[SPEAKER_00]: It's not even criticism.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can just be feedback.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can be, it can be your own brain telling you that that you've done something right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a sense that you're constantly in trouble.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a sense that you've constantly done something wrong that you've upset people that if your phone rings and it's a number you don't recognize you think they're not going to be calling with good news.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to be calling me to say that I've done something wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome to the women and ADHD podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, Katie Weber.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 45, and it completely turned my world upside down.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been looking back at so much of my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: School, jobs, my relationships, all of it with this new lens, and it has been nothing short of overwhelming.
[SPEAKER_01]: I quickly discovered I was not the only woman to have this experience and now I interview other women who like me discovered in adulthood they have ADHD and are finally feeling like they understand who they are and how to best lean into their strengths both professionally and personally.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, we are going to jump right in to episode 202 in which I interviewed Laura Kirby.
[SPEAKER_01]: Laura is an educator, a consultant and author who has been working with autistic children and young people for nearly 25 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Laura is the founder of Past.
[SPEAKER_01]: which stands for positive assessments, support, and training, and the co-founder of Cite therapeutic learning services.
[SPEAKER_01]: And while she's based in the UK, she's known internationally for her expertise in autism, PDA, persistent drive for autonomy, and neurodivergent education.
[SPEAKER_01]: Laura brings both professional expertise and lived experience to her work.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was diagnosed with ADHD in her forties and self-identifies as autistic.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's also the author of several books, including the newly released The Kids Simple Guide to PDA and the parents and professionals a simple guide to PDA, as well as the slightly distracted woman's guide to living with an adult ADHD diagnosis, which was released to this past summer and is,
[SPEAKER_01]: Fantastic, so if you love this interview, I highly recommend that you check out the link in the show notes and grab yourself a copy.
[SPEAKER_01]: In this episode, Laura and I discussed why so many women are overlooked or misdiagnosed until well into adulthood.
[SPEAKER_01]: We talk about the physical and mental impacts of masking and seeming fine, and we talk about strategies for unmasking and advocating for ourselves, as well as the power of reframing ADHD from a deficit to a difference.
[SPEAKER_01]: I also wanted to let you know that Laura is offering a six week course in January for late diagnosed and late identifying women with ADHD, which is based on her book.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you'd like to register for the course or you just want more information, there is also a link in the episode show notes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, without further ado, here is my interview with Laura.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, Lord, Kirby, thank you for being here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, Ted, thank you for having me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, first of all, right off the back of graduations on a delightful book.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really, really enjoyed it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was so relatable.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it was funny because one of the comments I get a lot with this podcast is that feeling of nodding along.
[SPEAKER_01]: to so many experiences saying, I do that too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, is I do that too.
[SPEAKER_01]: And even though, you know, I've been talking about this endlessly for going on five years now, I still had that lovely feeling reading your book of just like, oh, yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do that too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's brilliant because that's really what I wanted to achieve actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to achieve something that was just really relatable that other women would really didn't go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god, it's not just me like I'm not weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not like like there's nothing wrong with me other people do that too.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm really glad you said that because that's that's exactly what I wanted to achieve.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: And having all the different voices from all the different women, I think really contributed to that, you know, that feeling of normalizing a lot of these shame-based behaviors that we have, I've held on to for so long.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, so thank you for putting it out into the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Congratulations.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thank you looking forward to recommending it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so, okay, well, let's start with your diagnosis.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now you mentioned you were 46 when you were diagnosed.
[SPEAKER_01]: How long ago was that?
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_01]: What was happening here?
[SPEAKER_01]: You have your son was diagnosed first, correct?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so this is you also and this is one of my sorry to keep it dry Keep it dry.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is one of my favorite things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let me talk to each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where I did H.D.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But I just wanted to say like you worked in the field.
[SPEAKER_01]: You worked with neurodivergent kids for, you know, a quarter of a century at this point.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's always fascinating to me to be like,
[SPEAKER_01]: having that aha moment after you've spent so much time immersed in this world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, now I'll shot up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I was diagnosed five years ago and you're right, so my son James, he was 12 when he was diagnosed and he's 22 now.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he was diagnosed, the pediatrician said to me
[SPEAKER_00]: turned to me and he said, well, that's you, like it's so obviously you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think I think kind of suspected before then.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been doing ADHD training and actually when I was doing training in schools and colleges on ADHD at the time, I really related that to my son.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, oh yeah, he does that and he does that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think what really prompted me to get my diagnosis
[SPEAKER_00]: I started doing a lot more work online, and because of that, I started connecting with a lot of other neurodivergent people, but mainly women, and a lot of them weren't pursuing diagnosis for either autism or ADHD or both.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a few of my friends said to me, you know, nor are you clearly ADHD, like, you know, amazed that you haven't figured it out yet yourself, and especially considering the work that I was doing and even being an ADHD trainer,
[SPEAKER_00]: looking back now, I kind of wish I'd done it a lot earlier, actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that there is a lot that kind of came out in the processing of receiving that diagnosis that made me think, oh, I wish I've known before, but I think the other thing as well with my teaching, I've only ever worked in specialist education, so I've only ever worked with neurodivergent students
[SPEAKER_00]: teenagers that were near a divergent, I just felt so comfortable with them and they clearly felt really comfortable with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So again, looking back, I think that I could just really relate to them and they could obviously relate to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I think that's what grew me into working in that field and why I enjoyed it so much as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I feel like I've had a conversation with many teachers, especially who were drawn to neurodivergent kids that might have figured it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So how would you say your, I guess, idea or, you know, what your thoughts about autism and neurodivergence and ADHD have, how have they changed?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is that's such a huge question.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to rephrase that.
