34. Mental health, medication and neurodivergent burnout
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What is neurodivergent burnout and how does it affect young people?
I started to get a lot of depression and a lot of anxiety. I was putting on a bit of a show to try and measure up to everyone's expectations of me. I thought ADHD was something wrong with me. I usually just sit and stare at my wall thinking about what I could have done better in that day. Like, oh, I shouldn't have done that, or I shouldn't have said that, or why did I do this? Because I didn't know I had dyslexia, so I just thought I was dumb. It's like, why can't I pull myself together?
These are the voices of some of the young people who have featured in previous episodes of this series. They are thoughtful, intelligent, kind and courageous. So why are they finding life so hard? Anxiety, depression, chronic stress and low self-esteem. For the neurodivergent community, these co-occurring conditions are the rule rather than the exception. But is this because they are autistic or dyslexic or ADHD? Or do we need to separate the two? Neurodivergence itself is not a mental health condition. But if there's a misalignment with the environment, with how society works, it can cause extreme distress. So right now, it's important we make sure that our young people don't move into adulthood carrying unresolved mental health issues and trauma.
So this episode takes a look at some of the medications, therapies and non-drug treatments that can help make these lives better. What works and why? And how accurate is the information young people get from social media? And we also examine anxiety. It's common in neurodivergent young people. But is it always an anxiety disorder that we're seeing? Or something disguised as one? Something that's not recognised in the DSM-5? Neurodivergent burnout. The big takeaway here is that these rangatahi are not broken. They're just waiting patiently for society to recognise their awesomeness.
Neurodiversity. It's no longer a fringe conversation. For decades, neurodifferences have been framed as deficits. But now we're questioning that narrative. What if variation is part of the design? In Season 3, I look at the science, the systems, and the stories shaping what happens next and the tools that can really make a difference. Kia ora, I'm Sonia Gray, and this is No Such Thing as Normal, Season 3.
We know the rates of mental health distress are very high for neurodivergent young people, but the issue is broader. Across the board, young people seem to be struggling with anxiety. The rates of anxiety for 15 to 24 year olds have more than doubled in the past 10 years in Aotearoa. So are kids really more anxious now? Or is it just awareness of anxiety that has grown?
I don't think it's just more anxiety. I think young people are finding it harder to regulate.
That's Daryl Lee Prince, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Auckland.
And so it starts to become more about regulation and recovering from dysregulation. And I think the nervous systems are just chronically activated. So it's a real increase in that regard. I think awareness has improved. They have a language now for distress. You're aware of it. And so you're able to speak about it. And I think there's less stigma because we've done a really good job, particularly in New Zealand, of making more awareness.
My ears pricked up when you said their nervous systems are constantly overstimulated. Why? I think I know the answer, but I might be wrong.
I'm suspecting that there's so much input. You're getting instant access to lots of stuff, things that were probably hidden somewhere. much more visible you know if there's things that go on around the world that you might have not actually worried about you just worried about what was going on with you and then there's obviously a lot of social media that basically gives you that instant information now we've got AI and I think that puts another level of of challenge on your capacity to use your own brain and regulate yourself. But I think ultimately we're not teaching kids how to regulate.
And maybe this is because none of us have really learnt how to regulate our emotions or even how to identify our emotions.
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