Speaker 1: Just to note this episode does contain course language.
Speaker 2: The night before I was done, I was done with
Speaker 2: my life.
Speaker 3: I was like, you know what fucked this.
Speaker 2: That I hadn't slept.
Speaker 4: So I was like, you know what, I'm either going
Speaker 4: to fucking drive off a cliff or I'm going to
Speaker 4: go and rob a bank.
Speaker 3: And so I robbed the bank.
Speaker 1: This is Ricky twenty years ago. He committed a violent crime,
Speaker 1: a crime that for most of us is unthinkable.
Speaker 4: I went into the bank, I discharged the firearm in
Speaker 4: the bank.
Speaker 2: In a vertical position.
Speaker 4: I demanded a bunch of money. I was so dumb
Speaker 4: and so stupid. The Task Forces Task Force Norkan got
Speaker 4: on me, predicuickly. I took them for a massive case
Speaker 4: around the sortland, trying to obeye them.
Speaker 3: Finally came to in my neighborhood.
Speaker 4: I had a lot of armed police officers on me,
Speaker 4: ready to blow my head off for.
Speaker 2: A very scary, scary situation. I was taken and I
Speaker 2: was thrown in mount Eden for the weekend.
Speaker 4: It was the worst day of my life going into
Speaker 4: Mounting because I had not I had not committed any prime.
Speaker 4: I worked as a shift you know, globally I was qualified,
Speaker 4: you know, So.
Speaker 2: It's just not it's a very out of character.
Speaker 1: When you said you were stupid and it was darne,
Speaker 1: and yes it was, but also you were desperate, you
Speaker 1: were at the end.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I was Gelda.
Speaker 1: I'm Sonia Gray and this is no such thing as normal.
Speaker 1: Series two, I'm diving into the complex and fascinating world
Speaker 1: of neurodiversity. I'm not an expert, but my daughter is
Speaker 1: neurodivergent and a few years ago I was diagnosed with ADHD.
Speaker 1: In this series, you'll hear from experts and from many
Speaker 1: wonderful people who experience the world in a unique way.
Speaker 1: We're looking at neurodiversity from the inside. The intersection between
Speaker 1: neurodivergence and the criminal justice system is not well understood,
Speaker 1: but the actual stats are alarming. Those with ADHD or
Speaker 1: dyslexia are approximately five times as likely to be incarcerated
Speaker 1: at some point in their lives. But then those same
Speaker 1: neurotypes are also more likely to be successful entrepreneurs and CEOs.
Speaker 1: So what is it about different cognition that means you
Speaker 1: have a better chance of becoming a billionaire and a
Speaker 1: better chance of ending up behind bars? Where is the
Speaker 1: four in the Road. In this episode, we're looking at
Speaker 1: how and why some individuals like Ricky end up on
Speaker 1: the wrong path.
Speaker 5: Mm hmmm, all right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Ricky's focus right now is his role as stay at
Speaker 1: home dad to us two boys aged one and three,
Speaker 1: financially work. It's a job he takes very seriously.
Speaker 3: You know, you're responsible for the building of a brain here.
Speaker 4: You know, our children are our polder man, and I've
Speaker 4: definitely been blessed to beautiful sons, and they are part
Speaker 4: of my purpose. You know, I've been seeking my purpose
Speaker 4: for for a while and I look at them and.
Speaker 3: It's it's pretty amazing. You know.
Speaker 4: I do have to practice that, that gratitude for where
Speaker 4: I'm at. Man, I just you know, I've gone from
Speaker 4: some fucking really dark shit to being in a position
Speaker 4: where I can I can get I can put my
Speaker 4: kid on the bike and I can ride him down
Speaker 4: to the beach, I can ride him down to the park,
Speaker 4: and you.
Speaker 3: Know, I can take him for a walk after dinner.
Speaker 4: And then I give thanks to that, you know, because
Speaker 4: I've had a lot of hard work in my own
Speaker 4: way to do that, and honoring my wife and the
Speaker 4: work that she does to have that comfortable space for us.
Speaker 1: Ricky is forty two now. He's articulate, a deep thinker,
Speaker 1: and passionate about making a difference, which is why he's
Speaker 1: agreed to talk openly and honestly about a time in
Speaker 1: his life he'd rather forget. The crime was serious, and
Speaker 1: Ricky deeply regrets it, but he's keen for people to
Speaker 1: know the why, what happened to get him to that place.
