I’m AuDHD (Autistic + ADHD) and it turns out most of my friends are neurodiverse too. I guess we’re just drawn to each other, maybe because we understand each other.
These days “everyone is getting a diagnosis” because we’re recognising it better. Once your friend is diagnosed, you might seek your own diagnosis.
It also happens when a mother takes their kid for diagnosis, or when perimenopause hits and all their coping mechanisms stop working.
Chances are if all your friends or your partner are neurodiverse, you might be too.
When I was diagnosed with Autism (shout out to Autism NZ), they suggested I might have ADHD too.
An ADHD friend agreed with them.
One of my siblings had been diagnosed with ADHD as a child, surely mine would have been caught then?
Nope.
ADHD is something noisy boys tend to have, not quiet people pleasing girls.
What? How did we miss this?
Luckily, the route to diagnosis is easier now than it was for me a few years back. I worked with a psychiatrist, but these days it may be possible to access through a GP.
Looking around me, I discovered only one of my friends didn’t have ADHD.
They’d always had ADHD. I’d always had ADHD. But now we could see it.
..there is not one in a hundred of either sex who is not taken in when they marry.” – MP
Mary Crawford observed many people marry “in the full expectation and confidence of … advantage …, or accomplishment, or good quality in the person.” Instead of the promised happy marriage, they were “entirely deceived, and … obliged to put up with exactly the reverse” of their expectation.
Charlotte Lucas states that “happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.” She argues that however “well known to each other” or similar the couple may be, they “grow sufficiently unlike afterwards.” Is Charlotte correct that “it is better to know as little as possible of the defects” of your partner?
Perhaps Mary and Charlotte are saying the same thing; it is impossible to really know someone before you marry them.
A friend of mine was diagnosed with Autism. When she talked to me about it, I recognised myself in her symptoms.
“How can I be Autistic?
I’m not a boy. I don’t like trains.”
Turns out the concept we have of Autism isn’t always how it presents, especially for anyone born female. This makes recognition, let alone diagnosis, much harder for us.
I didn’t become Autistic because my friend was, but I recognised it through her experiences.
They are young in the ways of the world, and not yet open to the mortifying conviction that handsome young men must have something to live on as well as the plain” – P&P
Elizabeth Bennet doesn’t begrudge Mr Wickham his attempts to marry Mary King for her dowry (at the time). Austen’s refers to her being “less clear-sighted perhaps in this case than in Charlotte’s,” indicating that his flattery of her and her belief that “she would have been his only choice, had fortune permitted it” has clouded her judgement.
Lizzy “did not quarrel with [Wickham] for his wish of independence” but thinks Charlotte has “sacrificed every better feeling to worldly advantage.” Perhaps because she sees “Charlotte, the wife of Mr. Collins, [as] a most humiliating picture.” There is no comfort or consolation like there is with Wickham’s choice.
Wickham is described as handsome, but twice Mrs Bennet calls Charlotte “very plain.” Perhaps Austen is subtly providing another comparison of the situations: Charlotte is the plain young (wo)man who “must have something to live on.”
“Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance” – P&P
Who has happy marriages?
Elizabeth believes that the “charm” of Charlotte’s “home and her housekeeping, her parish and her poultry, and all their dependent concerns” will fade. She believes Charlotte will ultimately be unhappy in her marriage, her earlier thought was that “it was impossible for that friend to be tolerably happy in the lot she had chosen”.
In the new adaptation The Other Bennet Sister, Mary Bennet tells Charlotte Collins that she learnt from her father that it was possible to be both married and miserable. (Video below) The book has a different fate for the Collins marriage: Mary’s connection with Mr Collins makes Charlotte jealous and prompts her to work on her relationship with him. In the series, Charlotte is jealous of Mary’s life choices, but Mary tells her Mr Collins has hidden depths.
Austen tells us that Mr Bennet, “captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good-humour which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, esteem, and confidence had vanished for ever; and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown.” [italics mine] The only “happiness” he “owe(s) to his wife” is amusement at “her ignorance and folly.”
But he appears to have learnt his lesson. He warns Elizabeth that she can never be “happy or respectable” if she were “unable to respect (her) partner in life.” [italics mine] Just as in The Other Bennet Sister, Charlotte learns to make efforts with Mr Collins.
(Read that title and try to stop your brain singing in Julie Andrew’s voice)
My dear friend Cassie Hart posted this morning about favourite things and asked people to share theirs. It’s been my experience that neurodivergent people love hard; we don’t just like a thing – we make it our entire personality.
I love my furry niece Daisy. Before I met her, I didn’t like dogs. No, that’s not technically true. I didn’t understand dogs. They made loud noises and sudden movements and got all in my personal space.
When Daisy’s family went overseas for several weeks a few years back, she got depressed. I was visiting my mother, who was caring for her, and Daisy came bounding up to me. She knew me! She recognised me! Mum said it was the most animated she’d seen her in days.
This little bundle missed her people. She didn’t know if they were coming back. I understood, so I visited her every day, and since then I have her once a week. When it’s cold, she’ll stay on the couch and wag her tail, rather than meet me at the door, but she’s still just as delighted to see me.
Dogs are easier than humans. You’ll know if they’re unhappy. You’ll know they love you. Now I try to pat every dog I meet (asking their humans if it’s ok first).
