Why is behavioral health so impossibly hard to access, navigate, and survive—especially if you’re wired a bit differently? Maybe you’ve asked yourself that before. We have too.

Heck, we’ve made a whole business (and apparently, a whole podcast) out of asking exactly that: Why does it have to be so hard?

Welcome to “Different, Not Broken”—the podcast where bureaucratic tangles, soul-draining waitlists, and “bring your own magic decoder ring” healthcare red tape get ripped apart, re-examined, and (when possible) outsmarted.

I’m Lauren "L2" Howard and I can promise you this:

In this episode, I peel back the curtain and share how a simple (if stubbornly repeated) question—"Why does this have to be so difficult?"—became the engine for everything I do.

Clinical dead-ends? Check.

Six-month waits and insurance mazes for autism and ADHD care? Rechecked.

People winding up in the ER instead of finding someone who could actually help, before the crisis boiled over? Double-checked and regrettably, deeply familiar.

But what if you didn’t have to run that gauntlet?

What if someone just built a bridge?

When my team and I ran face-first into the “that’s impossible” wall, we started looking for secret doors.

Sometimes, all it took was radical honesty and a burning refusal to accept the status quo.

PLUS: In this week’s small talk, the community asks, “How do I answer, ‘Tell me about yourself?’ without feeling like I’m humble-bragging my way to nowhere?”

Hit that follow button, share with your friends, or drop us a note about your own impossible-seeming battle with the system.

Every listen helps us make it just a little less hard for the next person.

And if you need daily reminders that you’re good enough, weird enough, and human enough—even without a signed diagnosis? You know where to find us.

Let’s make behavioral health make sense… for all of us.

I'll talk to you as soon as you click play...

Timestamped summary

00:00 Access Barriers in Mental Health

04:32 Simplifying Crisis Care Access

07:19 Streamlining Adult Autism Testing

10:23 Streamlining Healthcare Processes

14:44 "Rethinking Autism Diagnosis Necessity"

17:11 "You Deserve Softness and Light"

20:17 "Championing Self-Accomplishment Over Stereotypes"

Links to all our goodies:

Patreon - https://differentnotbrokenpodcast.com/patreon

Newsletter - http://differentnotbrokenpodcast.com/newsletter

Mentioned in this episode:

Sign Up For Our Newsletter

Stay updated on all the things! Get added to our newsletter mailing list.

Newsletter

Wanna learn to write like me?

Here's how you can!

Writing Course