Speaker 1: He believes a big factor was his undiagnosed ADHD, and
Speaker 1: there were clues from an early age.
Speaker 2: Very very very intense.
Speaker 4: I remember being hyper aware of, you know, my footprint,
Speaker 4: and I would be told, are you sensitive? And if
Speaker 4: you focus on this, you're going to give yourself a context.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, like at eight, like you don't even know.
Speaker 3: What a fucking complex is.
Speaker 2: And so it's even it's adding fuel to the fire
Speaker 2: more now it's like, you know.
Speaker 4: We can't quite figure out how to make things consistent
Speaker 4: for you, but we know something's wrong.
Speaker 1: Like many with ADHD, Ricky feels the world intensely. Rejection
Speaker 1: sensitive dysphoria or RISD is innate to the ADHD experience,
Speaker 1: but it's still not officially part of the diagnostic criteria,
Speaker 1: so it's not always taken seriously. RSD describes the intense
Speaker 1: emotional and physical pain that adhd is feel when they're
Speaker 1: rejected or criticized.
Speaker 6: It hurts a lot.
Speaker 1: The response can be shut down withdrawal, anger, and incredibly
Speaker 1: low self esteem. When Ricky's psychiatrist explained rejection sensitive dysphoria,
Speaker 1: it was a light bulb moment for him.
Speaker 4: Finally something, Finally someone who understands. It's not something that
Speaker 4: you can just switch off.
Speaker 3: Fuck.
Speaker 2: If I could switch it off, i'd be great, you know.
Speaker 4: But then again, I wouldn't want to be one of
Speaker 4: those shocks or outfits that just went along in life
Speaker 4: and just didn't give a fuck about anyone's feelings or
Speaker 4: what anyone said.
Speaker 1: Looking back at your school experience, what was it like?
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you fit it in?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: Not at all.
Speaker 2: I never fit in at school.
Speaker 3: Never.
Speaker 4: School was not easy for me. I went to numerous
Speaker 4: schools inter media. In college, I was very on the outside.
Speaker 4: I could never be involved in a.
Speaker 3: Group at an environment.
Speaker 2: It was very overwhelming for me.
Speaker 4: So it was easier for me just to remove myself
Speaker 4: from anything like that.
Speaker 2: I found it very, very hard.
Speaker 4: To focus because this is so self conscious and self aware.
Speaker 1: Ricky left school at fifteen, but he sent me a
Speaker 1: school reports for the five years before that and reading
Speaker 1: them it's pretty bleak. Lax discipline, immature class behavior, a
Speaker 1: very disruptive influence on the rest of the class, easily distracted,
Speaker 1: must learn to work quietly, must learn to listen to instructions.
Speaker 1: Poor results are of his own making, and it goes on.
Speaker 1: There's one positive comment, he's very interested in how people think,
Speaker 1: feel and act, but apart from that, there's not much encouragement.
Speaker 1: ADHD is often called the school to prison pipeline because
Speaker 1: for many school is a place you're constantly reminded that
Speaker 1: you're different. Research shows that by the time they're twelve,
Speaker 1: boys with ADHD have received twenty thousand more critical or
Speaker 1: negative messages than those without ADHD. Antoin Ashcroft is a
Speaker 1: forensic psychologist. He works worth and studies people who break
Speaker 1: the law, and Anton says it's the early years of
Speaker 1: school that can be the most damaging.
Speaker 6: That's where our social identity gets set.
Speaker 7: So you can imagine what it would be like if
Speaker 7: you're seen in a classroom as being disruptive and interruptive
Speaker 7: of others and fighting people to get what you want,
Speaker 7: and that label will stick. And then from that label
Speaker 7: comes your whole sense. It's called schema. You set up
Speaker 7: your schema about yourself, the world, and other people. And
Speaker 7: from that young age, if you say well, I am
Speaker 7: weird and odd, other people that can't be trusted and
Speaker 7: the world is dangerous, that then stays with you for
Speaker 7: the pretty much the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: It takes a long time. Is it possible to erase
Speaker 1: the tape?
Speaker 6: It is.
Speaker 7: We develop scripts and we can change those scripts, but
Speaker 7: we have to go through a process of unlearning the
Speaker 7: first scripts and learning some new scripts. And initially, if
Speaker 7: you imagine that the old script a script is a
Speaker 7: bit like a motorway. You go down that script so
Speaker 7: so easily, and your new script is perhaps trying to
Speaker 7: go to a narrow thicket with loads of bushes and things,
Speaker 7: and you're pushing through and it's really effortful. But over
Speaker 7: a period of time, if you maintain that effort with support,
Speaker 7: that thicket starts to get brushed down, it gets wider,
Speaker 7: and then it starts to compete with the motorway. So
Speaker 7: you then have a choice. But it's very rare for
Speaker 7: that script to just suddenly flip.
