Content warning:

Burnout, chronic health struggles, mental illness, brief references to domestic violence and the strain of single parenting.

Summary:

In this episode, Bri sits down with Dr Hayley D Quinn — mindset and wellbeing coach, speaker, author, former clinical psychologist, host of the Welcome to Self Unmasked podcast, and past president of Compassionate Mind Australia — to talk about burnout prevention and the power of a compassionate relationship with yourself. Hayley shares her late AuDHD diagnosis, her own significant burnout in 2016, and how discovering Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) changed the way she relates to herself. Together, Bri and Hayley unpack the early warning signs of burnout, why neurotypical recovery advice ("just get out more") can push neurodivergent people further into burnout, and what real burnout prevention looks like: knowing yourself, building in breaks, and treating yourself the way you'd treat a small child you love. They dig into the three flows of compassion (giving, receiving, and self-compassion), why receiving is often the hardest one, and practical ways to start — hand-on-heart check-ins, compassionate letter writing, and asking yourself one simple question.

Takeaways:

• Burnout doesn't always look like collapse. It can look like "everything's fine at work" but nothing left for anyone once you're home, social withdrawal, or things that used to feel easy suddenly feeling hard.
• Neurotypical burnout advice (get out more, push through, stay busy) can push neurodivergent people deeper into burnout — recovery has to be tailored to your neurotype.
• There are three flows of compassion: giving it out, receiving it from others, and offering it to yourself. Most of us are strong on the first and shakiest on the other two.
• A compassionate relationship with yourself isn't about letting yourself off the hook. It takes courage, wisdom, and strength.
• Tone matters as much as words — "you're doing your best" lands completely differently depending on the warmth behind it.
• If a coping strategy doesn't work, that's not failure. It's just data.
• Try it: ask yourself "what's one small thing I could change, that I likely can change, to make my life more enjoyable?"

Follow Hayley:

• Dr Hayley D Quinn is at www.drhayleydquinn.com, on Instagram, Facebook & LinkedIn.
• Hayley's podcast: Welcome to Self Unmasked
• Hayley's book: From Self Neglect to Self Compassion (includes 8 guided compassion meditations via QR code)

Content warning: brief mentions of trauma, PTSD, dissociative identity disorder, chronic illness and healthcare self-advocacy, and online hatred directed at trans people. Nothing graphic. Look after yourself!

Summary:This one's a bit different. Bri grabbed Emily and Jade, her Psych Hive co-directors and real-life mates, for two quick check-ins recorded live from NATCA (the Neurodivergence Affirming Therapists Conference Australia) in Melbourne. Part one is end of day one, part two is the exhausted-but-glowing wrap after day two, where Jade and Bri also gave their own talk on self-care.

Along the way: spirit animal introductions (Jade's a lemur, Emily's a cheetah, Bri's a labrador who eats shoes, don't ask), a mid-conference "missing person" scare, and a genuinely lovely rundown of what stuck with them from two days of neuroaffirming research and practice.

Takeaways:

Day one, the panel on neurodivergence and medical co-occurrences hit hard: capacity is finite, and the people with the most medical complexity carry the heaviest self-advocacy load. Systems like NDIS and Medicare help some, but the burden of proving your needs still falls on the most disabled.

A talk on trans marginalisation and online hatred, and one on intergenerational trauma from undiagnosed neurodivergence, both circled the same idea: othering breaks connection, and disconnection is where distress grows.

Research on masking and mental health found the harm isn't masking itself, it's what masking does to your sense of self: feeling "less than" and losing a clear identity. The quote that stuck: "I am wrong."

Day two opened with Nick Walker's keynote touched on human flourishing and a genuinely useful reframe: instead of pathology paradigm versus neurodiversity paradigm, think pathology paradigm versus neuronormative paradigm. Some forms of neurodivergence (like PTSD) can genuinely benefit from treatment when the person wants that. Others (like autism) are actively harmed by attempts to cure them. ADHD medication got reframed as an accommodation rather than a cure, since the traits come straight back off it.

A talk on echolalia reframed it as authentic communication rather than "just stimming", it can carry a feeling, a need, a want, or be a bid for connection. There's even a version where people echo movements or emotions, not just words.

The through-line for both of them: connection, not categorisation, is what actually helps people flourish.

They close with a quick word on Psych Hive resources (the OCD guide, the PDA parent guide, the AuDHD books for adults and for parents, free webinars and downloads) and two prize draws running through the AuDHD IRL and Psych Hive email lists. Jade and Emily will be back to talk about building a neuroaffirming practice and being allies.

You can find Jade and Emily on instagram at @thepsychhive and their resources through the website www.thepsychhive.com.

Content warning:

This episode touches on sexual assault, postpartum rage, and suicide statistics (in the context of perimenopause research). Please look after yourself. If this isn't what you have capacity for today, keep scrolling.

Show notes:

This one is a hormone deep dive and it's some knowledge I wish someone had handed me years ago. I sat down (in person, so much fun) with Samantha Johnson, AuDHD lived experience educator and the brains behind Sam Attempts Motherhood, to talk about the wild ride of AuDHD plus hormones plus motherhood.

Sam takes us right through the cycle: what oestrogen and progesterone are actually doing to your dopamine and your sensory system, why the days before your period can flatten you, and why "just take birth control" is doctors' favourite non-answer. We get into cyclic medication dosing (yes, your meds can need adjusting through the month), how postpartum rage and perimenopause snuck up on Sam at the same time, and why AuDHD folks might just be noticing these shifts earlier rather than experiencing them earlier. We also unpack the WHI scare that set women's hormone health back decades, vaginal estrogen for UTIs, and why self identification is valid, full stop.

It's dense, it's validating, and it will make you want to go start tracking your cycle immediately.

Takeaways:

• Oestrogen and progesterone aren't just "period hormones." Oestrogen affects dopamine, progesterone affects sensory processing, mood, gut motility and histamine clearance. Every cell in your body has oestrogen receptors.
• The days before ovulation and the days before your period are when a lot of AuDHD folks notice their meds feel "off." That's real, and cyclic dosing is backed by research, even if most doctors haven't caught up.
• Self identification counts. If you've done the deep dives and ticked the boxes, you don't need three hours with a psych to validate a lifetime of lived experience.
• Postpartum rage and early perimenopause can hit at the same time and get mistaken for each other, or dismissed entirely.
• AuDHD people may not start perimenopause earlier, but we might just be more sensitive to noticing the shift before our neurotypical peers do.
• The 2002 Women's Health Initiative scare tanked HRT uptake and we're still feeling the fallout, even though the original findings were misreported.
• Vaginal oestrogen can be a genuine fix for recurrent UTIs in older women, instead of endless rounds of antibiotics.

Find Sam at @samattemptsmotherhood or www.attemptingmotherhood.com for her free resources, and check out Dr Lotta Borg Skoglund and Dr Kelly Casperson for more on this stuff.