[SPEAKER_01]: compare for hours.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm just curious, like, are there any things that stand out to you in terms of how you relate to the kids or having that understanding about your own brain?
[SPEAKER_01]: Has it changed how you think about or relate to a specially kids?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that I think is a real ADHD tray is to have some really strong sense of justice and in justice as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: young people that other people have potentially written off and even in my school as a head teacher and especially school and and they're even in that setting there were certain young people that you know other staff are really challenging or they would accuse them of overreacting to situations and I think there was just this real sense of in me of like no no no no that's they're right like
[SPEAKER_00]: you aren't seeing it from their point of view.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think, and again, I'm probably going up the tangent here, but I think it's really common in neurodivergent women again, particularly ADHD women to have such a strong sense of empathy, like I'm so hyper empathetic as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that really helped me kind of like the way that my brain worked, mirrored, that a lot of the students I was working with, and I think that really helped,
[SPEAKER_00]: me to understand them, but also I can see so much of them in myself as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even with my son as well, I remember before he was diagnosed, I've gone collecting from school and I like so many parents, I'm sure that I've got children with ADHD.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was constantly being like called over by the teacher to be told about yet another misdemeanor that my son had like another heinous crime that
[SPEAKER_00]: What's wrong with that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I remember one looks off, I think I put it in the book about, you know, the teacher was complaining that he painted his shoes rather than the paper.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I say, well, that phrase is really creative.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, so he began into trouble for stuff at school.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'd be thinking, yeah, but I used to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, and I think that would make me quite frustrated as a parent.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think it also has an educator.
[SPEAKER_00]: it I really thought the cause of a lot of my young people that other people who said other teachers would maybe think that they would just be naughty or defy and all difficult.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I hope I've answered that question.
[SPEAKER_01]: I went off on a bit of a tangent there, but first of all tangents are always welcome here.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's also a sense of curiosity to neurodivergent
[SPEAKER_01]: people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I again, I feel like that's a sweeping generalization based on little to no official research just on my own observations.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think there's that, like you said, you know, rather than immediately scolding a child or scolding somebody for doing something the wrong way, it's more of a curiosity of like, huh, why would you do it that way, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's behind that?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that there's just tremendous curiosity in certain teachers, too, where it's like,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that I think is super helpful, you know, especially reading, you know, some of your work on PDA and just thinking a lot about PDA and my own history with a lot of, you know, walking that line, whether it would have been called PDA or ODD or what even diagnosed, well, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: But thinking a lot about kind of what's behind these behaviors as opposed to demoning them right or wrong, I think is big girl.
[SPEAKER_01]: And PDA, I guess for those who are uninitiated, I don't think we're going to talk much about it unless you want it, but it's pathological demand avoidance or as autistic adults have often called it pathological drive for a persistent drive for autonomy, which I prefer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, persistent old device of drive autonomy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm curious.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess one of the things I really related to in the book was the, uh, not being able to help yourself when you push the fire alarm, like, fascinating intersection of impulsivity and there's something else there.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not just impulsivity like we would talk about with like the impulse of spending, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: That was another section of the book I related very deeply to.
[SPEAKER_01]: but just there's such this like I can't help myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to touch the hot burner kind of kid right and there and I've certainly had those and I was one of those and I'm like there's something more than impulsivity there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's just that need to understand how things work right like that kind of minds that needs to take apart the toy car or whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you say it's a mixture of curiosity and
[SPEAKER_00]: It's impulsivity, but it's also in patients as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am, in some ways, I can be incredibly patient.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am really patient with the young people I work with, but at the same time, if I want to find out how something works, I want something.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to have it straight away.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really funny actually about the hot plate as well, because again, I didn't put this in the book, but I have such a strong memory of being a child and being in my dad's car.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he popped into a shock to get something
[SPEAKER_00]: and the car had a cigarette lighter in it, which seems crazy now that car had cigarette lighter and it was one of those ones that you pushed the button, like the round ones and it came out glowing orange hot and I thought, oh, I wonder what will happen if I press it and I can still remember the sensation of my thumb like hissing as it burned, but then not wanting to tell my dad
[SPEAKER_00]: how did you do that for?
[SPEAKER_00]: So when we drove home I had the window open a crack and I have my thumb out to the whole time so that the cold air would like cool my finger down or my thumb down.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah just like I mean I knew it was going to hurt like a new it was going to really burn but I just still had to test it myself to check that that was that was true.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I wonder if, again, based on no research whatsoever, but I wonder if there's something there about just needing to make sense of the world if there is a sense that a lot of the things we are being told don't make sense to us, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I wonder if there's like an additional drive to just understand how things work for ourselves because that feeling might be fleeting as a child.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like even the other day, I was talking to my husband about how,
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing my practice and placement right now for mental health counseling and it's like I just was so frustrated because everybody seems to have a different opinion than I do and I was like at some point when everybody is going left and I'm going right like who's incorrect, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like at what point do I admit that maybe I have I see things?
[SPEAKER_01]: wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was kind of talking to me about like, well, no, you see things differently.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what, but like he was kind of coaching me in a very gentle way.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I was so frustrated because I was like my whole idea of what was right and wrong felt rattled to the core.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think I don't know where I'm going with this.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think
[SPEAKER_01]: probably to RSD and how difficult it is to even describe RSD to people, even though I certainly know that I remember exactly where I was the very first time I heard it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it felt like it explained so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you do talk a lot about RSD in your book, which I feel like
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, it's like, how do you describe RSD to piece to somebody who's like not initiated because I like tell you were sort of like naming it with your friends who might get it right text somebody would be like, hey, my RSD is RSD and right now, but like how do I even describe that to somebody who has no clue what I'm talking about I don't know that you can I think it's like, you know, I'm saying the book that I have.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think for me, reading about RSD was the biggest light bulb moment of my kind of like diagnosis.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, and actually it's not even featured in our diagnostic kind of questionnaires or anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I do do ADHD assessments, and I always talk to the young person to try and sort of, you know, find out about how they react to potential triggers of RSD.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's not even criticism.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can just be feedback.