Speaker 1: Enton's helped to flip some of the toughest scripts. He
Speaker 1: worked as a forensic psychologist in prisons for many years,
Speaker 1: and his approach was to look beyond the offenses and
Speaker 1: find the positive quality of those behind bars.
Speaker 7: Approximately eighty percent of the people that I was working
Speaker 7: with in prison, I would say were good people. They
Speaker 7: were people who had had a tough life or a
Speaker 7: tougher environment, or a history of trauma or undiagnosed neurodiversity
Speaker 7: of some sort. Really didn't know how to manage that
Speaker 7: because it got overwhelmed and in prison approximately fifty percent,
Speaker 7: but the research varies anywhere from like thirty up to
Speaker 7: seventy five. Eighty percent would have an undiagnosed or die
Speaker 7: even diagnosed ADHD condition.
Speaker 1: Anon says the rates of dyslexia are very high too,
Speaker 1: but of course having a cognitive difference is not a
Speaker 1: prerequisite for prison. Most people with ADHD or dyslexia never
Speaker 1: intercept with the criminal justice system. In fact, we know
Speaker 1: that these types of brains are the innovators, the change makers.
Speaker 1: So where is the fork in the road, What might
Speaker 1: send someone down the wrong path. I'm imagining that there
Speaker 1: are other layers. So if there's another layer of adverse childhood,
Speaker 1: of ments or trauma, you're upping the likelihood immensely. Like
Speaker 1: anecdotally do you find there's a mix of the two.
Speaker 7: That always and the risk factors are things like a
Speaker 7: history of abuse, experience of trauma, and as you rightly say, collectively,
Speaker 7: they increase the risk. And likewise you can have the opposite.
Speaker 7: So if you've got a supportive family, if you've got
Speaker 7: a pro social identity, if you've got empathy, if you
Speaker 7: experience guilt rather than shame, all of these things are
Speaker 7: protective factors which can reduce the risk.
Speaker 1: Of course, socioeconomic status and race have a huge part
Speaker 1: to play too. Ricky Seys he always had complex feelings
Speaker 1: about his racial background growing up, and he now recognizes
Speaker 1: the impact of intergenerational trauma within his FARNO. These all
Speaker 1: contributed to the feeling that he was just different, wrong
Speaker 1: other and in his early twenties, Ricky broke.
Speaker 3: Just like, oh my god, who am I?
Speaker 4: I hate myself on a piece of shit, you know,
Speaker 4: Like I spiraled down and got worse and worse. I
Speaker 4: found myself smoking copious amounts of cannabis, and then from cannabis,
Speaker 4: it just went on to drinking every day. And then
Speaker 4: I was involving myself around family members.
Speaker 2: That were on hard drugs and then found obviously from meth, and.
Speaker 4: That took me, took my life on a whole different
Speaker 4: trajectory around a lot of the underclass around Auckland, and
Speaker 4: you know, I found myself going in.
Speaker 2: A van and you know, just like doing anything.
Speaker 4: To get money, you know, like it could be stealing
Speaker 4: copper or just I can being a rascal and just
Speaker 4: doing unsavory things to feed the habit.
Speaker 1: In his early twenties, Ricky was in a bad way.
Speaker 1: He was addicted to myth and his self worth was
Speaker 1: rock bottom.
Speaker 4: I was desperate to remove myself from an environment that
Speaker 4: I couldn't navigate. I didn't have any support networks. I
Speaker 4: didn't know how to create them, just trying to call
Speaker 4: out for help through services and stuff that were like
Speaker 4: your too hard basket, has some fucking antidepressants because we
Speaker 4: don't know what to do, you know, okay, a couple
Speaker 4: of respites.
Speaker 2: I just couldn't quite figure it out. All I knew
Speaker 2: is that if I was to get like.
Speaker 3: You know, if I.
Speaker 4: Could just get high, I could alleviate my sufferings.
Speaker 2: Right, It was not to be social.
Speaker 3: It wasn't to go.
