AuDHD Flourishing
Episodes
125 Autistic Play Saves Lives with Max Alexander
27 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Max Alexander is an artist and play worker who has mapped some common shapes of autistic play. He's passionate about neuro-affirming play for all ages...
124 AuDHD Leadership Matters
20 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AuDHD leadership touches on last week's interview with Dr Megan Anna Neff. And it goes beyond the visible leadership of creating content, or being in ...
123 Creating AuDHD Content with Dr Megan Anna Neff
13 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Megan Anna Neff is a neurodivergent therapist and thought leader, who became popular in 2022 with their "Misdiagnosis Monday" series. Their thought...
122 Do Less (of what you don't want, to make room for what you do)
06 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Doing less of what's harming you opens up time and energy. You can enjoy that as rest, and if desired, eventually fill it in with what you do want.AuD...
121 AuDHD Belonging with Pasha Marlowe
26 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Pasha joins again to talk about what they've learned in the past two years since last being on the show! We talk about belonging, triggers in relation...
120 Decluttering & Perfectionism
15 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Decluttering, organizing, and cleaning my home in a more routine way is having some interesting effects on my perfectionist tendencies! (Plus, perfect...
119 Get Unstuck At Home with Dana K White
09 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dana K White, like me, couldn't find advice that worked for her. So she made it up! And it turns out, it was helpful for many other people too.After w...
118 Transitions Support AuDHD Productivity
01 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Transitions are one of THE things that support the way that productivity shows up for AuDHDers! Transitions don't have to be all about work: play and ...
117 PDA + AuDHD
25 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
PDA is the Persistent Drive for Autonomy (community term), or pathological demand avoidance (clinical & pathologizing term). What happens when PDA...
Creative Resistance: Mattia on PDA: Resistance and Resilience
18 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It's been a running joke (that wasn't initially a joke) that I'm totally going to do a PDA episode very soon... since the very first episode of AuDHD ...
116 Stimulants: a 2-year review
11 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
About two years ago, I started ADHD stimulant medication as a regular (most days) thing. I've mentioned it here and there on the podcast. This is my m...
115 That Advice is Backwards
04 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
One reason most advice doesn't work for us is that it's backwards. It's telling us to do/have the end result, rather than showing us how to get there....
114 Queer! AuDHD! BIPOC! with TQ
27 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
TQ (they/them) is a queer, trans, physically disabled, AuDHD Chinese-Singaporean artist, author/host of the upcoming book/podcast Queer! AuDHD! BIPOC!...
113 The Urge for Minimalism & Visual Cues
20 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Also on YouTube for some visualsMy urge for minimalism is partly to provide myself with the visual cues I desperately need, without overwhelming mysel...
112 ADHD in Women and Girls
13 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to Hyperfocus with Rae Jacobson for letting me cross-post this important discussion about one of the first longitudinal studies of ADHD in wome...
111 Shame Wrecks Identity
06 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Chronic shame makes us feel all kinds of terrible things that often are the triggers that send people to therapy.It's caused in part by relational rup...
110 New Neurodivergence Model with Darren Glencross
30 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Darren Glencross was diagnosed near the beginning of 2025, and since then has written multiple books and come up with a new framework for people to ex...
How to Make Projects Happen - Repost
29 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AuDHD brains face many challenges when it comes to projects. It's something I've put a great deal of time and learning into, both personally and profe...
109 Use More Lube
23 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This ep also available on YouTube"use more lube:" do what you need to do to make life easier, more comfortable, and more pleasurable for you in the mo...
108 Using Intuition Practically
16 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Intuition has been a way to interface with my body, even when the relationship with my body was contentious.While I won't share the trauma stories tha...
107 Whack-a-Mole is Killing Us
09 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It often feels easiest to do what's right in front of us. And that's lovely, a lot of the time, and uses our strengths!And... it starts to feel bad if...
106 Being Yourself While Doing Stuff with Maria Bowler
02 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Maria Bowler recently published the book Making Time: A New Vision for Crafting a Life beyond Productivity. It's a relaxing take on doing what you wan...
105 Emotions Are Hard For a Reason
26 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Autistic community has taken many approaches to reframing what the diagnostic criteria calls "Persistent deficits in social communication and soci...
104 Why Your Day Sucks
19 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is also on YouTubeIf our sensory needs are not met, even an otherwise okay day will still feel... off somehow. And then that gap between ...
103 How I'd Therapy Now (20 years in)
12 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Lessons learned from ~17 years of therapy over the last 20 years. How I'd approach therapy now based on that.What to look for in therapists, goal-sett...