[SPEAKER_00]: brain telling you that you've done something right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a sense that you're constantly in trouble.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a sense that you've constantly done something wrong that you've upset people that if your phone rings and it's a number you don't recognize you think they're not going to be calling with good news.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to be calling me to say that I've done something wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a sense that if you call a friend and they don't answer straight away or they don't text you back
[SPEAKER_00]: you've upset them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for me, it triggers like an anxiety response in terms of like I feel sick that I get like really bad butterflies in my tummy, my brain will instantly catastrophize and I'll even even to the point that I will start inventing things that I might have
[SPEAKER_00]: part of my ADHD that is, well, it's the hardest part of my ADHD and I think in terms of managing it, I'm still such a work and progress with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it happened the other day like one of my best best friends who's also ADHD and she, you know, she live in it herself, she's terrible at like, replying to messages and calling back, but I've known for 30 years and
[SPEAKER_00]: and she wasn't replying.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so in my head I'm thinking, I've done something wrong, she's found out about something that I said or did.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've done nothing, but it's like your brain's lying to you constantly.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's horrible.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was actually picked up.
[SPEAKER_00]: So years ago when I was training to be a head teacher,
[SPEAKER_00]: course here called MPQH, which is National Professional Qualification for Headteachers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why had to headshot?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had a mentor who was really lovely.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they said to me, Laura, like I think there was 65 children in the school.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they said, Laura, you could have a meeting with all the parents in your school.
[SPEAKER_00]: And 64 parents would tell you that the school was amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: and one parent could tell you that they weren't entirely happy and you will fixate on that one teacher.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will disregard all the positive stuff that the 64 other people have said, and you'll just focus on the one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's absolutely right, completely right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and then I think about imposter syndrome, too, and how that connects, right, that negativity bias, that sort of uncontrollable negativity bias that, you know, I'm assuming it's, you know, I'm just trying to think about like what Radian, Hallowall, talk about the DM, and the
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all jumbling in my head right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just trying to think of like, what are the neurobiological reasons?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why we have such an intense negativity bias?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I sort of feel like there's just more dopamine when we're focusing on what's not working, then what's focusing on what is working and it feels like it has to be like a very active choice to think positively and because it's kind of boring, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but I also think it links back to when we're children.
[SPEAKER_00]: Children by the age of 12 have received 20,000 more negative comments than their neurotypical peers.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think how many of we received by the time we're 18 or 20 or 30, whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And going back to sort of education in school, you're told that a good student, the description of a good student is a student that is punctual and can focus and does their homework
[SPEAKER_00]: and stays in their desk.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of those things are just naturally really challenging when you have ADHD.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so even as a child, when you're trying to be good, you end up masking because if you can't be your authentic self, which means that you are gonna call out when you know the answer and you are gonna get up and wander around the room, because I mean, I can't even stand still when I clean my teeth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to walk about pace about all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then you've been told off for doing those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: As a child, it's kind of been drummed into you that being your natural authentic self means that you're not a good child.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you grow up thinking that you're not, you're not good enough to just be your authentic self.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as an adult, I think we've got these real preconceived ideas that we've been
[SPEAKER_00]: brainwashed into believing are true.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, you're right, apostasy and driminaristic are so interlinked.
[SPEAKER_00]: So going back to, you know, when I was a head teacher, particularly on this, this course I was doing, I just felt like the whole time I don't belong on this course.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't belong with these other adults that are
[SPEAKER_00]: meant to be here like these are all like had I mean I was an assistant head teacher at the time and this this course was full of other assistant heads and head teachers and I just thought yeah that they should be here they've got like you know they looked apart they they know what they're doing they they know the answers so I would go into every single kind of like meeting I
[SPEAKER_00]: feeling really, really anxious, feeling like I shouldn't be there, feeling like I was going to get found out, kicked off the course, and that I wasn't good enough, and I wrote in the book about when I had to phone up and find out whether I passed, and I sort of shouted, oh my god, it's like down the phone, and the woman was like, you sound really surprised, and I was like, well I am, like, I didn't think I was going to pass, and I was more than good enough, like I've been
[SPEAKER_00]: but it's horrible going into work every single day, thinking you're going to get caught out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes someone's actually going to march into my school and go, get out.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should be here, you shouldn't be doing this job.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then you must more because you're trying to cover up what you think are your inadequacies.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then not, you just can't be authentic in some of these settings.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just snobles, it just becomes a more and more kind of like intertwined.
[SPEAKER_01]: As you were speaking, I was thinking about the fact that I've been talking about and reading about this topic for five years now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I really struggle with this idea of being an expert, because I feel like oftentimes the more I learn, the less I understand, and I'm much more comfortable being the journalist, the question has occurred, because I feel like I still have so many questions, and I'm so envious of people who talk about themselves like they are experts.
[SPEAKER_01]: because I'm like, I don't know, I feel like there is no, nobody knows what they're talking about really, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I've like, there are so many times where I feel like the curtain gets pulled back and there's just, you know, 10 more questions that I have about what we're even talking about when it comes to our brains and behaviors and all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm often like, I don't even know what to call that because it doesn't necessarily feel like imposter syndrome, but it's almost like this, when you see the big picture a lot of the time with neurodivergence, when you are connecting a lot of dots and having a really difficult time, like I feel like I've talked about this on the podcast too with other guests, like how difficult it can be to have opinions in general.
