This Voice is Mine: the Unquiet Podcast

Internal Realities: Tuning Into Your Neurodivergent Body with Dr Clare Jacobson

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Dr Clare Jacobson has spent over 20 years holding people's most intimate inner worlds. As a specialist clinical psychologist in teenage and young adult cancer care, she knows what it means to sit with invisible experience - the kind that doesn't show up on a blood test, but is completely real.

Over the past year, Clare has been on her own journey of neurodivergent identification. And in this conversation with Emma, she brings both lenses: the clinician who has learned to approach people's inner lives with curiosity rather than certainty, and the late-identified person who spent decades being told  -  by the world and eventually by herself -  that the parts of her that didn't fit were somehow wrong.

They talk about the hunter-farmer analogy, the card game metaphor, hypermobility and proprioception, receiving extra sensory data, and what Clare calls the original Internet  -  the idea that neurodivergent people might be evolved to tap into collective consciousness in ways that neurotypical people simply can't access. It's a conversation about bodies, belonging, and learning to trust what you've always known.

If you've ever felt like the call was coming from inside the house, this episode is for you. It probably isn't.

This Voice Is Mine: The Unquiet Podcast is hosted by Dr Emma Offord, clinical psychologist and founder of Divergent Lives. For every neurodivergent mind that was masked, misread, or missed.

SPEAKER_04

Hi, this is Dr. Emma Offitt, host of This Voice is Mine, the Unquiet podcast. For every neurodivergent mind that was masked, misread, or missed, where identity is reclaimed and the system gets named. This Voice is mine is a podcast for those who were told they were too much, too sensitive, too chaotic, too intense or not enough. Hosted by myself, Dr. Emma Offed, a clinical psychologist, neurodivergent woman, and unapologetic system disruptor. This podcast explores what happens when difference is pathologised and what becomes possible when we drop the shame, the script, and the medical model through stories, reflections, and conversations with people who were never meant to fit. This Voice is Mind reclaims the truth of neurodivergent minds, bodies and ways of being. This is not about fixing or fitting in. It's about remembering who we are and unlearning everything they got wrong. Today's guest is Dr. Claire Jacobson. Claire is a specialist clinical psychologist who has spent more than 20 years working alongside young people facing some of the most difficult experiences imaginable. She established an award-winning NHS Teenage and Young Adult Cancer Psychology Service and continues to lead that work today, supporting patients, families, and clinicians across the UK. Alongside her clinical work, Claire has helped shape national strategy in psychooncology. She founded the UK Teenage and Young Adult Psychooncology Network, contributed to national guidelines, and led major research exploring the psychological impact of the pandemic on young people with cancer. But our conversation today also moves into something more personal. Over the past year, Claire received a neurodivergent diagnosis, and that discovery has opened up a deeper understanding of her own embodied experience, her instincts around connection, and the importance of honouring internal realities that are often dismissed. Claire, welcome to the podcast. It's so wonderful to have you here. Thank you. And we've just discovered that we worked together at some point, we crossed some points.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, and we can't neither of us can quite remember what that looked like, but your number is stored in my phone.

SPEAKER_04

And and uh for those of you listening, Claire sat next to me. This is the first time I've met her in real life. At least I thought clearly we have met in real life when we both worked at a at a children's hospital in London. Um so yeah, we'll we'll try and work that out at some point. But um Claire, for those listeners who perhaps are not familiar with your Instagram uh and don't know you or the work that you do, would you mind letting us know a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_03

So I, as you said, I set up the Teenage and Young Adult Cancer and Brain Tumour Psychology Service, and and just a side note, I co-founded the UK network. Uh there were there were three others involved, and um I've become quite immersed in the patient community that I serve. Um so I widened out the definition of what a clinical psychologist does, or what I I thought I would be doing, um, from just the clinical work to some of what you mentioned about strategy, um, campaigning, advocating, and then yeah, September last year I took what felt like a bit of a brave leap into Instagram. Yeah, and that was fuelled by feeling like I am the holder of probably now over a thousand people's stories, and those stories are confidential, but the hard-earned wisdom that has that that I hold from people's work who have trusted me, done that hard psychological work, I don't want to be the keeper of those stories. And I feel like I have an ethical responsibility because as the holder of all of that wisdom learned through suffering, I can provide context that's really meaningful. And so I set up the Instagram page with videos, and there is stuff on there about tips and techniques for treatments, MRIs, needle phobia, but actually the bulk of it focuses on tuning into people's internal realities that often get dismissed by the dominant shared reality and helping people tune into their authenticity and what really matters to them now.

