She Thrives ADHD, The Podcast
Roxanne's Resilience: Balancing ADHD, Parenthood and Emotions
From the trenches of navigating complex emotions to the triumphs and missteps of parenting with ADHD - this chapter of our podcast unfolds with the raw and relatable stories of Roxanne, a woman of strength, resilience, and tenacity. Diagnosed with ADHD at 32, Roxannes's journey is not all rainbows and sunshine. She endured the long and winding road to diagnosis, challenged her doctor for an assessment, and overcame the hurdles of long waiting lists.
Roxanne's candidness invites us into her world and the intricacies of living with ADHD. She offers a window into how she grapples with her relationship's emotions and struggles to mask her larger-than-life feelings. Roxanne also dives into a topic rarely discussed - the gendered experiences of ADHD, revealing her extensive research on the underrepresentation of women with ADHD in scientific studies.
The podcast culminates with a heartfelt segment on parenthood and ADHD. Roxanne opens up about the unique hurdles she faces as a parent with ADHD - the struggle with daily tasks, the pressure to complete projects, and the shifting roles within her household. But it's not all about the challenges. Roxanne also presents hope, sharing how she has harnessed her diagnosis to tap into her skills and strengths. Tune in for an insightful, empowering, and profoundly human conversation that paints an intimate portrait of life with ADHD.
Outro
This is a special edition episode recorded from a webinar.
From the trenches of navigating complex emotions to the triumphs and missteps of parenting with ADHD - this chapter of our podcast unfolds with the raw and relatable stories of Roxanne, a woman of strength, resilience, and tenacity. Diagnosed with ADHD at 32, Roxannes's journey is not all rainbows and sunshine. She endured the long and winding road to diagnosis, challenged her doctor for an assessment, and overcame the hurdles of long waiting lists.
Roxanne's candidness invites us into her world and the intricacies of living with ADHD. She offers a window into how she grapples with her relationship's emotions and struggles to mask her larger-than-life feelings. Roxanne also dives into a topic rarely discussed - the gendered experiences of ADHD, revealing her extensive research on the underrepresentation of women with ADHD in scientific studies.
The podcast culminates with a heartfelt segment on parenthood and ADHD. Roxanne opens up about the unique hurdles she faces as a parent with ADHD - the struggle with daily tasks, the pressure to complete projects, and the shifting roles within her household. But it's not all about the challenges. Roxanne also presents hope, sharing how she has harnessed her diagnosis to tap into her skills and strengths. Tune in for an insightful, empowering, and profoundly human conversation that paints an intimate portrait of life with ADHD.
Outro
This is a special edition episode recorded from a webinar.
Roxy, welcome to our podcast. Really happy to meet you and learn a bit more about you and what you're up to. So I'm Louise, I'm a mental health nurse and I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 40, and I'm here with my co-host, laura.
Speaker 2:Hello, hello I'm.
Speaker 2:Laura and I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 37. So it's been nearly eight months since I've had my diagnosis and my life has shifted dramatically since then. But we are very interested to hear about you not me, although I'm very interested as well. Let's talk about Roxanne today. So we have Roxanne and we'll hand over to you and just you can chat away and tell us a bit about yourself how old are you, how old when you got your diagnosis and just a bit about your journey and what you've done with it since, or your projects that you've got.
Speaker 3:So yeah, hi, I'm Roxanne, thank you for having me on. And so, yeah, I got diagnosed with ADHD at 32 and I'm 33 now, nearly 34 I think, but anyway. And I got diagnosed after having my two kids. So I'd always been, I'd always it's very similar story to what you hear everybody sort of says like I'd always felt a little bit different, I'd always felt like I didn't quite mesh with regular people, like I was always the emotional, overly emotional one, the one that was like took things too sensitively, took things too seriously and was just hard work, I think who would have been called. But so then, like it wasn't until I was 32, and then I'd had my two kids. I struggled after having my first, my youngest kid, who's three and a half now, and I got, obviously I went to the doctors and I was diagnosed with postnatal depression, because that's what a woman who is struggling after having a child must have and don't really consider any alternatives. So I got diagnosed with postnatal depression and referred for counselling and I've been, I've tried to have counselling historically and I've never stuck it out. I always do like one or two sessions and get really into it for like the first couple of sessions and then after that I'm just sort of like yeah, okay, I'm done with this. Now it's not really working, I feel a bit better. So and then always drop out. And now when I look back, I kind of see that it's because my moods although I had periods where I was feeling low, I wasn't feeling low every day. Yeah, it wasn't like a mood, it was me feeling low. And then I'd have bounce where I was feeling great and I was like okay, so I'm not depressed then. So then I think I was had bipolar. But then that didn't seem to quite tally up because I wasn't coming through the cycles as like as it was described online or whatever. So I was just like right, I'm just fucking crazy then, or I don't know, I'm just like, I'm just not stable. And so I just muddied on and then had my second child.
Speaker 3:And then it's when things started cropping up on social media about ADHD. I think it's because the pandemic had happened and I had to be a bit of a spike in women getting diagnoses. So every and everybody joined social media and started sharing all tiktoks and stuff. So then I started seeing all the stuff and I sent one to my husband and I was like I think I've got ADHD, like as a joke, like LOL, sort of thing. And then he replied and he was like yeah, I think you have. Oh, yeah. And then I didn't really do anything with it for a long time. I just sort of I just shared memes with him as a joke, like oh, this is me, this is me.
Speaker 3:And it got to a point where I was like okay, I'm struggling, like why don't I go to the doctors and see? And then I went to the doctors and it was difficult getting them to listen to me because I'd heard so many horror stories. I went in quite defensive and I don't know if that's what a lot of people do, but I was just like I just went in with all the information and I was like, look, I've got ADHD, or I think I've got ADHD, I want an assessment. And that was sort of it. And I've always been very direct and very sort of like I know what I want and I'm going to ask for it, sort of thing.
Speaker 3:And the doctor was just like and I wanted a referral to write to choose, because I was scared of the long-waiting lists. So I went straight in and asked for a right to choose. And the doctor was like okay, so we're going to refer you to our local, our local things. I didn't know what right to choose was and I had to ring them back three times because every she wasn't listening. Sorry, I feel like I'm wittering on loads. It's really hard to talk for a long time and listen to your own voice.
Speaker 3:And she was, and she didn't know what right to choose was. So I ended up having to write a letter to the practice manager and say and I had to have a meeting with them because nobody knew what right to choose was and I had to print out a load of information. It's just exhausting when I was trying to manage also to young kids and everything else and I was like this is what right to choose is. I've got a right. I want to go down this pathway, refer me to them. And the doctor was like well, you've had a referral to the local services. And I was like it's not what I wanted and blah, blah, blah. And then I ended up ringing the local services and saying how long's the waiting list? And they said two weeks.
Speaker 1:So then I was like forget that right to choose.
