The AuDHD Psych Podcast

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🎙️ Episode 31: Neurodivergent Experience - Male/Female Vs Internalising/Externalising Presentations & Late Diagnosis

"When we talk about male and female presentations, we're really talking about internalising and externalising presentations."

Summary:

In this episode of The AuDHD Psych Podcast, clinical psychologist and AuDHDer Aaron Howearth asks why more boys and men are diagnosed with autism and ADHD than girls and women. He argues that what we call male and female presentations is better described as internalising and externalising. An internalising presentation suppresses the impulse and works hard to fi...

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🎙️ Episode 30: AuDHD Experience - Autistic Burnout & Recovery

"Downtime is a necessity, not a nice to have."

Summary:

In this episode of The AuDHD Psych Podcast, clinical psychologist and AuDHDer Aaron Howearth takes on two questions: what is autistic or neurodivergent burnout, and what can we actually do to protect ourselves from it? He begins by being clear about where the evidence sits. Autistic burnout has been described within community since around 2008 but only reached academic publication in 2020, when Raymaker and colleagues offered a description, followed by Higgins and c...

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🎙️ Episode 29 — Work, Burnout & Ableism: Why So Many of Us Aren't Employed

Episode Summary

If we are different and not defective, why are so many of us unemployed, underemployed, or exhausted at work? In this episode, Aaron Howearth (Clinical Psychologist) works through the employment gap for neurodivergent people — and makes the case that it is structural, not a matter of effort or willingness.

We start with the numbers. Around three in ten autistic adults are employed in UK research, roughly half in Australia, and in th...

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 🎙️ Ep 28 — Relationships: Friendship, Loneliness & Intimacy Across Neurotypes

"It's not meeting my needs. It's not meeting your needs. It's meeting our needs in the best balance for us"

⚠️ Content note: this episode includes brief discussion of trauma, including sexual trauma.

If we're different and not defective, why do so many of us find relationships hard? In this episode, Aaron Howearth (Clinical Psychologist) sits with that question and works through friendship, loneliness, and intimacy across neurotypes — not as evidence of a deficit inside us, but as something that lives in...

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🎙️ Ep 27: AuDHD Experience - Therapy Adaptations for Neurodivergent Folk (AuDHD, ADHD & Autism)  — What's the Point?

"Barriers aren't a 'you' problem — they're an 'us' problem to manage together."

Hi friends. If neurodivergent people are already showing up to therapy, why do affirming adaptations even matter? In this solo episode I work through that question from my own clinical experience and lived experience as an AuDHD psychologist. We map the barriers that keep neurodivergent people out of the therapy room — physical, psychological, emotional, sensory, and cognitive — and then walk back through the same five...

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🎙️ Episode 26: Understanding Neurodivergence - More Than Diagnosis

"I can be autistic without autism spectrum disorder, in the same way that I can have legs without being broken."

Summary:

In this episode of The AuDHD Psych Podcast, clinical psychologist and AuDHDer Aaron Howearth takes on a question sparked by a challenge on social media: can you identify as autistic without holding a formal diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder? The answer is yes — and in this episode, Aaron unpacks exactly why, drawing on clinical definitions, diagnost...

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 🎙️ Episode 25: AuDHD Experience - Neurodiversity-Affirming Practice

"Neurodiversity-affirming practice" is now on almost every clinician's website here in Australia and around the world — but what does it actually mean, and what should it look like in the room? In this episode, Aaron Howearth (Clinical Psychologist) unpacks affirming practice not as a marketing label, but as a genuine reorientation of how we understand, formulate, and work alongside neurodivergent people.

We start with the conceptual foundations: relocating difficulty away from the individual and into the mismatch between a person a...

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🎙️ Episode 24: AuDHD Experience - Late Diagnosis and Identity Reconstruction

"After a lifetime of feeling wrong, broken, like a weirdo, along comes late diagnosis — but that's the doorway, not the destination."

In this episode of AuDHD Psych, Aaron explores late diagnosis and identity reconstruction for autistic, ADHD and AuDHD people — why so many of us are found so late, and how we rebuild a sense of self afterwards. Drawing on the research and his own experience, he unpacks why late diagnosis is the norm rather than a personal failing, how internali...

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🎙 Episode 23: AuDHD Experience - Joy, Strengths and Quality of Life

"Strengths-based framings sit alongside, not instead of, our support needs — so keep both ideas in mind."

