Prince George local receives large grant to produce podcast on women and autism

McKinnon’s personal experience, alongside years of experience as a journalist, led to her interest in creating a podcast about this exact issue of women being undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. While she always had interest in creating her “Miss Diagnosed” podcast, she recently received a $12,000 grant from Telus for its STORYHIVE video podcast program.

“I went from feeling like it’s me against the world to like, suddenly, I have support, I can execute this. It just feels better to be supported in something, and it gives me a lot more confidence in the idea as well,” she said about the grant.

Given her lived experience, McKinnon knows firsthand the challenges of going undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, but her podcast is about more than just her experience. She explained she’s been doing a lot of research and interviews with experts to get a full picture of the situation, but of course her own experience will be featured as well.

“I’ve always thought I was disorganized, difficult, weird, awkward, all of these really negative kinds of internalization that you’re learning from the way that you move throughout the world, and then finding out, late in life ‘actually, it’s not that there’s something wrong with me. It’s that my brain is working in a certain way, I have a certain neuro-type, it’s different.”

Why are women so disproportionately misdiagnosed compared to men? McKinnon says there are two key factors: the first being that women’s medical research is significantly behind men’s, as women’s bodies were medically treated similar to men’s until the 1990s, but also social pressures women face that men may not.

“There’s an element of socialization. Women or girls are told to be people pleasers, and we’re expected to be nice and pleasant and also kind of more geared towards being socially oriented. And in doing that, a lot of women have learned really well how to mask. I’m one of those people,” she explained.

This “masking” that McKinnon refers to can be quite damaging on one’s mental health. She says it’s not only mentally exhausting, but it can lead to serious mental health issues when you feel like you can’t be yourself, or don’t understand why you think or behave the way you do.

“It can feel even more isolating because you’re connecting with people and maybe they really like you, but do they like you or do they like the mask that you’re presenting to them? And unfortunately, if you don’t put that up, in my experience a lot of the time, certain people just won’t give you the time of day or they’ll treat you kind of weird.”

In extreme cases McKinnon says this could lead to suicide, homelessness, and/or incarceration, as spending your life undiagnosed and not receiving the care you need can have serious and long lasting damages. McKinnon says she herself struggled with mental health and substance abuse, but since her diagnosis has fortunately been given the supports she, and many others with ADHD and autism, need.

“I’ve received private messages from quite a few other women who have gone through similar experiences and are just finding out themselves as well. And they’re saying the same thing, that it’s life changing to find that out, and personally, I was really trying to fit myself into like, the wrong type of employment and not pursuing things that were the right fit for me.”

McKinnon said she’ll post updates on her podcast on her Facebook page Miss Diagnosed, where you will also be able to find the complete podcast episodes once they are completed and uploaded.

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by Tommy Osborne

Prince George local receives large grant to produce podcast on women and autism

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