Speaker 1: Just a note, this episode does contain explicit language.
Speaker 2: I make plans and change them all the time. I
Speaker 2: can't sit still and told my house is clean. I
Speaker 2: unsubscribe to things and then realize I need them, and
Speaker 2: then subscribe to them. Keep on deleting Facebook. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm so erradical and impulsive.
Speaker 1: Anika Moore singer, songwriter, broadcaster, podcaster and mum of four.
Speaker 1: She's a national treasure with a diagnosis of ADHD.
Speaker 2: My ADHD is fifteen thousand voices in my head all day,
Speaker 2: every day. I have so many ideas in my head,
Speaker 2: but I can't execute them. So that's why I have
Speaker 2: a manager. But I don't have a manager because I'm
Speaker 2: out of impulse.
Speaker 1: I'm diving into the complex and fascinating world of neurodiversity.
Speaker 1: I'm not an expert, but my daughter is neurodivergent. A
Speaker 1: few years ago, I was diagnosed ADHD. In this series,
Speaker 1: you'll hear from experts and from many wonderful people who
Speaker 1: experienced the world in a unique way. We're looking at
Speaker 1: neurodiversity from the inside Calder. I'm Sonia Gray, and this
Speaker 1: is no such thing as normal. Series two. In this episode,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at late discovery ADHD. What is going on?
Speaker 1: Why are so many adults queuing up to get the
Speaker 1: tick for a disorder? Is it really ADHD or an
Speaker 1: excuse for unreliability, impulsivity, bitter laziness A Nika Moore and
Speaker 1: I were both diagnosed with ADHD as adults. We both
Speaker 1: had mental health battles along the way to get there.
Speaker 1: And now she's come to my fadde to talk about
Speaker 1: her brain and fun fact, Annika sang at my wedding
Speaker 1: twelve years.
Speaker 2: Ago, wollas love, which was true with you because you
Speaker 2: were still together. Maybe I was the tongue.
Speaker 1: She actually was the tongue a star on our wedding day.
Speaker 1: One of the songs she sang was Dolly Parton's I
Speaker 1: Will Always Love You, the one made famous by Whitney Houston,
Speaker 1: and she sang it better than Dolly or Whitney, And
Speaker 1: I thought, imagine being that talented, she must be so fulfilled.
Speaker 1: So I want to know, how could you be unhappy
Speaker 1: when you have those gifts?
Speaker 2: Because I have ADHD and it's not good enough for me.
Speaker 2: You know, if I'm singing and I sing a bum, no,
Speaker 2: I parnish myself all night long. That's how much I
Speaker 2: want to be the best at my job. When I
Speaker 2: was doing any kind of and I don't know I
Speaker 2: said the wrong thing or offended someone, I beat myself
Speaker 2: up because I want to be the best and I
Speaker 2: don't want to hurt people, and I want to be
Speaker 2: seen as really intelligent and really onto it. You know,
Speaker 2: we can look at each other from the outside and
Speaker 2: I go, song, it is amazing. She was on short Street.
Speaker 2: She's an amazing actor.
Speaker 1: She was on Shortland Street.
Speaker 2: Street's amazing. Don't bomb that shit, man.
Speaker 1: I love Shortland Street. But it was twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: I know, and I don't watch it really, but I
Speaker 2: fucking totalk all those bustards. What I say, Bustards, you
Speaker 2: said it with love, though, and you do so many
Speaker 2: creative things. You've got your neuroda thing MERGINGI over there
Speaker 2: and I see that greatness. I see how incredible you are.
Speaker 2: But I also know the tum or you'll be going
Speaker 2: on inside you because I have that, and that's what
Speaker 2: pushes us.
Speaker 1: Effort is central to the ADHD experience, but that effort
Speaker 1: is very rarely seen. We just look like walking contradictions,
Speaker 1: need for speed, but always late, sensitive to rejection, but
Speaker 1: always blurting things out.
Speaker 2: I say things that I don't mean all the time
Speaker 2: because my brain's worring and I can't stop talking, so
Speaker 2: I just go, oh, you're fat, you know, or you know,
Speaker 2: like I'm like Paul Henry but a tongue of vision.
Speaker 2: I would never call someone fat, you know. I'm so
Speaker 2: erradical and impulsive. But the beauty of it is I'm creative.
