The Neurocomplex Creative

When your body says you have to pause, your seat is still warm. You don't have to start over from zero.In this episode of The Neurocomplex Creative, Vicki Peterson sits down with her executive producer Angela Kingdon, co-founder of the Autistic Culture Podcast Network, for a behind-the-scenes conversation about creating when your brain and body no longer allow you to work the way you once did.Vicki and Angela explore skill regression, autistic burnout and the grief of changing capacity, alongside the importance of building creative practices around real human needs rather than conventional ideas of productivity. Angela shares how her own experience of burnout changed the way she thinks about supporting creatives, and why podcasting can offer neurodivergent creators greater autonomy over how, when and where they work.Together, they explore what it means to build a sustainable creative life — one where taking a break doesn't mean giving up your place, and where being met with understanding on your hardest day can make it possible to return when you're ready.📝 Go deeper on Substack:https://ahatonahatonahat.substack.com/☕ Support the show:https://buymeacoffee.com/vickipetersonProduced for the Autistic Culture Podcast Network.🎧 The Neurocomplex Creative is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all major platforms.🌈 Celebrate autistic voices with early access, ad-free listening, and our full archive at AutisticCulturePlus.com🌐 Visit www.autisticculturepodcastnetwork.com📲 Follow us on Instagram: @autisticculturepodcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

He put more care into choosing a corsage than most of us put into ourselves — and that same attention shaped a whole life.In this episode of The Neurocomplex Creative, Vicki Peterson reconnects with her high school prom date and longtime friend Jesse Keene to explore sensitivity, intuition and the survival skills we carry with us from childhood into adult life.Together, they reflect on growing up highly sensitive in difficult environments, learning to read the people around them, and how those early adaptations can develop into people-pleasing, masking and losing ourselves in order to feel safe. Jesse traces his own journey through corporate success, meditation and spiritual communities towards a more intentional life rooted in Ayurveda, healing and wellness.Vicki and Jesse also explore childhood trauma, neurodivergence, recovery and the exhaustion that can come from constantly adapting ourselves to different people and environments. At its heart, this is a conversation about friendship, intuition and what happens when we finally find relationships and communities where it feels safe to be seen.📝 Go deeper on Substack:https://ahatonahatonahat.substack.com/☕ Support the show:https://buymeacoffee.com/vickipetersonProduced for the Autistic Culture Podcast Network.🎧 The Neurocomplex Creative is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all major platforms.🌈 Celebrate autistic voices with early access, ad-free listening, and our full archive at AutisticCulturePlus.com🌐 Visit www.autisticculturepodcastnetwork.com📲 Follow us on Instagram: @autisticculturepodcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two California girls, one meditation university in the middle of an Iowa cornfield, and a friendship that can only be described as cosmic.In this episode of The Neurocomplex Creative, Vicki Peterson reconnects with her first-ever roommate, visual artist Summer Love, whom she met at Maharishi International University when they were just seventeen.Together, they revisit coming of age in an unconventional world of golden domes, mandatory meditation, yogic flying and rules that shaped their everyday lives. They reflect on finding friendship and belonging within that environment, being seen for who they were rather than who they were connected to, and developing a bond built on understanding, shared experience and a lot of laughter.Summer also reflects on her life as a visual artist, staying true to her own creative lens and finding beauty in the world around her. It’s a conversation about self-definition, creativity and the rare friendships that allow us to be completely ourselves — even when they begin in the strangest of places.📝 Go deeper on Substack:https://ahatonahatonahat.substack.com/☕ Support the show:https://buymeacoffee.com/vickipetersonProduced for the Autistic Culture Podcast Network.🎧 The Neurocomplex Creative is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all major platforms.🌈 Celebrate autistic voices with early access, ad-free listening, and our full archive at AutisticCulturePlus.com🌐 Visit www.autisticculturepodcastnetwork.com📲 Follow us on Instagram: @autisticculturepodcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Creating again means going off script — in a lot of other people's stories — in order to claim your own.In the Season Two premiere of The Neurocomplex Creative, Vicki Peterson reflects on what it actually takes to create while recovering from autistic burnout and living with chronic illness. From working in "low battery mode" to creating from a recliner, she explores what happens when conventional expectations around productivity no longer fit your brain or body.Vicki examines masking, late diagnosis and the process of stitching together the different versions of ourselves we've developed throughout our lives. At the heart of the episode is the double bind of being a neurocomplex creative: when creating is fundamental to your identity and purpose, but the work itself can exceed your available capacity.Through burnout recovery, friendship and rediscovering the silly, theatrical parts of herself, Vicki finds something worth building towards — autistic joy, and a creative life designed around who she actually is. Plus, she introduces some of the friends and family joining her throughout Season Two.📝 Go deeper on Substack:https://ahatonahatonahat.substack.com/☕ Support the show:https://buymeacoffee.com/vickipeterson🎧 The Neurocomplex Creative is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all major platforms.🌈 Celebrate autistic voices with early access, ad-free listening, and our full archive at AutisticCulturePlus.com🌐 Visit www.autisticculturepodcastnetwork.com📲 Follow us on Instagram: @autisticculturepodcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Vicki sits down with Marissa Mosunich — neuro complex career coach, founder of Operate Well Consulting and Brave Zebra Work Coaching, and someone who is living the same questions on a slightly different timeline.Marissa was diagnosed AuDHD at 34, just last year. She's taken her background in organizational management and her own lived experience and built a coaching practice that helps neurocomplex people navigate career pivots, workplace challenges, and the slow, practical work of building a professional life that actually fits.They talk about why high-achieving women are so chronically late-diagnosed, what high masking costs over a lifetime, and what it looks like to start recognizing your own needs after decades of performing competence. Marissa also reads a poem she wrote called Outcomes — about the experience of unmasking, layer by layer, the spine finally understanding what it carries.ABOUT MARISSAMarissa Mosunich is a neuro affirming work coach and organizational consultant based on California's Central Coast. She founded Operate Well Consulting and Brave Zebra Work Coaching to support neurocomplex professionals in building sustainable careers that honor how their brains actually work.Operate Well Consulting: https://operate-well.ghost.io/Brave Zebra Work Coaching: https://operate-well.ghost.io/brave-zebra-work-coaching/Instagram: @brave.zebraMENTIONED IN THIS EPISODELindsey Mackereth — therapist, researcher, and founder of the neurocomplexity framework.Lindsey's Substack: https://lindseymackereth.substack.com/SUPPORT THE SHOWIf this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need it.Hat on a Hat on a Hat (Substack): https://ahatonahatonahat.substack.com/Donations are gratefully accepted and help keep this show going at whatever pace is sustainable.Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/vickipeterson✍️ Subscribe now to hear future episodes.🌈 Celebrate autistic voices with early access, ad-free listening, and our full archive at AutisticCulturePlus.com🌐 Learn more about the network at AutisticCulturePodcastNetwork.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.