WELCOME to The Actualising Woman and Here's What to Expect

INTRODUCTION to The Actualising Woman... what to expect

The Actualising Woman 🌺 is an unfiltered diary of life after a mental breakdown and a late-diagnosis of ASD and ADHD (AuDHD) at age 57 🌼 As a therapist, empty nester, and entrepreneur, I share the raw reality of recovery: grief, regret, overwhelm and confusion, alongside professional insights, research, and coping tools🌸
This channel is about living unmasked 🌷 rebuilding identity 🌻 and finding strength after years of moving through the world undiagnosed. From mental health struggles to self-actualisation 🌸 (inspired by Carl Rogers and Natalie Rogers), I talk honestly about how I experience my own neurodivergence, and how I am motivated to create a life that finally fits ME🌸

If you’re navigating late-diagnosed ADHD, autism, or AuDHD 🌼, or rebuilding after a breakdown, you’ll find community, understanding and hope here 🌺. 

☕Girl needs COFFEE! Please donate ANY amount, so that I can do this full time?! Thank you! https://buymeacoffee.com/theactualisingwoman

Contact: clare@theactualisingwoman.co.uk for requests, stories for the show or questions.

🎧Check Out!!... STUDY SLEEP SOOTHE - Our Sound Podcast for ASD, ADHD & AuDHD-ers.  Available on Apple & Amazon Music

Clare Llewellyn-Bailey: Counselling psychotherapist, podcaster, empty-nester, and AuDHD-er!!