Speaker 3:I had a phone call from the practice manager practice manager deeply apologetic because I'd sent her a really emotional email and she was like I'm really sorry, we're gonna refer you to psychiatry UK, I think it was, and I was just really sheepish like thank you so much for the apology, but actually I'm okay and it just felt so typical of me as well. It just like I feel like I'm forever fighting something and then, I don't know, have my tail between my legs a little bit. I just felt it was a rock sand, rock sand story.
Speaker 2:The thing is, you know, don't underestimate yourself there, because you will have triggered, hopefully, quite a lot of lessons within that GP practice. Yeah, because they now know about the right to choose. So, yeah, the next person that comes in after you asking, I hope so, that means they already know about it and that person doesn't have as much of a fate as you did yeah, and the doctor was dealing with was a student doctor, so hopefully that's prepared her moving forward now.
Speaker 3:And then I wrote and then so the local assessment service got in touch with me and said we can offer you an appointment on this date and because I'm managing childcare and stuff, I asked for a date two weeks after that and she was like are you sure that's that means you'll be waiting four weeks? I was like I was like that's fine, thinking people all over the country are waiting years. Yeah, and I was just I couldn't believe and I feel really I feel almost guilty saying it because I know the struggles people are having to get a diagnosis and I couldn't believe I was getting in that quickly. And I think it's because it was they just set the service up, so I don't know the state of the service prior to that or anything so I think, just set it.
Speaker 1:Where are you? Where are you based? Rocks up where a scavenger. That would show that I get in dated yeah yeah, so I'm here.
Speaker 3:Everybody will be right to choose over here. I don't, this is a polly staff at your. This was here in Martha's, I don't know what it's like now. I said then yeah, I had my assessment and and then it was really sort of anticlimactic. At the end he was just sort of like yeah, yeah, yeah, you've got an identity HD and I knew it. Yeah, now what where the balloons? Yeah, but because I'm still breastfeeding my youngest, so I can't have medication because they haven't done enough trials or tests on it on, because it's unethical to really to to do trials on breastfeeding women, because they don't know the impact on the baby or anything like that, so they just don't enough information to say with enough certainty or safety to say that you can take them. So I he referred me for counseling, which was actually one of the best, not not just regular counseling, it was ADHD psychotherapy. Yeah, well, I don't know, that's just my term for it yeah, it was yeah, so as a
Speaker 3:therapist with ADHD. She had ADHD, so we gelled really quickly and it was basically so. The aim was for me to go through my whole journey and understand my ADHD, how it impacts me, how I can manage some of the triggers and also unpicking a lot of, a lot of sort of trauma stuff and previous things that I've got stuck in. And it was. It was amazing it was only six sessions, which was unfortunate because I would have loved it to go on longer and I could have. I could have paid for it to carry on on the book. Unfortunately finances don't allow for that at the minute.
Speaker 3:But even though six sessions was enough to turn my thinking around and to change not that I don't get to run around radically different, but I'm certainly much kinder to myself than I ever was before. My husband understands me so much better, so I just feel like the quality of my life in lots of areas has improved and it's why it's frustrating that sort of you hear a lot of reports about people are just being automatically just prescribed medication or and I'm not denying medication I think medications an important part of it, but it does stay in the nice guideline lines that they need to be offered together. You need to be offered both therapy and medication, and I think it's really important, so it's frustrating that people just aren't even being offered that option is one or the other.
Speaker 2:They're kind of getting the diagnosis and the medicine left to your own devices. Really, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:What's interesting about that and that's what I want to kind of pick your brains a little bit more is is you're right, the nice guidelines don't do stay. The pharmacological along with non pharmacological therapy or treatments is best practice, but it's trying to. It's for me, it's trying to understand what does that mean? It's not pharmacological therapy or intervention. Look like some do the ADHD and it doesn't feel like it's very specific. That's why I did when you said that that was specifically for ADHD, that treat, that course of counseling you had. And there are going to be loads of overlaps with lots of other different therapies.
Speaker 1:And CBT is known to be quite effective once somebody's kind of on, usually on medication, so they've reached that level of functioning where they could really engage the CBT in the sense of learning those skills and strategies to cope. Yeah, that's why I was interested what what you've been offered and it sounds like it was like a therapy but like, say, specific to ADHD. Yeah, maybe it was just like. Maybe it was kind of a tailored approach for some do they do it and dealing with a, with a diagnosis of something and, like you say, unpecking the past, I think the key thing as well was that she had ADHD herself and that, like that, was huge, because she could really understand where I was coming from.
Speaker 3:So the more people that we can get into these jobs, obviously the better. The more people with ADHD who have the experience, the better. And it was a remote thing as well. So she was who was based in London, so we did it virtually and just, yeah, just having the space to sort of to understand my ADHD as well, because I know I'm like I still don't know what's ADHD, what's trauma, what's what's me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. And what's what's normal? And I think it'll always be that battle really, because when you've gone 32 years and, with masking and everything sort of, you've created yourself from all this jumble of messes and different things, aren't you? So we're going to be as cut and dry as OK. Well, that's, that's the ADHD, and that's just something from a past cropping up or whatever.
Speaker 1:It's always going to interplay and just listening to you speak it's something I think I see quite often with people with ADHD and lower you might feel the same, that kind of dismissive kind of oh is it just trauma or is it just that? Was it just that? And actually all of those things are really really valid and important. But there's this real sense of, like you say that, in post-synjourn, that, that lack of kind of compassion for ourselves sometimes and in my experience that's that has gotten better since I've been diagnosed. But, like you say, it's a lifetime of learning something and we never going to complete. Well, for me I don't think we'll ever complete, to go away that kind of that self defecation, that sense of I'm wrong, I've done something wrong. Just get on with it.
Speaker 1:You know, help with it much better than you, because I think when you grow up as a I'm quoting in in air quotes now, which I don't really like doing as a sensitive child Usually if you're surrounded by people who are sensitive, it's not, it's not seen as not perceived as a very positive thing, is it?
Speaker 3:Well, I think that comes from parents growing up around you just feeling anxious themselves and saying well, can you just like put it together and go together, and then I'll feel better, and I'm just saying 100% and doesn't, and that comes to the forefront so hard when you have your own kids and it's like, and I don't want to talk about my own kids too much, just because obviously that's their lives and their privacy.
Speaker 2:So you're very respectful. I talk about markets.
Speaker 1:I think that mine's come on podcast. I want you.
Speaker 3:I mean, if they can send it, obviously want to do that, great yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I have no respect for the boundaries.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just there are only three in one as well. Yeah, I mean, we're on the edge right now, but so, yeah, when you have kids, that sort of comes to the forefront, doesn't it? And like you start on picking about how you've been raised or whatever and how you want to parent, and I think that also fed into how I'm, fed, into me seeking my diagnosis, because I went on this whole like in quite improving myself journey and I want to be better for me and for my kids and and all of that. But it is a lot of pressure growing up and being the sensitive one and it being seen as a positive, yeah, and there's a bad thing and I would like to share, actually, that you know, that's probably something that so far I've not given enough consideration to, that.