Speaker 2: I'm such a quick thinker, and I can do the
Speaker 2: job that you and I do. I just quick, quick, quick, quick, quick.
Speaker 1: How did you get to the whole diagnosis thing.
Speaker 2: I've seeing a therapist. I've been through a lot of
Speaker 2: therapists because because you get so bored with them. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm fixed now, And they're like, are you sure you've
Speaker 2: only had two sessions?
Speaker 1: No, I'm fixed.
Speaker 2: I finally found a therapist, a psychologist, a mardy woman
Speaker 2: who understands me. But anyway, where I was going through
Speaker 2: a couple counseling, marriage counseling, don't and I said, I
Speaker 2: think I've got ADHD because my brother's got it, my
Speaker 2: mother's got it, We've all got it. And he I
Speaker 2: did the test and I was like, here a high achiever.
Speaker 2: Then I ignored it for two years like you did,
Speaker 2: and now here we are talking about it. And I
Speaker 2: find talking about it so intriguing because you realize you're
Speaker 2: not alone, you realize that you're not I don't know,
Speaker 2: You're not a beast. So I'm very brutally honest. And
Speaker 2: that's why I struggle in relationships, because I find it
Speaker 2: hard to mask, to lie. I've been married and divorced
Speaker 2: twice for it. Luckily, I've got a partner who sees
Speaker 2: my neuro diversity as I don't know, like a learning process.
Speaker 2: And I'm not judged. And I'm not saying any of
Speaker 2: my past lovers judged me. I guess they just didn't
Speaker 2: understand because I wasn't diagnosed, and I couldn't explain to
Speaker 2: them I was feeling.
Speaker 1: You didn't know.
Speaker 2: I didn't know. I had bouts of anger, like not
Speaker 2: beating people up, anger, but fucking furious anger, and I
Speaker 2: didn't understand why. And now I don't. I'm mellow, I
Speaker 2: am so gentle, but back then I was a ball
Speaker 2: of rage. I just because you go through all this turmoil,
Speaker 2: What am I? Why am I this way? Why am
Speaker 2: I failing in life? Where in fact, you're not failing
Speaker 2: in life. You're amazing and you do amazing things, but
Speaker 2: you be something missing and that's your diagnosis.
Speaker 1: The diagnosis gives you the why, but you still have
Speaker 1: the same head and it's still chaos in there. I
Speaker 1: sort of describe it as having too many taps open.
Speaker 1: There's so many taps open. There should be a priority
Speaker 1: heading above some of them, but the priority heading is
Speaker 1: above the ones that aren't important, and them you try
Speaker 1: and shift to those important ones, but it's just for
Speaker 1: some reason you can't. And it's this, it's this internal
Speaker 1: fight all the time.
Speaker 2: May it's internal fight. And I know with neuro typical
Speaker 2: they just do one thing. They just can wake up
Speaker 2: and do the thing. I know, And I'm like, how
Speaker 2: do you do the thing without doing the other things?
Speaker 2: Until you do the thing? Because right now my most
Speaker 2: important thing is to what am I doing? I have
Speaker 2: to ensure my car. If I don't ensure it, and
Speaker 2: Warren fit is it, it's I'm going to get in
Speaker 2: trouble and ticket it. Do you think I've done it
Speaker 2: in the last month? No, you know, I've done all
Speaker 2: the other things.
Speaker 1: We should do it now?
Speaker 2: No? No, no, why no?
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 1: Why do we sabotage ourselves? Do you know? I think
Speaker 1: I know. I'm going to answer my question because if
Speaker 1: it was just a matter of going, I want to
Speaker 1: ensure it send done. But there's all these steps. Yep,
Speaker 1: there's step one, then there's this random other step. Then
Speaker 1: you've got to talk to somebody. Then you've got to
Speaker 1: make a decision do I want to ensure it with
Speaker 1: that much or that much? And then it's like it's
Speaker 1: too hard. Why is it too hard? How do not
Speaker 1: adhds do the thing, the most important thing without doing
Speaker 1: the other things. Alex Campbell is an ADHD coach. He's
Speaker 1: also an adhder, and he has one of the clearest
Speaker 1: explanations for this that I've ever heard.
Speaker 3: The default for our brains is interest, not importance. This
Speaker 3: is one of the key differentiations between someone who's an
Speaker 3: ADHD and someone who isn't. We have brains wired for interest.