102 AuDHD Therapy That Works with Joe Sosta
05 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Joe Sosta is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and late-realized AuDHDer. He shares some of our questions about therapy as an AuDHD adult, and ...
Healing Relational Trauma with Pasha Marlowe - Repost
28 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Reposting popular episodes June 2025. Back atcha in July with some spicy takes!Original show notes:Pasha Marlowe speaks brilliantly about how to na...
Autistic Meltdowns & Shutdowns - Repost
21 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In June I'm re-posting the most popular episodes from the show while I take a step back to look at the big picture. Update: the re-thinking has happen...
What AuDHDers Need - Repost
14 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In June I'm re-posting the most popular episodes from the show while I take a step back to look at the big picture (because my monotropic brain has tr...
What is AuDHD (and do you have it?) - Repost
07 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In June I'm reposting the most popular episodes from the show while I take a step back to look at the big picture (because my monotropic brain has tro...
101 Time Cannot Be Wasted
31 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Time the body needs to transition, meet needs, rest and recover is NOT wasted time! I don't know that it's even possible to "waste time" outside of ab...
100 Creative Time Limitations
24 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you have multiple interests, realistically you probably don't have enough time to develop all of them to the degree that you'd like. And even with ...
99 a little more or less
17 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
To change something, I've been playing with telling myself I'll do "a little more or less." It is less exciting than a huge plan... but also easier on...
98 Meeting Intensity Needs
10 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This year I've been trying to meet my intensity needs in more "healthy" ways, while also recognizing that sometimes that doesn't feel possible. And th...
97 Handling Daily Life with Vanessa Gorelkin, OT
03 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Vanessa Gorelkin is an Occupational Therapist who often works with ND folks. She shares about compassionate approaches to daily life tasks.The main to...
96 Building Our Own Systems
25 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Reflecting on the interview with Anna, who shared about accommodations for her students and herself. Learning how to build our own systems/structures ...
95 Kind Accommodations for Students & Teachers with Anna Shaver
19 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Anna is an educator who has developed an incredible approach with accommodations at the core (for the student AND herself!). It makes sense pedagogica...
94 Coping Mechanisms
12 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Coping mechanisms can be a pathologizing term. What's the difference between coping mechanisms and intensity or interests?This episode also touches ba...
93 Tunnel of Focus: Monotropism, Trauma, and Thriving
05 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks Eric Tivers for interviewing me & allowing me to share the full episode here as well. His show notes:In this episode of ADHD reWired, Eric ...
92 Sobriety While AuDHD + Gifted with Amy Knott Parrish
29 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Thank you to guest Amy Knott Parrish for sharing about her unusual journey with sobriety. When she realized what her future was going to look like, sh...
91 Gifted + AuDHD: Surviving (part 2)
22 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
(Part 2 of 2. Part 1 here)Being AuDHD + gifted is being an outlier of outliers. I'd guess most of us feel like aliens.And even when we start to unders...
90 Gifted + AuDHD: Why It Matters (part 1)
15 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Being AuDHD + gifted is being an outlier of outliers. I'd guess most of us feel like aliens. And even when we start to understand the shape of our exp...
89 2E & ND-Affirming Education with Emily Kircher-Morris
08 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Emily Kircher-Morris is the host of the long-running and popular podcast, The Neurodiversity Podcast. (And she interviewed me last year.) She's a comp...
88 Gifted Development & Positive Disintegration with Chris Wells
01 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Chris Wells speaks & teaches about positive disintegration, Dabrowski's theory that (among other things) provides an alternate explanation for ...
87 Giftedness & the Sparkly Mind with Sheldon Gay
22 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sheldon Gay shares about giftedness, in particular the intersections of being late-identified as a Black man. He hosts the I Must Be BUG'N podcast (Bl...
86 Apocalypse Survival Guide
15 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
24:23 to skip specific American politicsIn this episode:Mutual aidLocal connectionsSurveillance & privacy considerations for devicesResistance is ...
Intrusive Thoughts & AuDHD
09 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Mini episode on my experience with intrusive thoughts and how/when they stopped being distressing.Monotropic brains tend toward thought loops and thus...
85 Rising AuDHD Rates (PBS interview)
08 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last week I was interviewed on WHYY, Philly's PBS/NPR radio station, about the rising diagnosis rates of Autism & ADHD. Here are a few additional ...