Speaker 2:I was always the very emotional child, so, in particularly when I went into midwifery and something would upset me, that, you know, somebody would have said something and I would take it their own way, or I would take it the right way, because maybe that's how they intended it in the first place. And you know and I spent a lot of my time crying in the stockroom or the toilet or on the phone to my husband and I did get a lot of this type of feedback you just need to grow a thicker skin. Yeah, I mean it should be water off a duck's back in this. You know this profession, but no, that just didn't stand with me at all. I thought, no, I don't need to grow a thicker skin. If this is how I feel, that is valid.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:That's upset me and I'm within my rights to be upset about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's just that I spend half my life crying. But now I understand why it's just so incredibly insightful. And actually thanks, roxanne, because I never really considered the depth of that before. You know, at school if I get into trouble from the teacher, I would be sobbing. If my pals shared their sweeties and I never got one because there was none left, I would be crying. Friendships for me were just an absolute nine field really. I've still got a couple of my core friends from that time that I'm still very close to. But I mean trying to kind of navigate all those dynamics of being a teenager and I guess I'm a bit like you in the sense that I probably felt as if I was too much for people. I was very intense, I was very feeling. So I thank you for bringing that to the forefront. But what was it like for you in terms of friendships at the school when you were growing up, and do you recall kind of emotions at that?
Speaker 3:point. Yeah, I mean primary school, I think like very much I sort of kept myself to myself and I remember a lot of time playing with a lot of the younger kids and I don't remember really a lot of primary school. But then in high school, I think by that point I was working really hard to hide the big emotions I was having already at that point, which is exhausting in itself, stressful, yeah, and I had, so I do. I made my best friend in high school, which I'm still very who, I'm still very close with now, and I've been friends now for I don't know, 20 years and because she's she's seen something thin really, but it is.
Speaker 3:It was really wild navigating stuff because I although I keep this in twice when I tell people, when I tell people that I have ADHD now because I just don't externally present in a stereotypical way that people expect ADHD to and I, just because I hide stuff so much and because I I I'm so sensitive to mood changes and to like just changes in tone and demeanor and I just pick up on everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but those environmental things you really feel the vibe kind of yeah.
Speaker 3:And I'd go home and I'd just be so consumed by it and upset by anything that had happened that day and it could that.
Speaker 3:I think that like that drive this real. I used to stick up for the kids that were being picked on. I had that like that drive to to sort of either protect people or to what justice sensitivity not mean I'd hate it and I was like I'm not going to be treated as somebody was being treated unfairly. I still do, and but also on top of that, I was also a very, very good student. Like I did. I got a's and a stars at GCSE because I just had a perfectionist streak which I think came from the came from, sort of oh, I guess the masking of everything that was going on inside of me. I'm wondering to be to see myself as a better person. For me that was doing really well at school and I thought failure was just really awful to me.
Speaker 2:But also, do you think that that's related to that kind of rejection sensitivity that you almost kind of it's so overwhelming to get something wrong or to get a little bit and you really kind of that feels like a rejection in itself? Yeah, I find personally, but if I was to get a little mark then I would be really disappointed in myself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean yeah, because I'm studying now and I went straight in and I said to my husband if I don't get a distinction in this course, then I'm going to be really gutted. And he was like do you think you're setting the bar too high? Probably, yeah, maybe.
Speaker 2:But I'll get the answer.
Speaker 3:But riding on a distinction at the minute, so fingers crossed.
Speaker 2:What is a distinction, then? Is that above 70?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I might. I might not end there, but I'm enjoying it. I think, because I'm enjoying it and I'm passionate about it, obviously it's key for me, yeah, key for me, interested in doing well in it, and I can't remember where I was going with everything.
Speaker 2:You're just you're so us. We do that all the time. I don't know how I was going to say that.
Speaker 1:I think it'd be really good if you'd talk more about what you are studying, what you're doing now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that would be really interesting to hear about this so, yeah, I got my ADHD diagnosis and, obviously, in typical fashion, deep dive started to learn everything I could about it.
Speaker 2:And if there, was a degree that was available for ADHD, we would all have it overnight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly what are you talking about?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we could just consume all the information and also that was in preparation to go to the doctor as well to say, look, look, how much I know, look how much of an expert I am at this topic. So you have no choice but to refer me for an assessment.
Speaker 2:I don't know what my rates are. You don't have to choose. I mean, I need to use it because we lost the point. I know I can do it.
Speaker 3:I need to have the right use. So then anyway, so, because I've already got, I've already got, I've got a bit of a collection of it's become a joke now. I've got a bit of a collection of qualifications. So I've got a bachelor's in psychology and criminology and then I decided that I didn't want to be a criminal psychologist or whatever. I was going down that route anymore. So then I had a little bit of a break and then I decided I was going to do be a social worker. So I got a social work masters, finished that and decided no, that job wasn't for me and I'm not bragging. It sounds like I'm bragging, I'm not.
Speaker 1:No, it's amazing, though I'm so impressed.
Speaker 3:Now, when I look back, I just think like I just sometimes I see things that are so obvious. I just couldn't settle on a career so then so I found for some reason in my head I was like right, another qualification, what can I get? But no, I saw in all the research. I was so angry because I felt there was nothing that represented me. There was nobody, no voices out there of women with ADHD. Obviously, all the research is done on, or predominantly the research is done on, young male boys, hysterically, hysterically, maybe hysterically as well. So it was and it's all so medical, the research which I know it's a medical field, but everything is dehumanised in that process and voices are removed exactly and just reduced to ADHD traits and how negative they are. And I just found it totally exhausting. I was like, right, I can't, I want to do something about this. Also, simultaneously, I was riding a passion about maternal rights in birth and the patriarchy in the birth system, because I'd just gone through two births and was very angry at the medical system.
Speaker 2:You and I need to have a private conversation. Ok, I need some little coffee.
Speaker 3:I need a private share.
Speaker 3:So I found this course, a gender studies course at the University of Chester, met with the tutor then. It was fantastic and we had a really good conversation and it was a research master, so it was giving me the opportunity to do my own research and also a bridge to a PhD, which I think I would ultimately like to end up at. But I couldn't decide between the ADHD and the birth thing and I think eventually I just sort of took a dive and thought, ok, I'll go down the ADHD route, and I'm so glad I did, because now that, although I'm very angry still about the birth stuff, it's sort of passed by the wayside, yeah, so that's not to say that you'll never do that.
Speaker 2:No, no, no. So I started the gender. Yeah, maybe.
Speaker 3:So I started this gender studies course with my focus being on ADHD and gendered experiences, and a year it's a two year part time course. I'm a year in, so it's still developing, but now I'm in the thick of my research, which is really exciting. So my what I'm trying to do is amplify the voices and the stories of people that haven't been heard in the research so far. So I want I'm doing qualitative research, which means it is more. It's not numbers based, it's words based. It's I'm really interested in the stories and the way people view their own lives in the context of their gender and the stereotypes that they've probably been brought up in and everything. Because I know there's a genetic element to ADHD and but also I don't fully buy into this binary idea that we have around ADHD that there's male symptoms and female symptoms. I think there's a lot more to it than that and, in fact, maybe the culture and the stigma and the stereotypes that we've been raised in as women actually shapes how our ADHD symptoms presents rather than yeah, that's really interesting.