Speaker 3: This means that we are entirely motivated by an emotional
Speaker 3: response because interest is emotion. Importance is not so emotionally charged, right,
Speaker 3: It's more sort of thought led, Like paying a utility
Speaker 3: bill is not that interesting until you've had five utility bills.
Speaker 3: Come from the door and the last one hasn't read.
Speaker 3: We're going to reclaim your sofa if you don't pay,
Speaker 3: and I go and then I pay it because suddenly
Speaker 3: there's now anxiety attached to the bill, and that anxiety
Speaker 3: is interesting. That in interest, right, interest is both positive
Speaker 3: and negative, so is urgency doing things last minute that's
Speaker 3: interesting to us. Interest is simply fuel. It's not a
Speaker 3: moral thing. People go, oh, well, if your care, if
Speaker 3: you're interested or no no interest, is a fuel. It's
Speaker 3: like a fuel mechanism. We have a different fuel mechanism.
Speaker 3: And if I don't understand my difference is I essentially
Speaker 3: live on a diet of anxiety an urgency as a
Speaker 3: way to sort of muddle on through life.
Speaker 1: So many with ADHD do muddle through life only doing
Speaker 1: things like text returns. When the urgency is so great
Speaker 1: it becomes interesting. This is a stressful way to live,
Speaker 1: and it's frustrating for others who need punctuality and order
Speaker 1: or just a response to their email.
Speaker 4: Do you do the.
Speaker 2: Don't reply to emails for a week because you don't
Speaker 2: want to talk twenty one and then you've got an
Speaker 2: hour where you want to email everybody and then you
Speaker 2: don't want to talk to anyone, and you're annoyed that
Speaker 2: people have emailed you back straight away.
Speaker 1: Because then you have to Yeah, emails are I've got
Speaker 1: forty six thousand unread emails. Yeah? Yeah, Actually you do
Speaker 1: want to.
Speaker 2: Say they like from people or bots?
Speaker 1: Well, some of it's online shopping things, A lot of
Speaker 1: it's online shopping, but yeah, from people, because I just go,
Speaker 1: I'll get to that. Yeah. For some reason, I haven't
Speaker 1: actually learnt that I won't. I still think that somehow
Speaker 1: I will get I'm going to. I want to prove
Speaker 1: it to you. I'll show you that I can't because
Speaker 1: I've got so many tabs open I can't find the
Speaker 1: right one. A thousand tabs open, but can't find the emails,
Speaker 1: let alone reply to them. I take my overloaded inbox
Speaker 1: problem to coach Alex. What is it about emails? Because
Speaker 1: that's one of my things I struggle with, And I
Speaker 1: try and now be really cognizant of what I'm feeling
Speaker 1: and what the resistance is to do the email.
Speaker 3: A lot of like rules that we live by, lots
Speaker 3: of kind of should I should or I must be
Speaker 3: able to do insert whatever it is that's based on
Speaker 3: very neurotypical ideas, sort of like I should just be
Speaker 3: able to get through all my emails because everybody else can,
Speaker 3: when actually there's quite a lot going on in the
Speaker 3: brain that helps you to figure out how to prioritize
Speaker 3: emails to respond to first.
Speaker 1: This comes back to executive function, doesn't it?
Speaker 3: A lot of we've been talking, So whenever I talk
Speaker 3: about effort, I am referring to a part of an
Speaker 3: executive function process.
Speaker 1: Can you explain what executive function is for those that
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 3: Yes, So, executive functions are essentially the brain's management system,
Speaker 3: and it's featured just behind your forehead in the prefrontal cortex.
Speaker 3: And remember this executive functioning is fueled by interest.
Speaker 1: Right listening, I get it. Executive functioning is complicated. A
Speaker 1: researcher in the US has broken it down into six parts.
Speaker 1: These include activation, emotion, and effort. We'll put details to
Speaker 1: this in the show notes because it's really helpful. Alex is,
Speaker 1: when you're finding it hard to do a task, identifying
Speaker 1: what part of executive functioning you're struggling with is the key.