[SPEAKER_01]: right especially about politics or you know current events or when I was the editor of my university newspaper at the hardest thing I ever had to do every week was to write an an op-ed column because I could not take a stand on anything I could I was constantly my own devil's advocate and I loved being a devil's advocate but also like had a really hard time
[SPEAKER_01]: ever feeling like I had arrived anywhere in terms of expertise.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sort of like, huh, what are what that's about?
[SPEAKER_01]: If it's if it is imposter syndrome or if there's something there about it's like the galaxy, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like the more you see the more it expands.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's just this never ends again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I totally agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think
[SPEAKER_00]: I've really feel like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like that about what first of all, I'm with the ADHD book.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know whether it's, again, whether it's a postus syndrome, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: What gave me the rights for this right, this book on ADHD?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I don't consider myself to be an expert or an ADHD.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm an expert.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not even an expert in myself, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I can't be an expert in ADHD.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think you're right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think with ADHD and with PDA that I was
[SPEAKER_00]: it's an insight into something which is so huge, it's a snapshot into my experience of something which, as you say, is enormous.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do also feel that with neurodiversity, we've become, I think it's getting better but we've got so much more to learn about it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's become very kind of like almost compartmentalized.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is what I really feel about the work that I do particularly the assessments as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we do an autism assessment and we do an ADHD assessment and we do the PDA assessment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually the work that we do, we try to look at the young person as a whole and make it much more holistic.
[SPEAKER_00]: But particularly with new adversity, I think we scratch the surface of what it is and what it isn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's so much more that we need to learn about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it needs to involve constantly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and I also think that it's become sort of trendy over the last few years.
[SPEAKER_01]: And with that trendiness comes this eye roll from a lot of people, which is this like stop talking about it, everybody thinks they have it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I often wonder some of the researchers or clinicians who have been in the trenches for 20, 30 years what they think of the recent,
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, surge in adult diagnoses, especially if they're like, finally, yes, we've been saying this all the long, or if they're just saying, like, oh gosh, now, you know, as this doing damage to the field of research, it almost reminds me of like New York neighborhoods, like the minute you move to a New York neighborhood, anyone who moves there after you has made it uncool.
[SPEAKER_01]: But like, there are people who have lived there for, you know, 80 years and are, you know, the people who created that neighborhood, but there's this sense of, I think there's even a word for it if anybody knows what it is where it's like the minute you arrive at something, it starts diminishing, and it's value starts diminishing, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm curious, like, how do you think, what do you think about this, you know, the last five years this climate of adult diagnoses, especially around self-diagnosis, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I agree with you self-diagnosis, I think, is valid.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I also feel like it comes with a big, kind of clinical I roll a lot of the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it does, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: On, on, on, I'm going to describe it in a book
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also talk about in the book about how I almost had like imposter syndrome about my diagnosis as well, because I expected people to have exactly the reaction that you describe that I role of like, oh, yeah, another one, you know, because I got I had that with my son, so when my son was diagnosed, certainly family members.
[SPEAKER_00]: and also some of my friends were like, really, like, don't all boys behave like that sometimes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I, that really upset me because it really undermined the difficulties that James was having.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, for myself is what I didn't tell everyone straight away.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't do like a big sort of fanfare announcement.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was quite cautious about who I told.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, I'm not saying it doesn't happen,
[SPEAKER_00]: pursue a diagnosis unless they thought that they weren't neurodivergent.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just don't, you know, I think if you, why would you do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's not a badge of honor.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it is even trendy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's who you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think in terms of sort of research and kind of the clinical aspect of it, I think we have a focused,
[SPEAKER_00]: ADHD and autism present.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's this kind of feeling that it's looking at like how boys present, but I've worked with boys males that don't even fit in that mold.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think also the description is too narrow.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for example, the fact that RSD is not looked into as part of the diagnostic kind of assessment process.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously you can experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: a level of RSD and not be neurodivergent, but the fact that it's estimated that 98, 99% of people with ADHD experience there, but it's not included in the diagnostics, so the tests and questionnaires, never think that's just one example.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think I think the way that we assess needs to be really boredomed, and it's also, I think, so many girls are being missed as well,
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, people that pick up on ADHD, so for example, going back to teachers, you know, a lot of the families that I work with will contact me and say, my child's teacher, usually the son, my son's teacher has suggested that I contact you to explore potential diagnosis.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of the time the way that girls present with ADHD, because teachers don't understand that it can present very differently, they're not picking up on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I personally obviously think it's brilliant,
[SPEAKER_00]: women are now able to get a diagnosis.
[SPEAKER_00]: The most important reason is about understanding yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, an understanding that we're saying right at the beginning that you're not weird, that you're not is nothing wrong with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You just have a brain that works differently.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that it was so well said.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really appreciate it because it is something I have a difficult time articulating.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it comes back to that level of curiosity that we were talking about earlier, which was, you know, I've had so many parents come to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't assess or diagnose, but I was like, I have parents who come to me who say my daughter thinks she has ADHD.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think she does.
[SPEAKER_01]: She does great in school.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's very social.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what she's talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think she's just getting ideas from TikTok.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, I don't hear any curiosity in your voice.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've come to me with already all these reasons why you don't think she meets your idea of what ADHD looks like.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you ask her why she thinks she has ADHD?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's the first question.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you relating to?