Speaker 1:It could suppress, almost suppress, our typically as children. You'd expect the boys to be more hyperactive and destructive in class and the argument has been that that well, of course, more boys are diagnosed because they're more. They're more, like I said, more disruptive. Yeah, it's going to motivate teachers, parents, doctors to address something, whereas girls isn't the argument that we tend to internalize our hyperactivity, which leads to kind of anxiety and things like that. Yeah, so I'm. So you're exploring the, or researching the, just see if I got the right, the sense that actually it could just be our role as women in society, that's, that's kind of suppressed, our ability to be outwardly hyperactive or outwardly destructive yeah, disruptive, sorry, because it's really not socially acceptable. Is it the?
Speaker 3:girls. No, yeah, it totally contradicts the stereotype that you need to be a good little woman and stay quiet and do as you're told and just keep your place as the quiet, the quiet one, the studious one, the one that's. I mean, it's negative to boys as well, because there must be so many boys with. I didn't hear what you said, sorry, what did you say?
Speaker 2:You said. You said that it's negative to boys as well, and I said, oh, who kills about boys? Would you kill about boys? Would you kill about them?
Speaker 1:My old presentation to such a sense. Isn't that that if you are a child of ADHD, that you're naughty, that you're not well-mean-caged? And I was almost certain she wouldn't listen to this? And it's not nothing negative about her particularly, but a mum friend from school and she's also a teacher.
Speaker 2:Oh, she does listen to this and I know her.
Speaker 1:You don't.
Speaker 2:You didn't talk to me.
Speaker 1:And I was talking about I still am. I was talking about my daughter and saying, oh, she's, she's been diagnosed with ADHD and considering that this moment she's also a teacher, she was absolutely shocked. Like you say, people are like oh, and if they hear that I am as well, because of the perception, and the perception is that you're naughty, isn't it?
Speaker 1:And she's always been really good when she's been at our house. Oh, I was like great, so glad. I was like, oh, I'm so moved she keeps it together in socials. Because she does, and like you've kind of alluded to as women.
Speaker 2:As females, we tend to more, don't we? Yeah, Sorry, I missed half of that because it froze out. I was just from. I was saying that she wouldn't speak to you. Yeah, Did you.
Speaker 1:Oh, was that it? Yeah, I was just talking about my daughter and saying she's recently been diagnosed. She started on medication and I was just oversharing, as usual and for her, yeah, and she was just very, very shocked. She was like oh my God really. And then the response was but she's always so well behaved when she's at our house and I said I'm really glad actually, but it's the perception, isn't it? And it's about, and hopefully work like you're doing, roxanne, is really going to help bring to the forefront a challenge for that. Yeah, being naughty doesn't equal ADHD. It could be so many other things as well. Like you say, trauma. You know what they're seeing at home, which is trauma in itself sometimes for certain kids, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Or just being children even.
Speaker 1:Just being kids. Where did you all the time? You know it's, and then we're interested to see what you've uncovered.
Speaker 3:And I've done like. So I've done one focus group so far and it was already. It was just brilliant, just talking to people and giving them the opportunity for them to get their voices out there. And I've got another three focus groups to do and then, because it's it's so, research is smaller than a PhD, so I've got only got 28,000 words, so I can't probably do it. Yeah, it's not going to be enough, but I can't do as much as what it would be if it was a PhD level, which I would like it to be even bigger, because as well, but just putting a human, humanistic element into ADHD and so people can understand that it presents in a variety of ways.
Speaker 3:It is different to what you've been told and understood for so long to help, and it needs to get out in the mainstream as well, which is why I'm really grateful for opportunities to do things like this, to talk about it, so that other people can hear it and other medical professionals will listen to it and hear, because it's what I like, because there's been a massive with there's been a huge people saying like, oh well, he's being overdiagnosed and all these people can't have ADHD. You know all the rubbish that we don't need. But then that's like. For me that's part of almost the patriarchy as well, isn't it Like women are now getting their voice and speaking up and unmasking and behaving how they want to mask and not how I was expected by the patriarchy and by men.
Speaker 2:And all of a sudden, that means we're just jumping on a bandwagon or it's a trend. We have had inequity, these, you know exactly, generations, but you know just they're trying to shut it down. I was just going to say a lot of people will contest that and say, but it's not about feminism. But it is in a certain sense. It certainly is. We need to look at the history of where the research was done in the first place, about ADHD, as you say, mainly around white male children. How could it ever be that it only affects one gender? Unless it's some kind of genetic or chromosomal issue that only affects men or women, then it doesn't apply for any medical condition, really does it?
Speaker 3:No, I did an essay on parenting with ADHD for one of my modules Because, again, that's an area that's not really had a lot of focus or research and it was just a little bit soul-destroying because all of the research was so negative-focused and about how ineffective being a parent with ADHD is and how damaging it is to children to being raised with a parent of ADHD. They were all examining the effects on kids for having a parent with ADHD and terms like harsh, lax, ineffective parenting and I was just like this is disgusting.
Speaker 2:It's really done, my mark.
Speaker 1:Equally. You've got to think, just going back to the point we were talking about, being a sensitive child and if you're surrounded by grown-ups who aren't very similar, but actually the flip side of that is if you yourself have ADHD. So if I use myself as an example, I'm a sensitive person. I have gone through that experience of being brought up by maybe not so sensitive people and then, with my children, you can go almost too far. Maybe the argument could be that you become too soft, you become too understanding, you become too kind of like, say, lax or with no boundaries. But actually I feel really bloody relieved that I followed my intuition, because I've now got a 10-year-old who is comfortable talking to me and I haven't. I mean, there have been times where I feel like I have said look at the state of your bedroom, or there's this or that you know, bringing that shame into it and I really don't like it. But now that's kind of a lot of that's gone. There's got to be accountability, but you think about that shame that we put on our children, and children with ADHD in particular. So there's got to be some good sides to being an adult with ADHD, bringing up a child who has ADHD as well, but all those amazing skills there's amazing. You know, all those I know Bang on about it, that strength-based approach to it.
Speaker 1:But when she walked into the psychiatrist's office a couple of weeks ago for the official diagnosis, the first thing she said to her was you've got an amazing brain and I'm going to help you use it the best you can. You've got to give it to me and it was so, so heartwarming. I came out there so uplifted and I know that she did as well, and that means so much to us, doesn't it? Because it is an amazing brain and it is something really special. Yeah, we might not conform to lots of social norms. I know I bang out on about my bloody reading all the time, but my garden's a mess, right? But and my neighbours don't like it or I'm you know I'm late filling in the forms for school, or I'm this or I'm that. But actually the basics I think I've got down pretty damn good and I think most of us we've got that awareness, haven't we? We've got that experience and that sensitivity to other humans.
