Living with AuDHD: An 8-week expert-led course

with Dr Tom Nicholson

Dr Tom Nicholson lays the foundations for the whole course: what an ADHD diagnosis actually looks for, what an autism diagnosis actually looks for, and what happens when the two intersect. He explains why the two conditions couldn’t officially be diagnosed together until 2013 — and why AuDHD research is still in its infancy — while reframing traits as ‘contextual strengths’ that can help in one setting and disable in another. He closes with his own story of being diagnosed with ADHD at five, told through his real school report cards.

• What ADHD and autism diagnoses actually look for
• Why ADHD and autism couldn’t be co-diagnosed before 2013
• Contextual strengths: how one trait helps and hinders
• Why autistic traits often surface after starting ADHD medication

with Dr Tom Nicholson

Drawing on his years working inside an NHS ADHD and autism assessment service, Dr Tom Nicholson walks through the diagnostic journey from both sides of the curtain: first steps and screeners, honest conversations with your GP, and the realities of NHS, private and Right to Choose pathways. He breaks down what a thorough assessment should include — developmental history, DIVA, ADOS, QB tests — and how decisions actually get made. The session ends with the part rarely discussed: post-diagnosis grief, validation and identity work, and what to do if the answer is no.

• NHS, private and Right to Choose pathways compared honestly
• What a thorough assessment includes, from DIVA to ADOS
• How to prepare: screeners, GP conversations, childhood evidence
• Life after the result — validation, grief, hearing no

with Dr Lauren Breese

Clinical psychologist Dr Lauren Breese introduces her ‘needs wheel’ — a practical framework for mapping your needs across four areas: connection, internal experiences, physical regulation and basic needs. Because autistic and ADHD traits are constantly interacting (‘who’s in the driving seat?’), many AuDHDers have spent years minimising needs they couldn’t name — a path to burnout, meltdowns and conflict. This session walks you through noticing your needs, giving yourself permission to have them, and starting to meet them, with a downloadable needs wheel to keep working with afterwards.

• A three-step process: notice your needs, allow them, meet them
• Map communication, sensory, rest and basic needs with the needs wheel
• Why routine calms your autistic side while your ADHD craves novelty
• Which ‘typical’ expectations — from small talk to shared beds — to drop

with Dr Lauren Breese

Dr Lauren Breese explains why emotions can feel so much bigger and more sudden for AuDHDers — from alexithymia and interoception differences to a lifetime of ‘rocks in the bucket’ — then busts common myths, including the idea that regulation means staying calm. The heart of the session is building your own soothing toolkit: energy accounting, sensory grab bags, body-based skills like box breathing and the dive reflex, and a neurodivergent-friendly take on mindfulness. It closes with self-compassion and how to repair relationships after you inevitably lose your cool.

• The distress bucket: why overwhelm seems to arrive out of nowhere
• Energy accounting — tracking your daily drainers and rechargers
• Body-based calming skills: box breathing, cold water, the vagus nerve
• Neurodivergent-friendly mindfulness, and repairing after losing your cool

with Dr Emma Craddock

Opening with her own late-diagnosis story, Dr Emma Craddock explores what happens after you get the label: the messy, non-linear work of making sense of your life through a new lens. Drawing on her research with late-diagnosed AuDHD women, she covers the ‘diagnostic aftershock’ of relief, grief, anger and imposter feelings, and shows how ‘reauthoring’ your story can replace shame with self-understanding. You’ll leave with practical journaling prompts and a kinder framework for the road after diagnosis.

• Why relief, grief and anger often arrive together after diagnosis
• Rewriting old stories: from ‘I’m lazy’ to ‘transitions are genuinely effortful’
• What you’re allowed to stop calling a personal failure
• Unmasking, accommodations and finding affirming community around you

with Heather Darwall-Smith

Psychotherapist and sleep specialist Heather Darwall-Smith explains why sleep in AuDHD isn’t a willpower problem: body clocks, sleep pressure, interoception and a nervous system carrying the whole day’s sensory load all shape whether you can let go at night. She unpacks the autistic–ADHD ‘push-pull’ between routine and novelty that standard sleep hygiene ignores, then shares what actually helps, from consistent wake times and light to weighted blankets, movement and sensory-friendly wind-downs. Warm, practical and refreshingly free of generic 8-hours-a-night advice.

• How body clocks and sleep pressure create your natural sleep windows
• Why most ADHDers are night owls, and what helps
• Sensory tools for settling: light, weight, texture, sound, movement
• Releasing nervous-system pressure through the day, not just at bedtime

with Prof James Brown

Prof James Brown blends research with candid stories from his own neurodivergent marriage to unpack how AuDHD shapes communication, conflict, domestic life and intimacy. He reframes behaviours that partners often take personally — withdrawal, forgetting, changing plans, info dumping — as competing neurological needs rather than character flaws or lack of love. The session closes with practical accommodations that build safety and connection without shame or blame.

• Why relationship conflict is often neurological, not personal
• Rejection sensitivity (RSD) and the trigger–shame–defensiveness cycle
• Info dumping, parallel play and neurodivergent love languages
• Practical tools: explicit communication, shared systems, regulating first

with Prof James Brown

Drawing on his scientific background and his own experience of repeated burnout, Prof James Brown explains why AuDHD burnout is a whole-system shutdown that goes far beyond the standard work-stress definition — and why it so often goes unrecognised by doctors. He walks through the biology of chronic stress, double masking and sensory overload, then shifts to what actually helps: proactive prevention and a realistic, staged approach to recovery.

• Why AuDHD burnout goes far beyond the workplace definition
• The biology of burnout: chronic stress, masking and sensory load
• Seven proactive behaviours that reduce your burnout risk
• Recovery tools: the recovery floor, energy accounting, the 70% rule