All of us want to speak extra about psychological well being, proper? That appears to be the societal consensus proper now, anyway. However the issue is, numerous us do not really know what we’re speaking about.
That is why a latest session with artistic director, firm founder and podcaster James Kindred on our personal non-public community, The Studio, felt like a breath of contemporary air; an actual, grounded dialog about what it means to dwell and work as a neurodivergent artistic.
James opened up about his life with AuDHD (a mixture of autism and ADHD) and the way he lastly learnt to make it work for him.
As he tells it, AuDHD is not a neat package deal. It is extra like a mixing desk with a thousand sliders, every flickering unpredictably. For too lengthy, autism and ADHD had been handled as completely separate. However as James explains, the overlap typically feels extra actual than the distinction, particularly for these of us with artistic brains.
Journey to understanding
James’ self-awareness started by way of his daughter, who began displaying traits aligned with autism. “I realised I did all the identical issues, and nonetheless do,” he stated. That recognition, paired together with his spouse’s personal ADHD analysis, prompted him to discover the likelihood for himself.
The standard NHS route would have meant lengthy ready lists and separate queues for autism and ADHD assessments. As an alternative, James went non-public, and at 45 acquired a analysis that made sense of many years of inner chaos. That did not magically make issues good, in fact. Nevertheless it did reply unasked questions, including readability the place there had been confusion.
And with that readability got here a shift. He was not seeing nervousness and despair as private failure, however as penalties of attempting to “match right into a world not constructed for me.” It modified all the things.
Chaos, creativity and a brand new workflow
“Watch me work, and it seems to be chaotic,” James says. However the concern wasn’t his mind; it was pretending to suit it into another person’s template. So, by way of trial and error, he stripped away numerous that strain. Notebooks as an alternative of screens. Fewer distractions. Creativity by itself schedule. And belief that concepts will come, even when it is on the final minute.
What appeared like chaos, in brief, was actually only a completely different sample of productiveness. Studying to work together with his mind somewhat than towards it did not simply create higher work; it created a calmer thoughts. And that calm is important, as a result of for a neurodivergent mind, noise and chaos aren’t simply uncomfortable: they’re unsustainable.
James is aware of that from private expertise, as a result of burnout in 2024 hit him laborious. He describes a second when his mind simply “switched off”, and he developed a stutter that acted like an alarm bell. The world stopped, and he was pressured to pay attention.
Hypnotherapy helped. It wasn’t a miracle remedy, but it surely gave him respiratory area; a second of quiet within the noise. ADHD medicine helped too. To not make him “regular”, however to quiet the interior fireworks. Out of the blue, there have been fewer distractions; fewer shiny issues pulling him off activity. His ideas may lastly settle lengthy sufficient to do helpful work.
He additionally eliminated alcohol from the equation, realising it had been his crutch. “Alcohol quieted the noise briefly,” he stated. “However what I used to be doing was attempting to pack a load of springs right into a small field. And finally these springs are going to wish to come out. The extra springs you place in, the extra violent the response’s going to be.”
With out the booze, although, he started to note patterns of overwhelm earlier than they turned poisonous. The outcome? A mind that also leaps, spins and overthinks, however now with a seatbelt.
Understanding your self
For a lot of creatives, “free time” appears like wasted time. Not for James. He guards it fiercely. A few of that calmer mind vitality disappears with the work, so the remainder turns into sacred. Which means intervals of relaxation, area for concepts to settle, and psychological respiratory area. From that perspective, downtime isn’t laziness; it is upkeep. For James, it is the smooth soil through which concepts can develop.
As soon as he accepted this—that the sanctuary of calm is not a reward, it is a requirement—all the things shifted once more. Work grew to become much less about survival and extra about creation.
It is essential to notice that James’ AuDHD analysis did not make James a martyr. It gave him readability, context and compassion, but it surely additionally requested for duty. “It is a purpose, not an excuse,” he says. The world’s already full of individuals utilizing neurodivergence as a free go for dangerous behaviour, he argues. That is not what that is about.
As an alternative, it is about understanding the mind you have got, somewhat than the mind you would like you had. It is about studying how you’re employed, and deciding to point out up by yourself phrases.
The actual breakthrough for him got here when somebody informed him, “Ideas aren’t information”. As he explains, “That may sound like a really apparent assertion, however to not somebody who’ll create a thought after which consider the thousand completely different ways in which thought may play out. Simply to have that reassurance that 99% of what’s going on in your head is not actual and can in all probability by no means occur is excellent for a artistic mind who’ll attempt to latch on to drawback fixing, catastrophisation, procrastination and all the different issues round it.”
Key takeaways
So right here, I feel, is a very powerful lesson for anybody studying this. For those who’ve ever felt like your mind runs on a special rhythm (too loud, too quick, too messy), you are in all probability not alone. Neurodivergence is widespread amongst artistic of us. The difficulty is, it is seldom mentioned actually.
Understanding how your mind works (its patterns, its tempo, its triggers) does not maintain you again; it offers you energy. If you cease preventing your self and begin working with your self, issues shift. Not as a result of the difficulties vanish, however since you lastly tune into the correct station.
In James’ case, that tuning created a extra sustainable, trustworthy and human artistic life. As a result of generally the most effective concepts come from the mind that does not sit nonetheless, does not suppose linear and does not observe directions. And that is extra of a characteristic than a bug.