Speaker 3: When I coach individuals. This is part of what I
Speaker 3: call the ADHD lens getting people to understand how their
Speaker 3: executive functioning plays out in different scenarios and situations, because
Speaker 3: it starts to remove blame. This isn't I can't do this,
Speaker 3: it's oh, I'm now realizing that I've got this management system,
Speaker 3: and in different situations, I'm now sort of starting to
Speaker 3: check in with is this an activation thing or is it? No,
Speaker 3: I got into the task, I'm started, but I know
Speaker 3: I'm really actually like, it was really effable to keep
Speaker 3: going with it. So it wasn't the start bit, it
Speaker 3: was the maintaining of it. That's helpful. Yeah, because you're
Speaker 3: starting to get very nuanced as to what you want
Speaker 3: to think about as opposed to just I need to
Speaker 3: be more organized, right, which is the black and white
Speaker 3: thinking just organized. It's never as simple as that.
Speaker 1: You could look at executive functions is like the mep.
Speaker 1: ADHD is a great at spotting the destination, not always
Speaker 1: great at following the route to get there. But without
Speaker 1: the map, there's a gip between w you want to
Speaker 1: go and actually arriving there, and that cooks something else
Speaker 1: into gear. A close cousin of boredom, frustration.
Speaker 3: Frustration is one of the hardest emotions for us ADHD
Speaker 3: is to regulate, so we all avoid frustration at all costs.
Speaker 3: Frustration is also perceived as threat or like boredom, is
Speaker 3: perceived as threat in the brain. So therefore we'll literally
Speaker 3: do whatever we can to mitigate that. And if sorry,
Speaker 3: I just realized my point about why I was talking
Speaker 3: about it was about I've lost that again. This is
Speaker 3: classic k ADHD, which is this is working memory, which
Speaker 3: is when you have a point and you're trying to
Speaker 3: hold the thread of it and then you lose it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's so quick, isn't it.
Speaker 3: It's so quick, very very quick.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why you stop me. I think
Speaker 1: that's why for so many kids in particular, they have
Speaker 1: to butt in and say it. I remember my daughter saying,
Speaker 1: I have to say it now or it'll go I
Speaker 1: have to talk over people.
Speaker 3: I call it the fear of forgetting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's massive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a working memory. If you know anything about computer,
Speaker 3: working memory is like the RAM in a computer. It's
Speaker 3: a temporary space that the computer uses in order to
Speaker 3: process things in the moment, like opening a word document,
Speaker 3: clicking this folder. It uses RAM. It doesn't use the
Speaker 3: hard drive. It uses another part on the RAM.
Speaker 1: That's what rams even you Yeah, diet really here, but
Speaker 1: good for this.
Speaker 3: But adhds have the RAM or the working memory size
Speaker 3: of a sticky note, and if you don't have ADHD,
Speaker 3: you have the working memory the size of an A
Speaker 3: four piece of paper. So there is this difference in
Speaker 3: capacity to process things in the moment, which is why
Speaker 3: you might forget the thread of your thoughts because that
Speaker 3: post it note suddenly gets very full. And so that's
Speaker 3: nothing to do with IQ. Like forgetting stuff, we can
Speaker 3: very quickly think, oh, you're just a bit thick, I
Speaker 3: forget stuff. I'm forgetful. No, it's often because your sticky
Speaker 3: note is full.
Speaker 1: Working memory is a big one. We need to do it,
Speaker 1: say it, hear it right now, or it's gone. It's
Speaker 1: a constant challenge, but adhds do excel when it comes
Speaker 1: to intuition and instinct. We're guided by feelings and we
Speaker 1: feel a lot.
Speaker 2: Do you find when you're around people you're trying to
Speaker 2: guess how they're feeling because you're so hyper sensitive to
Speaker 2: other people's energies. But you you need constant reassurance from
Speaker 2: people that you're being a good person. That you're doing
Speaker 2: it right, that you're not failing, that that they are okay,
Speaker 2: and then that competuities it can you know, your your
Speaker 2: nerve system can can breathe. Do you have that?
Speaker 1: Absolutely?
Speaker 3: Do you have that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I've intensely got it. And if I'm in an
Speaker 2: interview with someone and noticing them, you know, feeling uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: I will pull back because I'm like, oh shit, I've
Speaker 2: asked something that's that's that struck a court with them.
Speaker 2: But even so, if I noticed that I've asked them
Speaker 2: something that's really positively done, I'll lean into them. So
Speaker 2: I'll try my best to ride this wave of emotion
Speaker 2: with people, which I don't think a lot of people
Speaker 2: can do. No, you know a lot of people can't.