In this episode of AuDHD Psych, Aaron explores joy, strengths, and quality of life for AuDHDers — moving past both the deficit-and-disorder framing and the neurodivergent-superpower narrative to find the partial truth in each. Drawing on recent research, he unpacks the strengths autistic and ADHD people endorse (pattern recognition, hyperfocus, humour, creativity), how flow, hyperfocus, and monotropism overlap, and why our strengths are lin...

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⚠️ Content note: This episode discusses suicide and suicidal thoughts directly and at length. It is general education, not personal advice. If this feels like a lot, please pause and reach out to a support service (Australian helplines listed at the end).

Episode 22: AuDHD Experience – Suicidality & Protective Factors

In this episode of the AuDHD Psych Podcast, clinical psychologist Aaron Howearth explores why suicidality risk is higher in neurodivergent communities — and why that risk is not inherent to being autistic, ADHD, or AuDHD. Drawing on clinical work, lived experience, and rece...

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Episode 21 – Trauma, PTSD & Systems Harm

What if you're not "too much," "too complex," or "treatment resistant"? What if the very systems designed to help neurodivergent people are inadvertently causing harm instead?

In this episode, Aaron explores the deep intersection between neurodivergence and trauma — and why so many AuDHDers, autistic folks, and ADHDers find themselves stuck in cycles of misdiagnosis, invalidation, and burnout.

What we cover

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Episode 20: AuDHD Explained — Misdiagnosis, BPD & Mental Health in Late-Diagnosed Adults

In this episode of the AuDHD Psych Podcast, clinical psychologist Aaron Howearth and co-host Dan unpack why mental health diagnosis is so complex for AuDHDers, and why so many of us collect a stack of labels — depression, generalised anxiety, borderline personality disorder, bipolar, treatment-resistant depression — before Autism and ADHD are ever properly considered. Drawing on clinical work, lived experience, and the qualitative research literature, Aaron explains how diagnostic overshadowing happens, why internalising presentations are most at risk of misdiagnosis, and wh...

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Episode 19: AuDHD Is More Than the Sum of Its Parts – Cognitive Differences, Energy Economy & Late Diagnosis

In this episode of the AuDHD Psych Podcast, clinical psychologist Aaron Howearth and co-host Dan explore why AuDHD isn't simply Autism plus ADHD, but a distinct presentation with its own cognitive, emotional, and behavioural fingerprint. Drawing on clinical work, lived experience, and recent research, Aaron traces the diagnostic history back to the DSM-5 (2013) — the first time Autism and ADHD could be formally co-diagnosed — and explains why anyone diagnosed before 2015 may have had half their...

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🎙️ Episode 18: Understanding AuDHD in the Real World - Time Blindness, Planning & Task Initiation

In this episode of the AuDHD Psych Podcast, clinical psychologist Aaron Howearth and co‑host Dan explore why getting started on “simple” tasks can feel impossibly hard for AuDHD brains, even when the motivation and desire are absolutely there. Drawing on clinical work and lived experience, Aaron explains prospective memory (remembering to do things in the future), time blindness, and executive function differences that turn “make a phone call” or “apply for uni” into an overwhelming tangle of steps, fears, and p...

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🎙️ Episode 17: Understanding AuDHD in the Real World - Sensory Processing and Overwhelm in ADHD, Autism & AuDHD

Episode Summary

In this episode of The AuDHD Psych Podcast, Aaron Howearth explores how sensory profiles shape daily life for autistic, ADHD, and AuDHD individuals. Why does a flickering light, a chatty colleague, or a tag in your shirt seem to "set you off" — when really, you've been quietly carrying that load all day?

Drawing from clinical psychology and lived experience, Aaron explains how neurodivergent nervous systems often process sight...

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🎙️ Episode 16: AuDHD in the Real World - Masking, Burnout & Unmasking

Episode Summary

In this episode of the AuDHD Psych Podcast, Aaron Howearth unpacks masking and camouflaging as neurodivergent survival strategies. He explains how autistic and ADHD people learn conscious and unconscious ways of “passing” as typical, such as practised eye contact, softened honesty, and scripted conversations, often long before they have words for their neurodivergence. Aaron explores how this constant self‑monitoring and suppression of stims, emotions, and sensory needs drains cognitive and emotional energy, contributing to exhaustion, low social batt...