[SPEAKER_01]: And is she getting good grades, but at what cost, that's the other question is, you know, is she exhausted at the end of the day, you know, and all of the like starting to have those conversations about like, why do you like you said, you know, why is it that you feel a diagnosis would help brain.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is it you're relating to that is like what are these struggles that so many times as women we don't even realize we're entitled to call it a struggle because it's been so normalized in terms of our experience as women as mothers as girls like a lot of the times like I remember when I was first diagnosed there was just that like that rolling grief of like I didn't even realize how much I was struggling until I
[SPEAKER_01]: was able, like, a gave myself permission to say, yes, I was struggling.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just thought everybody was good at this.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I just thought that like this was an a problem that everybody encountered.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody else just knew how to solve it and I didn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was like, no, no, actually, this is something completely different.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know where I was going with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I think it's again, that curiosity of like, why are they researching it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do they
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, in terms of broadening the assessments, what do you think that would even look like?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I know find the find the ADHD girls dot org.
[SPEAKER_01]: They want every girl.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think every girl at the age of seven in the US that their goal is to have every girl just to like kind of do an assessment to get a sense before they're even really struggling.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are some of those early markers where I'm like, that sounds like cool that I was curious for you with the emotional element to what would that look like?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, that sounds amazing to be able to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I would love eventually, and I don't know whether we could we'll ever get to this point.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really hope we do is that, you know, we're so much better now in terms of accepting people's sexuality, and people's gender, like, you know, it's people know who they are in terms of their sexuality.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it might take them a while to sort of to figure it out,
[SPEAKER_00]: but there's no test assessment to work out if what your sexuality is.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would love for us to be able to have a society where we're just as accepting of people's neurotype.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if you think you're neurodivergent and actually I actually preferred to tell people that I'm neurodivergent rather than saying I made HD and autistic.
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
[SPEAKER_00]: I always think, in terms of my new era type, I definitely have a really strong autistic traits, as well as, and I don't have an autism diagnosis, but I really identify as, and it's really interesting that when I got my ADHD diagnosis, it was like it peeled off the layers, and then because I could be more authentic in terms of my ADHD, like, it was like, my autism kind of rose to the surface of that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I definitely have a much stronger ADHD profile, if you like, than an autism profile.
[SPEAKER_00]: To me, I don't, you know, I don't want to have to say, well, I'm, I'm diagnosed ADHD, but I do also have autistic traits, you know, and I don't actually believe that even, you know, I should just say, I'm autistic as well, because I sort of brilliant posts just to actually that you can't be a little bit pregnant, you're either pregnant or you're not safe, you're autistic, you're autistic, so for me, I just want to be able to say to people, I'm neurodivergent, I shouldn't have to explain what
[SPEAKER_00]: my neurotype is made up of.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in terms of broadening, I think the only way we can do that is to stop the compartmentalization or the silo effect of like, you know, the UK, you have to, as an adult, you have in most places you have an ADHD assessment and then you have an autism assessment all the other way around, but they're very separate and they shouldn't be.
[SPEAKER_00]: We should be looking in assessment terms,
[SPEAKER_00]: at a much broader picture and then looking at all the other things that come into that as well, like, you know, you could also be OCD or you could have Tourette and all these things we need to be like looking at a much broader picture of the person.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I think the other thing that needs to happen in terms of assessment is that, you know, here you get your diagnosis and that's it,
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of support that is then put in place.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what I think would be great is if, you know, there was a way of like assessing girls at seven, which sounds incredible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Isn't it shouldn't then?
[SPEAKER_00]: Shouldn't end there?
[SPEAKER_00]: It shouldn't be like, okay, these are the girls that have got ADHD and these are the girls that haven't.
[SPEAKER_00]: It should be like these girls have had ADHD and we recognize that this girl
[SPEAKER_00]: really struggles with her self esteem and feelings of like not be good enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then that should then trigger additional support for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she doesn't carry on down that road and then becomes an adult that still has low self esteem and then definitely develop like that imposter syndrome and that RSD which can be so debilitating and it can impact on so many areas of your life as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's where I start to get really muddled, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Gosh, I can't even remember where this metaphor comes from.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you familiar with the orchid and the dandelion analogy for children?
[SPEAKER_01]: Where it's like there's sort of two types of children.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's the orchid, which is highly sensitive and, you know, needs a lot of individualized attention and goes at their own pace, but it goes against the grain.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's the dandelion.
[SPEAKER_01]: child who you can plot anywhere, and they're fine, and they're resilient, and you hand them to anybody, they're fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's kind of how I've understood the brain, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: In terms of the spectrum of the work into the Dandelion, and how I've kind of started understanding even just neurodivergence, which is like,
[SPEAKER_01]: is a neurodivergent brain because I'm very similar to you with diagnosed with ADHD and then as the more I understood and the more I kind of unmasked, I started relating much more to the autism information but haven't sought a formal diagnosis mostly as I've said many times on this podcast because I'm terrified that the clinician is going to say no and then I'm going to be like, well now what?
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, and then I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to do with that information.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why am I so, like, I think it's because my husband, when I had my children diagnosed, I, you know, I was diagnosed by my nurse practitioner who's a psych NP, felt very confident with the diagnosis, but I felt like, did I fool her, like you were saying at the bar call?
[SPEAKER_01]: Did I somehow fool her into diagnosing me?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when I wanted to get my children diagnosed, we went through a full cycle valve ever, you know, with a private company, I wanted to make sure I did it right.