Speaker 2: You know, they've got their routine and nothing gets in
Speaker 2: the way and feelings and all that. Don't worry about
Speaker 2: that doesn't our job.
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, they've got I've got a certain amount
Speaker 1: of questions. I'm going to get through them. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: not constantly monitoring has set Was that right? The crazy
Speaker 1: thing is say I'm interviewing you if you kind of
Speaker 1: do that, because sometimes you do that and I think, oh, yeah. See,
Speaker 1: it's nothing to.
Speaker 2: Do with me, I reassure you. So I've got I'm
Speaker 2: always scared that I'm going to go cross eye, so
Speaker 2: I blink to whet my contacts and then i make
Speaker 2: sure I'm not going cross those because I've got a
Speaker 2: walking eye. Can you see it?
Speaker 1: No, I can't see the wonky eye, but oh it's very,
Speaker 1: very minor. I wouldn't even be able to actually see that.
Speaker 1: You pointed it, just about it all the time. But
Speaker 1: the thing is, I've just noticed you doing that, and
Speaker 1: I've just been going, oh shit, is that? Is she okay?
Speaker 1: Does she need anything? Is it? Is she comfortable?
Speaker 3: Is she?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Alex Campbell says instinct is a strength that we should
Speaker 1: lean too.
Speaker 3: You were talking about we get to trust our instinct. Yeah, this,
Speaker 3: I would say is I think a core component of
Speaker 3: ADHD coaching. You've essentially lived a life of not understanding yourself,
Speaker 3: not having this language to talk about yourself. You then
Speaker 3: don't trust your instinct. You don't trust your intuition. You
Speaker 3: question it because it's also been questioned in you. We've
Speaker 3: internalized the questioning, which of course has a knock on
Speaker 3: effect on your confidence on your self esteem. So this
Speaker 3: is not just about saying, oh, yeah, this is my
Speaker 3: IDHD and why. But you then take that all that
Speaker 3: information and you start to feel it and you make changes.
Speaker 3: These incremental little changes build up a new relationship with yourself,
Speaker 3: which means maybe I can trust myself. Yeah, like maybe
Speaker 3: I can back myself.
Speaker 1: That's huge, It's massive, it's massive, And I think, what
Speaker 1: the whole instinct thing. We've been taught that there are
Speaker 1: processes for doing things, yes, and let's should take a
Speaker 1: certain amount of time. And I've realized now that I
Speaker 1: know that my instinct is what gets my ideas and
Speaker 1: albeit pilladdes and I know what it is. I know
Speaker 1: what it is, I know what the agle is, I
Speaker 1: know what I need, I know what I need and
Speaker 1: it's just it's a picture. But before it was like that,
Speaker 1: that's not I can't trust that because I got it
Speaker 1: on the Pilatties reformer.
Speaker 3: That's executive functioning, right, or when any ADHD gets the
Speaker 3: clarity piece, boom they're off. That's important to pay attention
Speaker 3: to and not gaslight yourself with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's just it's that reflection, isn't it going? Okay?
Speaker 1: That happened to me there, It's happened to me there before.
Speaker 1: That's how I work. Piece. Maybe my office is the
Speaker 1: Pilattis studio, you know what I mean. It's like it's
Speaker 1: all the things we're taught, it's throwing them out. So
Speaker 1: that takes courage.
Speaker 3: We've been raised in a diet which is like good
Speaker 3: things are hard work, Like we prioritize hard work. If
Speaker 3: it's worth something valuable, it should be hard. Yeah. So
Speaker 3: when you start to get clarity on oh, I have
Speaker 3: really good clear thought when I'm in pilates, like that
Speaker 3: is a part of your life that you've now identified
Speaker 3: as ease. Part of my job as a coach is
Speaker 3: to support people in making helping their lives be easeful.
Speaker 1: But that's quite.
Speaker 3: Difficult when you've done everything in life that's been effit
Speaker 3: for so it's actually going to rattle a value system
Speaker 3: in you.
Speaker 2: One question I for you is why such an explosion
Speaker 2: of why he knew being diagnosed with ADHD. What do
Speaker 2: you think the reason?
Speaker 1: Oh, my god, multi feted. It is multifaceted. But for
Speaker 1: many women things fall apart with the streets and mandanity
Speaker 1: of motherhood.