Speaker 4: Off and I can go and party and be with
Speaker 4: other light minded individuals. It was for me to go
Speaker 4: back to my space and engage in more savory activities
Speaker 4: like reading, like studying, and like music.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about that, because that's something you mentioned
Speaker 1: when we spoke on the phone, and I think that's
Speaker 1: really important about the experience of taking drugs for you.
Speaker 4: It would go week to week for me, so around
Speaker 4: the Wednesday and Thursdays when I actually had money or
Speaker 4: managed to flip something off.
Speaker 3: You know, if I.
Speaker 4: Couldn't get anything super strong, I would spend any money
Speaker 4: I had on party pills twenty years ago, you know,
Speaker 4: and very very very strong ones, and then take very
Speaker 4: very dangerous amounts of them. And what that would do
Speaker 4: would slow me down.
Speaker 1: These might have slowed Ricky down at the time, but
Speaker 1: the long term effects were catish, strophic, and it's a
Speaker 1: very real problem in al Taora. There's local research from
Speaker 1: a few years ago that shows those with ADHD are
Speaker 1: three times as likely to have a substance use disorder,
Speaker 1: but early treatment with ADHD, medication brings the risk right
Speaker 1: down in line with the rest of the population. I
Speaker 1: ask Anton Ashcroft for his take. Why are ADHD in
Speaker 1: substance abuse so closely connected.
Speaker 7: I mean, it's common for ADHD brains to seek that
Speaker 7: immediate hit. So you can take drugs to normalize your brain,
Speaker 7: and you can also take drugs to excite your brain,
Speaker 7: and ADHD brains often do both. Neurotypical will take beth
Speaker 7: because it makes them feel ten foot tall and bulletproof,
Speaker 7: and they can often feel a lot more confident and
Speaker 7: words come out much more freely. But for ADHD brains
Speaker 7: absolutely It's the same with coffee that if you have
Speaker 7: a stereotypical physiological response to still mulants, they actually calm
Speaker 7: you down. I've got linear thinking. I can focus my thinking.
Speaker 7: I can pay attention to things for a longer period
Speaker 7: of time. Yeah, I feel my God, is this how
Speaker 7: normal people feel?
Speaker 4: When I managed to get my hand on stimulance, you
Speaker 4: know I was able to be in my space, I'd
Speaker 4: be calmer, I'd be able to communicate calmly.
Speaker 1: So what you said, well, while other people get this
Speaker 1: kind of you foreign feeling, you.
Speaker 2: Just felt normal that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: You felt like like just relief almost, Like is it
Speaker 1: what you're saying?
Speaker 4: Like just peace, alleviation of the symptoms, peace, be able
Speaker 4: to be comfortable in one space as opposed to needing
Speaker 4: to get up and move from place to place with
Speaker 4: no direction, looking for something that I had no idea
Speaker 4: I was looking for. And you know, I'd go and
Speaker 4: I'd try to connect and communicate of anyone that I
Speaker 4: could when I was under the influence, just to sort
Speaker 4: of emotionally connect with someone to be able to explain
Speaker 4: what was going on. So I would spiral down, and
Speaker 4: it was because I couldn't articulate or explain what was
Speaker 4: going on, Like I couldn't go to a doctor at
Speaker 4: that time and go, hey, I'll tell you what does
Speaker 4: fucking work? Some of those party pills are as central
Speaker 4: nervous stimulants.
Speaker 2: That gives me baseline, Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: And that's the predicament many people find themselves in. They
Speaker 1: turn to illicit substances to self medicate, unaware or unable
Speaker 1: to access other treatment options. Ricky was sure there must
Speaker 1: be something legal that could give them clarity because the
Speaker 1: illegal drugs were rea can have it in so many
Speaker 1: other ways.
Speaker 4: I'd find myself staying at these respite places like Pathways
Speaker 4: for three days, and you know, I'll be describe things
Speaker 4: like antipsychotics. And it was three days of being able
Speaker 4: to be off the road, you know, out of my
Speaker 4: own way, a chance to stop for three days, eat properly,
Speaker 4: sleep properly, take com medication properly.
Speaker 2: And they were like three to five days at a time.
Speaker 2: And I'd been right after that.
Speaker 1: But a brief respite at Pathways was not a long
Speaker 1: term solution. As soon as Ricky was out, the vicious
Speaker 1: cycle would begin again.
Speaker 2: You know, I had no friends.
Speaker 4: I was unkempt and didn't look after themself, you know,
Speaker 4: looking at myself back then, I think I looked at
Speaker 4: my my mug shots and I just and I looked
Speaker 4: like a demon.