Speaker 3:Definitely, and it's just for that, for that, and that is the power right there you sharing. That is the power of sharing your story and having that out there, like for that to be represented in the research is just, and it's good, you know.
Speaker 1:Let's do some research on how bloody amazing it is that we all know more about ourselves, more about our brains, more about our children's brains, and support them. It's, you know, it's. I mean, we're so positive about it in our house that my six-year-old is like you're going to get ADHD.
Speaker 2:And I'm like you're lucky, I wonder. Quite often in these kind of TikTok, adhd videos or Instagram and LinkedIn, quite a lot of what I see is and I've done it myself before is referring to ADHD as your superpower.
Speaker 2:Now I do very much. At times I do really feel as if it is my superpower, but that is not to say that it's not being debilitating at times. But part of the debilitation for me is being the non-diagnosis, non-recognition of it, and actually, since I have been diagnosed, I feel as if I have. I've harnessed it as a bit of a well, I mean not necessarily superpower per se, but as a gift, and I can very much now, instead of berating myself for, you know, losing interest in things or whatever, I've really learned to harness the good things about it. Like I resigned from my job. So I am completely non-restrictive. I'm doing lots of working from home. I'm following my passion. You know we're doing the podcast. Louise and I are building the website. You know I've got a part-time job working in a sexual health clinic, which I really enjoy. It's really interesting. I'm doing my master's as well, which is I'm due to finish. I'm in my final year, starting in September, and you know I'm really able to use it a bit like yourself.
Speaker 2:My research is based around the experiences of women who have ADHD through the maternity services, because, for the last you know, I started my medwifery 13 years ago and not once have I ever had any teachings around neurodiversity and how that impacts a woman through her pregnancy journey, and there is not much research out there. I know there is the maternity autism research group, which is great, but that's not ADHD and that. You know, at times, although there is a lot of overlap for the symptoms, at times they are very, very different and very conflicting. And just to give you an example of that, yesterday I was taking my daughter to the hairdressers and this appointment has been on the calendar for three weeks because we are bridesmaids next weekend at my best friends wedding and I, yeah, put up. Sorry, she's just interrupting a little. If you just take it down to dad, will he? He's not here, is he? He's fucked up, he's just in there.
Speaker 2:I took her to the hairdressers and you know I've banged on about it, right, I was away for breakfast with my friend and you know you better make sure that you're ready for such and such a time. I've really built it up. She I don't know if I just mentioned this, but she's autistic my daughter's 14. And we get to the hairdressers. Who's going to cut my hair? Can you tickle my back while she's cutting it? And if you can't, can you tickle my hand, you know, really talk through it. And I present myself at the hairdressers, say, oh, it's a Jody Spence for half past ten. No, we don't have that. I'm down and I thought, oh fuck, I fucking did it again. Executive dysfunction. This potentially has the impact it could have a significant effect on the rest of our day now, because she is going to freak out because we've built up to it so much, and then that's a change. But equally, it's unsurprising that I've not actually finalised the booking on the website when I've. You know, I've just got distracted.
Speaker 2:I must make sure that I write this down. I must make sure that I write this down, and then I've actually not pressed to confirm.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But thankfully I knew the woman who owns the hairdresser and I looked after her when she was having her twins, and also the regular hairdresser that we normally see has two siblings in Jody's school. She goes to special needs school and so thank God they saved the day and they will look, don't worry about it, we'll get you in straight away. So I never had to have much of a conversation around about appointment and then Jody shouting why did you not pick it? I really have lost the plot. So thank God for that.
Speaker 2:But that's just a small example of where those two things conflict. You know they contradict each other really, that mum is one way and then the daughter is another way, and that, you know, can really cause some stressful environments at home. And so while obviously research around autism and pregnancy is really important, there needs to be some for ADHD and pregnancy because the hormonal fluctuations are so important. The role of estrogen and dopamine is really really important, particularly in the postnatal period, where the estrogen drops significantly and we know that that has a massive role in being the neurotransmitter for dopamine, and dopamine is the thing that we need to function in our reward-based system. But dopamine can't do its job without the right amount of estrogen.
Speaker 3:It's all very interesting, but I think, as you say, the research needs to be, and the whole shifting identity as well, when you yeah of course, there's so much around it. Yeah, yeah, so that sounds really interesting. Are you still looking for participants?
Speaker 2:I am, yeah, so it starts in September and none of this finalised by the university yet. They've not agreed to the research question, but I'm just trying to out the Earth, Sheffield, Harlem. This will be my question. But yeah, I think it's a very important niche that's not really been explored. I don't know how many times I've looked at someone's notes when they come in and labour and whatever it says or she has ADHD or she has autism and I overlooked it. As a midwife that I don't know ADHD, I'd never really considered it as an issue in terms of history.
Speaker 2:But actually it has a massive, massive impact on the way that you process information. I know.
Speaker 1:So lovely for that to be validated for women, wouldn't it? Oh yeah, it's amazing for women, after us now having children, are really validated with sensory issues that like, say the there's so much law that said you're going to be doing it, so it's. So. What's the word I'm looking for? Promoting, yeah, yeah, and it's going towards that. Like we're saying, let's look at the positives, and the positives of that are that maybe practice can be altered so that we really do support women and their partners in such a way that is non-judgmental, that is, it just encompasses the whole experience for people.
Speaker 2:You understand it.
Speaker 1:Because you just feel, you know, you just feel like I've lost the fucking plot. I went into a coffee shop yesterday that I haven't been in since my oldest baby the strengths of emotions when you first have a baby and I remember I was a single parent, roxanne, just for context, yeah, I was a single parent and I'd gone to this town with a friend of mine and obviously my baby was in a prom. We went into it. It was a cafe near us and there wasn't any space to sit downstairs. There wasn't much space, you know, for the prom and everything. Oh yeah, but there was an upstairs seating area. So I remember this so acutely there was an upstairs seating area but there was no lift. And I remember feeling so depressed, like my life is restricted that much. No, I can't go upstairs in a fucking cafe near me.
Speaker 2:But not you can. You just can't take the baby with you.
Speaker 1:You get how that baby feels when you're with Anna, the doom of being a new parent and just being like, oh my God, where's my life gone? Where?
Speaker 1:are you and you know what I didn't say. I was with my husband and my brother and our kids. I didn't say it's any of them yesterday. I just quietly kept it to myself because I thought they're probably not going to understand where I'm coming from, just you know. But it's like. It's so life altering, like for me just felt like a sense of doom. That's never happened. I was like me.
Speaker 3:But, I was so good convinced it's okay if it hasn't Like we need to normalise talking about that more as well.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so it can be. You can, I mean, just as humans, we can go to really dark places, can't we? And, like you said, we can be so intense with your emotions, and that's something that I've always experienced. When I share things like that with most people, they don't see the significance of it or they don't appreciate the significance of it, but for me it was like what? Oh my God, there's just moments of time that feel really, really significant.
Speaker 3:And intense.