Speaker 3: Much of parenting is very boring, but when you add
Speaker 3: the lens of ADHD to parenting, it's a whole other
Speaker 3: ballgame of needs. And this isn't about This isn't about
Speaker 3: saying you're a bad parent.
Speaker 1: Or you don't love your child, or exactly exactly.
Speaker 3: But when I say boring, I mean that it's not stimulating.
Speaker 3: And remember that interest, this idea of interest, that's stimulation.
Speaker 3: I've coached a lot of women who would identify as
Speaker 3: being quite daydreaming. Again, they're daydreaming because they're stimulating their brains.
Speaker 3: Daydreaming is a way to try and generate interest. The
Speaker 3: brain's like, I can't focus. This is not generating any
Speaker 3: feel for me to listen to what you're saying or doing.
Speaker 3: This is an understimulating environment, so the brain is going
Speaker 3: to do whatever it takes to try and stay stimulated.
Speaker 1: Girls are usually the daydreamers, and daydreaming isn't disruptive, which
Speaker 1: is how we used to think of ADHD the naughty
Speaker 1: boy who couldn't sit still. So females are not as
Speaker 1: easily identified in school. If they are, they're often diagnosed
Speaker 1: with the innertentive form of ADHD. But the word inattentive
Speaker 1: paints the wrong picture alex is daydreaming not only keeps
Speaker 1: us in the room, it's valuable.
Speaker 3: We have to I think out something here about the
Speaker 3: value judgment of daydreaming or mind wandering might be another
Speaker 3: way of talking about it, because in general it's in
Speaker 3: At least the very early narratives of this in the
Speaker 3: education system is that that's bad. But what if it isn't?
Speaker 3: What if we need people in society to daydream? But
Speaker 3: my relationship to mind wandering is it's inefficient use.
Speaker 1: Of time, and the society's response to mind wandering as
Speaker 1: in an efficient use of time. So that's where we
Speaker 1: have this I guess problem is it's not okay to
Speaker 1: say to someone I haven't replied to your emails because
Speaker 1: I took that hour to mind wander. Hm. I worry
Speaker 1: that there's this pushback, this resistance from society kind of
Speaker 1: like everyone wants a label these days, or it's a
Speaker 1: cop out because you're just you're actually just lazy and
Speaker 1: you want to label for it. How do we help
Speaker 1: people to understand that this is not just about losing
Speaker 1: your keys.
Speaker 3: In general, no one's ever kind of hankering after an excuse,
Speaker 3: like no one actually wants to live a life of excuses.
Speaker 3: What we're looking for is understanding. And for most clients
Speaker 3: that I work with, they've read every self help book
Speaker 3: under the sun, and then suddenly there's a shoe that
Speaker 3: fits like clearer than anything has ever been before in
Speaker 3: our lives. That is massive, Like I cannot explain how
Speaker 3: significant it is when you read something and go.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's this.
Speaker 3: This is why schooling was so hard. This is why
Speaker 3: maybe I've been in and out of relationships. This is
Speaker 3: why I'm a serial hobbyist. Because when you don't have
Speaker 3: a language to understand your brain differences, what happens. You
Speaker 3: rely on the world to tell you who you are,
Speaker 3: which of course is normally negative, like you're lazy. If
Speaker 3: you cared, you'd remember, if.
Speaker 1: You consider it, you'd be on time.
Speaker 3: Yes, it is very nuanced, and the thing is this
Speaker 3: requires everyone to have an understanding of the nuanced experience
Speaker 3: of ADHD. It ain't just about focus like it's not.
Speaker 3: You can't reduce someone's brain wiring to simply you're lazy
Speaker 3: because you can't take action on this because you can't
Speaker 3: focus on this. ADHD is far more complex.
Speaker 1: It is complex. These challenges are invisible it's hard not
Speaker 1: to see them as merely character flaws. So the stigma
Speaker 1: around ADHD persists in the word disorder is still in
Speaker 1: the name. We now know it's not a disorder. It's
Speaker 1: a brain difference, and an important one. In Tadai or mardi,
Speaker 1: the kupoo for ADHD is already teeny a ten going
Speaker 1: to many places, it's a fad, gentler and more apt
Speaker 1: description of what is going on and why it might
Speaker 1: feel like everyone here is ADHD. These days, it's still
Speaker 1: massively underdiagnosed in alterior If you're lucky enough to get
Speaker 1: an assessment, it will be very thorough, and for those
Speaker 1: who do get a diagnosis later in life, it can
Speaker 1: be validation.