SPEAKER_04

That sounds amazing, and you know, so many of us do that. We as therapists and psychologists we are often behind a closed door in a confidential space and and sharing these incredible stories, learning ourselves about life and ourselves and the world, and we can't share the details of that person's story, but you know, what we learn and and the wisdom that's gathered there. You know, I love the idea that you are yeah, putting that out there for other people who you know perhaps haven't had a chance to, you know, be close to that kind of wisdom, but they might really relate or need to hear some of those voices for themselves.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, absolutely. And I think you know, the the themes from the work, like you say, of course, it's all confidential, but what you learn from those energy shifts in the room and from some of the commonalities actually, it's a lot of it's quite similar what people go through, particularly after treatment, which I've called the second wave, where this sort of second invisible mountain hits you just as you think you've crossed the finish line of transitioning and figuring out what matters now and how you live with these invisible effects that other people can't see. And I think sometimes that gets storied in a particular way that can be unhelpful for people. So when I talk about internal realities, there's never one single story of someone's experience, is there? You know, there's always multiple perspectives, and I find psychiatric diagnosis is very helpful, really useful, but it is also just one lens through which you can understand someone's experience, and it's it's not the story, it's often a clue to the story underneath. And so if we take the example of agrophobia, yeah, um, you know, the fear of leaving your home, if every time you leave your home you feel unsafe, then it's a great solution to just never leave your home. So if we frame it as an attempted solution at something else, yeah, you know, straight away it removes some of that pathology and stigma. And the position I always use is curiosity, you know, that one-down position that the the patient or the client is the expert on them, and that curiosity I think is what honours me with the privilege of being invited into people's, I call it their secret garden. Yeah, you know, because I I feel like it it's their private, intimate inner world, and they are the gatekeepers to that. And if you are trusted and invited into that, you've got to be so respectful in not crushing anything, asking, is that a weed, is that a flower, going at their own pace, letting them show you what they're ready to show you. And if you take something that has been storied as a pathology or a disorder, like like agrophobia, instead of cutting it out as a weed at the level of the grass with maybe medication or exposure therapy, together you can track it back to the roots, understand it, co-create a story together, which is meaningful. And I think what I find myself feeling wary of is anyone who speaks with certainty.

SPEAKER_04

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Because if you're speaking about with certainty about someone else's lived experience, you're basing that on assumptions and they are likely to be influenced by the systems that the water we swim in, which is very heterocentric, white, neurotypical, patriarchal, and I just I I kind of am cautious around that and would rather be curious because actually, if you're in that garden, the roots are underground, the roots are invisible, and it's the invisibility of people's experience that uh disempowers some of it or sort of allows some of the imposing of other people's narratives on that.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah. And your Instagram is is that part of you know, the intention of it is to help story people's lives authentically, you know, in the way that they well, you're not telling people's exact stories, but you're you're talking about, you know, this shared experience and and where you're you're you're taking um the story from their secret garden. And rather than talking perhaps about agrophobia, you're actually talking about their experience and how Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Um, you know, what what what some of what are some of the invisible effects that people are left holding? Some of I call them the uninvited guests that live with you after treatment that people can't see. So the bell goes, you you treatment's finished, maybe you're you're in remission or you're living with or beyond, and you're also living with fatigue, pain, maybe tinnitus, brain fog, trauma, fear of recurrence, anxiety, lots of guilt, shame, loss. You you know, there's a lot happening inside while you're trying to transition, and the expectation from the outside is often that you're you look back to normal on the outside, you'll pick up the threads from life. And I suppose shining a light on some of those invisible effects, giving someone a name for it is quite powerful, but also shining light on some of the scripts, the dominant scripts that live inside us. So, for example, um my my example here for myself actually is card games. Um, so if I'm playing cards with my friends and and that's what we're doing, I can't play it according to the rules of some people's card game. You know, their rules just don't work for me. So, for example, if someone wants me to send a birthday card on time ahead of time so that it arrives there, for them to open on the day for their kids and and their partners and remember all of that, you know, I will try, but I'm probably going to disappoint you. But probably that's gonna upset you, you might feel devalued. But if you let me play the card game according to my rules, of um, you know, I I will send you a beautiful card out of the blue on a random Tuesday that validates all the things I, you know, I admire and and appreciate about you, you'll feel loved because I'm giving it in the way that works for me. Um and I suppose it that brings me to um scripts about neurodiversity, about othering, and in our household we talk about the hunter and the farmer analogy, you know. Yeah. If you're shall I say for the grave. Um so if you're uh if if say ADHD is um personified here by a hunter and um the neurotypical person is the farmer, if you both are valuable to society, and to be a hunter, you know, you need to be impulsive, spontaneous, you need to pay attention to every single thing you hear. You know, what's that noise in the bushes, what's that over there? Um, and you need to follow your intuition and react quickly. Uh, but if you're a farmer, you need to be able to do consistent things repeatedly, pay attention to time and and be details focused. So if a hunter grows up in a farming village, they're gonna feel very othered. If a farmer grows up in a hunting village, they're gonna feel othered. And yeah, you know, both are valuable, they're just different. And I think that helps to unpick some of the other less helpful scripts that have been out there about neurodivergence.