Speaker 2: I was just like, well, there's no salvation for me.
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna do this because if I do this,
Speaker 4: I'm definitely going to get caught.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go to prison. Man, maybe I should
Speaker 2: be in prison.
Speaker 1: And so on a Friday morning in September two thousand
Speaker 1: and five, Ricky was high on drugs, but at his
Speaker 1: lowest point, he walked into a bank in East Auckland
Speaker 1: carrying a pistol. He fired a shot in the air,
Speaker 1: and he demanded money from the bank teller. What followed
Speaker 1: was a dramatic police chase and a dramatic arrest.
Speaker 4: I literally picked myself in prison because I didn't know,
Speaker 4: like rest, fite and stuff wasn't working for me for
Speaker 4: three days at a time.
Speaker 2: I needed somewhere where I could find.
Speaker 4: That regime, where I could access study and basically have
Speaker 4: my decisions made for me for two years or what
Speaker 4: was for two years ultimately, but I actually felt empowered
Speaker 4: by the idea of having my decisions made for me
Speaker 4: for an unknown amount of time, because, you know, because
Speaker 4: I needed their help.
Speaker 7: I've worked with quite a few offenders who have said
Speaker 7: exactly the same. They were broken outside, so they effectively
Speaker 7: got caught so that they could spend some time in
Speaker 7: a more structured, predictable and not drug free because drugs
Speaker 7: are prevalent in prison, but limited access to.
Speaker 1: Drugs, and interestingly, we look at prison as a deterrent.
Speaker 1: But as you say, some of them are like, well,
Speaker 1: that's where.
Speaker 7: This is what I'm used to, this is what I know.
Speaker 7: Bring it on and actually to connect with someone and
Speaker 7: have some nourishment and feel as though there's a value
Speaker 7: and a purpose to you and your life. That's way
Speaker 7: more powerful.
Speaker 1: You said, I made a choice that I just regret
Speaker 1: about the burglary, And I thought, was it really a choice?
Speaker 1: I know that you have to be accountable and all
Speaker 1: that stuff, But did you have a choice or was
Speaker 1: it almost inevitable? Was it like was just turning and
Speaker 1: that was what was going to happen. Yeah, there's this
Speaker 1: narrative like people know right from wrong, we have to
Speaker 1: have tougher consequences. I think we're coming at this the
Speaker 1: wrong way, like, oh, let's be tougher. It's beyond that
Speaker 1: for many people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because if you've lost respect for yourself, care and
Speaker 4: kindness and love and compassions all out the window. So
Speaker 4: I definitely see it as a inevitable flow on to
Speaker 4: something from accountability perspective, it's quite hard for me to
Speaker 4: say that it wasn't a choice, But I totally see
Speaker 4: what you're saying.
Speaker 1: I guess if we want to look at how we
Speaker 1: can help, there's not this kind of continual cycle. The
Speaker 1: answer is not tougher consequences.
Speaker 4: No, Yeah, definitely, I totally agree with the answer is
Speaker 4: not tougher, tougher consequences because if you think.
Speaker 1: About the rates of recivitism, the rates of recidivism are
Speaker 1: high for all offenders, but particularly for Maori and those
Speaker 1: with substance use disorder. The odds were stacked against Treky,
Speaker 1: but he defied them, and learning about his ADHD brain
Speaker 1: has helped the process. What led you to getting an
Speaker 1: ADHD assessment? Initially, yeah, I have ADHD come into the
Speaker 1: picture for you.
Speaker 4: I had just had a career change from hospitality to
Speaker 4: community services, and I found myself just completely completely exhausted.
Speaker 4: People said to me just before my son was born, Oh,
Speaker 4: you know, that's that's normal, and I said, no, this
Speaker 4: doesn't feel normal because I've moved from hospitality where I'm
Speaker 4: on my feet twelve hours a day. You know, I
Speaker 4: can look after nine tables in a casino restaurant section.
Speaker 3: This is like, this is not normal.
Speaker 1: Ricky's new job was as a caseworker in the disability sector.
Speaker 1: The face to face part of the job was where
Speaker 1: he thrived, but the ADMONDT tasks, the systems, the timelines,
Speaker 1: the deadlines, they were his undoing.
Speaker 4: I was experiencing anxiety and disorganization within this role in
Speaker 4: a way that I'd never quite like, I'd never experienced
Speaker 4: it before. A slip trip and over myself, calling over myself.