Speaker 3: It's massive for an individual to realize, often over the
Speaker 3: age of probably thirty five forty, that maybe a lot
Speaker 3: of your challenges just actually brainwiring and living a life
Speaker 3: of not knowing who you are has a massive impact
Speaker 3: on how you show up in the world, at work,
Speaker 3: in friendships. You don't have any language or any certainty
Speaker 3: to understand why things are might be more difficult, but
Speaker 3: also why things might not be so difficult. As well.
Speaker 3: Being late diagnosed or like just late discovering have ADHD.
Speaker 3: It's like thinking that you were a girl or your
Speaker 3: life when actually you're a boy. Like it's that seismic
Speaker 3: of a shift from many I'm not saying for everyone,
Speaker 3: but for for a lot of people, the shift is huge.
Speaker 3: And when you don't understand your differences, then you live
Speaker 3: often lived a life of small tea trauma. This is microaggressions.
Speaker 3: These are paper cuts that you don't have any conscious
Speaker 3: awareness of until enough of those paper cuts. It's a
Speaker 3: wound and it hurts. And so for many individuals, late discovery,
Speaker 3: whether you're diagnosed or not, often invites reimagining that and
Speaker 3: looking at the impact of not knowing right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to ed to it, though I think
Speaker 1: a lot of it is about shame, guilt and self loathing.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I tell myself sometimes you're such a loser, you're so ugly,
Speaker 2: you're so fat, you're your here is thinning, you're getting old.
Speaker 2: And then I'm like, no, it's not true. It's just
Speaker 2: not true.
Speaker 1: Well with the depressions, you were depressed.
Speaker 2: Here, I have mild depression. Yeah, and it's just sitting
Speaker 2: in the background and it's not I love my life,
Speaker 2: I love my kids, I love my future, I love
Speaker 2: all my family. It's just that little flatmate right here go, Yeah,
Speaker 2: fucking idiot. And even talks like that, you know you're
Speaker 2: you are not loved. You're not loved. But the pills
Speaker 2: that I take put it a little bit further away.
Speaker 1: But if you have a day where you've got a lot,
Speaker 1: you know, things haven't quite gone right and the kids
Speaker 1: are hard. And does that voice get loud of that
Speaker 1: little guy? Yeah, yea, yeah, just strike me. Do you
Speaker 1: think you're lucky in this? It's that you got really
Speaker 1: low and in order to get up again, you had
Speaker 1: to be brutally honest with yourself and really just go,
Speaker 1: holy shit, what is going to work? And sometimes what
Speaker 1: works is going to some quite dark places.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But now do you kind of go, I'm actually lucky,
Speaker 1: Like this is the silver lining now that you know
Speaker 1: way more about yourself.
Speaker 2: I can't. I've been low many times and that's okay.
Speaker 2: And I've been high many times when I've been riding
Speaker 2: that wave and then slowly go down. You go, you
Speaker 2: go in wood and you change change shit. Oh and
Speaker 2: it's a roller coaster and I love that. That's dramatic
Speaker 2: and it's it's intense and passion and all that, but
Speaker 2: I have learned to have boundaries and to work. I
Speaker 2: hate this fucking word, but work on myself just you know,
Speaker 2: get better.
Speaker 1: I also hate self care.
Speaker 2: I hate self care the term here. Okay, yeah, well
Speaker 2: it's hell today as we're all in healing phase. You know,
Speaker 2: we're all trying to heal.
Speaker 1: Do you also think that now knowing about the ADHD,
Speaker 1: that you can look at other people that previously you've
Speaker 1: found really annoying and go, I understand you a bit better.
Speaker 1: Not the yet, I'm not the you'll get there. I'm
Speaker 1: further along the road.
Speaker 2: Further along the healing process. And yeah, self care, what
Speaker 2: is self care?
Speaker 1: Let's call it looking after yourself. A big part of
Speaker 1: that is having the courage to say what you need.
Speaker 1: And what you need is often clearer communication or rest time,
Speaker 1: or just acknowledgment of your effort. Not much, just a
Speaker 1: bit of support.
