Anxiety First

Anxiety has become socially-forward and moderately camouflaged in today’s society. Can you detect when another individual is feeling anxious? Or, is your own anxiety spiked automatically, creating a more anxious environment for everyone? It comes down to your ability to seek answers and observe patterns long enough before your own anxiety becomes a factor.

• Sometimes, noticing anxiety in another person triggers your anxiety. 
• Try allowing just 1-2 minutes to observe and notice that familiar pattern first. 
• Put a boundary between you and them. “Oh, that’s their anxiety. I’m okay”.
• You can be empathetic because you understand their pain, but know that it’s their anxiety to calm.

How does it work? Assess the where the feeling of tension is coming from initially. Identify the source. Is it your anxiety or theirs? If it’s not your, allow your brain to focus on your own healthy thoughts and feelings.

• This practice takes practice.
• You’ll get the hang of saying “I recognize anxiety and it’s not mine” instead of flipping to fight or flight mode inside your own skin.

ADHD Diagnosis Complete. Do I Need an Autism Evaluation?

Depending on when your ADHD/ADD evaluation was performed, and depending on the severity of the symptoms you feel may be autistic, this is valid question to ponder. Because ADHD/ADD is often treated with medications and an ASD diagnosis creates a more chemically sensitive brain, at the very least you’ll want to mention your concerns to your current medication management physician and discuss first and foremost with them.

• If ASD is undiagnosed, it might be one reason why the ADHD/ADD medication isn’t giving you that much-talked-about “zen” feeling that often comes with targeted ADHD/ADD medication.
• Again, if you’re not getting the results your doctor outlined for you, please collect your feedback and report your experiences back to your physician as soon as possible and start from there.

Symptoms:  Validation vs Ruling Out 

The journey of self-discovery is cyclical, not linear. Since many symptoms are overlapping it’s important to know that self-diagnosis is quite difficult and can lead to many incorrect assumptions. While many don’t know this yet, the brain can heal from chronic fight or flight. When the brain is no longer is constant threat & attack mode, symptoms of co-occurring diagnosis can become less intense and more manageable.

• While many diagnosis can lead to support therapies which are helpful, there are two primary reasons to seek additional evaluation/diagnosis. 
• First: If you’re not feeling balanced yet then it is important to speak up about the feelings you’ve been resonating with and receive the proper full-spectrum of care available. 
• Second: Rule out conditions that don’t actually apply to you which might be muddying up the waters of your self-understandings and coping strategies.

Primary Conditions can Hide Secondary Conditions

Brain chemistry, brain function, brain health… these are three major focal points in today’s medical and mental health landscape however it’s a structure/function assessment and is not as clear cut as “bacterial or viral” for example. It is possible for one aspect of brain balance to be so far out of alignment that it camouflage’s the complete neuro-health picture at first glance. This is true in immune function, social functions, and basically every aspect of life.

• Self-Discovery is a journey not a destination for this reason.
• Once the larger imbalances are restored, your medical/mental health team can help you identify and support next layer of symptoms, conditions or deficiencies.
• Some of these lacking areas can originate from gaps in nutrition that rob the brain of much needed precursors for neurotransmitters and healthy sleeping and processing hours.
• Immune system challenges or genetic variations like the 5-MTHFR, which compromises folic acid absorption (and therefore deprives the brain of a much needed B-vitamin) can be significant too.
• To understand how your body is impacted specifically, the journey requires your continued self-observation, healthy self-feedback and sincere requests for help.
• You can’t address challenges that you don’t know about. And neither can your medical care team. 

Impact of Incorrect Medications

Autism Spectrum Disorder isn’t corrected with medication. However many of the co-occurring symptoms like anxiety, depression, sleep issues, ADD/ADHD, aggression, rage, ODD, OCD and more, can be supported with medication.  Nutritional supplementation and diet changes (low sugar, diary, gluten, food preservatives, may also be vastly helpful.

• The biggest challenge of not having a complete diagnosis is the chance that your medication strategy is either incomplete or incorrect.
• This challenge presents the most dominate reason to consider additional evaluations.
• If you feel your initial evaluations were focused on one or two conditions instead of a creating a complete neuro-psychiatric picture, talk to your doctor.

Does Cannabis Help? 

First let’s note there is a vast difference between recreational and medical cannabis. The information is still being gathered and studied. Dr. Rebecca Seigel has written  The Brain on Cannabis: What you Should Know about Medical and Recreational Marijuana.

• The amount of misinformation about cannabis is overwhelming making it difficult to trust. 
• The brain is still being studied and we do not fully know how it’s impacted by everything. 
• Amen Clinics uses SPECT scans to draw their medical conclusions so keep that in mind. 
• As we find more information using research or evidence-based learnings, we’ll update our resources here. 

You are strong in heart, mind and soul. yes .. you! 

The process of embarking on a self-discovery journey may not feel brave. It often feels like you can barely out of the bed in the morning. While you’re comparing yourself to how you think you should feel according to main stream media, you may feel the complete opposite of brave and strong.

• And that’s fair. Being able to create your life, shatter old molds for every day living and trample on the old social boxes, while speaking up about the parts of life that don’t feel good while you search for solutions to help you feel better… IS both brave and strong.
• If no one has told you this lately, let us be the first to recognize your efforts and remind you that being there for yourself is a huge deal!

Self-Reward vs Self-Punishment (Firing & Wiring the Brain)

It may seem small and insignificant, but giving yourself credit for the little victories in life is a big deal too. How you treat yourself is far more important than how others treat you.  It turns out, it’s also one the biggest key differentiation factors between people who can manage the struggle versus struggling to manage.

• If your self-behavior is more geared towards self-punishment, then you’re making your own life feel worse.
• Life will actually become more difficult because you’re requiring your brain to try to function, think, plan and problem solve in an active alarm state. 
• This is nearly impossible to do considering the brain can only fight a threat or problem solve.
• The brain can’t successfully do both simultaneously.
• How often do you allow your brain to say “it’s okay” and be self-compassionate?

Check out the full episode using the links below.

*Only a medical/mental health professional and diagnose Autism Spectrum Disorder or any of the other Neurodivergent conditions. For children we highly recommend a developmental pediatrician because they stay more on top of the latest research than regular pediatricians, in our experience. 

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