I think the core of anxiety relief is developing trust in yourself that you can handle situations, even bad situations. Trusting you will be able to get through it.

If my body insists on being awake at this hour, it’s at least nice to be able to catch up on fun and refreshing things instead of having to drag myself through getting ready for another weekday repeat.

As I continue my journey of self-discovery and unmasking, I’m connecting dots that I’m certain should have been obvious. No one can expect 80% of workdays spent in meetings will be productive. But after months of this pattern, I find myself waking up at some point and having months of email to dredge from my inbox. And crashing each night around 8pm.hibernating through weekends. Survival mode.

Burnout mustn’t be a lifestyle.

If you missed my free public workshop about making the “I’m autistic conversation go better, the recording and transcript are now available for everyone:

https://www.autismchrysalis.com/2025/03/14/practical-tips-for-disclosing-your-autism/

Y'all. I'm looking at the cover proof for the print editions of "You Are a Strategist: Use No-BS OKRs to Get Big Things Done" and I for real cannot wait to hold a copy in my hot little hands

Print release date is coming very soon!!!

When I live in the real world of “here’s how I actually function”, and “here’s what I actually need”, I don’t feel as bad and I can use all the energy for doing other stuff or resting.

I sent out my weekly newsletter, this time thinking about communication as a neurodivergent #AuDHD dog

https://david.garden/newsletter/archive/communication-in-the-world-of-neurotypicality/

This image by Berger (2025) visualises one gram of brain tissue. 57,000 neuron cells. 150 MILLION synapses. Mapping it produced 1.4 million gigabytes of data.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-imaged-and-mapped-a-tiny-piece-of-human-brain-heres-what-they-found-180984340/

We are absolutely nowhere close to understanding human neurology. Not even close to grasping it in gnats, either.

We talk in these hackneyed stereotypes about addictive behaviour and ADHD and 'dopamine surges' — and even then dopamine has five subtypes in two groups and it's the messenger system for MANY different functional centres and networks from memory to movement to motivation.

We were wrong FOR DECADES about which dopamine receptor subtype is being modulated when antipsychotics prevent mania.

And this is why using the prefix 'neuro' in social justice talk about #autism, #adhd and #audhd makes me extremely uncomfortable. 'We all have a neurotype' is meaningless. The claim that autistic folk have more branches on our neurons was based on one millionth the amount of tissue seen in this model. Huge generalisations are being made based on that one tiny fragment of science. But we know there's much, much greater diversity within the autism category than exists between autistic and non-autistic folks.

So please avoid attributing things to neurology when in fact an autistic person's overall being and presentation of self reflects nature interacting with nurture along with their history, lived experience and often very subtle features of their present situation.

Brain day so bad that I forgot to pick my kid up from after school activities. Now everyone is angry at me and I feel like a big stupid POS. #AuDHD sucks, and nobody’s ever going to help me.

My fellow NDs: our compensation mechanisms for our cognitive and executive deficiencies do *not* constitute 4D chess or super-perceptive superpowers.

You are not calculating a rational, perfectly logical global optimum taking into account every contingency. You are overloading yourself and courting OC behaviors by giving the same emotional weight to hypotheticals as you do the material problems you were originally trying to solve.

I just realized my preference for series over films and a few good friends over many acquaintances are two manifestations of the same tendency of my brain: to invest in long relationships and avoid investing in short ones.

I found a subtext in there, too: I'm slightly embarrassed to prefer TV over films, because snobbery says films are more erudite.

When you’re figuring out what to do for work, I would suggest picking something that has the potential to continue igniting your curiosity and your interest for a long period of time.

It might not be the thing that you are most passionate about in the world, but something that has enough depth and enough facets that will keep you interested for a long time so that you don’t feel trapped just doing the one thing, over and over and over.

I use 3 guidleines in my communication (mainly with NTs, but with sane people too),

#Honesty, #Courtesy, and #Clarity.

Do you have guidelines that you use/prefer?

#AskingAutistics
#ActuallyAutistic
#ADHD
#AskingADHD
#AuDHD