I love Taylor Swift. She’s funny. She’s smart. She has a million ideas and the money to execute them. She refuses to be pigeonholed and fights to make things better for everyone. On top of that, her lyrics kill me, she can sing, and she’s gorgeous.
A friend of mine has been obsessed with Taylor Swift for as long as I’ve known him. I decided to lean into my neurodiversity and become obsessed too. When the new recording of 1989 was released, I listened over and over. Then I discovered Folklore. Then Tortured Poets was released. I heard Reputation for the first time when she got her masters back. Who said that was a terrible album? Have they listened to it?
The Life of a Showgirl is another album people love to criticise, but like Reputation, I think time will tell. Taylor is trying new things, fighting for more people, finding more happiness and authenticity. What’s not to love?
And there’s a song for every mood.
I love Jane Austen. Big surprise, huh? If you’re new here, maybe you don’t know that I founded the Jane Austen Society of Aotearoa, New Zealand, that I host a podcast called the Amateur Austenite where I discuss Austen’s novels, that I write my own novels using her characters, themes and plots.
I’ve been obsessed with Jane Austen for 30 years. I love her humour, her talent, her wisdom, her bitchiness. I love that over 200 years after she died, people are still finding new nuances to her work. Every time I read one of her novels, it’s a different experience.
If I were to “prescribe” the things I love to Cassie (or anyone), here is my advice:
You can’t have Daisy. Sorry. But pat a dog. Cassie has two dogs, who I know she loves walking and cuddling.
If you need to be uplifted, listen to Opalite. If you need a cry, listen to All Too Well, the ten minute version.
For ridiculousness, read anything from Jane Austen’s juvenilia. If you like a villain protagonist, read Lady Susan. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies might be more Cassie’s type of book, or Northanger Abbey, which makes fun of the tropes in horrors or thrillers.
When that blind woman Julie Woods said this on the My Business Stars Podcast last week (https://www.ccsdisabilityaction.org.nz/my-business-stars/episode-30) I related so hard.
Since being diagnosed with Autism and ADHD my life has changed completely. Yes, it was hard. Yes, sometimes it’s still hard. But, she’s right, I do have a new life.
The podcast is created with assistance from CSS disability action, Oar FM and support from NZ on Air
I was fortunate to be a guest on an earlier episode of the podcast, talking about my coaching business: https://www.ccsdisabilityaction.org.nz/my-business-stars/episode-23
While watching the 1980’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, a friend commented that it sounds like the Bennet’s are into S&M. Lizzy tells Charlotte her father repays “pain with pleasure”, as they watch him out the window head off to visit Mr Bingley, despite telling his wife that he refuses to do such a thing.
It’s a reasonable assumption to make from this adaptation of the novel, but it misses the nuance of the text. Mr Bennet’s “sarcastic humour” leads him to conceal his visit to Mr Bingley, because he “had always intended to visit him”. It is his sarcasm, saying the opposite of what he intends. He enjoys “the astonishment” it produces when he reveals that the visit was paid, but is easily “fatigued with the raptures of his wife.”
Mr Bennet, it is implied, enjoys refusing to provide “any satisfactory description of Mr. Bingley” to his family. Additionally, he may have intentionally kept Mr Bingley to himself when the visit was returned, though the visitor “had entertained hopes” of meeting the daughters. As the patriarch, Mr Bennet is doing the opposite of what is expected of him.
One of the first character traits of Mr Bennet we are introduced to is his sarcasm, this is merely an example of it.
He “married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her.” As lovely as it would be to think he intends to give Mrs Bennet pleasure, it is merely that “her ignorance and folly had contributed to his amusement.” This scene could be a misinterpretation of the novel on the part of the scriptwriter or wishful thinking on the part of Lizzy.
My understanding of S&M (though limited) is that it is always respectful and consensual. This does not describe the relationship between the elder Bennets.
I made a funny little video, pairing the adaptation with music from S&M by Rihanna (stepping away from my Taylor Swift obsession for a brief moment).
Audio: S&M by Rihanna
Audio and Video: Pride and Prejudice 1980
If you’d like to discuss this or other aspects of Austen with me, check out my sessions
Julie Woods, that blind woman (don’t worry, that’s how she introduces herself), said something so simple it was profound.
“If you make a mistake, pause.”
We were on a phone call preparing for an interview on her podcast, My Business Stars (which features conversations with disabled business owners). She explained that pausing made it easier for the editor to find and fix the mistake.
This was brilliant!
I could advise my own podcast guests of this gem. Previously I’d told them to restart the word or sentence. But that pause is necessary, we tend to talk quite fast and run our words together.
In life we need a pause. Mistakes get us riled up and we push through, rather than pausing for a moment to process the feelings.
Earlier that day I’d been on a call with Hermi (I hope to work with him to create a gorgeous online space) who lives in Spain. When I mentioned my need for daily naps he talked about siesta; where he lives from 2-5pm every day, every thing shuts down.
The week prior, on a call for the Beautiful You Coaching Academy Neurodivergent Community, Tao Kroesche talked about rest being a revolutionary act. The patriarchy wants us to be productive. Fuck the patriarchy.
The message was coming at me from everywhere and I finally got it. This year I’ve added a siesta to my regular schedule, rather than waiting till my body tells me to lie down. A pause in my day.
(The interview is publishing tomorrow 10 March 2026)