Speaker 4: I was finding at the end of the day, I
Speaker 4: was just like I was cooked and I was done.
Speaker 4: It didn't feel normal, you know. And I'd go back
Speaker 4: to work the next day and I'd literally just.
Speaker 3: Experience this paralysis.
Speaker 4: When I went to do my content creation for the day,
Speaker 4: I was like, oh no, you know, am I depressed?
Speaker 4: I didn't see well, you know, he got depressed. You know,
Speaker 4: life's moving pretty good. It was just very very strange.
Speaker 4: It's not going to end well. You know, I'm going
Speaker 4: to end up unemployed and unable to hack it in
Speaker 4: the workforce.
Speaker 1: The executive function challenges at work were one thing, but
Speaker 1: the struggle extended to the rest of his life too.
Speaker 4: I just felt so numb and so like in my
Speaker 4: own like I felt like this person in like a
Speaker 4: perspects prison looking at his own world but couldn't get
Speaker 4: out of that perspect's box, if that makes sense. You
Speaker 4: know that that hyper awenness and self consciousness.
Speaker 3: That was very, very hard. And then I came back to.
Speaker 4: Remembering how integrated I felt when I.
Speaker 3: Was using any sort of central nervous stimulants from you know.
Speaker 4: Years ago, drugs speed speedy type pearls up as basically, and.
Speaker 3: That had always been baseline for me.
Speaker 1: Ricky and his wife were living in Melbourne at the time.
Speaker 1: Unlike New Zealand, the cost isn't prohibitive and the waitlists
Speaker 1: aren't as long, but getting an assessment was still challenging.
Speaker 4: I I had to push.
Speaker 3: I talked to my GP.
Speaker 8: He referred me to a localized apiatrist and he gave
Speaker 8: me the d IVA test And when I kind of
Speaker 8: glanced at it and I was like, ah, great, you
Speaker 8: know this is this is not me.
Speaker 4: You know, maybe I'm just creating another drama, another issue
Speaker 4: for me, or you know, maybe I'm being a hyper contract. However,
Speaker 4: after I had the assessment done, my doctor was just
Speaker 4: absolutely adamant that had ADHD since since a child, and
Speaker 4: his diagnosis and how he articulated it made me realize
Speaker 4: at that point it has look honestly, Sonya has taken
Speaker 4: me a few times. At times I've looked over it
Speaker 4: and had to question it for myself, and sometimes I
Speaker 4: you know, the symptoms is just so bad, and I
Speaker 4: allowed myself to believe that I was ADHD. The journey
Speaker 4: of understanding it and realizing it is quite empowering because.
Speaker 9: The idea of ADHD for myself grown up and many
Speaker 9: others that share my background, ADHD was translated in a
Speaker 9: way something completely different to what it actually is and
Speaker 9: what it is for so many people.
Speaker 1: Getting a diagnosis is sadly still a privilege. But even then,
Speaker 1: the diagnosis is just the beginning. Now that you know
Speaker 1: about the ADHD and all the stuff that goes with it,
Speaker 1: like the extra sensitivity. Do you think you're hard on yourself?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, definitely, and it fuck you're beating yourself up
Speaker 4: about it because you know, like you know, you don't
Speaker 4: want to, but it's just the way that the wiring's there. Like,
Speaker 4: I know, I'm packing being hard on myself. I don't
Speaker 4: go into that environment going you know, don't overthink it, man,
Speaker 4: don't ever think you're okay.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of undoing.
Speaker 1: But you know, exnditioning. And you know you said to
Speaker 1: me that I can't remember your exact wording, but you
Speaker 1: always felt different. And so their tape, that tape has
Speaker 1: been playing your whole life, So it's not going to
Speaker 1: change overnight. When you finally took the ADHD meds, how
Speaker 1: did you feel?
Speaker 4: I felt more present, more energetic, more confident in my
Speaker 4: resolve to do things. And it's been a gradual process
Speaker 4: in terms of social engagement, because that was the big
Speaker 4: growth edge for me, is like why am I this way?
Speaker 4: And why is my brain fucking going hey? Why every
Speaker 4: time I'm in a social situation, awesome, beautiful life going on,
Speaker 4: But sometimes I just can't.
Speaker 2: I can't feel it, Like I'm just so numb.
Speaker 3: I'm looking at it and it's all around me, but
Speaker 3: I can't. I can't feel it.
Speaker 4: And so with the assistance of medication and when it's
Speaker 4: optimum and I am doing everything that needs to be done,
Speaker 4: on top of that, I'm more present and I'm.
