

Emily Katie: 00:22:51

So he wanted it sort of in half being told as if it's happening now.

Emily Katie: 00:22:55

So half of it sort of reads like a story, like more creative writing.

Emily Katie: 00:22:59

Obviously it's real, but so it reads as if it's happening and then it goes to the nonfiction bits and then back again.

Emily Katie: 00:23:05

And I think it just keeps, hopefully will keep the reader a bit more engrossed and of, you know, enjoy the reading it a little bit more as it reads more like a story rather than just non fiction.

Emily Katie: 00:23:15

But yeah, it started because I was angry, wanted a way of processing.

Emily Katie: 00:23:19

I realized so many other young people were going through the same thing.

Emily Katie: 00:23:23

There were so many especially autistic ADHD girls in the mental health system who weren't being recognized, you know, from that CAMS ward that I was on.

Emily Katie: 00:23:32

I reckon half of us on that ward were autistic and I know some of them have been diagnosed since and probably the same with adhd, but it just wasn't being looked at and wasn't being picked up.

Emily Katie: 00:23:42

And that has to change because otherwise you've got cycles of young people and adults too being in and out of the mental health system, you know, and every time they're in, in that ward or that unit, they're gathering more and more trauma and.

Emily Katie: 00:23:56

And then they've got to unpack that and work through that too.

Emily Katie: 00:23:59

So somehow the cycle has to stop.

Emily Katie: 00:24:01

And that starts with professionals being able to recognize where there might be undiagnosed neurodivergence and looking at how they can support that and how that contributes to the mental health difficulties.

Emily Katie: 00:24:13

Because like, even for me, I know since starting ADHD medication my anxiety has reduced a lot.

Emily Katie: 00:24:18

It is much easier for me to work through OCD cycles now.

Emily Katie: 00:24:24

I don't get so anxious during the day when it's working because my brain is slower and I can apply those strategies to rationalize a little bit better.

Emily Katie: 00:24:33

And my just my brain is slower so it's not spiraling quite as quickly.

Emily Katie: 00:24:37

And I wonder what a little bit of what that medication might have done back for me as a teenager, whether it would have helped some of that a little bit.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:24:46

So yeah, do you mind me asking about the medication and how did you have to try different ones or which one Are you on now?

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:24:55

That feels right for you.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:24:57

You.

Emily Katie: 00:24:57

I'm on lvans.

Emily Katie: 00:24:59

There's been obviously a national ADHD medication shortage, which has been an absolute nightmare.

Emily Katie: 00:25:05

I had three weeks off before Christmas, off meds, and I, you know, I'd been on them for sort of a year and then had the three weeks off and my mood just crashed because it was suddenly dealing with all of that overload again that it had sort of, you know, adjusted to.

Emily Katie: 00:25:20

I probably would have got used to it again at some stage, but then I got the meds back again, but now I can't fulfill my next prescription, so I've got till Wednesday, and then who knows what's going to happen, But I'm trying to take one day at a time and focus on what is in front of me.

Emily Katie: 00:25:33

I knew I wanted to try lvanse because, you know, just personal preference, because you can either go with sort of LVANs or one of the methylphenidates as the first line in adults.

Emily Katie: 00:25:46

So, yeah, I tried that and, yeah, it really helped.

Emily Katie: 00:25:49

So I've just sort of.

Emily Katie: 00:25:50

I've been on that since.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:25:51

And you talk about ocd, you know, looking back retrospectively, when do you think your OCD started showing up as a child?

Emily Katie: 00:25:59

This is an interesting question because until about two or three years ago, I would have said when I was about 13, 14, and my contamination OCD kind of kicked in.

Emily Katie: 00:26:08

But actually, I'd say from about the age of eight or nine, I was obsessed with the idea that I could have nits.

Emily Katie: 00:26:14

It sounds disgusting.

Emily Katie: 00:26:15

And that is what fueled it, was that disgust and that shame.