SPEAKER_04

No, that's really helpful. So there's there's lots here that I think we can unpack. And um where I think I yeah, maybe if we can go back to what you were saying about so you're you're talking about some of the language that we use to describe people's mental health or just lived experience, aren't you? When you gave the example about um like maybe a more medical model or a psychiatric description, which might be agrophobia, and then you're talking about sort of entering into that person's world and going deeper and looking at the complexity and the nuance beyond that word that has you know a definition, um, and you're seeing what in particular lies beneath that you know, surface level experience for that person, and you know, how did they get there? And why is it that that seems like a solution that works for them? And are they stuck and where do they need help? And you know, looking at all kinds of different things, and then I think very much linked to that is what you went on to say about um I guess the kind of systems that that language is built within, which you know have that that we can name as problematic in some ways, yeah. And that if we if we only stay with that language and we don't come with curiosity, not just about the person in front of us, but also about the systems and the language around them at that time, then we are you know we're not we're not being sacred to that person and honouring their you know their lived experience, and that's perhaps a bit of an injustice to them. Um so I was also thinking, I wonder you, you know, you've got my number in your phone, and I should have your number in my phone as well, because you know, my whole career as a psychologist before I even qualified, I just felt like, what is this? Why are we calling people this all the time? Why are we why are we stopping here? And why do you want me to follow this manual to help them? Yeah. That's like I you know, week one, week two, week three, and then by week ten, um, everything should be you know absolutely fine and sort of fixed quotation marks. Um like I've always wanted to question that and I always have, and kind of worked in a very similar way to you. So to me, like I've always said, and I've said it a few times on this podcast, like I never felt I should be holding the pen to somebody's story. And you know, when you work in the NHS, when you work as a therapist, you're writing people's notes, you're writing reports and stories about them. Yeah, and I've always felt really strongly that that shouldn't and can't possibly be from like a manual about disorder, it must come from their lived experience and their words and their language.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, because you're um you're storing somebody, or they are being storied within constructs that might not fit and resonate with with their lived experience, and it's quite it's kind of imposing a framework, um, a dominant way of thinking on someone's lived experience and making them fit into certain boxes. And what you said about notes, I always have a notepad and a pen in every session, and I always say at the very beginning, I'm gonna make notes, but they're on my lap, and you can look at everything I write. It's just for my own memory, you know, when they say something, and I think, oh, must mention that later, and you know, and I jot it down. And I think you've got to have that transparency and trust with somebody, and that trust doesn't just come, you know, it's not expected. You have to earn that trust from somebody by by proving yourself in all sorts of different ways. And I guess I guess when you were saying that actually, I was also thinking about the detective work you have to do, um, and it doesn't have to be through therapy, the detective work to to tune into yourself. So, you know, if um if someone has an invisible their invisible internal reality of of whatever's going on and it's been dismissed or denied, or they just can't hear it over the background noise of all the dominant systems and scripts, telling them maybe you're depressed or you're anxious, or you know, whatever's whatever they're being told. It takes a lot of detective work to tune out some of that background noise and tune in to yourself. And that might be therapy, it might be art or music, but being part of a process where someone trusts you and feels safe enough to stretch into their authenticity, take up space, see what shape they actually are when they're not contorting themselves to people please and and all the rest of it, you know, trusting their own expertise in themselves and feeling free to be them. It's just it's beautiful. It's it's such a privilege to be a part of. Yeah, it really is. But you do have to, I think, show where you stand on that I was gonna say social justice, but I guess sh show that you are open and that you're not influenced. Of course, we're all influenced by the the water we swim in, but that that you can see some of those scripts and systems that operate that that you don't necessarily adhere to.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, absolutely. Uh you also talked or mentioned um about neurodivergence and um about being a neurodivergent household and being neurodivergent yourself. Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to that journey?

SPEAKER_03

I can, yeah. So I um I'm a wife, I'm a stepmum, and I'm a mum of three um children. And after each pregnancy, within a couple of hours, I had a bombshell revelation about my life. It was like my brain had just been protecting me um from linking the dots. And with my third child, it was it was probably a couple of days after it just landed on me. Oh, my son's neurodivergent, and so am I. That makes sense. And just three short years later, he and I both got our diagnosis within a couple of months of each other, yeah. And um, I'd done so much work in that three years researching, um, looking at things from all different aspects and building up a a a neuro-affirming framework, ways of talking, which we already had in the way we spoke about difference anyway, but um yeah, it's been so revelatory, and I think what it it really connects with me with it connects with me with a lot of the work I do with people after um any serious illness diagnosis because it invites a sort of stillness where you you do tune into what matters now, because if you are living with maybe reduced energy in your fuel tank and you can't get to to that that thing that was really important to you before, it makes you question, was that important to me or did that come from somewhere else? And it it kind of the spotlight is on authenticity, and I think with my