Speaker 2: You know, the people that I work with, they know
Speaker 2: my boundaries only because I've learnt. You know, one person
Speaker 2: kept on teasing me for being late, like hearing oh yes,
Speaker 2: she's arrived, everyone clamp black. And I felt so hurt
Speaker 2: by that because I feel, so I try my hardest,
Speaker 2: and the moment I walk on set, I failed. So
Speaker 2: it sticks in my mind the whole day. And I
Speaker 2: finally got the nerve to give her my boundary with them,
Speaker 2: not her my boundary, and she accepted it. They accepted it,
Speaker 2: and they loved that I communicated it. And the other
Speaker 2: thing is when I do shows, so i'll, you know,
Speaker 2: go to Wellington. I just went to Wellington for a show.
Speaker 2: I put all my energy into people and meet people
Speaker 2: and sing and hang out with them and learn about
Speaker 2: the area I'm in. I fly back to Auckland, pick
Speaker 2: up my kids, and I'm fucked. For two days. I
Speaker 2: just cannot talk to people. I have to run, I
Speaker 2: have to have a few drinks, and my kids and
Speaker 2: I just get the mudey style mattresses and the loude
Speaker 2: and and luck, my twelve year old ones can message
Speaker 2: really well. So they're just on my feet all day
Speaker 2: A dollar a minute.
Speaker 1: Yeah, bar Rich, It's easy to think, what's the problem here?
Speaker 1: An ekimoe and the lot of lady who was once
Speaker 1: on Shortland Street can't manage their energy, or insure their
Speaker 1: car or reply to emails. But it's much deeper than that.
Speaker 1: This is a daily struggle with the way the world works.
Speaker 1: And that's before you layer on other adversities.
Speaker 2: Been a Maldi woman trying to work into our park
Speaker 2: hou in a white system that's even more intense, and
Speaker 2: dealing with intergenerational trauma and dealing with the whys. Why
Speaker 2: did that happen? Why is it happening? What's our future?
Speaker 2: You know, we're colored people. We struggle, yes, but we
Speaker 2: seem to climb them never ending mountain, you know. So
Speaker 2: you put Adhd in that together as well. I could
Speaker 2: add my lesbianism. Yeah, take all the boxes to so
Speaker 2: great that love you love ticking boxes? Yeah, no, it's
Speaker 2: it's an interesting challenge.
Speaker 1: Anyway, let's try and information.
Speaker 2: Do you want from me?
Speaker 1: Are we done yet?
Speaker 2: Are we done yet?
Speaker 1: Do you have that thing where you your go go go?
Speaker 1: And then you're like, right, I've got to leave now
Speaker 1: right now?
Speaker 2: Yep, I've zoned out about ten minutes ago.
Speaker 1: Can we do about boredom just quickly?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Are you experiencing it right now?
Speaker 2: I'm experiencing the next thing on my list. Boredom is
Speaker 2: in me inherently all the time. But our conversation I
Speaker 2: enjoy it because it's fast and we're talking over each other,
Speaker 2: and we've got all these ideas and but we can
Speaker 2: follow it. I'm following this fully. But for a neuro
Speaker 2: divert I can't say the word person. They'd be like,
Speaker 2: what the hell are you?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: Where are you?
Speaker 1: You would just hear you.
Speaker 2: Now, and I can't keep up.
Speaker 1: I remember that one last thing. But I know you're done.
Speaker 2: I'm done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're done, all right, Just.
Speaker 2: Make me sound clever and make me look hot.
Speaker 1: I will, I will well. I don't say it's the
Speaker 1: look at it, look at it? Hey, what the both
Speaker 1: the cameras are on you. I am so useless. It's over.
Speaker 1: This is over, and it's not.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Next week on No such thing as normal.
Speaker 4: I can understand why you would look at somebody like
Speaker 4: me and go that shit's broken. I can understand that
Speaker 4: I can write a master's thesis in a day and
Speaker 4: get a distinction for it. You give me a form
Speaker 4: to fill in. I can't do it. What's that about?
Speaker 4: I must be broken?
Speaker 2: Right?
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. Nathan King
Speaker 1: is the editor. Arwen O'Connor and Mitchell Hawkes are executive producers.
Speaker 1: Production assistant is Beck's War. 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: every Saturday wherever you get your podcasts.