Medical cannabis and neurodivergence – “It helps me tune in to sensory experiences”
Cannabis Health News

My quality of life has improved significantly since starting to use medical cannabis, writes Justin Clark, who is neurodivergent, in that he is autistic and has ADHD. I consider both my being autistic and ADHD to be linked – this is because both significantly impact my sensory processing. I consider them to be ways to describe differences in the way my mind works to the perceived norm.  I suffer in terms of mental health from anxiety and depression and I am working through complex trauma in therapy. I attribute many of my mental health struggles to the challenges of living as a neurodivergent person in a world that is frequently invalidating and rarely tries to understand or accommodate without a fight. I’m now 33, and was officially diagnosed as autistic during my last semester at university at the age of 22, and as being ADHD (Combined Type) just two years ago. Autism is a lifelong neurodevelopmental difference, which affects how people communicate and interact, as well as emotional and sensory processing – amongst many other things.  Autism tends to be described as being like a spectrum and it can affect people in many different ways. I view it as a spectrum of varying colours and shades, with a lot of complexity to it, rather than as a straight line that goes from ‘mild’ to ‘severe’. Things aren’t that simple at all. Functioning labels such as ‘high functioning’ and ‘low functioning’ are losing favour in recent times, as we begin to recognise and accept that one’s level of “functioning” is not static and can vary significantly from day to day depending on how it is defined and by whom. I describe the sensory overwhelm I often experience as being like having all of my senses with the sliders turned up on…

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Source : Medical cannabis and neurodivergence – “It helps me tune in to sensory experiences”

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