Emily Katie: 00:26:18

And I think I had nits once as a child, and after that it was.

Emily Katie: 00:26:22

I was so worried about going near other children, I was.

Emily Katie: 00:26:25

It just built up and I would think about it all the time.

Emily Katie: 00:26:27

I would worry about it.

Emily Katie: 00:26:29

I would try and try and get rid of them, even though there was nothing there.

Emily Katie: 00:26:33

And actually that was really consuming as a child.

Emily Katie: 00:26:35

And then that sort of shifted to contamination OCD when I was in my teenage years, then it latched on to sort of religion and moral morals and thinking, I'm going to go to hell, even though I don't know if I believe in God and what can I do to stop me going to hell?

Emily Katie: 00:26:48

And.

Emily Katie: 00:26:48

And, yeah, it just sort of shifts, I think, the theme of OCD to whatever it can get its hands on.

Emily Katie: 00:26:54

And until you recognize that it's ocd, it's very hard to start working through it.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:26:59

Yeah.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:27:00

And it's absolutely exhausting and draining for the Person that has to live with that.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:27:05

All these constant intrusive thoughts going back to what you said before is, you know, being able to recognize these first line symptoms and these traits of, okay, there's anxiety, there's ocd.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:27:18

Really, instead of just treating that as like something, you know, separate, is starting to understand that that could be part of autism or ADHD or both.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:27:28

And starting to understand that we can see this, especially in girls, that we see these non stop restless brains.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:27:35

Did you go through sort of any cbt?

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:27:38

Is any specific therapy or coaching worked for you?

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:27:41

I know we've talked about the medication.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:27:43

What else has helped you kind of gain a little bit of control or empowerment around your mental health?

Emily Katie: 00:27:49

Yeah, I've sort of had it all and whether it's helped or not has sort of depended on what stage of life I've been in and how well I've understood my own neurodivergence.

Emily Katie: 00:27:58

So When I was 13 I had CBT, but the stuff that was making me anxious was loud noises, crowds, school, you know, CBT wasn't going to change that environment and which was triggering my anxiety day after day.

Emily Katie: 00:28:10

When I was sort of 16, I had DBT, dialectical behavioral therapy, which very much works on emotional regulation and distress tolerance.

Emily Katie: 00:28:18

And I did actually find that quite useful because there was some practical skills I could use there to help with my, with regulating my emotions.

Emily Katie: 00:28:25

And also it talks you through kind of how to identify different emotions, which I really struggled with being autistic, so that was quite helpful then.

Emily Katie: 00:28:34

I've had sort of counseling and other things since.

Emily Katie: 00:28:38

I've had ADHD coaching now with Leanne from ADHD works for kind of the last six months and that has been amazing.

Emily Katie: 00:28:45

I think what's probably been most helpful from ADHD coaching is learning how my ADHD affects my anxiety because anxiety is what has like it's ruined days of my life and taken over at times and that's what's been really challenging.

Emily Katie: 00:28:58

And she said something to me last week about how our brains lend ourselves so well to anxiety and OCD because unsolvable problems are a never ending source of dopamine.

Emily Katie: 00:29:09

Our brain loves an unsolvable problem because it just keeps producing that dopamine and our brains just go round and round in spirals and we can't stop.

Emily Katie: 00:29:17

It's that racing mind and it's almost like we need something to worry about because our brain never stops.

Emily Katie: 00:29:22

So our brain needs to latch onto something because otherwise it's bored and it's restless and actually that boredom can trigger the anxiety because it needs something to think about.

Emily Katie: 00:29:32

And just reframing stuff like that has.

Emily Katie: 00:29:35

Yeah, has been life changing because I can understand the source of where different worries are coming from.

Emily Katie: 00:29:40

And actually it's less about the worry and more about my brain needing to.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:29:43

Be occupied when you reframe it like that.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:29:46

And Leanne's fantastic.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:29:47

She's been on the podcast and she's really, really great, and she's training coaches now, and it's fantastic what she's doing.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:29:55

So it's understanding, isn't it?

