Exploring the Complexities of ADHD, Mental Health, and Empowerment
Embark on a transformative journey of understanding, empathy, and enlightenment as we navigate the labyrinth of ADHD and mental health. Join me, Laura, along with Louise, a resilient mental health nurse who has defied the odds and embraced her ADHD diagnosis.
In this candid and thought-provoking podcast, Louise shares her struggles and triumphs, shedding light on the often-overlooked complexities of ADHD and its impact on mental health.
Together, we delve into the profound effects of the pandemic on mental health, the challenges of balancing work in a demanding field with personal mental health struggles, and the emotional toll of navigating comorbid conditions. We also explore the under-researched area of ADHD in women, addressing the bias in diagnosis and shedding light on its consequences for those seeking treatment.
Through heartfelt conversations, we aim to dismantle stigma and misconceptions surrounding ADHD, while advocating for the creation of supportive communities and normalised discussions around mental health. Our discussions extend beyond awareness, emphasising the urgent need for better funding and treatment options for ADHD.
Get ready to unravel the complexities of ADHD and mental health, gain a deeper understanding of your experiences, and discover new paths towards empowerment and well-being.
Outro
This is a special edition episode recorded from a webinar.
Exploring the Complexities of ADHD, Mental Health, and Empowerment
Embark on a transformative journey of understanding, empathy, and enlightenment as we navigate the labyrinth of ADHD and mental health. Join me, Laura, along with Louise, a resilient mental health nurse who has defied the odds and embraced her ADHD diagnosis.
In this candid and thought-provoking podcast, Louise shares her struggles and triumphs, shedding light on the often-overlooked complexities of ADHD and its impact on mental health.
Together, we delve into the profound effects of the pandemic on mental health, the challenges of balancing work in a demanding field with personal mental health struggles, and the emotional toll of navigating comorbid conditions. We also explore the under-researched area of ADHD in women, addressing the bias in diagnosis and shedding light on its consequences for those seeking treatment.
Through heartfelt conversations, we aim to dismantle stigma and misconceptions surrounding ADHD, while advocating for the creation of supportive communities and normalised discussions around mental health. Our discussions extend beyond awareness, emphasising the urgent need for better funding and treatment options for ADHD.
Get ready to unravel the complexities of ADHD and mental health, gain a deeper understanding of your experiences, and discover new paths towards empowerment and well-being.
Outro
This is a special edition episode recorded from a webinar.
Yes, it's recording, here we go. Okay, it's recording.
Speaker 2:Hi Louise, Hello.
Speaker 1:How are you? I'm good. How are you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm very well, thank you, just sat here drinking my coffee.
Speaker 1:Decaf. I went into Starbucks yesterday and had a decaf cappuccino, which I've never had before.
Speaker 2:Wow, it was okay.
Speaker 1:I think I just teach the same it does, really, if you're not a coffee connoisseur. My husband, peter, is a coffee connoisseur. He would struggle big time. But yeah, it was good, it filled the void of having a coffee for me.
Speaker 2:Definitely. Thanks for tasting me. So should we do a bit of an introduction, if you want to go fast?
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'm Louise, I'm 40 just in February. What?
Speaker 2:look at Louise.
Speaker 1:Obviously, I don't look at it, and I suppose one of the reasons well, the main reason we've been talking about doing this for months and months is because of our mental health, and I don't think it's any secret, if you look at the title of the podcast, that we both have ADHD, but interestingly, we have a lot of people who are not in the hospital. So I think it's a good idea to talk about this for a bit. So I think it's a good idea to talk about this for a bit. So I think it's a good idea to talk about this for a bit. As we know, comorbidly, we experience other mental health problems such as depression, anxiety for me in particular, and I know you have as well, laura. So I think it's important just in my introduction to mention those things that you know I've probably had such difficulties with my mental health, my whole life really. And then adding into the mixture that typical becoming a mother.