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🎙️ Episode 15: Rejection Sensitivity & Dysphoria in ADHD, Autism & AuDHD

Episode Summary

In this episode of The AuDHD Psych Podcast, Aaron Howearth explores rejection sensitivity, emotional intensity, and rejection sensitive dysphoria through a neurodiversity-affirming lens. He explains why some autistic, ADHD, and AuDHD people experience emotions as suddenly overwhelming, especially when past experiences of rejection, exclusion, or social misunderstanding shape how current situations are interpreted.

Drawing from clinical psychology, Aaron describes emotions as a bodily response to our cognitive appraisal of context, then links that to fight, fligh...

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🎙️ Episode 14: AuDHD in the Real World – School, Work, Relationships and Burnout

Episode Summary

In this episode of The AuDHD Psych Podcast, clinical psychologist Aaron Howearth moves from talking about AuDHD traits in theory to how they actually show up across school, work, relationships, and daily life. He explores what school can look like for autistic, ADHD, and AuDHD kids behind the report cards: bright, capable students who miss key details because their attention is pulled to everything happening around them, collecting “failure” experiences and perfectionistic self‑criticism even when the...

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🎙️ Episode 13: Understanding AuDHD – Executive Functioning and Daily Life (Part 2)
Episode Summary
In this episode of The AuDHD Psych Podcast, clinical psychologist Aaron Howearth moves from explaining executive functioning to exploring practical ways autistic, ADHD, and AuDHD people can work with their brains in daily life. He looks at how differences in working memory, processing speed, time perception, self-monitoring, and motivation interact with anxiety and self-esteem, and why our capacity to start, continue, and finish tasks can swing so dramatically from day to day.

Aaron describes how an ADHD-style “problem-solving brain” ca...

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🎙️ Episode 13: Executive Functioning in Daily Life: ADHD, Autism & AuDHD

Episode Summary

In this episode of The AuDHD Psych Podcast, Aaron Howearth explores how executive functioning shapes everyday life for autistic, ADHD, and AuDHD individuals. Why do tasks that “should” be simple – studying, working, organising the day, or following through on plans – so often feel overwhelming or impossible, even when we know exactly what we’re meant to be doing?

Drawing from both clinical psychology and lived experience, Aaron explains executive functions as the brain’s “mental mechanics”...

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🎙️ Episode 11: Q&A Part 2

Episode Summary

In this episode of The AuDHD Psych Podcast, Aaron Howearth continues the community Q&A, responding to several commonly asked questions about neurodivergent experiences and expanding on themes raised in previous episodes. The conversation covers topics including perimenopause and menopause in neurodivergent people, the relationship between neurodiversity and gender diversity, how diagnostic impairment levels can change across life circumstances, and the internal tensions often experienced by people with both autistic and ADHD traits.

Aaron explains how hormonal fluctuations during perim...

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“When I'm surrounded by people like me, I don't feel disordered. I feel understood.”

🎙️ Ep 10: Your Questions Answered – Diagnosis, Self-ID & “Different, Not Defective”

Episode Summary
In this Q&A episode of the AuDHD Psych Podcast, Aaron responds to questions and comments from the community about autism, ADHD, diagnosis, and what it really means to be “different, not defective.” Drawing on both clinical experience and lived AuDHD perspective, he unpacks why being autistic and having an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis are related but not ide...

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🎙️ Episode 9: Understanding AuDHD: Late Diagnosis and Diagnostic Levels 

Episode Summary

In this episode of The AuDHD Psych Podcast, Aaron Howearth explores one of the most common and emotionally loaded experiences in the neurodivergent community: late diagnosis. Why are so many autistic and ADHD individuals missed in childhood? Why do diagnoses often come after years, or even decades, of anxiety, depression, or misdiagnosis?

Drawing from both clinical psychology and lived experience, Aaron explains how traditional diagnostic frameworks were historically built around externalising presentations, often observed in young...

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The 7th Circle Audio Version of Ep 9 - If Audio quality is frustrating for you, please ignore this, and listen to the re-corded version Ep 9: Understanding AuDHD: Late Diagnosis and Diagnostic Levels 

Due to an equipment fault, this recording has extremely poor sound. We apologise to those who have sensory sensitivity to sound. We have identified the lapel mic in question and kindly retired it from service with full honours.

We are leaving this version published in case there is a information or a framing of some of the i...