diagnosis, it just it really helped me tune into that for myself. And I think some of the overlap is um if you think of a a child with toothache, yeah, um they uh they might not be able to describe that physical sensation of pain, putting that into words so that you know someone else is understanding how you're feeling inside. You know, it can feel quite scary if you can't do that, um, quite isolating, and you feel a bit disconnected. If you step that up to something that people after cancer or brain tumour often experience, that fewer people have experience of like chronic fatigue, chronic pain, um, that disconnection is likely to feel even bigger and and that feeling of being quite on your own with it and and isolated can grow. If you then take um a child who is undiagnosed but neurodivergent and has differences in their sensory perception and the way they are in the world, that invites a real sense of um othering because often your experience is dismissed or or storied as you're too sensitive, you're being a drama queen, whatever it is, and and that othering that happens, that um however you make sense of that, it gets internalized. And so what do we do? We when the the weirdness pops up, we suppress it. Those those things about me that are a bit weird, I'll suppress that so that I can belong and fit in. Yeah. Because as kids, obviously, you know, we we privilege attachment over authenticity because if we're cast out of the tribe, we're not gonna survive. You know, we need we need our parents. Um we need we need someone to invest in us, feed us, love us to survive. So that weirdness though, of course, it keeps popping up. And I say weirdness affectionately, you know, sort of in tongue in cheek, that weirdness is gonna keep popping up for me, those little things that you know I know are different about me. And every time it pops up, uh it activates this sort of sense of otheredness, this internalized othering. And so I wonder if that is in part what drives some of the high-functioning neurodiverse people, you know, if that's one of part of it, a sort of proving myself, getting some kind of social standing, so I've I've secured my sense of belonging. And then I think about those internal experiences, you know, it lives within you and it fuels things like RSDs, things like people pleasing, things that are a barrier to your authenticity. And it it actually makes me think my youngest is four, and she starts school for the first time in September, and I know there will be a WhatsApp group where there will be parent drinks and let's get to know one another.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And there's so much in my personality that is thinking, yay, oh that's great! Like I can't wait to meet people and you know forge new friendships. But there will be a voice that pops up that goes, but remember, you are a bit weird, Claire. You know? Put bat down the weirdness. But actually, now since my diagnosis, and and not just that, you know, my husband loves my weirdness. That's you know, what we're we're a little gang of um in terms of that kind of stuff, he sees it as the sparkly gems that that I hold. But um there's something really affirming about having the diagnosis and having a language to point to some of these invisible effects of that because once you can name it and shine a light on it, um, you have more freedom and flexibility in how you relate to that self-critic, or it makes me think of the scary movies where they say the call is coming from inside the house. It's not actually it's not really coming from inside the house, it's coming from voices I've internalized as an undiagnosed neurodivergent child, teenager, young adult in a very neurotypical world where there wasn't language for this stuff to to understand it.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, so much does become internalized in the late identified journey in particular as well. And um, and I think it it doesn't have to be a diagnosis, it can be some form of identification, but I do think access to that knowledge about your sensory experience, about how you process information, about you know, various different neurodivergent, neurobiological, cognitive traits kind of unlocks you know parts of parts of yourself that you maybe hadn't been in touch with or had exiled or masked or however we describe it, that we have become very distant from. And I really feel it brings us closer, and as you say, it gives us language. And in that process, I think there's there's something, at least for me, and and for a lot of people that I've worked with and and whose stories um they've shared with me, that that's given them an empowerment to kind of follow that through, or we could call it being more authentic, but to stay in touch and to advocate for those parts of themselves. So, you know, certainly, you know, you gave the example of sensory, and I know that's something that you've shared a little bit about with me, and we could talk about that too. But for me, that wasn't one of the biggest freeing parts was to understand that the things I'd found my own language for certain sensory responses. Like, for example, I don't know if I've shared it on the podcast, but I've always since a very, very, very young age that I don't like surprise raisins. Surprise raisins. Yeah, I don't like to find a raisin in my food by surprise. Like if I put it in my mouth and suddenly a raisin is between my teeth because it has a squeaky and I feel my nerves just go like that. But if I know it's coming, I have a preparation for the raisin. But I like I know, but I've got loads of phrases like that, yeah. And so I now see that that was that really little girl saying, No surprise rosins. It was my sensory system asking for protection from that sensory experience. And you know, I I I have so many of those, and and you know, like you, you know, can call them weird, quirky, and can have a giggle of them. Some of them are are are perhaps more serious and can you know turn into a meltdown or really have me shut down and can get me in a rage, you know. You know, you know, not so much now because I've learnt about it, but I didn't have language or understanding for my internal and ex like internal experiences and the behavioural expression of those at times. Um, but now I do. And uh it, you know, to me that's been a real gift to be able to articulate it to myself, it may stay invisible to others, yeah. Yeah, even when I try and explain it, because you know, people don't understand about surprise raisins, and then sometimes they're like, Oh no, no, I think I get it now. Um, but yeah, so tell me a little bit more about that for you and what that gifted you.