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:29:57

You know, when we've spent so many years of our life not understanding and not being able to make sense of why, you know, why we're anxious or why our brain's doing this or why we.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:30:07

This constant sort of like, feedback loop that we're getting.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:30:10

But when we have this awareness and we're able to almost separate from it and look at it and go, okay, now you understand that this is why you're overthinking.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:30:19

This is why you're worrying or catastrophizing.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:30:22

And you know what I do that I find very helpful for me is I almost talk to myself in the third person.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:30:28

It's like, right, Kate, I can see that you're really worried right now.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:30:31

I can see that.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:30:33

You know, it's taking over, but let's just break it down and, you know, let's try and sort of find whether or not there's a solution.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:30:41

Sometimes there isn't a solution, but just kind of breaking it down and looking at it straight on as opposed to kind of burying it and pushing it away.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:30:50

And listen, you know, a lot of people do that to us, maybe have been historically invalidated and dismissed and told to stop being silly and to stop worrying, get over it.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:31:00

And all these little things, like I'm sure you would have done.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:31:03

You know, when people talk about knit, so many people just go, whatever.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:31:06

But for us, you know, when we're going through that, that it's all consuming.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:31:10

It's exhausting and draining.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:31:13

I have it.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:31:14

I've talked about on the podcast before.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:31:15

I've got a metaphobia, which is a fear of vomit, and I couldn't even say the word.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:31:20

And it's, It's.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:31:22

It is all consuming because there's so many different what ifs constantly going through my mind of, you know, if you're out, you're on transport with other children.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:31:33

Yeah, there's bugs, there's hospitals, all sorts of things.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:31:37

And.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:31:38

And, you know, only the other day we were on a.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:31:40

On A flight.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:31:40

And my husband saw what I was doing because I was scanning, I was being hyper vigilant.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:31:45

He, I didn't want to sit on a certain seat because there was a young kid behind me and he can, he knows my, my brain process now.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:31:52

And I said can I swap seats?

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:31:54

I want to stay over there.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:31:55

And he then told me, he went, listen, this is ridiculous.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:31:57

You need to go and get this sorted, you know.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:31:59

And I know he's coming from a place of caring, but when he says this is ridiculous, I can't, you know, I can't help that those consuming thoughts and I can't help that my body responds in this sort of fight or flight mode.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:32:14

So this is something now I'm going to, I really do want to get sorted and helped with because it's been with me my whole life and it takes away the pleasure of so many things.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:32:27

But it's just a recognition though, that awareness of understanding and seeing how it impacts us and you know, little physiological things that we can do.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:32:38

So I find like breath work can really help.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:32:40

I use eft, I use tapping, which calms down my nervous system, the stress response in the moment.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:32:48

And even though it may not solve everything when we're in that very sort of stressful fight or flight mode, it feels empowering to know that we can maybe breathe through it or we can talk, you know, talk to ourselves through it and try and rationalize something.

Emily Katie: 00:33:06

Yeah.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:33:06

But yeah, it's just maybe a recognition that even if someone is saying this is ridiculous or sort it out or deal with it, it's not that easy and we just have to give ourselves quite a bit of self compassion as well.

Emily Katie: 00:33:20

Yeah.

Emily Katie: 00:33:21

And I think sometimes our brains look for almost logical reasons for the anxiety that we're feeling from overwhelm or from something that we don't, we don't know why we're feeling anxious.

Emily Katie: 00:33:31

So sometimes my OCD will be triggered and it will be because I'm feeling quite overwhelmed, or maybe I'm just anxious because of the environment.

Emily Katie: 00:33:39

But then actually it will place that anxiety onto this thought and this obsession.

Emily Katie: 00:33:43

But it's because it needs something to focus on because it can't work out what else it's anxious and overwhelmed about.

Emily Katie: 00:33:50

And even just reframing it like that has been really helpful for me in terms of those like techniques weeks.