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“If the rule doesn’t make sense, it has no value to me.”

🎙️ Ep 8: Labels, their Utility & Lack Thereof

Episode Summary

In this episode of the AuDHD Psych Podcast, Aaron and Uma explore the intersection between gender diversity and neurodiversity, unpacking how autistic and neurodivergent ways of thinking can shape experiences of gender, identity, and self-understanding.

Aaron reflects on his own gender experience and how autistic logic, detail orientation, and a rejection of arbitrary so...

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“The same traits that create difficulty can also be the ones that help us thrive.”

🎙️ Episode 7: Understanding The Neurodiversity Affirming Paradigm - Building Balanced Beliefs

Episode Summary

Welcome to Episode 8 of The AuDHD Psych Podcast — hosted by Aaron Howearth, a clinical psychologist and proudly AuDHD human.

In this solo episode, Aaron explores the neurodiversity-affirming paradigm and what it truly means to view autism, ADHD, and other neurodivergent experiences as differences rather than disorders. Drawing from clinical practice, lived experience, and real-world examples, A...

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“The new year doesn’t need to fix you — you were already doing your best.”

In this reflective New Year’s themed episode of AuDHD Psych, Aaron and Uma explore the quiet space between years — a time often filled with pressure to reset, improve, and reinvent. Through a neurodivergent lens, they unpack why traditional New Year’s resolutions can feel overwhelming or harmful for autistic and ADHD people, and why slow, values-aligned change is often more sustainable. The conversation reframes growth as internal, incremental, and deeply personal, highlighting quiet wins, self-com...

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“The absence of a reminder doesn’t mean the love isn’t there.”

 In this festive episode of AuDHD Psych, Aaron and Uma explore how the holiday season can uniquely impact neurodivergent folk. While celebrations are often framed as joyful and meaningful, they can also bring sensory overload, disrupted routines, social pressure, emotional fatigue, and heightened expectations. Drawing on lived experience and clinical insight, the conversation unpacks masking, burnout, gift-giving stress, overthinking, and the delicate balance between connection and self-preservation. This episode offers permission to slow down, take breaks, set bound...

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🎙 Episode 4: Understanding AuDHD: Traits, Truths, & Lived Experience 

“When I’m told I’m lazy or unmotivated, I start to believe it — and that belief becomes part of who I think I am.”

In this episode of AuDHD Psych, Aaron and Uma explore what AuDHD can look like beyond stereotypes and diagnostic labels. Aaron shares his lived experience as an AuDHD clinical psychologist, unpacking why ADHD and autism were historically seen as mutually exclusive, how this has shaped diagnostic practices, and why many people have had parts of their neurodiv...

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🎙Episode 3: Understanding ADHD: Traits, Truths & Lived Experience

“You’re not inherently broken. Your characteristics aren’t disordered — they just don’t always match what the environment demands.”

Summary:
In this episode, Aaron  takes a deep dive into ADHD through a neurodiversity-affirming lens. He explores what ADHD actually looks like in daily life, why inattentive and internalizing ADHD is so often misunderstood, and how early labels like “lazy” or “unmotivated” shape lifelong beliefs. Aaron unpacks myths, stereotypes, gendered expectations, cultural influences, and the difference between ADHD traits and ADHD disorder. Blending clini...

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🎙 Episode 2: Understanding Autism: Traits, Truths, and Lived Experience

"When viewed through the lens of difference, rather than disorder, we often find that it's expectations that warrant changing, not humans."

Summary:
In this episode of the AuDHD Psych podcast, Aaron Howearth, a clinical psychologist, discusses the diagnosis of autism, its characteristics, and some of the lived experiences of some on the spectrum. The conversation delves into sensory overload, the impact of masking and unmasking, and the phenomenon of autistic burnout. Aaron shares personal insights on communication challenges and...

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When viewed through the lens of difference, rather than disorder, we often find that it's expectations that warrant changing, not humans.

🎙️ Episode 1: Understanding AuDHD - Lived Experience, Clinical Insight, Different-not-Defective.

Episode Summary

Welcome to the first episode of The AuDHD Psych Podcast — hosted by Aaron Howearth, a clinical psychologist, queer, non-binary, and proudly neurodivergent (AuDHD) individual (the co-occurrence of autism and ADHD).

In this powerful introductory episode, Aaron explores what it...