Speaker 3: Able to invite a level of.
Speaker 4: Calm and oneness with anything that I'm doing and where
Speaker 4: I'm at, you know.
Speaker 1: So yeah, ultimately, the mets have been great for Ricky.
Speaker 1: He was self medicating for years with illegal drugs and
Speaker 1: they tore his life apart. But ADHD in New Zealand
Speaker 1: says methamphetamine can actually be easier to access than prescription
Speaker 1: mets for ADHD. They also say that early diagnosis and
Speaker 1: treatment do protect against substance abuse as an adult. But
Speaker 1: if you don't know you have ADHD, you don't have
Speaker 1: access to the safe prescription medication.
Speaker 3: This is why you're fucking so bad for you.
Speaker 4: Our pieza that have got in that space, you know,
Speaker 4: that have got a long way to go for seeking
Speaker 4: diagnosis now they require the support in this list life
Speaker 4: changing medication.
Speaker 3: And just the toiling and the burden that many have
Speaker 3: to go go go through without that.
Speaker 4: And that's that's why it's such a beautiful thing of
Speaker 4: what you're doing raising awareness because you know what you
Speaker 4: see it every day.
Speaker 3: You know nice thing it too.
Speaker 1: Man, it's hard to imagine that Ricky, this charming kind
Speaker 1: father of two, was once a drug edit who robbed
Speaker 1: a banque at gunpoint. And that's why hearing his story
Speaker 1: is so important. Ricky reached a fork in the road
Speaker 1: and tried desperately to take the right path, but everything
Speaker 1: was working against him.
Speaker 4: You know, men that are in rehab facilities and going
Speaker 4: into prison, much like myself once upon a time, just
Speaker 4: didn't know where and how.
Speaker 2: To access the help that they needed.
Speaker 4: They don't know where to go and how to succeed
Speaker 4: treatment because of the stigma you know behind that like
Speaker 4: you know, if you're told that you might as well
Speaker 4: be dismissed and I can taken out, you know, that's
Speaker 4: where where these people are supposed to go for that
Speaker 4: support and advocacy.
Speaker 3: For me from twenty years ago, my story, I found.
Speaker 4: It very very hard to access that think that was
Speaker 4: based on so many complex views of myself at stage,
Speaker 4: and I think.
Speaker 2: That that's still a very real.
Speaker 4: Thing for you know many and what it must look
Speaker 4: like for those young people now is it must be so,
Speaker 4: it must be hard.
Speaker 1: It must be very hard. So what can be done
Speaker 1: into an aircraft? Thinks we need to change our.
Speaker 7: Approach thinking about it logically, if you've got an ADHD brain,
Speaker 7: we know that ADHD brains respond way more to reward
Speaker 7: than they do to punishment. And because a lot of
Speaker 7: the ADHD is also have a long history of punishment,
Speaker 7: punishment becomes less and less punishing the more you experience it,
Speaker 7: of course, so to put and they've done it with
Speaker 7: youth offending centers, you know, having these places that they
Speaker 7: send young offenders to to teach them the right and
Speaker 7: wrong and make it more rigid and almost like a
Speaker 7: boot camp situation. And the research says every time it's
Speaker 7: been changed, it's categorically.
Speaker 6: Not helpful because you're in again, I know.
Speaker 7: But because what you're basically doing is you're punishing people
Speaker 7: for things they already know they're doing badly. What you
Speaker 7: need to do is reward people for things that they
Speaker 7: could be doing well and as soon as you see it,
Speaker 7: to enhance it and nourish it and allow it to blossom.
Speaker 6: And boot camps don't do that.
Speaker 1: Anton is not saying there should be no culpability. And
Speaker 1: of course when there's a crime, there are victims and
Speaker 1: they must always stay part of the conversation, but ultimately
Speaker 1: we want less victims. Antin believes that real change can
Speaker 1: only come when we understand the underlying reasons for the wrongdoing.
Speaker 1: He's always searched for connection with the offenders he works with,
Speaker 1: and this is where he thrives.
Speaker 7: When I was younger, not now, but when I was younger,
Speaker 7: I used to say, give me the most complicated, challenging
Speaker 7: people you can give me.
Speaker 6: Because I want to find a way in.
Speaker 7: And probably maybe seventy eighty percent of the time there
Speaker 7: was always a way in because there was some humanity
Speaker 7: sitting underneath the anger and the pain and the hurt.