Emily Katie: 00:33:55

I love a weighted blanket.

Emily Katie: 00:33:56

I use headspace a lot of my phone, sort of that mindfulness, trying just to take a step out of that situation and focusing on what's in front of me.

Emily Katie: 00:34:03

You know, nature and I love getting out for walks and just trying to take a step back from everything that's going on in my brain and getting a bit more perspective.

Emily Katie: 00:34:13

And I've started journaling again, which has been good.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:35:01

And do you find that sleep for you?

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:35:05

I mean, first of all, do you struggle with sleep, but do you find that it really impacts if you've not slept well on your ADHD and autism and anxiety?

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:35:16

Like how.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:35:16

Because I notice so much with my kids, but also with me, that sleep is imperative because everything else just feels so much more difficult if we've not slept properly.

Emily Katie: 00:35:27

Yeah, massively.

Emily Katie: 00:35:28

I've always struggled to sleep.

Emily Katie: 00:35:29

I mean, I slept well as like a baby and a toddler, but as soon as the anxiety and the worries and the overthinking started.

Emily Katie: 00:35:34

So probably for about the age of six, I always struggled to fall asleep at night.

Emily Katie: 00:35:38

I started taking melatonin, was prescribed Melatonin when I was probably about 15, 16, and then just couldn't.

Emily Katie: 00:35:44

Yeah, just couldn't sleep unless I had that.

Emily Katie: 00:35:46

But my sleep since COVID has been better.

Emily Katie: 00:35:48

When I was in, during COVID I stopped taking melatonin and I found that because I didn't have so much to stress about the next day, I actually started to get into a better sleep routine.

Emily Katie: 00:35:59

Now, sleep, oh, it's very variable.

Emily Katie: 00:36:01

Some days I have to take melatonin and other days I can just fall asleep.

Emily Katie: 00:36:04

My weighted blanket has been amazing.

Emily Katie: 00:36:06

I put sensory lights on before bed.

Emily Katie: 00:36:08

I listened to Headspace before bed and I think I used to always try and fall asleep to silence because that was what you, you know, that's what you're typically meant to do.

Emily Katie: 00:36:17

But I can't.

Emily Katie: 00:36:18

I can't fall asleep to silence.

Emily Katie: 00:36:19

And since I started listening to kind of bedtime stories on Headspace, you've just got something to kind of think about and focus on, which has been really helpful.

Emily Katie: 00:36:28

But, yeah, sleep, yeah, definitely not good.

Emily Katie: 00:36:31

If I don't sleep well, the next day will be an anxious, an OCD type day.

Emily Katie: 00:36:35

And then the problem is, is that then that might stop me sleeping the next night.

Emily Katie: 00:36:39

And that's how I get into a bit of a bad mental state.

Emily Katie: 00:36:42

So, yeah, imperative.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:36:44

Effy, do you ever take my magnesium?

Emily Katie: 00:36:47

No.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:36:48

So I.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:36:49

That's something that I swear by.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:36:51

It's something that I take every single night and I give it to again to my youngest daughter.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:36:56

It's very calming on the nervous system.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:36:58

It's really good to help with sleep.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:37:02

So there's lots of different types of magnesium, but the one that's recommended for sleep is magnesium glycinate and it's just very calming, it's regulating, you can get it in, you know, if you ever have a bath and you it's in Epsom salts, you can get creams, you can rub it on topically onto your skin.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:37:21

I really recommend it because melatonin, from what I know is great for a couple of nights, but long term use I think does impact our sleep.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:37:30

Then you kind of get a little bit dependent on it.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:37:33

But where magnesium.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:37:35

Some people are a lot more deficient in magnesium and the studies now that are saying that there are links to less magnesium for neurodivergent people.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:37:45

So we have to sort of top that up.

Emily Katie: 00:37:47

Yeah, I think our brains naturally seek, we seek stimulation and we.