Speaker 1:So I had my first child when I was 29. I was just a few weeks shy of my 30th birthday. Didn't spend it quite how I anticipated. I'm right, I had a newborn baby, and that obviously brings in lots of other components to your mental health which we all I think know about, and there's such a lovely space out there where women particularly are being really open and honest about their experiences of motherhood and the impact that can have on us and our well being. So that is a nutshell, my kind, of my background. But professionally I am, interestingly, a mental health nurse. I've always been a mental health nurse. As in I've never done any of the job really since qualifying, which was when I was 21.
Speaker 2:Do you want to go into mental health nursing? Is it because of your own mental health or that's?
Speaker 1:that's an interesting question, because I didn't initially go into mental health nursing. I initially went into general nursing. It was. If I look back now, I think there was so many opportunities missed for me, and like so many other people as well, whereby, you know, I was just encouraged to do something that was safe. You always have a job, which is true. You always have a job going to nursing, and I absolutely hate to do Laura. Oh my God, I couldn't do it. I couldn't do general nursing. I just didn't like it at all for lots of different reasons, and I think, no matter what denomination of nursing you are and you could probably add midwifery onto this as well I think you have to be a certain type of person to do each kind of branch of nursing and Was that as a student law that you hated it?
Speaker 1:As a student. So I I thankfully I enjoyed my mental health placement because we got to sit around and kind of talk about feelings and drink tea. There was much more to it than that, but I really enjoyed it and luckily I managed to change halfway through into specialising in mental health rather than carrying on with my general nursing. And I remember being a student and one of the nurses on one of my placements saying everybody who goes into mental health nursing is going in to find out more about themselves or people around them. And although it was quite a flippant comment, I think that's probably, on reflection, quite true If I was to think of myself and think of some of my friends who were in that area as well. But actually it it's given.
Speaker 1:Obviously, doing this job gives you a certain element of insight, but it also gives you a certain element of isolation as well, I think.
Speaker 1:And when I say that I mean when you're struggling with your mental health, who do you go to?
Speaker 1:You go to your GP. Your GP would refer you to somebody like me or my colleagues, or a team I'm working in and I'm looking at what we do and I'm thinking, well, they can do something to help me, I don't know what's going to help, and I think that's where the isolation comes in, where you feel a real sense of Helplessness, but also quite hopeless as well when you're struggling with your mental health, because when you're in that, when you're in the depths of despair, you do want someone to come and just scoop you up. I'm not saying that that's particularly healthy for recovery on a continuous basis, but I think when you're in a crisis, it's Sometimes you just want someone to take over, right, just someone to Just take control of things for me, and I've never felt probably because of my personality, is all but I've never felt that that's been the case for me and that I find quite isolating. So if I was to go back to just introducing myself, I am Typically the issue Go off on a tangent.
Speaker 1:You did ask me a question or a fair. Fair enough, you know, and I would never, ever, ever have considered myself as having ADHD, as you all know, Never in a million years. I thought I had a good working knowledge of the condition because I come across it in work, you know, occasionally, and, if I'm being honest, when I've assessed people with other mental health problems and you know I'm saying, do you have any other health conditions? And somebody might say ADHD? I kind of dismiss it. I was kind of thinking I don't think I don't really know what that means. I don't think Maybe just need to stop eating sugar or something. I mean I wasn't outwardly judgmental, but I didn't. I don't think I gave it enough time and I think that's probably true of lots of us healthcare professionals.
Speaker 2:Absolutely and as I'm in, I've definitely been guilty of that.
Speaker 2:When you know I'm meeting a patient for the first time reviewing their medical background section of their notes and if it says ADHD or autism, there's probably an element of lack of awareness about the depth of the condition, certainly in that profession, and I probably would have thought, well, that's not relevant to me, because what I was looking for really is like physical medical conditions that might impact, you know, the way that you have your baby or things, extra things that we need to consider.
