The Library of Neurodivergent Alexandria
An open archive of neurodivergent voices: writing, talks, podcasts and stories, gathered by the NeuroHub community.
A hall of the Library
ADHD and AuDHD in our own words and in the news: attention, energy, work, waiting lists and the lives we build around them.
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Introduction Welcome to our special edition totally dedicated to the subject of mental health. This is being published in the lead up to world mental health day on Saturday October 10. There will be…
Content note: this essay discusses psychosis, psychiatric diagnosis, burnout, and the institutional treatment of Mad people. It does not describe self-harm or crisis in detail. Support links are at…
We talk about unmasking at work, with friends, at home, in therapy. We talk about letting ourselves stim and communicate more directly. Wearing the clothes that don’t hurt. Leaving the party before…
Welcome to October’s Neurodiversity Newsletter October is both AAC Awareness Month and ADHD Awareness Month, designed to dispel myths and spread understanding. Augmentative and alternative…
“It doesn’t matter if you have a million tools in your toolbox. You alone only have two hands.” My client looked at me and said, essentially: You need to write about that. So I did. Because I think…
*A large number of neurodivergent folks are living with dynamic disabilities - diagnosed or not so while this does not speak to the overlap, it truly is about what so many neurocomplex folks are…
I spent the first eighteen years of my life feeling like a broken neurotypical. The most common thing I heard from teachers and professionals was that I was incredibly intelligent, but failing to…
I spent the first eighteen years of my life feeling like a broken neurotypical. The most common thing I heard from teachers and professionals was that I was incredibly intelligent, but failing to…
My friend asked me if I could talk. Of course I can! I gave her a window, asked her to set a time, and braced myself. Photo by Bruno Figueiredo on Unsplash I know asking for a set time is risky.…
After being diagnosed with autism and ADHD later in life, I began to realise that some of the qualities I had spent years trying to correct were not simply weaknesses, but in the right context, they…
*I find that AuDHD/autistic people as a whole tend to fall on different sides of a bell curve. The same is likely true of PDAers but we do not have enough research on differential traits amongst…
Limerence is not love. That matters. Love is relational. Love knows another person through reciprocity, time, friction, disappointment, repair, and the accumulation of shared reality. Limerence is…
These are the five everyday habits that have helped me since autistic burnout. If you are late-diagnosed autistic, ADHD or AuDHD, and you keep wondering why you cannot function as consistently as…
Let's start with what PCIT actually trains a parent to do, because the marketing language obscures it. Parent-Child Interaction Therapy asks caregivers to lavish praise and attention on a narrow band…
A few of you told me how helpful ‘Three Essential Resources I Regularly Share with Clients: Practical support for Autistic and ADHD adults’ was, so here are a few more. Whether you’re Autistic/ADHD…
Autistic burnout left me with chronic fatigue, brain fog, memory problems and a sudden loss of abilities I had always relied on. In this video, I share my experience of autistic burnout as a…
What I Mean When I Say I’m PDA When I say I’m PDA, I am describing the nervous system I came to inhabit through biology, experience, adaptation, and survival. I am describing the way my body learned…
If you are Autistic, waiting for an assessment, or supporting an Autistic child, you have probably seen the headlines. People “incentivised” to get diagnoses, an overdiagnosis crisis, a government…
What if the thing that made Odysseus remarkable wasn't his many turns, but the one thing that never turned? A personal, AuDHD read on Homer's Odyssey and the words polytropos and monotropos.
A plain-language guide to monotropism, wonder and awe — what happens when Autistic and ADHD attention is given space to notice, and stay
This whole piece was inspired by a Tori Amos concert. Or concerts. But I must admit, I’m not Tori’s biggest fan. Not her music anyway. But the way she shows up? The way she inhabits her body?…
When I started to unmask after a lifetime of masking, I found something I did not expect. I share in this video what unmasking actually is like. What it cost me when some people did not like the…
Autistic burnout, monotropism, meerkat mode, AuDHD, neurodivergent reflection, liminal states, executive dysfunction, flow state
For decades, I was far harsher with myself than I would ever be with anyone else. This is the story of my inner critic, where that negative self talk came from, and how I'm learning to stop being my…