SPEAKER_03

Um well, so sensory-wise, I mean there are so many things that I still don't know if they're if they're just me, actually. Uh like I struggle to tell apart some pinks and reds, so I know my spectrum on that is weird, but um weird again. Uh fish can't see water, can they? So there's it it's hard to know what is just you unless you've had feedback from people. So I cannot bear the dentist. And my seven-year-old told me my teeth were looking yellow recently, and I thought, oh, I can't go for a polish, and I I just can't bear the sound of the drill or on nails. Um and uh if when I eat cheese I feel it in my temples, I don't know if that's I don't know if that's maybe that's just me. But there are certainly learning the word mesophonia. Am I saying that right? Mesophonia, mesophonia. Um he explained a lot because I and this is something um that I I is an ongoing a work in progress at home. My son um needs reminding to chew with his lips together, and um I don't want him to experience being criticized at at dinner. Yeah, likewise I I really can't listen to it. Um so there's some sort of middle ground we need to find there, or people sniffing, a sort of wet sniff. I feel it in the back of my throat. I feel it, it it's a physical thing. Yeah, my disgust sort of sensitivity with that really um goes off and smells, smells, oh my goodness. I mean, if I smell certain chemicals often cleaning products, I get an instant headache.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Now, if someone's aftershave is on too strongly for me on a train, I just get up, I pretend I've just my phone's just wrong and and I I would rather stand because my sense of smell is really intense. Um, you know, I used to call myself the bloodhound, like I'll sniff it out. Um some of it's quite funny and tongue-in-cheek, but actually, you know, some of it is is really difficult. And actually the diagnosis led me to three embodied things, the experiences of neurodiversity that were so revelatory for me. Um should I tell you? Yes, please. Yeah, so um there's if if you're neurodiverse and hypermobile, which I think this isn't definitely right, I'm pretty sure something like 50% of people with ADHD are hypermobile, something like 70% of women with ADHD are, and most people don't think they are hypermobile. Like I didn't. I I would say I'm really stiff, they are not bendy or stretchy, but in my 40s I realised I am hypermobile, yeah, and that amplifies some of um the embodied experiences. And I I've got three with an example there's proprioception, interoception, and inflammation, and for the proprioception, um, that was revelatory to me because it's it's your your brain not knowing quite where your body is in space. And you know, if you've ever caught a belt loop or sleeve on a door handle or bumped into a kitchen island that's never moved, you know, I do this stuff all the time, yeah, and it's what people would have described as clumsy. Yeah, we don't use that word in my home because it's hard to stand tall and feel self-respecting and dignified if you're applying that word to yourself. Absolutely. We need to find it another word, I think, um in our family, but um your body not knowing where it is in space means you're amygdala and your body's threat system is dealing with an extra layer of uncertainty. It has to be on guard because there is an extra threat of not knowing quite where you are in space, which means that um I'm much more likely to be activated more easily into anxiety and threat mode, and it means my startle response is stronger. So it explains why my husband will walk into a room and I'll jump. Yeah, and he says, I do live here, we've been married so long. I just you know I'm in the house. And we want to get a dog. We always said with my son turned 10, we'd get a family dog, and the thing that is making me resist so much is the thought of a dog barking and me jumping because actually that startled response is is not uh it's really unpleasant for me. Yeah, yeah, and I now understand stimming. You know, if you're jiggling your leg or tapping, tapping yourself a lot, you know, there's there's a theory that that's to show your body where it is in space, where its edges are, and and that has a soothing effect. And and I think back to me and my flatmate at uni, we used to say we had this phrase, we're full, but we've got hunger of the mouth. We just wanted something crunchy in our mouth. I get it now. I get why I love a massage where I say to my husband, just lie on me. I just need to feel some weight on my on me. I understand that, and it and that's really helpful for me in terms of if I feel a bit unsettled or uneasy, I'll put on a pair of leggings, compression socks, or you know, I'll I'll understand myself from that angle. And then the interreception part was I always used to hold in a wee, you know. I would have a meeting, then three therapy sessions back to back, and then heavily pregnant and run to the loo to do a wee, or or I'd clean, have to finish cleaning the kitchen because if I went and did a wee, I wouldn't come back to the task. And and I think my story of that was probably a bit martyrdom, and I'm just so busy, I'm so busy, I have to hold in a wee. But the reality is I can't hear my body's cues until they're shouting, you know. I I'll feel really fed up and a bit emotional, then I'll eat something and I'll instantly feel better, and it's because I was hungry. Yeah, yeah. And I don't notice my fullness cues, so I'll keep eating. Yeah, you know, it's there's something about hearing your body, and I don't know if that's by biological, if that's to do with connective tissue, or if or if that's a sort of cutting off from your body. Yeah, it's a hard one to add to answer, isn't it? Yeah. Oh, and then then the third one, the inflammation, Jessica Eccles. I I love all her work. She's she's done so much in looking at people with um connective tissue and and uh you know, like hypermobility and and um ADHD and autism, and she has said that you are 30% more likely to have long COVID if you're you know, because your response to inflammation is different. And I guess this brings me back full circle to tuning into yourself and your invisible realities because that knowledge is power, and I am so lucky to have that knowledge because for my kids now, if they have a cold or a virus, they are probably likely to take a bit longer to recover, but that recovery will be invisible from the outside because it'll look like maybe a bit achy, a bit tired. And so I I'm now in the position where I know this, so I can help creatively scaffold with them. You know, how are you gonna tune in? Are you sure you're ready? Take your time, tune into your body, and yeah, and give them language to name some of those internal experiences. Because when I was growing up, the dominance is sort of script was stoicism. Absolutely. Get out of school, get on with it, you know, think yourself better.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, and um yeah, I I mean this is how it's changed my life and and how I work with people and I see it has changed their life, is to return to the body, whether that's you know, your neurobiology, or if we call it neurodivergence, whether that's um, you know, kind of event-driven or a developmental stage of your life, or it's still relevant in the here and now, to prioritize and to listen to the body, and that is where we find so many solutions or ways of healing or accommodations, or where we can make decisions about how to regulate or how to self-care. Um, like you say, if we follow kind of more of uh societal value, which might be stoicism or uh an expectation or a rule, then you know that's when we become very disembodied, and that you know, that internal experience is intended to in in the way that we can when we trust that knowledge and we prioritise it and we say it's important, and your body and your experience might be different to mine or to somebody else's, and that doesn't make it less than it doesn't make it invalid. Um, and I really think that that's a like a growing um investment for a lot of people is to become more embodied to be somatically thinking about the messages, the communication for their body, yeah, not so going back internally to what's invisible to other people, and that's really hard, isn't it? Because like you, I have a really high disgust response which can feed into intrusive thoughts and into kind of OCD kind of patterns of being, and it can also make me and I experience musophonia too, it can also make me uh almost have like and sorry everybody, a bit of a contemptuous feeling towards the person who is making that body noise, and it's not about them, it's about the noise and the dislike of the feeling in my body, and also that's then that what follows that is shame and guilt because it doesn't so much now because I understand it, but it used to be like you're so mean, Emma, to think like to feel that way to that towards that person. Like, and I would be looking and staring at that chewing person or the sniffing person or whatever it was that was uh triggering my disgust response and just you know, just wishing them out of the room and just having all kinds of like fantasies in my head about like how do I how do I end this? That is so hard to tell people that internal reality.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. And I think if you're the way and I suppose also it's so variable, you know. So my um my tolerance of that uh right now, uh in the in the happy part of my cycle, in the luteal phase, I don't have the tolerance there and I don't have the that buffer, you know, so uh and and it's probably more triggering as well because the sensory it someone told me, um a neurologist told me that um basically if you're neurodivergent, there's data out there that neurotypical people filter out, and we just can't filter it out, so we absorb it all. Yeah. And that's why um what was it he said? Can I start again? Yeah, okay. Um, I can't remember where we went with from when you said about mesophonia with the oh yeah, about the can I keep it in the luteal phase and just go from okay, okay. Um a neurologist told me that neurotypical people filter out data and neurodivergent people can't, and it it all gets absorbed until it's too much and then you short circuit. Yeah, that could look like a migraine a seizure, uh burnout, uh emotional dysregulation, whatever it is. And that made a lot of sense to me because I feel things, I re I feel like I receive so much data. So when you're talking about um, you know, feeling really triggered by someone sniffing, and I feel it in the back of my throat, I will do that with emotions as well, and with um I think soft data. Like if there's someone who um I can tune into how someone's feeling, I feel it to myself. And it was Judith, someone, she's a psychiatrist, she was on ADHD chatter recently. I can't remember her surname.

