Help Mental health & ND
Life can be full of ups and downs. Most people go through times in their life where they feel uncomfortable, sometimes painful, feelings like worry, stress or sadness. These feelings are normal and can help keep us safe or motivate us to act in helpful ways.
This video by the Anna Freud Centre gives a helpful summary of mental health and strategies that may support young people that are struggling.
Urgent help
If you or your child has seriously injured themselves or taken an overdose, call 999 straight away or go to A&E for immediate medical treatment.
Other urgent help options
Get help and support
There is a range of mental health support in Leeds for different ages, including a MindMate ‘Single Point of Access’ (SPA) team you can contact directly.
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MindMate Leeds
There is a wide range of information and advice on how to support your/your child’s mental health and wellbeing on the wider MindMate website.
Go to homepageThe human mind has evolved, from the stone age to modern day life, to keep us safe. However, some of the human thinking patterns that were helpful in the stone age era can now cause us challenges in modern day life. This video explains this in more detail.
Mental Health & ND
Neurodivergence (ND) is not a mental health condition, just a different way of thinking and processing things. Some neurodivergent children/young people have no mental health needs.
However, research tells us that neurodivergent individuals are more vulnerable to mental health challenges. Seven out of ten autistic people have a mental health condition such as anxiety, depression, or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) (source: Autistica)
My autistic daughter who is 12 years old really struggles with anxiety. I am finding that the best way to approach things is to follow her lead and do things when she is ready rather than pushing for things to happen as this then makes her even more anxious.
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Louise, parent.
Why neurodivergent people might experience more mental health difficulties
‘Masking’ or hiding your behaviours and feelings to ‘fit in’ with neurotypical expectations can be extremely exhausting.
Frequent masking can cause a feeling of ‘burnout’, feeling physically and emotionally exhausted. This can lead to poor mental health, such as depression and anxiety.
Neurodivergent individuals who often mask are likely to feel very lonely and isolated. This can make it hard to cope with day-to-day life.
Neurotypical people may not understand or accept the differences in neurodivergent individuals.
Research shows that neurodivergent people are more likely to experience stigma, discrimination, trauma and loneliness. All these experiences contribute to mental health challenges.
Neurodivergent people may have to navigate places which don’t meet their sensory, processing or communication needs.
For example, neurodivergent individuals may find public transport stressful (loud noises, strong smells, strong movements, busy visual environment), or have difficulty with phone calls (harder to ‘read’ social cues) and some types of written forms (overwhelming amounts of information).
Having to cope with these challenges can frequently contribute to mental health challenges.
Some neurodivergent experiences and characteristics can be similar to mental health needs or conditions.
This can lead to neurodivergent experiences being mistaken for mental health conditions.
Misdiagnosis can then make it harder to get the right help. This can contribute to stress, anxiety and depression.
Mental health conditions & ND
Below is more information on the links between specific serious mental health conditions and neurodivergence. While a lot of the information comes from research into autism specifically, the information and patterns can often be applied to neurodivergence as a whole, with or without any formal diagnosis. The information summarises information from research literature reviews.
While the below patterns of co-occurring neurodivergence and serious mental health conditions are found in research, this does not mean that you/your child are likely to experience this. However, if you do feel that you/your child are experiencing any of the below, please seek support from your GP.
*Trigger warning – feelings of wanting to hurt yourself, or suicide, are mentioned below. If you feel that you could be negatively affected by reading the below, please proceed with caution and seek support if needed.
A genetic overlap has been found between asthma and ADHD, particularly in those with high activity and impulsivity levels. ADHD can also lead a young person to be more vulnerable to having disordered eating, specifically, binge eating and bulimia nervosa [1].
More from MindMate on eating disorders.
[1] Tistarelli N, Fagnani C, Troianiello M, Stazi MA, Adriani W. The nature and nurture of ADHD and its comorbidities: A narrative review on twin studies. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2020 Feb;109:63-77. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.12.017. Epub 2019 Dec 12. PMID: 31838192.