Emily Katie: 00:37:53

Getting to bed at night can be very hard when you have ADHD because you're having to lie still in the silence and that is boring and our brains don't want to shut off.

Emily Katie: 00:38:01

So having something to focus on that's also calming if that's music, if it's an audiobook, sometimes even doing like I think crossword puzzle in bed at night, some people say, oh, it'll break, it will wake you up.

Emily Katie: 00:38:11

But actually it can be quite calming because it gives your brain something to focus on.

Emily Katie: 00:38:16

It's about keeping our brains busy, I think, in the lead up to bed whilst not too much overstimulation.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:38:22

Yeah, I think what you've sort of illustrated really well in this conversation is that, you know, our experience, what we go through is valid and you know, hopefully we'll get that, we'll get more self awareness, we'll get more support, external support, help, you know, hopefully family, friends, partners.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:38:40

We bring this all together with the help of medication, with coaching, with understanding ourselves more and more as we get older and bringing in the tools that work for us and not because that's what we've been told to do or that we've deemed, you know, that society says is the right thing to do and if we can create some form of blend or recipe that works individually for us, for our individual neurodivergence, whether it's more autism, more ADHD or some periods of our life.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:39:10

I hear this a lot with clients, is that their ADHD is much more prominent and some periods, their autism is a lot more prominent and we have to ride these waves through our hormones as well as women and girls, pregnancy, post pregnancy, then we go through perimenopause and we have all these different waves and ebbs and flows that we have to feel empowered to know that we can lean on different tools, that we can bring in things that feel right for us at the time that maybe six months ago didn't feel right for us, but right now it does.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:39:42

You know, whether we say no to medication and actually in a year's time, you think, actually, I really need the medication.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:39:49

Like, it feels like I'm going through a bit of a tough time, you know, whatever we're faced, you know, externally with the life world that we have to sort of be open to knowing that we're on this.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:40:00

As cheesy as it sounds, we're on this journey and I hope as time goes on, you know, we're going to get more support externally and we're going to have more knowledge and the mental health professionals are going to be much more aware.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:40:13

But also like, like the school system is going to be more aware and teachers and parents and we're going to get these diagnoses much earlier on.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:40:21

So girls like you and me, when I look back at the younger version of ourselves and all these things that no one knew, like, hopefully these girls are going to be like, oh, okay, you've got a bit of anxiety, you've got this, well, let's get you assessed.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:40:34

And the assessment process is much quicker and much cheaper and much easier to access and it's not such a taboo or a stigma and we're then able to get this support at school and we can go through our life and choose our careers and our jobs and the way we want to live and parents and it just feels so much more effortless as opposed to what feels right now is just a constant grind and, you know, going uphill.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:41:01

But I think speaking to you, it's given me a lot of hope because you're, you know, that, that, that bit younger and to see how empowered you are and to see how you have written a book and you're helping other people and you're working the mental health professional who really gets it.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:41:21

So I just want to thank you for, for your work, this really important work and, yeah, tell people how they can access what you're doing and maybe what your plans are for the future.

Emily Katie: 00:41:35

I just want to say to what you said, it's the dream, isn't it, to live a life that we feel in charge of and life doesn't feel like it's dominating us and living a life that works for our brains.

Emily Katie: 00:41:48

I could not have imagined being where I am now a year ago or two years ago.

Emily Katie: 00:41:53

I mean, I know I had the book deal and things, but then I got, you know, I got the new job and more opportunities came up and I just.

Emily Katie: 00:42:00

Sometimes.

Emily Katie: 00:42:01

Yeah, you just need to take life one day at a time.

Emily Katie: 00:42:04

Yeah.

Emily Katie: 00:42:04

I also want to travel a little bit and enjoy my 20s as well and not focus too much on work, because I know we're so.

Emily Katie: 00:42:11

We are so prone to that.

Emily Katie: 00:42:12

You know, it's so easy to be a workaholic when your brain is just so driven and busy and focused.