[SPEAKER_01]: They both got ADHD diagnoses.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then my husband just kind of flippantly one day was like, well, sure, you know, you pay somebody enough money, they'll give you whatever diagnosis you want.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, that now lives in my brain rent free forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and so it's sort of like your damned if you do in your damned if you don't if I find somebody who will diagnose me I will believe that I've paid them to diagnose me right and so then I'm kind of like I'm not ready and then I'm like why am I even pathologizing this?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know that I go down that whole realm it like where I'm like where are we even diagnosing this at all and Gosh that tangent totally derailed my thought wait, where were we talking about now?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't even remember.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, I'm sure it'll pop that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You said I'd love that too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right talking about the like I used to try to chase thoughts and one of the nice things about ADHD is now I'm like, yeah, it'll come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, this is what I just want to put it's like the vapor, the vapor that like goes into your brain.
[SPEAKER_00]: It swirls around for me and you've got like a few or some of my castes just started to join us and it swirls around in your brain.
[SPEAKER_00]: You just got a few seconds to grab it and to capture and then if it doesn't come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just spent hours like trying to catch it and like I definitely had a really good thought there and yeah, I do all the time and that's why we interrupt the time because I know that if I don't say what I want to say sometimes I think that's a pretty decent really good point and I'll
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to say, I need to say, because I know that if I don't say, I'll just go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know, well, when I first started the podcast, I would just write things down, like I type them as, so I so is not to interrupt and often times I'll go back and look at that and be like, I have no idea what that was in reference to that I just typed out.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, what the other thing I loved in your book was when you referred to your brain as like the washing machine head that which I related to it immediately thought of all the lost socks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god, my washing the washing is a disaster in this house.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, there was so many that I have a basket upstairs, which is full of all socks and just random things that need repairing and all just need chucking out, but there's so many of socks.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't understand what happens to them all, so my husband's always minding about me for treating the socks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, one of the things I've opted now that I'm working with teenagers in my practical and internship for the next year, you know, one of the things I felt like I was gonna swoop in and have all of this knowledge about neurodivergence and I was going to spot the ADHD because, you know, working in like with high-risk kids, I was like, it's gotta be everywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we're gonna, we're talking about self-harm and eating disorders and I'm like, there has gotta be undiagnosed neurodivergence everywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things I've, it's been a rude awakening.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think for a lot of reasons, I think just working with non-nerodivergent affirming therapists has been really difficult and even sort of naming what that is and isn't and what kind of techniques are working and aren't working has been really interesting to parse.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm, I'm finding a lot of the kids who are diagnosed with ADHD already, because a lot of them are
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they talk about it like it's this terrible thing that they have and like they've caught this illness and it's sort of this reason why they can't do anything and they're very kind of flip about it and dismissive and I sense, I don't know, I just sense this already in such a young person, this sense of hopelessness, you know, I wish.
[SPEAKER_01]: for their sake that we took a much more strength-based approach to working with ADHD.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's what I was the point I was trying to get to earlier with like parsing between the dandelion and the orchid and like how, you know, if we lived in a perfect society,
[SPEAKER_01]: where our brains were able to flourish and we were able to kind of name the supports that we needed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Would we even have ADHD?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, would we even certainly would we wouldn't be pathologized with any kind of disorder?
[SPEAKER_01]: But like, that's where it gets muddled for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where I'm like, would we even have ADHD?
[SPEAKER_01]: Would we just be autistic?
[SPEAKER_01]: Would we just be neurodivergent?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: But one thing that really bothers me with these kids is how often I hear them talking about their own ADHD in such kind of deflated, like, oh, I'm just such a fuck up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like even I thought maybe if they knew earlier, things would be better and it doesn't feel like it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, first of all, I guess the assessments are quite deficit-based.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if they've been part of the assessment, they're going to be answering questions probably about all the things that they find really challenging.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the assessment can be quite a negative process, if you're just constantly being asked to report on the things that you struggle with.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm very aware of that when we send our reports back after assessment, we explain in there that they have to be deficit-based.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to write about the stuff that they find difficult.
[SPEAKER_00]: for them to meet criteria, but with a meal or to try and put lots of positives in the report, but I think again, it comes back to, I think you're absolutely right, you know, there are certain environments that I can be in now as an adult, that now that I have more autonomy, but there are certain environments where I can be truly authentic and there are certain that environment includes the people that are in it, so there are certain times when I feel that
[SPEAKER_00]: my ADHD doesn't impact me anyway, because I can just be totally unmasked.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can be completely authentic.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody will judge me for that or look down on me for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think particularly for children, there probably aren't many environments for a lot of those children where they can be completely authentic, where they can, you know, go back to education and not just
[SPEAKER_00]: a son that can be being negative about education, not because I'm very passionate about education, but there was a lot of environments where children are told, ADHD children are told, you know, they're being too loud, they need to stop moving around that they think they're a fuck up because they've been judged against, a standard that is just naturally really difficult to attain when you have ADHD, you know, if the if the attainments were changed and and we were
[SPEAKER_00]: ability to think outside the box and be creative and care for other people and just a different level of different type of standards that we're judging children by.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then they're not going to think that they're less than other people around them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I guess also comes back to your point as well, how parents respond to their diagnosis as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if the parents are responding to the
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if they're positive about it, so like I had a friend that messaged me in the day to say, finally got my ADHD diagnosis, I was like, well, congratulations.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's amazing, but not everybody has that mindset, you know, they might see it as a negative to be diagnosed with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that also needs to change.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do need to focus.
[SPEAKER_00]: So one of the things that I do when I work with young people, I always tell them on neurodivergence.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also try and find people that they will respect and respond, probably positively to who are also neurodivergent for them to be able to see that it can be a really positive thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say that I've achieved so many really positive things in my life because of my ADHD, not despite it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a mindset isn't it?