SPEAKER_04

Yes, I know I can't remember her surname either.

SPEAKER_03

But she talked about being a sponge and a pretzel. And the sponge, you're soaking in someone's emotion, and the pretzel is um adapting your behaviour and how you are in response to it. And I think in the therapy room, this is my absolute gift. This is what makes me able to create a a relationship with somebody that that can affect meaningful change because I see as soon as they walk in the room, I can often feel how they're feeling, and I will adjust instantly my tone, pitch, volume, body language so that they can feel attuned, and and all of that really matters. But in my personal life, um I suppose that there's two parts to it. If I feel how someone's feeling, I now don't feel it's my responsibility to go over to them. And you know, if there's someone in the room who I think is feeling anxious, I don't need to, I don't need to go over there and kind of um do anything, but also if I feel hostility from someone, oh my gosh, that is like a physical force within me, and I find it so inhibitive and I can spiral quite quickly. Um, and I I'm better now because I'm better at managing that now and not letting it penetrate so much because I understand that I I receive extra data, it's there, I can kind of metabolize it and process it, I don't have to respond to it, doesn't have to factor into my sense of personhood and and all of all of the other stuff, and obviously RSD, internalized othering, all of that comes into play. But I can physically kind of release it. And understanding that has has been quite helpful for me.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I would have you know, I would share the same experience in that, and I like that idea about describing that as receiving extra data that you can't filter out, and um and I think that also helps to explain like sometimes like an isolation and a loneliness, because I mean I now am pretty surrounded by m mainly neurodivergent people, and so they'll get that experience and probably be be receiving some of that data themselves and might be having a different response to it, but they can relate to that. Whereas I think in the past when I've been in other kind of social situations or at work or in the in like the classroom, and you know, I've I I've not really ever had a filter, and so I would just say my experience, and I all you know, I remember so many confused looks from people. What is she talking about? And it was so real for me. It's like like what? Like well, uh definitely one is you know another person's feeling. So even when they are say smiling and saying I'm okay and talking about something, I'm feeling and sensing something very different from them, and that works very well, like you say, as a psychologist, um, can really like um neurosect. So from a nervous system to nervous system, I feel like my nervous system can connect and talk to another person's even when their face and their language and the story they're telling and the way that they're communicating might tell a different story, and I think in the past other people have perhaps not received that data if you like. Um, but I've always known that that's a thing without having a name for it, and now I see it as neuroception in some ways, and sensory perception and sensory sensitivity, and um and I and once once I had a name for it and I could read about it somewhere and I could listen to other people discussing that, I didn't feel so alone. Yeah, and I I never mistrusted. I think people had me doubting myself, but it didn't come from me. Yes, you know, I trusted it, I was like, this is real, yes, and and it usually played out correctly, yeah. You know, it's almost like a an like a prediction that I could do about somebody and their feelings and where it might be going. And it you know, I might not have been able to prove anything in the in not that I needed to, but in the here and now, but it would usually play out later on. I'd be like, oh, so you you did pick up on something, Emma. So I usually got my validation eventually. So a lot of that has been about emotions, but I think it's also I've I've sort of pattern spotting and thinking, seeing flaws in a system or seeing, you know, I think the tide's gonna change here on how we. Think about humans. So it's often very people related, actually.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, that's so interesting. Nervous system to nervous system. Um we've my kids and I came up with this uh idea. Um, I can't believe I'm talking about this now, actually, but uh so it I feel it in my gut, in my chest. I can I can feel that um from someone, and we have this idea that in your chest, kind of at the bottom of your ribcage, there is this little smiley face like a flickering flame, all different colours, and um they're like your soul or your nervous system, whatever you want to call it. And as you walk around, your souls can see one another, and you're kind of oblivious. And um, if you connect with somebody, you know, some people you don't even need to speak to, you just stand near them and you feel a sense of safety and ease. Yeah, you feel aligned within and and this kind of connection, and um, it's your souls recognizing each other, they're the same colour or they're the same something or other, and it's like your soul's going, Hey buddy, hi, like let's get them to stand here so we can connect. And that's that's sometimes the force you feel with someone. It you know, when I feel that my most alive, when I'm connected with someone in a way that feels like the energy is greater than the sum of our parts, yes, buzzing, it's vibrating, and I get to exist within that. And that's when I'm at my most authentic, and I feel it makes sense to me this this this sort of kiddy idea that the two souls recognise each other, and then there are other people where you might be facing them, and you're trying really hard to connect, and so are they, and you want it to work, but you don't feel that there's no force, you don't feel it. You've got different souls that kind of don't connect, and that explains why it's not a logical verbal thing, it's just your body, your gut, your instincts.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And when you're talking about the the school setting, a friend of mine is a teacher, and she has the most incredible gift to she can see a child, they might be smiling and masking, but she knows, she knows if they're feeling a bit unsettled, and she doesn't have to speak to them, she'll just make sure they feel seen and and held, and she describes it as a gut feeling too. And both of us have got gut problems, you know. That's the cost, whether it's endometriosis or IBD, or there's something about um that's where your energy flows, and and it's great when when it works and you're supporting a child or you're connecting with someone, but if it's hostile energy, it kind of sits there, you know.