Speaker 1:And they are significant yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh yeah, definitely, and just all consuming yeah.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah because if you've struggled to manage yourself, then you've suddenly got another human to look after. I mean, we all know this rhetoric, don't we? We all know this. It's scary for all parents. And my daughter, my six-year-old the other day, was talking to me. I was talking about doing all the washing and she said, well, why is it so difficult? Well, she said you don't really help me, no. But I said, well, I was okay when it was just me. I could manage my stuff okay. But now I've got four other people and so many other beds to change and all you know it becomes a mammoth task, doesn't it? That probably just shines a bright spotlight on your executive functioning or lack of.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just found I didn't have the like, didn't have the energy to hide my emotions as well Well, anymore either, to keep it all in and to mask as well. Everything just became yeah, everything just became so intense and I was angry about a lot of things and I didn't. I was angry that my life changed so much and nobody warned me, maybe in particular, and I just because my focus was all on trying to keep a human alive yeah, my, I just didn't have the energy anymore to keep it up for myself. And now, I mean now I always my husband. He's a very, very good man and I always sort of think of it as a way like I'm the storm and he's like the eye of the storm. So I'm like the chaos and he's the calm in the centre and me just like the Tasmanian devil sort of around him a little bit.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's really nice analogy.
Speaker 3:Lovely. Yeah, I don't know if you'll listen to this and hear that, but there we go.
Speaker 2:Well, if you don't, like that, I'll just be doing no lesson.
Speaker 3:But he, like he, does the majority of the household tasks now because I physically and I've no, I don't know how to describe it to the people, but I physically cannot look after the humans in the house and the dog and myself and worry about all the other shit that has to get. I just can't do it. So and we found a balance that works really well for us. I'm very lucky in that respect.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I'm very lucky and privileged that I don't have to work at the minute and I'm at home with both of the kids, so that helps as well. I think if I was having to also manage a job at the moment, I would. I think I'd be really, really struggling. Yeah, so, yeah, yeah, I'm very lucky in that respect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think knowing that, knowing about your diagnosis and the way that your brain works, it really helps those around you, doesn't it Really helps them to kind of almost forgive things that they may not have before or just go. Okay, I know that's really tough for you actually I'm going to just back off there. Yeah, and it helps again for me. And I do talk a lot about Shane, I think, just because I've been reading too much Brunet Brown. But the shame that I've always felt around mistakes that I've made, impulses I've had, et cetera, has been quite huge. But now I feel quite comfortable. I mean I don't go around telling everyone but just referring to things or saying I know how that feels because I've done X, y and Z, because it really does help break down those barriers and say, actually I need that help here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it validates it, doesn't it? I'll say to my husband I mean we all need to sleep anyway. I did this before I got diagnosed. But I'll say, look, I'm running on MC now I need you to take over here because I'm going to lose my shit. Yeah, but like last night, I think I had about 10 hours sleep. I know I don't look like I did, but I feel so different.
Speaker 3:You look really lovely today, I think you do I think you look like usually, but but you do.
Speaker 2:Particularly, you look very refreshed and nice kind of.
Speaker 1:I do. I feel it because I recognise what I needed and I reached out to those around me and said back off, give me a rest. It's so much easier to do that, isn't it, when you understand yourself before.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it gives you permission to and that's sort of what the therapy did for me as well, and it allowed me to work out the language so I could say, without it saying to me, without me feeling like it was me failing the language, for me to say, yeah, it's okay for me to have a break and for me to ask for that break, it's essential, yeah, and my husband's a very capable parent and it's only for me to sit back and let him parent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. What things do you do for self-care then, for your own wellbeing? What does that look like for you, roxanne?
Speaker 3:I don't like. What does it look like? I don't know. I feel like for me it's things that I like. I go for a lot of walks. I've got a dog so I like to get out in the open hours, spend a lot of time in the garden with the kids. We spend a lot of time outside because that's where I feel more comfortable parenting. If I've got a play date with somebody, if it's going to be inside, I feel very anxious about that, because trying to Not control but trying to deal with a toddler inside is just a bit of a nightmare sometimes, unless it's a play space where they can let loose. So being outside is where I feel comfortable.
Speaker 1:We were talking to. We were talking to somebody else I think it was Jade, wasn't it on a few podcasts ago, and we were talking about how difficult it felt once you had children to be able to integrate into things like baby and toddler groups.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Really, oh my God, I hate Not, I don't hate them, but I went to one and that was it.
Speaker 2:I've not been to another one, that's what she said, and I think that seems like the theme, because you were the same, louise, and I was exactly the same. I never done them at all and I think part of that I almost felt was if it was the baby was you know like all of mine slept all night last night? Oh, yours only gets sex, mine doesn't have a tooth. I'm using disposable nappies. They're a really bad for the environment. I'm using reusable nappies. They're all your bottle feeding and breast feeding and that kind of stuff. I absolutely detested it, but I think I went to one. I went to one.
Speaker 2:I think it's not for me, absolutely not for me.
Speaker 1:And I just felt so uncomfortable. And I don't think it's that people are doing anything particularly wrong, but it's just such an artificial kind of environment and just really struggle with that Increases around, like you. Well then, it's not just, isn't it?
Speaker 2:And I suppose that's another interesting thing that I potentially can touch on in my research is that you're far less likely to, you know, develop those kind of group supportive environments. We know that they have their benefits because there's lots of research on them and you create very, very good communities and support networks from baby groups. But I wonder if there is a connection between people who have ADHD are less likely, less inclined to access that. Therefore, that might be, magnifying the issues that are faced.
Speaker 3:Surely yeah, people with neurodivergence in general probably are insuring. Just because it's such an intense environment, very noisy, the sanitisation aspect and stuff, and then the shame and the stigma and the guilt.
Speaker 2:And your baby also to cater for, to feed while you're out and about, and it's the steps to do those things as well, like how do I prepare the formula or how do I breastfeed in public? We don't have trains, and then I pay all those things.
Speaker 3:Always made me laugh as well, because everybody there was always this big thing about the changing bag and everybody would have these changing bags packed to the broom with everything they need. And I was there just with one napping and that was all. It seems to be no nappy or whatever.
Speaker 2:Just tap one off somewhere else. Yeah, tap in a fag at the bus stop.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and it's not what you're doing deliberately, you know. I mean like trying to. I just hate carrying bags anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's just more clutter as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so I do. I went to. There's an outdoor play group that I do actually that really, really enjoy, but it's not really a play group. They just run off and do their own thing. So that's why it's outside, Right? Yeah, it is really good.
Speaker 2:Can we touch on that for a second, actually about projects. So obviously you're getting in a lot of dopamine from your learning, which I think is where I get a lot of might as well. What other kind of weird and wonderful projects have you had in the goal that you think this is going to make it big?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think everything I do, I think this is going to make it big Like I think this is it now. This is what I'm going to do, and I was. I'm not even just make it big for myself. Do you know what I mean? This is going to be my hobby now. This is going to be my thing.
