Content warning:

This episode touches on sexual assault, postpartum rage, and suicide statistics (in the context of perimenopause research). Please look after yourself. If this isn't what you have capacity for today, keep scrolling.

Show notes:

This one is a hormone deep dive and it's some knowledge I wish someone had handed me years ago. I sat down (in person, so much fun) with Samantha Johnson, AuDHD lived experience educator and the brains behind Sam Attempts Motherhood, to talk about the wild ride of AuDHD plus hormones plus motherhood.

Sam takes us right through the cycle: what oestrogen and progesterone are actually doing to your dopamine and your sensory system, why the days before your period can flatten you, and why "just take birth control" is doctors' favourite non-answer. We get into cyclic medication dosing (yes, your meds can need adjusting through the month), how postpartum rage and perimenopause snuck up on Sam at the same time, and why AuDHD folks might just be noticing these shifts earlier rather than experiencing them earlier. We also unpack the WHI scare that set women's hormone health back decades, vaginal estrogen for UTIs, and why self identification is valid, full stop.

It's dense, it's validating, and it will make you want to go start tracking your cycle immediately.

Takeaways:

• Oestrogen and progesterone aren't just "period hormones." Oestrogen affects dopamine, progesterone affects sensory processing, mood, gut motility and histamine clearance. Every cell in your body has oestrogen receptors.
• The days before ovulation and the days before your period are when a lot of AuDHD folks notice their meds feel "off." That's real, and cyclic dosing is backed by research, even if most doctors haven't caught up.
• Self identification counts. If you've done the deep dives and ticked the boxes, you don't need three hours with a psych to validate a lifetime of lived experience.
• Postpartum rage and early perimenopause can hit at the same time and get mistaken for each other, or dismissed entirely.
• AuDHD people may not start perimenopause earlier, but we might just be more sensitive to noticing the shift before our neurotypical peers do.
• The 2002 Women's Health Initiative scare tanked HRT uptake and we're still feeling the fallout, even though the original findings were misreported.
• Vaginal oestrogen can be a genuine fix for recurrent UTIs in older women, instead of endless rounds of antibiotics.

Find Sam at @samattemptsmotherhood or www.attemptingmotherhood.com for her free resources, and check out Dr Lotta Borg Skoglund and Dr Kelly Casperson for more on this stuff.

Content warning

This episode includes discussion of transphobia, misgendering and microaggressions, and a brief mention of non-consensual medical procedures performed on intersex infants. Please look after yourself while you listen.

Summary

This week I sat down with Morgs, and was such a joy. We actually met years ago working retail together (selling very overpriced cups and plates), and I have loved watching everything they have gone on to do since.

Morgs is a queer, trans, neurodivergent social worker. They were the 2023 AASW Social Work Student of the Year for a policy proposal to include gender affirming surgeries in the Medicare Benefits Scheme. They finished their master's in 2024, and they now work in child protection. They are also AuDHD, and their current special interest is dahlias (we got delightfully sidetracked).

Our topic was AuDHD and gender diversity, and Morgs brought so much warmth and wisdom to it. We talked about why autistic people are far more likely to be gender diverse, and Morgs had a beautiful way of putting it. If you already feel like you do not fit the rules in a hundred other ways, questioning the rules around gender feels like much less of a leap.

Morgs also shared something cool... When they started transitioning, a whole lot of autistic traits became more obvious, because they were unmasking femininity and unmasking autism at the same time. Finding out who they were in terms of gender helped them find out who they were as a neurodivergent person. Cool, right??

Then we got into language, which we both love. We unpacked AFAB and AMAB, why those terms get overused, and why saying what you mean is so much kinder and clearer than lumping people into boxes. We finished on microaggressions, over-apologising, and the very simple, very powerful question: what are your pronouns?

This one will make you think, and it might just help you do a little bit better.

Takeaways

• There are as many experiences of gender and autism as there are gender diverse and autistic people. You cannot assume.
• Transitioning and unmasking can happen together. Exploring your gender can unlock a deeper understanding of your neurotype.
• Say what you mean. If you mean people who have periods, say that. AFAB and AMAB are not a stand-in for someone's whole body, history or identity.
• If you get someone's pronouns wrong, apologise once, correct yourself, and move on. Do not make the other person comfort you.
• Just ask: what are your pronouns? Fewer words, less assuming, easy to practice.
• We all have room to do a little bit better. Trans and gender diverse people need cis people to meet them halfway.

Summary

This week I'm joined by Steph Robertson, a neurodivergent occupational therapist, speaker and advocate whose work centres trauma-responsive, neurodiversity-affirming care. Steph is autistic, ADHD, complex PTSD and a plural system, and brings their professional, research and lived experience to everything they do.

We dig into the overlap between joy and monotropism: why a monotropic flow state and autistic joy can be such a beautiful recipe together, and how the people around us so often interrupt that flow without meaning to. Steph shares the refrain that came to her while building a presentation on this topic ("not all meaningful occupations are joyful, but all joyful occupations are meaningful"), unpacks the tendril theory in a powerful way, and offers genuinely useful ways to work with a monotropic brain instead of against it, from getting through the hard self-care tasks to giving yourself proper transition time. This one really did light us both up.

Takeaways

• Joy is foundational, not a bonus. It's not a reward at the end of a session or an added extra, it's an evidence-based way of supporting wellbeing and the actual therapeutic work.
• A monotropic flow state doesn't have to feel joyful to be valuable. It can be deeply satisfying and grounding even when it isn't "fun."
• Joy and monotropism can amplify each other. If we're not interrupting someone's flow, we increase the likelihood of joy, and both joy and flow boost learning capacity.
• We so often interrupt joy without realising. Polytropic environments like schools and busy workplaces ask monotropic minds to task-switch fast, which can "rip the tendrils out" and cause real distress.
• Work with monotropism, not against it. Often it's less about facilitating flow and more about not getting in the way, plus giving gentle time to transition.
• Couple hard tasks with something joyful. Steph starts a podcast before she's even out of bed so she can "auto-drive" through the morning routine.
• Transition time isn't wasted time. Monotropism and transitions are deeply linked, and giving yourself space between tasks may protect you from burnout down the line.
• Stop policing how joy looks. Stimming, routines, rituals and "childlike" joy at any age all count. Challenging neuronormativity means letting joy be whatever it needs to be for the individual.

Resources mentioned

• Tendril theory credited to Erin Human. Read more here.

You can find Steph on Instagram at @sgroccupationaltherapy.