Emily Katie: 00:42:18

It's like, I want to do that and I want to do that, and I want to do that, but I also want to slow down and try and prioritize slowing down and actually being offline and having life experiences that, you know, are quite fulfilling as well as, you know, plowing forward and in.

Emily Katie: 00:42:36

In work and hustle culture.

Emily Katie: 00:42:38

So I don't know exactly what holds, but we'll see.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:42:42

Yeah, wise words.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:42:44

Because as you say, you know, we are prone to burnout, we're prone to workaholism.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:42:49

We are prone to thinking, like, what next?

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:42:51

The constant.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:42:52

This drive that's this sort of like, internal drive that we have.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:42:55

This.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:42:55

We can be very ambitious, but it's often a detriment to our own health.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:43:01

And so it's.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:43:03

Yeah, it's something that we have to be really aware of.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:43:05

And yes, enjoy your 20s.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:43:07

And my goodness, if I.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:43:08

Someone that told me back then, enjoy your 20s and just go and have fun.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:43:13

And.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:43:13

Yeah, and especially the social media side as well, it can be really hard to have to keep up with that.

Emily Katie: 00:43:19

But this is where I feel super privileged to know that I have.

Emily Katie: 00:43:23

Have.

Emily Katie: 00:43:23

That I'm autistic and have adhd in my 20s because so, like, obviously so many people who came before me didn't have that.

Emily Katie: 00:43:29

Like, loads of autistic women and ADHD women and.

Emily Katie: 00:43:33

And men as well.

Emily Katie: 00:43:34

Anyone, you know, loads of people didn't know until they were so much older.

Emily Katie: 00:43:38

And so I want to make sure I, you know, make use of that knowledge the best that I can.

Emily Katie: 00:43:43

And actually, I know that already my.

Emily Katie: 00:43:46

My life the last couple of years is.

Emily Katie: 00:43:49

Has been different to if I hadn't have known.

Emily Katie: 00:43:51

And I've put, you know, strategies in place and I make sure I take more breaks and I prioritize, you know, downtime and stuff or try to do I all the time.

Emily Katie: 00:44:00

No, but, yeah, knowing that, I think makes me feel more positive about my 20s and, you know, moving forward in life because I've got knowledge that other people didn't have and hopefully I can use that.

Emily Katie: 00:44:13

Yeah.

Emily Katie: 00:44:13

To hopefully I can use that to the best of.

Emily Katie: 00:44:17

I don't know what the saying is.

Emily Katie: 00:44:18

That's my brain.

Emily Katie: 00:44:19

I don't know sayings.

Emily Katie: 00:44:20

But you know what I mean, I.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:44:22

Think remove all the pressure.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:44:25

Don't put the pressure on you.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:44:26

And you know, what you've achieved already is going to be so helpful for so many people.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:44:31

So just know that and don't feel guilt for forgetting that because what you're going to be doing is modeling to so many people and we can know it all and we can be privileged and have these diagnoses and we can still fall by the wayside and make the wrong choices and you know, kind of in the moment forget everything that we know and you know, no one's perfect.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:44:54

So just, yeah, continue with a lot of self kindness and don't overwork and enjoy your twenties and enjoy the book launch and you know, the achievement that you've, you've done because it's massive and it's gonna really, it really will help lots of people.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:45:08

So thank you so much.

Emily Katie: 00:45:10

Emily, thank you so much for having me.

Emily Katie: 00:45:12

It's been lovely to chat to you.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:45:18

I really hope you enjoyed this week's episode.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:45:21

If you did and it resonated with you, I would absolutely love it if you could share on your platforms or maybe leave a review and a rating wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:45:32

And please do check out my website, ADHD womenswellbeing.co.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:45:37

for lots of free resources and paid for workshops.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:45:40

I'm uploading new things all the time and I would absolutely love to see you there.

Kate Moore Youssef: 00:45:45

Take care and see you for the next episode.