Transcript

Clare: 0:00

Hi, welcome to my channel. My name's Clare, and I have recently been diagnosed with AuDHD (ASD & ADHD) as a 57-year-old just about. It's the week before four days before my 58th birthday. So it was only four weeks ago. I want this channel to kind of be a therapy for me, but also ask questions of you and for you to input your feelings as a late-diagnosed ASD -er or late diagnosed ADHD, or both, which is what the case for me. I've had channels before and I've been focusing on slightly different things. The TikTok channel that I have currently is talking about entrepreneurship for people who are neurodiverse. So I've been a neurodiverse... I obviously I've been neurodiverse all my life, but I've also been an entrepreneur since I was about 20. So I felt that that was a really nice thing for me to focus on. However, I am just coming out of a mental health breakdown, and that started just before my formal diagnosis. So it's not quite related to it, but my goodness, aren't they merged together? So this channel is for my own therapy to talk about what I've experienced as a late diagnosed AuDHD -er, (ASD & ADHD) how things have been for me before I was diagnosed, and also what that Audi breakdown was about and what has changed for me since that's happened. It's huge. So I do want to talk about that as well, and please be encouraged to mess it in. I'd like this to be a community, a place where we can all, as I was going to say oldies, we're not old, we're just not quite so young anymore. Maybe. Um so I'd like to have input from you guys so that I don't feel that I'm on my own with this at all. I would like to have uh to be a support for people as well. Um so I'm going to be talking about the grief that you feel most definitely once you've been diagnosed, grief of how your life could have been, what you lost, what you felt you've lost, all of that stuff, the reflecting back on your life as well, also processing a diagnosis. Where the hell do you go from here once you've got those words and all that bit piece of paper or that email from that professional? What do you do with that? And that's where I'm at. My diagnosis was only four weeks ago, so it's very fresh. I had the breakdown, so I think it really started with a vengeance early July of this year, and I'm on the tail end of it. I'm still very confused, I'm still dozy-headed, I I feel more authentic, or rather, I refuse to fake anything anymore. That's what it is. I've got arsy! That's what I've done. I've got arsy! Um, so watch out everybody. Um, and I say everybody, but um you also find out who your friends are. Just gonna say that. I will talk about that more as the channel develops. This is also about how you rebuild your life once you've had that diagnosis. What does it mean for you? How do you process it? How do you change? What what what happens next? And I want to talk about what I've been doing and how it's affected me. And I hope that I'm not on my own with this. So please do comment. I need your input. I need to know I'm not the only one this has happened to, and I know that I'm not, but I it's been a very lonely place for a very long time. So the other thing is that I did have a channel called The Actualising Woman, and I was going to go full whack into that, and I I tweaked it and I became the blooming boss instead. But now this diagnosis has happened, I very much feel like there is an actualization that's going on for me now. So I've kind of almost gone full circle, and I'm back, and I want to talk about actualization because it really fits in with post-diagnosis uh moving forward, what it means for you now. Now you know who you are, or got an idea or a huge tip-off that who you thought you were isn't who you are, and actually now you've got to be really real and find how you fit in the world and create a lifestyle and a world for yourself, uh, a life for yourself with that new knowledge without having to mask. It just fits. So there's that too. A little bit about me. So I've been self-employed forever. As soon as I came out of uni, first time round, um, I've had my own businesses, I've had some uh proper jobs in between, but I've also generally always wanted to be just self-employed, and that's what I'm doing now. Yay! Finally. I qualified though in 2021 as a psychotherapist, so a counselor. So I have all these, I have all these books. 30 grand, I have books. I have that experience, of course, of being um a mental health professional as well, and I want to put that swing on swing on things as well. Um having said that, when it's happened to you, it's a little bit different from counselling somebody who has been who is going through a diagnosis. It's very different when it's personal. So I've been very confused. You know, I I know what I should be doing to help me process things and reflect, etc. etc. The grief, loss, all of that, rebuilding, all of those things that come with a diagnosis. I should know as a professional what how to be supporting myself. However, I don't, I don't, doesn't work, it doesn't seem to work. It's it's almost like do what I say, but don't do what I do. What's that phrase? That anyway, do as I say, not as I do, that um yeah. Lastly, the breakdown, it has made things almost very, very clear for me, but also very confusing for me. It's the weirdest thing. So I am going to talk about the breakdown because whether you've had a late diagnosis or not, there is a lot to say, I feel, about the breakdown and how it ties in with a late diagnosis and what the hell it all means. Um, in its own right, actually, a breakdown is life-changing, let alone a diagnosis right in the middle middle of it, which I'm only just beginning to uh think about, really. So, lots in this channel. I have so much to say, my head is full. I have lists like you wouldn't be I have lists. I'm looking forward to spewing to everyone. Please join in on this channel. This is what it's about as much as anything. Me finding my people and that without choking up. That is so important to me, and I'm not, I'm not, I'm not sure. It's fine. So please, and you will see that quite a lot as well, because that's the tail end of a breakdown. Um, this is really important to me, and please join in as much as possible. I just need to hear from other people, like-minded people that have had a similar experience. Okay, so thanks for joining me on this very first um episode. Yay, I did it. I've been terrified about this, terrified, because all my videoing and recording skills have gone somewhere, and I am coming from a place now that I I feel less assured in, you know. I've been shaken. I've been all the latest phrases, I'm shook. So I'm I'm like, God, how did I do this? Oh God, is that all right? Is it you know? So that's I think people would say it's anxiety. I don't feel anxious, I just feel like I'm stepping out into you know with these poor kids, they come from a really happy primary school and they're in year six, and you know, then they have their summer holiday and they know they've got to go to big school, and they know that they've got, you know, the new pencil case, new shoes, new haircut, new rucksack, new uniform, and all that, and they know that they've got to walk in and they into that new big school, and they know they've got to go, they know they've got to do it, but it's like I I don't know how I do life in this new role. So I might get quite philosophical as well. I'm trying to come back to myself, I'm trying to get myself back, but I also don't know who I am. That's a really hard place. It's I I won't talk about this now because this is the introduction, but I'm just eager to go. So the next step is oh brace yourself because it might all come out. Who knows what's gonna happen next? I just have a list of what I must only talk about, but I know that I'm gonna go a little bit here and a little bit there and make it a whole thing. So, anyway, I'm gonna go now before my battery dies. So, thanks for joining me and uh brace yourself, guys. Ta da