84 The Neurodivergent Playbook with Dr Matt Zakreski
01 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Matt Zakreski is 2e (ADHD & gifted) and also a clinical psychologist supporting neurodivergent folks.His recent book, The Neurodivergent Playbo...
Bonus: Overview of my approach by Notebook LM
25 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As I describe at the beginning, this goes along with episode 83 about AI & tech tools.The latter 15m of this episode was an AI "podcast conversati...
83 Tech and AI Tools for AuDHD Accommodations
25 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It's okay to have strong feelings about AI! Yes, we touch on ethics in this episode.It's also okay to use accommodations and tools that work for you, ...
82 Science Journalism & Misinformation: Best Practices Being ND Online with Emily Earlenbaugh
18 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Emily is a science writer, AuDHDer, and ND-affirming coach.They share online about neurodivergence topics and accuracy in science journalism as The Ne...
81 When the Body Simply Cannot
11 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week I pushed my body way too far, even though I was having trouble parsing that in the moment. The story is also a great analogy for how other N...
80 Is This the Year to Give Up?
04 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Is this the year to give up on neurotypical and ableist nonsense that is causing you harm??I hope so, for all of us. There are so many layers to unrav...
79 Seasonal Energy & Sleep
28 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It's okay if your sleep and energy vary wildly during the seasons! Or at least... it's okay with me ;) Obviously there can be real world effects to ha...
78 Healing Relational Trauma
21 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is the follow-up episode to deepen ideas in the interview with Danielle Aubin last week on Autistic Therapy. Especially focused on this idea of r...
77 Autistic Therapy with Danielle Aubin
14 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Danielle Aubin is an autistic therapist who works with autistic clients. And also shares about Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) and ho...
76 Gift & Holiday Accommodations
07 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A few ideas for accommodating your brain & needs around gift-giving and the holidays. Fun fact: Many of us have gone through a big minimalism stag...
75 Surviving Out of Spite
30 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
You deserve to survive this. Please stay.And if staying out of spite helps you, it has gotten me through some tough times.My Medium article, "Please S...
Goldilocks Sensory Needs
26 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Have you absorbed the cultural idea that you "should" be able to be "present" without sensory aids? Fuuuuuuck that shiiiiit! Also been playing with se...
74 Gratitude in Uncertainty
23 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Thinking seasonally about gratitude in the context of..... everything happening right now.It's easy for my brain to want to solve every problem in the...
73 Starting an AuDHD-Friendly Business
15 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
AuDHDers often end up partly or fully self-employed. It can be due to desire, or out of necessity.Either way, this episode covers some tips to think a...
72 Feeling Safe in Uncertainty & Chaos
09 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Feeling worried about the future? Uncertainty can be especially difficult for Autistic nervous systems.Today I go into more detail about WHY & HOW...
71 Maybe You're Not the Problem with Sam Cooper
02 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sam Cooper is an AuDHD coach and generally awesome human. When we met in person, we bonded over having worn the wrong size shoes for years, which led ...
70 An Easy Artist Business (after 10 years of failure soup) with Zann Hemphill
26 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Zann's artist business is one of the easiest things she's ever done. And it's not even her main passion! Her deeply relatable history includes ten yea...
Deciding on Bigger Goals
23 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If you struggle to figure out what to focus on with bigger goals, you're not alone! Here's one approach I've come up with for my own annual goals in p...
69 Bureaucratic Bullshit is the Bane of my Bexistence
19 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
I failed my first driving test! On a technicality! Ah, the frustrations of begging to exist in structures not built for us. Three quick stories about ...
68 Stop Hammering Screws
12 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The autistic / AuDHD self-discovery journey can feel like finding out that you've been hammering screws this whole time. You never learned how to use ...
67 Downsides of Weekly Scheduling
05 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Weeks and months are staples of scheduling systems. But they tend not to work well for me as units of time. My personal ideal is two days on, two days...
66 Fixing Your Whole Damn Life
28 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is about both why it's so hard to get help as an AuDHDer,and some of the broad steps I see working for us.It can help to have a view of y...
65 What NOT To Do
21 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What NOT to do in your AuDHD discovery process is just as important as knowing what to do! This episode interweaves nicely with last week's episode ab...
64 What AuDHDers Need
14 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What do AuDHDers need (beyond the obvious needs all humans have)? And why do those needs matter?This episode covers some important ones:Being able to ...
63 All About AuDHD Diagnosis
07 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Almost all of us consider formal diagnosis in our AuDHD discovery journey. Whether it's ADHD-focused for medication, or Autism-focused for validation ...
