The Productive Pessimist

  ADHD. Autism. AuDHD. Autistic Spectrum Condition. Neurodivergence. The words have become a jumble. Social media influencers insist that so many  behaviours are "obvious neurodiversity traits!", that if you "did XYZ (relatively common) thing as a kid, you're definitely  neurodivergent as an adult!" that it's become a meaningless fog, with some people questioning whether autism and ADHD are actually "real" conditions at all. Whether it was their intention or not, the "Neurodiversity Influencers" have brought us right back to the "naughty kids who just need to be spanked more often" attitudes, only now they're expressed as "Self-absorbed Millennials and Gen Z who lack resilience and don't want to work".   (And sometimes still as "naughty kids who just need to be spanked more often.") There seem to be so many "behaviours" that are "clearly undiagnosed neurodivergence!" that, if we w...

Along with  co-production , lived experience has become something of a buzzword in recent years, and, as with all 'trends', people are moving from engaged curiousity to wary suspicion. At The Productive Pessimist, we work exclusively from a position of lived experience - but what does that mean, and what, really, is  lived experience? What Working From Lived Experience Means For Us Working from lived experience means everyone on the Productive Pessimist team has been through what they're guiding others towards understanding of.   We didn't just take a 5hr course, watch a couple of YouTube videos, or read a bestselling book. For example, I (Ash) have the following lived experience: . 22yrs lived experience of managing all aspects of rural living, including travelling 30+ miles for work, without a car . 19yrs lived experience with serious pyschiatric conditions . 16yrs lived experience in trans masculine experience and identity . 9yrs lived experience of kinship care, ...

This piece was written by Morgana Ford-McAllister, our Neurodiversity and Gender Inclusion Lead, in response to the Cass Review , in particular the suggestion that children and young people expressing a gender identity distinct from that to be expected from their sex as assigned at birth are actually neurodivergent, most likely on the autism spectrum, and experiencing a neurodivergent 'lack of awareness of self/inability to understand gender.' Morgana is an autistic trans woman. Autistic Lack of Self vs. Gender Identity TW for childhood trauma, denial of agency, discussions of transphobia and so on. As a lived experience trainer with The Productive Pessimist, I read 35 pages of The Cass Review to get an actual feeling for what was being said and the tone being taken. From that point onwards the report seemed to move more into the models it would recommend NHS England initiate for clinic sites and a discussion of statistics, neither of which were particularly relevant to my role...

Today is Trans Day of Visibility in the UK. At The Productive Pessimist Ltd, we offer coaching, consultancy, and training from lived experience. That includes lived experience of being on the 'less-likely-to-have-national-newspaper-columns-and-a-huge-fanbase' side of the 'transgender debate.' Both our Founder-Directors - Ash, who leads on business consultancy, and management coaching, and Morgana, who leads on neurodiversity inclusion, support, and training - are trans. Ash is a trans man (assigned female at birth, and raised as a girl) who first expressed a male identity aged 9, and began medical transition aged 21.  He has experienced physical violence and conversion therapy as a result of his gender identity. Morgana is a trans woman (assigned male at birth, and raised as a boy), who, in childhood, persistently experienced a 'wrongness and lack of connection' with gender, and began social transition (identifying and living as a woman) aged 22, and medical tra...

This week (March 18th-24th 2024) is Neurodiversity Celebration Week. As a neurodiverse-led organisation (our Director, co-founder, and lead Trainer, Morgana, has ADHD and autism, both of which were diagnosed in adulthood, but which influenced her experience of childhood and adolescence), The Productive Pessimist are aware that 'celebration' can feel like a very loaded word, both to people who live with a particular condition or experience, and to those who work with them, educate them, and parent them. Social media, in particular, has often centred white-passing female/femme individuals, who are highly verbal, skilled at art, and with strong social skills as "neurodiversity rep", a backlash to society's frequent presentation of socially-inept, emotionally unavailable men, or hyperactive boys, often as the "accepted medical presentation" of neurodiversity. Many people would ask how someone who is non-verbal, someone who lacks awareness of their basic bodi...