The Dysregulated Podcast
I live with anxiety, depression, ADHD, autism, OCD & BPD — and this podcast shares the hard-fought lessons I’ve learned along the way.
This is lived-experience mental health, told with complete honesty and zero filter, including the vulnerable and significant moments that continue to shape my life today.
Through personal reflections, therapy insights, interviews, nervous system regulation, and real-world struggles, I explore what it means to live with complex mental illness — grounded in psychological science and research.
The Dysregulated Podcast
The 4AM Wakeup: Winter’s Grip On My Mental Health
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Awake up at 4 AM and recording from my car, I'm sharing some thoughts during a tough winter period where both physical illness and mental health challenges have been colliding. Winter has always been difficult for me, and getting sick complicates many of my energy-dependent coping strategies for managing my mental ill health. Burnout is a tough foe to battle, along with the various disorders that I’m up against. But the fight for peace of mind rages on!
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Follow my journey through the chaos of mental illness and the hard-fought lessons learned along the way.
Lived experience is at the heart of this podcast — every episode told through my own lens, with raw honesty and zero filter.
This is a genuine and vulnerable account of how multiple psychological disorders have shaped my past and continue to influence my future.
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Created by Elliot Waters — Inspired by lived experience.
Mental health insights, real stories, real conversations.
Early Morning Insomnia
Speaker 0G'day everybody . My name is Elliot Waters and you're listening to the Dysregulated Podcast , as always . Thank you for tuning in , alright , so I'm recording back on my phone again , because it's currently 10 minutes past 4 in the morning . Yours truly can't sleep before work , so I'm awake , I'm up , I've had breakfast , I've done all that and I'm now sitting in the car park at work just waiting to walk inside and begin my day . This definitely wasn't planned . I didn't really want to be up this early on a Friday morning before work . Getting up at the normal time for work is early enough , but what can I say ? Sometimes these things happen . I don't know why , and I know this isn't exclusive to me , but I know that sometimes these things happen . You just can't sleep , or you wake up early because there's something on your mind . There's plenty on my mind I could be stressing about , although there's nothing in particular that I can identify that has caused me to wake up this early . So I don't know what's going on . There Wouldn't have a clue . But anyway , here we are . This is the way it is Now .
Speaker 0This week I have been trying to do the next Discharge Papers episode , but unfortunately because I've
Delay of Discharge Papers Episode
Speaker 0been sick . I've been sick because it's winter and it's freezing and you know the whole winter cold thing sort of coming on , because I've been sick , I've sounded really nasally , or at least in my opinion I've sounded really nasally , and you know , talking a bit like this , I don't know what my voice sounds like on this recording , but it hasn't been up to standard for me to do this next Discharge Papers episode , because I think this episode is going to be a big one , it's going to be important , and I want to do it properly because I think it's going to explain a lot about the situation and context in which I find myself in at the moment when it comes to my mental health and moving forward and proceeding through life . So that's why that episode hasn't come out yet , because I've been sick and my voice has been a bit here and there dropping in and out a little bit . So I want to do it properly , I want to wait until the moneymaker is back to full health and then that Discharge Papers episode will certainly be coming out , which is which will be really good . It will be really good . I haven't actually read the discharge papers myself
Winter's Impact on Mental Health
Speaker 0that I was given after that latest stint at hospital a week or two ago , so we'll . It'll be very interesting for all to see what's contained within .
Speaker 0The doctor was was really good , so I've got high hopes but of course , nothing has actually really changed and that's a big problem . There's been no actual changes to really my predicament and that means that I'm not moving forward , which means I'm getting very stressed because I know that I'm not achieving the things that I want to achieve , which is depressing and that's causing a bit of a depressive episode which I've had recently . Being sick hasn't helped . Being sick is terrible for my mental health because so many of my coping adaptive strategies are strategies that require energy . So if you're sick and you've got no energy , that is a problem and that has been a problem this week because I've had some . You know there's been some mental anguish , as there always is with me , and , unfortunately , my options to do something about it and mitigate those problems , those options haven't necessarily been there because I've been feeling like absolute garbage , because I've been sick , because this cold weather is too .
Speaker 0Oh man , I'm not built for winter . I'm telling you I'm I , I'm built for summer . Heat I can sort of stand . Heat's not so bad , but the cold just really , oh , it's not good for me , I'm telling you , it's not good for me and it's at the moment it's single digits . It's single digits . Outside , I'm in the car with the heater on , but I know full well that this little moment of peace is not going to last , because I've got to get into work soon and it's going to be freezing . But you know what can I say ? I've got to get the timber out there . You know I already drove past before . The trucks are waiting for me , it's all happening .
Speaker 0But yeah , winter's difficult because I tend to always get sick in winter . I think most people do , but I certainly do . There's always at least one sort of main sick period that I tend to have and unfortunately it correlates very strongly with my mental health going downhill a little bit as well , because , like I said , I don't have those options available to me or not all the options available to me to do something about the mental health complexities that I might be experiencing in that time . So winter
Looking Ahead to Next Episode
Speaker 0is very difficult for yours truly , always has been , and this is why I need a really cushy office job that has an air conditioner in it . So that's the goal , you know .
Speaker 0Next winter , at least I'm hoping that I won't be out in the freezing cold , necessarily , loading and unloading trucks , but who knows , maybe I will and maybe that's exactly what I want to be doing . But I'll tell you it's freezing right now . It's just gone what ? 20 past four in the morning . I'm tired , I'm cold . I'm going to wrap this one up , so , hopefully , yes .
Speaker 0So the main point , what I'm trying to stress , is that the discharge papers episode is coming . It is definitely coming . I'm just waiting for the voice to come back to 100% and then boom , it's going to be out there Because , as I said , it's a big one . There's a lot in that document from what I could skim through before . There's a few pages to it and it explains a lot of what's going on at the moment with my mental health , because there is a lot going on , but at the same time , there's not much going on , and I'll explain all that in that new episode .
Speaker 0All right , thank you for listening everybody . This episode is definitely a filler episode . So you know , hopefully it was entertaining enough to hold on and listen to . As I said , the next episode's coming very soon , once I can do it , and I'm very excited about that .
Preparing for the Workday
Speaker 0So I'm going to go now and have . I'll do a little bit of I don't know , not meditation , but just sort of sit , enjoy the air conditioning , and then I'm going to go into work and give it my all , even though it's been really difficult because of that social capacity sort of drama that I've been talking about . But I'll explain all that in the next episode as well . All right , thank you everybody . Have a good day and I'll talk to you soon here on the Dears Regulator podcast .