Speaker 7: And when you can start to talk to someone in
Speaker 7: a way that gradually you build the rapport because you're
Speaker 7: listening to them. You're not challenging them or trying to
Speaker 7: change them. It's just trying to help understand for them
Speaker 7: to understand themselves. Really, but when you are working in
Speaker 7: that way, it's really hard. If someone is really empathic
Speaker 7: and really warm towards you, it's quite hard to be resistant.
Speaker 7: Just for me to start off by saying, thanks for coming,
Speaker 7: really appreciate it. You don't want to be here, do you? No,
Speaker 7: I don't want to be here, And it's like we've
Speaker 7: now got an agreement. We've immediately got a sense of
Speaker 7: being on the same page. And so for me, when
Speaker 7: I work with people, I see it, well, most of
Speaker 7: the time, I see a good person who's done a
Speaker 7: bad thing, and they've done that thing for some reason,
Speaker 7: there is a functionality to that behavior. Almost everyone that
Speaker 7: I work with have amazing strengths, So why don't we
Speaker 7: help them maximize their strengths rather than effectively punish them
Speaker 7: for areas that are real challenges? Because the more you
Speaker 7: say to someone, and we do it in work, you
Speaker 7: put people in work and you interview them for their strengths,
Speaker 7: and then when you do continuing professional development, you focus
Speaker 7: on what they're not good at. And the more you
Speaker 7: focus on something that people aren't good at, the more
Speaker 7: stress they experience. What we're essentially saying to people is
Speaker 7: in order to succeed, you have to not be you.
Speaker 7: And how wrong is that?
Speaker 1: A line we often hear around crime is everyone knows
Speaker 1: right from wrong. But what if you've always been told
Speaker 1: that you are wrong? Then surely the lines between good
Speaker 1: and bad and right and wrong get Bluey Ricky is
Speaker 1: on the right side now and he's enjoying life with
Speaker 1: a young family. But I wonder, with all that he's
Speaker 1: been through, can he finally embrace his unique brain.
Speaker 4: I'm welcoming all this beautiful, positive, bright energy into my
Speaker 4: life and getting all this this gold because I've spent
Speaker 4: too much time in my life not not hearing that,
Speaker 4: not listening to it.
Speaker 3: Once you find it, and then you know, you.
Speaker 4: Find the balance. Just superficial things they will fall off.
Speaker 4: You know, there's things that you feel like you can't
Speaker 4: let go of. They will fall off. I've always been
Speaker 4: ultimately passionate about where men are, you know, particularly in
Speaker 4: the prison system back home, and I think that's yeah,
Speaker 4: I man, I'm proud to be you know, one of
Speaker 4: the what I what I think is one of the bros,
Speaker 4: one of the trailblazers that that cares and will care,
Speaker 4: you know, about our people. And it's going to take
Speaker 4: a while, you know, it'll take a while and take
Speaker 4: different circles, different groups.
Speaker 3: Different, one thing is different.
Speaker 4: Who is it's all going to it's it's a journey,
Speaker 4: beach and every one of us, you know, all of us.
Speaker 1: We've spoken a few times, and the thing that has
Speaker 1: struck me is your complete dedication to fatherhood.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: And I just think that your kids are so lucky
Speaker 1: and just even you know, he's seeing you with them
Speaker 1: and they are your priority. Like that's so beautiful.
Speaker 4: I'm very very proud of that. And it's really like
Speaker 4: I thank you for seeing it. It's lovely to be.
Speaker 3: Seen next time.
Speaker 1: I no such thing as normal.
Speaker 5: As a dad.
Speaker 10: It's your role, like it's ingrained in you to be
Speaker 10: a provider and a protector for your family. And when
Speaker 10: your boy is non verbal and he can't tell you
Speaker 10: what's wrong. You can't help but feel like a failure
Speaker 10: sometimes because you can't give them what they need.
Speaker 1: If you like this podcast, please rate and review it.
Speaker 1: It helps people find it. No Such Thing as Normal
Speaker 1: is produced and presented by me Sonia Gray. The editor
Speaker 1: is Jamie Lee Smith. Arwen O'Connor and Mitchell Hawkes are
Speaker 1: executive producers. You can find us on Instagram at No
Speaker 1: Such Thing as Normal Podcast. The series is brought to
Speaker 1: you by the New Zealand Herald and Team Uniform and
Speaker 1: it's made with the support of New Zealand on Air.
Speaker 1: New episodes of No Such Thing As Normal are available
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.