Speaker 3:Or I could be a professional at this now, exactly, I started across stitch about seven years ago and I've still not finished it. And I get I go through periods where it gets so intensely into it and I was going to show it to you, but obviously it's podcasts so that's pointless, people can't see it and it's also not very much to look at. I've still only about a tenth of the way through it, because I get so into it and then I think, no, this is really fucking boring, why am I still doing this? And then I get back into it again.
Speaker 1:And I do that with all.
Speaker 3:Yeah, real hobby like real crafting things, like a patchwork quilt. That took me again about five, no longer than five years. I started it, I think, when I was in my early 20s, so that must have been.
Speaker 1:Right, You've. Even though it's going on, you haven't just thrown in the bin.
Speaker 3:No, that's true, but I tend to then get to the point where I get so fed up that it's still doing around. They had still there that my finished job of it is not very careful or thought through. It's just like, yeah, this patchwork quilt I did. I was just. Then I got so annoyed that I had all these bits of quilt everywhere that I was just throwing them together, Not taking much care and putting it together. And my husband was like you've literally been doing this for a decade. Why are you not taking more care of putting this together? And I was like, cause I just want it done and I want it out of out of my head and out of the way.
Speaker 2:So now, Do you find that you put a little bit of pressure on yourself in terms of those things, like it's another thing that's mulling around in the back of your mind adding to your already busy, busy to do list? But you know it's not to do from now, but you know that at some point you need to get this finished. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3:If it's really, if it's not done, it's just there, always circling, and then every now and again it will come to the forefront, like this needs doing, and then go back and and even if it's not in the forefront and I'm not thinking about it, you just know it's there, I just it's so hard to explain to people.
Speaker 1:It's like if I see something in the house like I don't know some dust somewhere, or we've got a golden retriever really hairy or like a ball of his hair, I can't and see it. So it's not that I'm a clean freak or I'm really effective and efficient. Sorry, but I've just got to. It's got to be done because I can't carry on with it. Yeah, like the day we were, I had an appointment with Lawrence and Delta and Colin, but I just bought this male male do cleaner and I had to do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, it gets. I mean, you get a bit excited about weird things, like I just bought this at the shop. I'm desperate to go home and start it, you know, before I even feed the kids the lunch, yeah. You know, it's all right, it's okay, I mean.
Speaker 3:I find that difficult with having kids as well and like, if, like, I had this thing that I needed to get done, but then, but then sometimes you can't because your kids are demanding your attention and the distraction and that is a real struggle and I sort of not my rage but my like so, yeah, yeah, you're intolerance of the children because you are desperate to, you know, get that thing done and you really got to concentrate on it.
Speaker 2:But the fact that the children are there and they're, you know, giving you all this input into your mind and the noise of them demanding you, you think, oh my God, yeah yeah. Yeah, really.
Speaker 1:That's a real issue?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a real issue. Yeah, do you have you experienced any? What they, what they, who are they? But what is referred to as body repetitive behaviors? So I say that just because you can see that you're twirling my hair, which is now like having a trap to nerve in my shoulder, because my hands always up like this and it's just, you know, like it just is really frustrating, but I can't stop myself and it's unlike me to do it with the other hand for some reason.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Other things that I do is pick my fingers or pick the dry skin on my toe, and or, if I can't do any of those things, I start turning inside of my mouth. You know what, what has?
Speaker 3:have you had any of those kind of fidgets or stimming or I didn't know it at the time, but I've always had an issue with tumor nails and I've tried numerous times to stop and never been able to. And now I know why. That is because I think that's one of my stimming things, like my fidgets or whatever.
Speaker 2:Or just even helping. I thought it was like an anxiety thing. I don't think it's anxiety related. Now I think it helps me to concentrate. Yeah, I can. I can barely answer. You know, somebody phones you like the old fashioned way, looking at the video. If I'm on the phone to somebody that I can't see their face, I find that I get up, and if I'm in the living room, I just start walking round about the coffee table.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Why? I mean it just obviously just need to be moving to yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, when I'm driving I that's one of my big triggers for chewing on nails and I guess, yeah, because it helps me focus on the road, which sounds like such a contradiction. And I find I do a lot of vocal stuff as well, like just repeating phrases or singing. I talk to myself all the time and I never really noticed it before, like before I got diagnosed, really. But yeah, I'm constantly sort of having a little conversation with myself or singing or or whatever, yeah, and I'm just shouting out. I don't think it's not to rest.
Speaker 2:I was going to say just pretend you've got to date.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then I don't know if you I thought, do you mimic, or I've mimicked people's accidents in the past which is so embarrassing.
Speaker 2:I'd love to see that I have but I think I'll do them.
Speaker 3:I think it's like social, social sort of yeah, social awkwardness, but also what's the word? Where you're trying to relate to people. And I've got one memory when I was a teenager me and my friend were on holiday and I fell on some rocks and an Irish guy came over to check I was okay and I responded in Irish accent and my friend was like what the hell are you doing?
Speaker 1:Evolutionary thing. And you just thought he's more like saved me, if he thinks I'm Irish.
Speaker 3:And I had the whole thing conversation in Irish and off he went and I was like I've no idea where that came from, but it was obviously. I was very good at it because he didn't suspect a thing. But why would you suspect that somebody's pretending?
Speaker 2:But anyway, that's hilarious, I'm just I'm getting conscious of the time. Yeah, we don't want to hold you up any longer, but a couple of final questions from us. If you could give anyone any advice that is sat waiting for five years on an NHS waiting list, what kind of what advice would you give them in terms of coping strategies or how to reach out for additional support before they actually have a diagnosis that?
Speaker 3:Diagnosis is validating, but self-diagnosis is also valid. So you know yourself a lot better than any psychologist who has just met. You will know you, you know what you want help with and I think now, with anecdotally, with so many voices on the internet, there is a lot of information out there about, and a lot of information and help out there about certain ADHD traits and how to manage them. So you can identify which trait without a diagnosis, you can identify which traits you're struggling with, hopefully, and be able to find the specific advice for that trait without a diagnosis. Because I think it's so important.
Speaker 3:Self-diagnosis is valid and my diagnosis changed my life. Self-diagnosis wasn't enough for me because of imposter syndrome, doubting myself, not trusting myself and you know self-worth and everything. But I think if I'd heard the message self-diagnosis is valid more, then I maybe would have trusted myself more. Like the thing is, if you think you've got ADHD, you probably do, ralph, like you're not going to suspect it. People know themselves, don't they? Like the people have gut instinct. So I suppose my advice is to just to trust yourself. And also, I reckon you can probably get things like ADHD coaching yeah, you can, yeah, without having an official diagnosis, and I think things like the coaching therapies that you can get are very beneficial, because I imagine that would be. I haven't done it, but I imagine it would be very similar to the therapy that I did, and you can do that without having a doctor officially tell you that you've got what you know, you sort of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I think that's really lovely to share that with people, because I was the same as you. Well, I think, even after I was diagnosed, I still had lots of doubts. And it's like you say it's important even if you know, even if you have no official diagnosis, there are still things you can do to help. So, yeah, I think that's really kind and nice for people to hear, isn't it? I hope so.