ND + the Inner Conversation
02 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Bonus drop from The Curiosity Cure podcast:Today's conversation with Mattia takes us through their journey with chronic pain, feeling better, and the ...
see you in September!
21 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
I'm taking the last two weeks of August off, and will be back in September with a "back to the basics" series about things like diagnosis, what to do ...
62 Loneliness and Not Feeling Understood
17 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There are many reasons we experience loneliness. There's a particular existential loneliness I experience when I feel like it's not possible for anyon...
61 Working Memory Hack
10 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Working memory may be a main reason we feel so exhausted... we're doing so many things manually that are habits for non-AuDHD brains.Using a working m...
Autistic Joy is Mindfulness
08 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today I had several moments of autistic joy (sometimes called "glimmers") that were also great examples of mindfulness. But mindfulness in a way that ...
60 When Quitting Works
03 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Quitting can feel amazing, especially when it's a clear self-protection move. And when we haven't waited until it becomes so terrible we have to get o...
59 Lazy On Purpose
27 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
I recently took the laziest vacation I ever have, and it was a revelation.Also, there are usually so many external factors we're not considering while...
58 Men Are Not the Enemy
20 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Men are not the enemy...Some thoughts on identity, community, and responsibility.Big shout-out to Devon Price's new book, Unlearning Shame: How We Can...
I Fucked Up
20 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"felt vulnerable, may delete later"Quick story/update and to validate that communication is so hard... and so are transitions!Full audio direct link f...
57 How To Make Projects Happen
13 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
AuDHD brains face many challenges when it comes to projects. It's something I've put a great deal of time and learning into, both personally and profe...
56 All Problems Are Middle School Problems with Pawel Kowalczyk
06 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Pawel, a former middle school teacher in an alternative school, lays out how most of our adult problems were ones we first encountered in middle schoo...
55 Achievement Doesn't Define Us
29 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Achievements often feel tied into personal identity. AuDHD folks in particular struggle with achievement pressures, even with just regular neurodiverg...
54 When Dreams Feel Impossible
22 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Every creative and interesting person has experienced the feeling that at least some of their big dreams are impossible. And when the current big drea...
53 Autistic Stereotypes with Thomas Henley
15 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas Henley educates, normalizes, and actively pushes back against autistic stereotypes and stigma. Check out his highly rated podcast, Thoughty Aut...
52 You Were Not a Bad Child
08 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
You may have internalized the message as a child that there was something wrong or bad about you. Even if it was not explicit, you probably didn'...
Don't Make Up For Rest
01 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Rest is not something to be made up for later with productivity. Whether it was forced by the body or not. We deserve to have energy to do what we lov...
51 Constant Discovery of What Works with Eric Tivers
25 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Eric Tivers has shared 10 years of helpful content on his podcast, ADHD reWired. He's also built multiple careers helping neurodivergent folks: from t...
50 You're Doing Better Than You Realize
18 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Multiple times in the past week or two, clients have felt like they're failing miserably. But it turns out they're in complex, difficult, multifaceted...
49 Managing Big Feelings
11 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Big feelings may be harder for monotropic people to handle. And if you have significant sensory sensitivity, the physical sensations can be overwhelmi...
48 Hack for Demand Avoidance
04 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
You'll rarely catch me using the term "hack." But this concept around demand avoidance is working great for me, so far... TLDR: Shortcutting the PDA b...
Mini Safe Being Visible
29 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Wow, over 100K listens! People talk a lot about feeling safe being visible—being seen and heard either literally or through putting your work into t...
47 Meltdowns in Public
27 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Answering a listener question about how to handle meltdowns and shutdowns at work, and around people you don't trust. This episode covers a few ways t...
46 Don't Die
20 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
I almost died two weeks ago. It's easy to miss symptoms when one has low interoception and a high pain tolerance. Episode is around the difficulties s...
45 Exempt From Human Suffering
12 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Yes, still on about money. In this case, how we're sold the idea that it will exempt us from human suffering... but it will not! What would you do wit...
44 Hypnosis Healing with Genevieve Joy
05 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Genevieve Joy and I have a lot in common, including excruciating childhoods that led to chronic pain. Both of us also healed that chronic pain through...
43 Staying Unhealed
29 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Fixing can be a trauma response. You don't need to heal everything! Especially in our very fixing-oriented culture that will sell you a solution to pr...
42 Connection & Safety with Natalie Ross
22 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Natalie loves connection at a nervous system level. How do we have agency with that even when it's beyond our control? We talk about challenges around...