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess there's lots of
[SPEAKER_00]: facets to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not simple, but yeah, I don't want any child or adult ever to feel the receiving a diagnosis is negative.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it has to be seen as a positive, but then it's what you do after that diagnosis as well, which is so important.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and I feel for overwhelmed and overworked teachers as well, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it feels like individual, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I feel like individual attention is often so integral to understanding neurodivergent support and that's just impossible for
[SPEAKER_01]: large swaths of especially younger classrooms.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know how they deal with that, you know, but just that idea, like you said, if a child is being, this assumption that a child is being disruptive out of some kind of malice, you know, or that that's punishable behavior just feels to me so completely wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: But again, I don't know what you're supposed to do in those moments when you have to make snap judgments really quickly as a teacher.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't
[SPEAKER_01]: I just thank them for their service.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, they're amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I've just been saying that with my son, he went to a really lovely preschool.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was almost like a sort of forest school.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was just nursery and it was like, they were constantly outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he would get to nursery and they would put them in these like, what proof overalls.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he was three, they,
[SPEAKER_00]: called me in and they said we're actually going to put James in the class with the older children because his language is so good and he's like physically he's keeping up with them and he was so happy in that nursery and you know it was an incredible environment for him and then within a few weeks of him starting at his school, his primary school I was called in and it was like he just
[SPEAKER_00]: his like own little carpet space he has to sit on this like square on the carpet.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, you know what, I don't think I've ever forced James to sit still that to me prove that there was nothing wrong with James, but the environment was wrong for him, like as soon as that environment changed and he wasn't allowed to just run around and, you know, he didn't even have to eat his lunch at a table, he could like run around eating snacks and stuff, but then you go to school and it's like you have to sit at a desk, you have to sit on the carpet, you have to sit, you have to food because you have to concentrate.
[SPEAKER_00]: and all of those things are just so difficult when you have ADHD, but I also do sympathize for teachers because they've got often 30 other children in the class.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, they'll say, well, I've got 30 other children, I can't just have one child wandering around on their own.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really difficult, really difficult for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, one of the things in the book that I felt like it was a sentiment that was repeated by a lot of the women in your book was masking is exhausting and I think that's another thing that's kind of difficult to even explain to ourselves until we have the language of a diagnosis and adulthood, which is like, why am I exhausted all the time?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like not really understanding like I don't feel like I'm running around that much.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't feel like I'm doing that much.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, I remember very early on after my diagnosis.
[SPEAKER_01]: My therapist's telling me that it's
[SPEAKER_01]: that feeling of like you have you know been walking around with a brick tied to your ankle your whole life and you didn't realize it and and I think there was some of that definitely that feeling of like needing to catch up but also I think it literally is just masking.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just that holding it together in your little carpet spot all day long that leads to
[SPEAKER_01]: that unraveling right of that like I just am so exhausted or you know I've called it like with my kids at school I call it white knuckling to right the way that they just fall apart the emotionally at the minute they come home.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it really is true, like I'm just curious if you, is your book is such a wonderful primer for somebody who has just been diagnosed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's some really great tips in there for just like, how do you begin to start unmasking and what's the first thing?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to think of like, what are the first things I did to really make that feeling of exhaustion
[SPEAKER_00]: But like, what does unmasking feel like to you first of all, I have to recognize when I was doing it and then when I realized when I was doing it, I realized I was doing it so much like, you know, professionally, I would.
[SPEAKER_00]: pretend, not, yeah, pretend there was something that I wasn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you're not only masking, but you've also got the imposter syndrome as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like a double whammy of like, I've got pretend to be this person because I'm not actually good enough to do it as me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think one of the things that's been really important to me is finding people that I can be really authentic
[SPEAKER_00]: advocating for myself better so I don't put myself in situations where I know I'm going to have to march.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't actually put this in the book because it happened not that long ago just at the beginning of the year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was speaking at a conference quite a long way from home.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to stay in a hotel and it was a conference for senior leaders in education and they invited
[SPEAKER_00]: So of course, ADHD, oh, yeah, I'll go, and then they sent me the menus and I chose my food and then I spent hours deliberating about what's to wear because I can't just pack.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to plan it all out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I wasn't nervous about my talk.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was very happy doing the presentation and then went up to my room and I could just feel the anxiety start to creep up and up and up.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then the people pleasing kicks in.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, no, I've told them I'm going to be there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've chosen my food and I don't want to upset anybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I went downstairs to go into this dinner and I was literally met by a sea of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I stood there on my own, no one spoke to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stood there on my own for about three or four minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I just thought, I'm not doing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to go in that room.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to, I'll have to sit with people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I will have to perform all night.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll have to be the professional Laura.
[SPEAKER_00]: I won't be able to just be me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't be authentic.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't be kind of like, I can't be the sort of person that I would be if I was sat with my husband or my family or my friends where I can be Laura.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just went and found somebody and I just said, I'm really sorry, I've changed my mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't, I don't want to go in the room and have the dinner.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the other thing was, is there was like a quiz and I was like, oh my God, it's just going to be awful.
[SPEAKER_00]: I ended up eating on my own in a room in this hotel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I was, I went to bed and I thought, I'm so glad that I did that.
[SPEAKER_00]: the confidence to actually self advocate and say, no, I'm not doing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the thing is it's it's still a work in progress because what I need to learn to do is the next time I get the invite is to say no at that point.