SPEAKER_04

And would you so I'm just trying to think of how I would ask this question because I'm very interested in like the neurodivergent body. And so, you know, we have a way of diagnosing which has a symptom checklist, uh, not our language or my language, someone else's, the medical model, but a way of describing autism or ADHD or you know, another neurodivergence. Um and so often what I feel that is informing my practice, my understanding now is that neurodivergent body, not only behavior, not only kind of social interaction, um but what is physically happening in the body. And when so many people talk about gut experience, but also from a physical health um description, you know, that they have issues with their gut, so they are struggling with their gut health or you know, inflammation, yeah, um, connective tissue, hyper mobility, so you know, all these different like physical experiences seem to be such a huge part of the neurodivergent profile, I guess. And I'm so interested in that kind of like the dynamic shifting of that and what influences it. And yeah, we could talk from like hostility to um processed food, do you know what I mean? And how it influences the stability and the balance of that sensitive system, and how does that kind of dysregulate and you know, maybe look externally like behaviour, or how does that regulate and and then therefore someone's calm and fitting in. I don't know, it's such a big topic, I can't really wrap it up, but there is just so much I think unspoken and unmiss like not understood yet about the the head and the body.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, gosh, yeah, 100% it and it all weaves together, doesn't it? And that's why I another revelatory moment for me was when I was watching Jessica Eccles hearing some of what she says because with the connective tissue people who have connective tissue differences, you know, she weaves all this together, like feeling dizzy when you stand up, and you know what why that is, and you know, she would call it hyper fantasia, the um reliving things in technicolor, you know, really vivid imagination. I remember that was always on my school reports and daydreaming, yeah, you know, so many memories of just being really lost in my thoughts. I can really immerse myself in somewhere that I'm not, you know. And um, I think I said on one of our voice notes, maybe I didn't say it, I can't remember, but I have this memory of being really young, about four or five, and sitting on the loo and daydreaming about school, and then kind of coming to and realizing wow, I I in my head I was just in school, but I'm actually on the loo. Yeah, what if it goes the other way around and I'm at school and I imagine I'm on the loo? And and that never happened, and I wasn't worried about it, but I I had this real awakening at a very young age of I need to really pay attention to the shared reality here because I could get really lost in a daydream. Testing, yeah. And how now I going back to interoception, if I'm in a therapy session, that's my flow state. I am cut off from my body. I I don't know what's happening in my body because I'm so in immersed in that, and that's great. Um, you know, and I find it rewarding, and and it's I think it makes me good at what I do. But there's something about your ability to just be somewhere you're not or tune into something that isn't your immediate physical reality that's quite um a neurodiverse experience. And when I describe it to my husband, he um I can hear the electricity from the telephone pylon outside our house. Yeah, he can't. Yeah, it would be really easy for him to say, um, I can't hear it. You are either making it up or you're hearing things that aren't there. And if you think about some of the historical injustices that have happened with people diagnosed and deprived of their liberty for hearing things that other people can't hear, you can see the dangers of that. But I suppose from his perspective, by the way, my husband doesn't say that, he totally accepts that I can hear the electricity, but from his perspective, asking someone who's neurotypical to try and imagine, to try and understand what I'm talking about with some of this extra perception, maybe, or receiving extra data, is like asking someone who's always been blind to imagine colours. Yeah. And I think it is really hard to do, but never assume that your lived reality is more accurate or real than mine, just because you don't know what I'm talking about, and some of the embodied aspects of that are I guess they they sort of connect so many people together, not just neurodivergent people, but like if you've got pain in your leg and there's no evidence for it on a scan, or someone who you know, we've got a particular group of people who once they've had those and once they've had a particular type of cancer, they do experience a lot of fatigue, but it's not it's kind of denied in the evidence and and doesn't show up on blood work, it doesn't mean it's not real. And I think there's something about just how you feel in your body, knowing tuning into it, but also recognising this isn't actually how everyone else is feeling. You know, you're measuring yourself against your peers, they're not all having to tune out this extra data, they're not all um yeah, then that that extra internal work isn't happening for them. So give yourself a break if you're zoning out in the classroom and not, you know, like I I said to my kids, my memories of school are often hearing the teacher suddenly say, Okay, begin. And I'd suddenly think, Oh my gosh, what what are we doing?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah. And I had a very similar experience too, and I you know I I guess we could almost describe it as a kind of dissociation, couldn't we? But not as a trauma response. Maybe sometimes it was that we had to escape in like into this fantasy world or you know to a different time and place in our in our imagination to get away from things we couldn't get away from. But I think at other times it was a much more pleasant experience to me. But I I would, yeah, I'm just remembering, and I I would do this all the time. I would count how many seconds I've been alive, and then I'd be, oh, there's one more, there's one more, there's one more. And um, and I would often draw eyes, I don't know why, but I was always doodling eyes and really trying to perfect beautiful eyes, and I would just get lost, and I've missed the whole lesson by counting the seconds I've been alive.

SPEAKER_03

Something a bit more interesting, isn't it? Yes. It's so funny. My my son um loves coming in at night when he should be in bed and telling me how many minutes he's been alive.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah. It was just like joyful, actually. Yeah, to be kind of lost to that. And figuring these things out and so in in kind of uh our conversations back and forth before we've met in real life, um, you and I were talking about about this idea of receiving extra data, and you had some really incredible ideas on this. I really like you to share those.

