We all need to talk more about mental health, right? That seems to be the societal consensus right now, anyway. But the problem is, a lot of us don’t actually know what we’re talking about.
That’s why a recent session with creative director, company founder and podcaster James Kindred on our own private network, The Studio, felt like a breath of fresh air; a real, grounded conversation about what it means to live and work as a neurodivergent creative.
James opened up about his life with AuDHD (a combination of autism and ADHD) and how he finally learnt to make it work for him.
As he tells it, AuDHD isn’t a neat package. It’s more like a mixing desk with a thousand sliders, each flickering unpredictably. For too long, autism and ADHD were treated as totally separate. But as James explains, the overlap often feels more real than the difference, especially for those of us with creative brains.
Journey to understanding
James’ self-awareness began through his daughter, who started showing traits aligned with autism. “I realised I did all the same things, and still do,” he said. That recognition, paired with his wife’s own ADHD diagnosis, prompted him to explore the possibility for himself.
The traditional NHS route would have meant long waiting lists and separate queues for autism and ADHD assessments. Instead, James went private, and at 45 received a diagnosis that made sense of decades of internal chaos. That didn’t magically make things perfect, of course. But it did answer unasked questions, adding clarity where there had been confusion.
And with that clarity came a shift. He was no longer seeing anxiety and depression as personal failure, but as consequences of trying to “fit into a world not built for me.” It changed everything.
Chaos, creativity and a new workflow
“Watch me work, and it looks chaotic,” James says. But the issue wasn’t his brain; it was pretending to fit it into someone else’s template. So, through trial and error, he stripped away a lot of that pressure. Notebooks instead of screens. Fewer distractions. Creativity on its own schedule. And trust that ideas will come, even if it’s at the last minute.
What looked like chaos, in short, was really just a different pattern of productivity. Learning to work with his brain rather than against it didn’t just create better work; it created a calmer mind. And that calm is essential, because for a neurodivergent brain, noise and chaos aren’t just uncomfortable: they’re unsustainable.
James knows that from personal experience, because burnout in 2024 hit him hard. He describes a moment when his brain just “switched off”, and he developed a stutter that acted like an alarm bell. The world stopped, and he was forced to listen.
Hypnotherapy helped. It wasn’t a miracle cure, but it gave him breathing space; a moment of quiet in the noise. ADHD medication helped too. Not to make him “normal”, but to quiet the internal fireworks. Suddenly, there were fewer distractions; fewer shiny things pulling him off task. His thoughts could finally settle long enough to do useful work.
He also removed alcohol from the equation, realising it had been his crutch. “Alcohol quieted the noise temporarily,” he said. “But what I was doing was trying to pack a load of springs into a small box. And eventually those springs are going to want to come out. The more springs you put in, the more violent the reaction’s going to be.”
Without the booze, though, he began to notice patterns of overwhelm before they turned toxic. The result? A brain that still leaps, spins and overthinks, but now with a seatbelt.
Understanding yourself
For many creatives, “free time” feels like wasted time. Not for James. He guards it fiercely. Some of that calmer brain energy disappears with the work, so the rest becomes sacred. That means periods of rest, space for ideas to settle, and mental breathing space. From that perspective, downtime is not laziness; it’s maintenance. For James, it’s the soft soil in which ideas can grow.
Once he accepted this—that the sanctuary of calm isn’t a reward, it’s a requirement—everything shifted again. Work became less about survival and more about creation.
It’s important to note that James’ AuDHD diagnosis didn’t make James a martyr. It gave him clarity, context and compassion, but it also asked for responsibility. “It’s a reason, not an excuse,” he says. The world’s already full of people using neurodivergence as a free pass for bad behaviour, he argues. That’s not what this is about.
Instead, it’s about understanding the brain you have, rather than the brain you wish you had. It’s about learning how you work, and deciding to show up on your own terms.
The real breakthrough for him came when someone told him, “Thoughts aren’t facts”. As he explains, “That might sound like a very obvious statement, but not to someone who’ll create a thought and then think of the thousand different ways that thought could play out. Just to have that reassurance that 99% of what is going on in your head isn’t real and will probably never happen is very good for a creative brain who’ll try and latch on to problem solving, catastrophisation, procrastination and all of the other things around it.”
Key takeaways
So here, I think, is the most important lesson for anyone reading this. If you’ve ever felt like your brain runs on a different rhythm (too loud, too fast, too messy), you’re probably not alone. Neurodivergence is common among creative folks. The trouble is, it’s seldom discussed honestly.
Understanding how your brain works (its patterns, its pace, its triggers) doesn’t hold you back; it gives you power. When you stop fighting yourself and start working with yourself, things shift. Not because the difficulties vanish, but because you finally tune into the right station.
In James’ case, that tuning created a more sustainable, honest and human creative life. Because sometimes the best ideas come from the brain that doesn’t sit still, doesn’t think linear and doesn’t follow instructions. And that’s more of a feature than a bug.