Co-occurring Bipolar Disorder (BPAD) and ADHD may have some distinctive clinical features including an earlier onset of bipolar disorder and higher co-occurring alcohol/substance misuse rates [2]
Many similarities can exist between borderline personality disorder (BPD) and ADHD, more so in women than in men [3].
The severity of almost all co-occurring conditions, aggression, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and substance misuse, were higher in the group of people who had both ADHD and borderline personality disorder (BPD).
[2] Bartoli F, Callovini T, Cavaleri D, et al. Clinical correlates of comorbid attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in adults suffering from bipolar disorder: A meta-analysis. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. 2023;57(1):34-48. doi:10.1177/00048674221106669
[3] Matthies SD, Philipsen A. Common ground in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)-review of recent findings. Borderline Personal Disord Emot Dysregul. 2014 Apr 10;1:3. doi: 10.1186/2051-6673-1-3. PMID: 26843958; PMCID: PMC4739390
Research suggests that if you are autistic, then you are more likely to experience Gender Dysphoria (GD). Sexual awareness and understanding can be different in autistic people, and autistic people are also more likely to identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual or non-binary (LGBTQIA+) [4].
It is therefore really important for neurodivergent young people to access high quality and supportive sexual health and education to improve their understanding, quality of life and avoid the young people being at risk of being in vulnerable or dangerous situations.
Research also indicates that individuals who do not identify with the sex they were assigned with at birth are 3 to 6 times more likely to be autistic than cisgender people (those whose identity corresponds with the sex they were assigned at birth) are [4]. Gender-diverse people are also more likely to report autistic characteristics and to suspect they have undiagnosed autism.
Some research findings suggest that autistic girls may be more likely to have gender-diverse preferences, mannerisms, and appearances that fall outside of traditional gender norms. Gender-related concerns can be a source of significant distress in autistic girls [5]. This highlights that gender and sexuality is an important topic to explore, particularly with young females, especially during puberty.
More about sexual and gender identity from Childline
More on ‘Gender and neurodiversity from MindMate
[4] https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/largest-study-to-date-confirms-overlap-between-autism-and-gender-diversity/
[5] Brunissen L, Rapoport E, Chawarska K, Adesman A. Sex Differences in Gender-Diverse Expressions and Identities among Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Autism Res. 2021 Jan;14(1):143-155. doi: 10.1002/aur.2441. Epub 2020 Dec 7. PMID: 33283980.
Neurodivergent individuals are found to be more vulnerable to having Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCD/OCPD). However, with the cross-over of characteristics this can be missed or OCPD could be diagnosed without the wider neurodivergence / autism / ADHD being recognised and supported [6].
[6] W. Gadelkarim, S. Shahper, J. Reid, M. Wikramanayake, S. Kaur, S. Kolli, S. Osman & N. A. Fineberg (2019) Overlap of obsessive–compulsive personality disorder and autism spectrum disorder traits among OCD outpatients: an exploratory study, International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice, 23:4, 297-306, DOI: 10.1080/13651501.2019.1638939
An increasing range of research suggests that, in some cases, autistic young people can be at risk of being confused as having a personality disorder. This can particularly apply to young females.
Clinical observations in research suggests that there may be an overlap in clinical presentations of autism and borderline personality disorder (BPD), particularly in those who are born female. It also suggests that individuals may be diagnosed with one of the neurotypes/conditions while the other may be unrecognised.
Both of these neurotypes/conditions unfortunately share vulnerabilities to experiencing traumatic life events and a greater risk of suicidality [7].
[7] Dell’Osso L, Cremone IM, Nardi B, Tognini V, Castellani L, Perrone P, Amatori G, Carpita B. Comorbidity and Overlaps between Autism Spectrum and Borderline Personality Disorder: State of the Art. Brain Sciences. 2023; 13(6):862. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13060862