SPEAKER_03

I so there's this theory that comes from quantum physics, which is seen as a very hard science, um, that and it's just a theory that consciousness is not held individually encased within our brains, it's it's held collectively and it streams through us and we can tap into it. And I suppose it makes me think that if you take the the telepathy tapes, for anyone who hasn't heard that, it's a docuseries about um autistic children demonstrating telepathic abilities. If you say that's on the same continuum as receiving extra data, like feeling someone's emotion, and and coincidences, so I don't believe there's any such thing as a coincidence these days. And just just the other day, I was um I thought, oh, I must message so and so, and I hadn't spoken to her for six months, I can't wait to tell her about XYZ. Ten minutes went by, a voice note dropped into my WhatsApp that was 10 minutes long. So we were both in the same zone, hadn't had any contact for six months, and things like that happen quite often. If you say that they're all on the same continuum, maybe how much of a stretch would it be to say that neurodiverse people are evolved in a particular way where they can tap into that collective consciousness, what I've called the original internet that's that's always been there. And maybe in a hundred years' time neurodiverse people will be called spiritual receivers, or actually, maybe 500 years ago, that is what we were called. So it it's one aspect of it, and um and and I suppose I feel like I'm taking a slight risk even putting that out there that someone could say she's she's delusional or she's sort of lost it, she's not in in a shared reality. And what I would say to that is just holding the position of curiosity is so important, and back to this, you can't assume your lived experience holds any more reality than somebody else's. And once we're closed off to these ideas, we you know we we're shutting down our thinking.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, and I I would agree because um yeah, I I kind of see that taking us full circle almost back to like the systems and the language that we have to describe other people's experiences and who holds the power in that and who is disempowered by that. And actually, if we hold more curiosity, then we have more of a balance um and we don't have expert and you know, ordered and disordered. We have like people with neurodiversity, diverse experiences, and neither one should be more valued or more respected or more required. And I know that's a difficult question and concept and reality for people to imagine where we can all coexist with our differences accepted, and you know, but I think we've got to start somewhere because Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03

You know, the this the scripts and rules that are the internal scaffolding in in our minds, we didn't invent them, we didn't consent to live our lives by them. True, and it's you know, it's it's one way of thinking that just doesn't fit everyone. I don't know what the alternative is, but yeah, it it's um it feels quite unfair, disempowering, decontextualizing. Um and I guess it it brings me back to the authenticity and your own truth. When I think about authenticity, I think about myself doing a puzzle with my kids, the corners and the edges, and working inwards. And that's that that works for me when I think about who am I and what matters to me. I think about my work in with people who are dying and um the top five regrets of the dying. You know, one of those from that book is not living a life that was true to myself. And then I think about having my babies and all that interaction and connection with them before they could speak and making a baby laugh, they are just their most authentic selves when they are tiny, and then authenticity shines through at the end of life, and somewhere in between the beginning and the end, we get hooked by other things and we get pulled off track from that authenticity. And if you had asked me five years ago um who I was and what I stood for, I would have reeled off the things I'm proud of myself for, what my position was on social justice, my values, etc. But if you had sat me down in Pizza Express and asked me to order something, I just didn't know what I wanted. Yeah, and I would have to take it so far, I'd have to visualize, really imagine it in my mouth, want to work out what I wanted, ask my husband what he was going to order, like that somehow mattered. And it's because I hadn't tuned into me and what I want, what my needs are, I I would get myself worth by service to others or being busy. And one of the most popular videos on my Instagram is one about an elephant and how an elephant doesn't measure itself by its productivity or its output, it's happy to just be.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, that's beautiful. I love that. Um before we come to the end of our conversation, I I asked if you would be able to bring an object in um that was grounding or a holding kind of object. What did you bring for us?

SPEAKER_03

I brought my son's compass. I think you probably know what I'm gonna say with this. Um I nearly brought in foot cream because I'm at my happiest when I'm having my foot rubber feet rubbed on the sofa. But um you'll be familiar with the boat analogy from ACT, and for for anyone listening who isn't, it's the the the wind and the waves. I can't control the wind and the waves or the ocean currents, but I can adjust my sails and choose which direction I face in. And if my direction is north, that comprises authenticity, which I've just spoken about, connection and integrity. And I know when I'm not being authentic, I feel it in my body. It will my body will tell me, and we come, we originate from a single cell. We were never meant to have, you know, the heart and the gut say, I don't want to go into that room, but the head override it and say, Legs walk in there, you know. Yeah, when I am aligned within, I am being myself, and that often happens when I'm with the safe people who I feel connected with and unfiltered with, and the connection again, if it kind of comes from evolution, the eukaryotic cell is the the building blocks of complex life, two cells merging together. That's how all this started, and no one knows how that happened, you know, it's magical, but I think that's within us, it's deeply ingrained. This need to shmush together with someone and connect, and um, that's when I feel my most alive when I'm in in those authentic connections and integrity. I didn't choose, but it is just embedded within me. I just I just feel icky when when I'm not um doing that. And the compass is important to me because I don't always face north. I try to, but as a kid, my compass needle was spinning round and round and round. Yeah, and I would ask, I would ask my mum, there was a significant adult in my life, and I would always say, I just feel like he doesn't like me. And she would say at multiple points in my life, no, he does, he does. And I learned to override my gut with my head, even though it didn't feel right. And now what I teach my kids and what I try to live by is your body knows, you know, tune in. We've even got a song that my kids know off by heart that's about trusting yourself and and tuning into your body, and so I try to keep keep my needle at north whenever I can, and then I feel at peace within.

SPEAKER_04

I love that. Thank you for that. Just one final question. Um, when you hear the words this voice is mine, what do they mean to you?

SPEAKER_03

I think that they're sort of a direction of travel, not not a destination. It's um for all the people who've had their yeah, their internal lived experience, they haven't been able to hear it or tune into it. And that cuts across for for so many people. This voice is mine, is about tuning into your authenticity.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And the voice that doesn't come from your head but comes from your whole being.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah, that's lovely. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Claire. It's been a beautiful conversation, and uh yeah, thank you once again.