Speaker 2:But since being diagnosed with ADHD and looking at it from a different lens, actually all those kind of sensory issues, the way that you process pain, the way that we communicate, it's actually, you know, they're very valid things that health professionals need to look at through a different lens because actually that can massively impact a person's experience of, you know, that episode of care. I think that that in itself it helps to justify why we wanted to do this podcast. I think just to bring some element of awareness around about people who are in the healthcare profession to be mindful of, and just bring awareness to neurodiversity.
Speaker 1:It's interesting. It feels like a whole kind of new book has opened up and it almost feels like I was going to say I can see things clearly, but that's probably the medication that a lot of struggles probably can be due to those other conditions such as ADHD or autism, and you're right, and just being a bit dismissive of those things, and so when you suggested to me that I I don't think you suggested to do, I think you just plain out, flat out, diagnose me right there.
Speaker 2:Well, just to get the listeners a bit of background, so my name's Laura, I'm a midwife and I have also recently been diagnosed with ADHD. Louise and I actually first met when she was a patient of mine, when she was having her youngest child, the little Jack, and we did, we got on really well and we chatted and chatted. But she then came back into my life as a professional where she took up a post as the perinatal mental health nurse when I worked, and we and I had a specialist interest in perinatal mental health. So we sort of just became friends from there. But I think we've really gravitated towards each other because, as it turns out, we both have ADHD, but we've always just been able to have really deep conversations about things and we've got a lot of the same, I suppose, beliefs and values, but also I think we just hold space for each other and we can be ourselves.
Speaker 2:You know, without completely unapologetically, where maybe I'm hyper, focusing on something and I tend to try and bring Louise on that journey, saying like, oh, wouldn't this be a really good idea if we could just buy a double-decker bus off eBay and go up and live in it and travel the world, etc. Etc. So after my assessment and my diagnosis with ADHD, I was going over to visit Louise and take my daughter to Crofts for that weekend. So we were staying with Louise and her lovely husband Peter and her children and I told her about my diagnosis and I said Louise, I think you've got ADHD, because if I've got it you're worse than me, so you've just nearly got it as well. And I think that's how the conversation went.
Speaker 1:That is how the conversation went and I'm so grateful Lava gassed it, lava gassed it. But I will honestly I know this sounds really cheesy and maybe a bit overly emotional but I will always be so grateful and I'm not saying that flippantly honestly the amount of times I say to Peter Laura hadn't said that, you know, and I'm still really. I suppose we both are, but I'm even earlier on in my kind of recovery and treatment and things. I just completely lost my train of thought.
Speaker 2:That was to me all the time.
Speaker 1:What was I saying, what was I going on about? Anyway yeah, you are wonderful, obviously, and I'm really, I'm just, I'm really grateful and and I'm glad that I think now we've both got some treatment, we've actually been able to start this podcast. I think that's quite telling, isn't it? And I think it would be a good, I think, maybe, if you go into a bit of your background as well now, laura, because you've got a really interesting history. I think I could listen to you all day, actually.
Speaker 2:It's funny, isn't it? You couldn't listen to yourself all day. You kind of get sick of the sound of your own voice and hate listening to yourself back.
Speaker 1:I love your voice. You're so interesting yeah.
Speaker 2:So I am 37 years old and at the beginning of this year I suppose, I was experiencing what we refer to as burnout. I have been a midwife for 10 years and I before that. Just to give you a bit of a sort of overall background, when I was growing up, there was me, my sister and my mum. My parents get divorced. When I was very young, we lived with my gran for a period of time and she was our other parent, so to speak. We were both very, very close to my gran. When I left, art was my kind of subject at school. It was a kind of security thing. I knew that I was good at it. I had a really good relationship with my art teacher who encouraged me to go to art school to study international product design, but I absolutely hated it. It was not my niche.