Speaker 1:I have a question, though my question is always not as serious, but what's the most ADHD thing you've done this week? So mine, I've done loads, but I've just realised I've done something. This morning, while I've been on this call, I put these earrings in just for you to see ladies. You know, it's one of the book earrings I was rushing to get on the call. I was like, oh, what's wrong with it? Oh, there's something in my ear. There must be something. I've got something. I couldn't get it in properly, but I got it, pushed it and got it in and just while you've been talking, I've realised that you know, sometimes you get a little plastic back. Oh no.
Speaker 2:What's that in your ear? Did you push it straight through?
Speaker 1:I put it on the earring and I was putting the earring on with it there, but thankfully it was still on the actual earring and not in my ear, not as though you'd hold, but you know just me not taking care, just brushing and urrrrr because I had so many other things that I had to do. Like you know, it's um, and then I don't know if you just know Stakehall must have a knob, so that's not kind. No, don't do that If you've come back to me for doing that. So that's me just for today, really. Yeah, or was googling houses to go meet the grease as well, just as watching a documentary. But I'm over that now. Have you got anything, roxanne?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean yesterday I had a really ADHD day, I think. Like I went, I was meeting some friends for afternoon tea. We're posh like that.
Speaker 2:So that's what we do, because that's just what we do.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, yeah, fancy. So the parking I just found. I went to the car park that was suggested on this place's website and it's in Stockport and I don't know if you like. I hate these apps for parking and cropping up everywhere. Just my head in. And if there's going to be an app, can we just all agree to use the same app and not have 10 different?
Speaker 2:apps. Yeah, yeah, like it's stupid.
Speaker 3:So anyway. So I got there and I couldn't. I didn't have any cash because it was cash anymore I don't and it was pay by app and it's an app I'd already got. So I thought, okay, straightforward, I can do that. I was already running late so I just messaged my friends to let me know I was doing that and then I'd be meeting them. And then it wasn't straightforward because I hadn't used the app in a long time. So they were telling me that I had to change my password or delete the app. Tried to change password, couldn't do that, did just because I'm not good with tech at all.
Speaker 3:So and by this point I was getting more and more flustered because I knew I was already late and I was impatient, so I was pressing, double pressing buttons, like again and again. So I had about five verification codes all come through at once on my phone. I'm like I don't know which verification code I need to use now. So I ended up just leaving the car in the car park and walking to where we were having afternoon tea and ringing my husband and this is what I mean about the eye in the middle of the storm Ring him, a husband, and say can?
Speaker 3:This is the code. Can you download the app and can you pay for parking for me? And he did, because he doesn't want to park in ticket either. So I mean, there was that and then we got there. Oh, I got there and then I was paying for afternoon tea and I went over and because I'm really clumsy as I, after I had stopped my card on the machine, dropped, let go of my card inexplicably and there was a grate underneath and my card slid through almost perfectly.
Speaker 3:Luckily there was a tray underneath because it catches all the yucky drink water in this tray and I was like oh no. And I said to the guy oh god, does that happen all the time? I bet that happens all the time. And he was like no, that's the first time.
Speaker 2:He probably was lying, because he probably thought you were trying to get a clean or something.
Speaker 3:I mean I got my card back, so it's fine. But I was like, oh, okay, so it was the two things really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yesterday it was the one thing that leads to another, doesn't it? Yeah, it just feels like it all happens at once sometimes, and I think, actually, if you have a little look at where you are in your menstrual cycle now, those that kind of the week that you're estrogen is starting to dip, is when you have more blunders, which I find very interesting.
Speaker 3:I feel like a dungeon card, sometimes like blunders, everything as I'm walking through the house.
Speaker 2:Sometimes my husband will say to me I don't know how you have lived 37 years and not killed yourself by now, just by the amount of silly, blunderous, clumsy things that you do. But it is great if you can. You know, I've experienced that the past week where I've had a couple of things happen in quick succession and I've actually been far kinder to myself now than I ever have been, because the things that were happening would have made me cry before you know, like one hand on top of another thing and on top of another thing, and before long I would have been coming home crying to my husband oh I'm just so shit at this. And then that happened. But actually I was like do you know what it is? What it is, I can't take it back, it's done now. I've never done any of it maliciously.
Speaker 3:And just be kinder to yourself that's the absolutely and that is such like. That's the benefit, isn't it, of sharing these stories and talking about it more and absolutely. And you know, and I've not spoken about ADHD, let's talk at all.
Speaker 2:I was going to say that. Did you want to give us a little bit of a plug about your ADHD? Let's talk.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I will do.
Speaker 3:really I mean I hope people can offend you and so, on part of my doing this starting my research and amplifying people's voices that haven't been heard in the research and stuff I started ADHD let's talk, which you can find on Instagram hashtag oh no, it's not hashtag is? It isn't at ADHD, it's on Twitter as well, but I don't really I'm not a not a big fan of Mr Musk and be I'm not very good on Twitter anyway. So Instagram is the place really to go, and so I've used that as a way a of sharing my research findings and recruiting participants, which I've done. Now I'm through that process, so now it's mainly sharing my research, find the stuff and get them out there and also inviting people to who want to share their stories. No diagnosis necessary.
Speaker 3:Just if you feel like you haven't been represented in ADHD research or if you feel you're you're not part of the ADHD stereotype that's put out there, if you feel like your voice hasn't been heard in relation to your experience of having ADHD or anything like that, then I'd love to just share your stories. I've had, I've shared a few stories so far and it's just it feels really empowering for both the people that are sharing their stories and for me to be able to do it and people are. People have said that it's been really helpful for them, so that's nice. So basically, yeah, there's a way of sharing people's stories around that ADHD, their experience of having ADHD. You don't have to have a diagnosis to do that or anything like that. That's lovely.
Speaker 2:I just think that's brilliant and I think it's such an inspiration. You know that you're you're using your diagnosis for the greater good, you know, and your time and, I'm assuming, your money and to do in your master's research and I really look forward to actually seeing it published. I look forward to reading it.
Speaker 1:Oh right, roxanne, I noticed you're doing it with the University of Chester. If you're ever up here, please give me a shout. It'd be lovely to um. Did you live in Chester?
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh, no way of course, chester. Um, yeah, of course.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, brilliant yeah, yeah, yeah, please do it be lovely to catch up and hear what you're up to. And yeah, yeah, not an empty, not an empty offer, it's a have I uh with genuine right. Yeah, have I got your um details you probably don't, but I will make sure you've got them and I will come to you.
Speaker 3:Okay then yeah, yeah, I'm. Uh, I don't have to go into uni right now for anything specific, but I do go up every now and again to get a quiet space to do work and that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1:So you'll get in touch with me and I'll see you guys next time.
Speaker 2:Be lovely to catch up, yeah thanks for talking to us.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much, Be lovely thanks.
Speaker 2:Roxanne.