[SPEAKER_00]: You constantly learning on the, but in terms of masking, you have to learn to be authentic.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did a book launch in London the week the book came out
[SPEAKER_00]: It was so important to me that I was authentic at that book launch.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, my mum recently died and I've really struggled with her loss.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been the hardest thing I've ever been through.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had to tell people at the start of the launch.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to, and I had to think my mum as well because my mum was clearly ADHD, which has become even more apparent since she died because we've found about
[SPEAKER_00]: 100 pairs of shoes, and this is November and July.
[SPEAKER_00]: We found a full dinner service in a wheelbarrow in the garden like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's so many, my mum was so ADHD and actually, I don't give to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've inherited so many of her characterists as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: All amazing, my mum was an incredible woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wanted to thank my mum and I have to be authentic.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to say to people at this
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't stand up here tonight in a room full of neurodivergent women who you're all ADHD, you're probably all really empathetic.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to stand at the front of the room and pretend that I am okay because I'm not and I had the most beautiful reaction to that and I did I cried, you know, I stood in front of this room with all these people and I cried and
[SPEAKER_00]: There are other women crying in the audience and then I have people coming up to me at the end saying thank you for allowing us to be so authentic like you know you being so authentic, you know, allowed us to feel that we were in a really authentic environment and I just think that's so important and so empowering to be able to do that so I think, you know, if you do feel that you're
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can recognize when you're masking, I think if you can recognize where you're doing it, who you're doing it with, why you're doing it, not just the impact of that, but the reasons that it's happening and try and find ways to remove yourself from that environment.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's that is just so important to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the other thing that I've learned as well,
[SPEAKER_00]: is that when I have advocated for myself like that, it's quite scary when you first start doing it, but that people are usually far more respectful of that than if you mask and your behavior then has maybe negative impact, because for example, if I study that book launch,
[SPEAKER_00]: and masked my way through the night and pretended that I'm okay, well, I'm not.
[SPEAKER_00]: People would have picked up on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: People would have thought, okay, why, why, you know, she's not, she's not being herself or, you know, if I had gone to that dinner, for example, I think probably if I'm really honest about how I would have coped in that situation socially, I probably would have had a few drinks and then I would have been myself up after
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, you probably acted a bit drunk or you, that's not very professional.
[SPEAKER_00]: So every time I have advocated for myself and allowed myself to, on the mask, the impact of it, 99% that time has been really, really positive compared to the long term effect of of masking and not being authentically
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and even just thinking of you standing up there at the podium, crying, he right, it's such a beautiful, vulnerable moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sorry for your loss, but I also feel like what a gift to your nervous system to be able to kind of be safe and in that release around.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's why being around other neurodivergent people feels so
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, comfortable because it really is that it's that unmasking, but I think it's also, it's like we speak this language or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't Again, hard to describe, but I think there is something that it really feels like we're somehow telling our nervous systems that we are safe and that you know, like thinking about just distressed tolerance and and that ability to really kind of say like, yeah, I'm going to cry in this moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to be authentic.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what I'm going to do and that's fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, what I often say to myself too, when I'm struggling with like those that feeling of like, yeah, no, this is not happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I might have in the past pushed through is, you know, now I tell myself, you're modeling boundaries.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good for you modeling boundaries.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that is, again, thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a beautiful way of describing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the listeners of this podcast will be,
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a gift to them to hear your descriptions of it and as I said earlier, your book is such a wonderful delight and I'm so glad it's out there in the world and I hope women who have just been diagnosed and are thinking now what oh my goodness, I've got washing machine head.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, can it can sit down with it and have some of those just that validating grounding moments.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just it's just it's wonderful.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think, you know, if you needed a reason for why me, why did I write this book?
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I have at least can join the chorus of thank you so that you, you're distinct way of putting it out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That means so there,
[SPEAKER_00]: It's quite scary putting a book out there, particularly when you have crippling our esteem at times and then post a syndrome, and I'm like, oh, I'm going to go the op-pad review, you know, because not everyone's going to like it, but again, I'm focusing on the fact that if one person, if one person reads this book, and it makes them feel better about themselves, then it's been a million percent worth doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you for joining me, Laura.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been a real pleasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for having me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, just to recap.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we didn't talk about past.
[SPEAKER_01]: I apologize.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will talk.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will give people links to it, which is your, your day job at, um, past is, uh, where is it?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is, well, positive assessment, the support and training.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'll have a link to that website there and to your Instagram.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there anywhere else that people can reach out and find you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a very busy Facebook page.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, great.
[SPEAKER_00]: You just put in, I think you just put in positive assessment, support and training, past and it will come up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can send you the link if you need me to send it to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I already have it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll make sure, so it'll be in the show notes for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, wonderful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thanks again.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been a real pleasure chatting with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll start about the cat as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, what a welcome guest.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's beautiful.
[SPEAKER_00]: He does want to get involved.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's shitty.
[SPEAKER_01]: There you have it!
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening and I really hope you enjoyed this episode of The Women and ADHD Podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you'd like to find out more about me and my coaching programs, head over to women and ADHD.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're a woman who is diagnosed with ADHD and you'd like to apply to be a guest on this podcast, visit women and ADHD.com slash podcast guest and you can find that link in the episode's showdowns.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, you know we ADHD are great feedback.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would really appreciate hearing from you, the listener.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please take a moment to leave me a review on Apple Podcasts or audible.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if that feels like too much and I totally get it, please just take a few seconds right now to give me a five-star rating.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or share this episode on your own social media to help reach more women who
[SPEAKER_01]: maybe have yet to discover and lean into this gift of neurodivergency and they may be struggling and they don't even know why.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll see you next time when I interview another amazing woman who discovered she's not lazy or crazy or broken but she has ADHD and she's now on the path to understanding her neurodivergent mind and finally using this gift to her advantage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Take care till then!