Speaker 2:I was 18 years old from a single parent family. We had no money. Everyone else in the course, it was their second degree. They all had a lodge up in the Alps and they would go skiing of a weekend in the snow and they would say what did you do at the weekend, lauren? Not much, I wound the best up. They would say, oh, we were away skiing in the Alps. Have you ever been skiing before, lauren? I said I once in the dry ski slope in New Mills, but I was through the school. I've never been in the skiing in the snow. So I just felt as if I never really had a place there. They weren't my people and I think it was a massive transition going from having your art teacher there, who you're really close to he was your biggest supporter, helped you as much as you possibly could to that kind of level of independent study, independent living. It just all became a little bit overwhelming and after second year I dropped out because I just wasn't having the best time.
Speaker 1:So did you move away from home to go to art school?
Speaker 2:The second year I did, so the first year I was travelling up and down and that in itself, you know, a lot of everyone else was staying up there and you were kind of left out because you were getting the bus home and you know they were all going to nights out and freshers, weekend, different socials that come along. We go into university. I moved back home after the second year and kind of I had a bit of a rotten boyfriend. I ended up moving in with him. I don't know why that ever was a good idea, but he would sometimes go out on a Friday and not come home till a Tuesday, by which time I would have been staying at my mum's, you know, because I'd just stay and find myself and then by the time I would come back in the Tuesday, he had to put all my clothes in black bin bags.
Speaker 2:It was just a kind of cyclical thing, that was, and during that time I had been studying international product design at art school and we had to do languages associated with that. So I was studying French and Spanish and some Italian as well, and I thought, oh, actually I really like the languages, so I think I'll just go back to college and I'll get some hires and French and Spanish and Italian.
Speaker 1:And they like A levels.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you can think they're mid range between GCSE and A levels. Okay, I would call them now, but they've changed them. So I mean I left school with five hires and three advanced hires Wow. But I just felt the need to go back and, you know, pursue this newfound love of languages. So I was working in 02 at the time, which was a great job.
Speaker 2:It was very sociable, I was earning some money and went to college, got my hires and French, spanish and Italian Wow. And then thought I know what I'll do. I'll go to university and I'll study French and Hispanic studies. Why? But I had a really good relationship with the, the course leader at college. She was very supportive. You know that she was like yeah, absolutely, you know, you're gifted at this, go ahead, do it, go to university. So I was accepted to, went ahead, started university studying at the Glasgow University in Scotland, started studying French and Hispanic studies and I lasted about six weeks. Every single class was presented in French and Spanish. Oh, wow, now I wasn't fluent. I passed the exams, I got A's in them, but I was by no means so the class was taught through the medium of those languages.
Speaker 2:Exactly yeah.
Speaker 1:English and then bringing in the second language, oh crap.
Speaker 2:So that was a bit overwhelmed. I could not follow what was happening at all. So I dropped out of that as well. And then I was working full time for O2, which was great. I had a lot of you know friends. There was loads of different social things, loads of bonuses, whatever.
Speaker 2:In the meantime kind of after I left the Rotten Boyfriend I then met up with a boyfriend that I had had a couple of years previous. That was my now husband, john Spence, who I met when I was 15. The love of my life. So we then started going back out together and I fell pregnant with Jody, my eldest daughter, when I was 23. She was born in the May and then I turned 24 in the July. So it's quite. I mean, there are younger parents, but essentially I was quite a young, we were quite young parents, and after I had the baby, the midwife that I had. Her name was Elaine McCarty, and I just thought she was fabulous. I was absolutely petrified. I had done no preparation, no anti-natal classes, not much reading around about it. I was absolutely terrified.
Speaker 2:I mean that was. I don't think that I was really quite prepared for parenting at all, but when I went in in labour I found the support that I got from Elaine McCarty was outstanding. She empowered me, she reassured me. I felt so safe and so secure and actually she was the inspiration behind me going to want to study midwifery. It was never about the babies for me, it was always about empowering women. I was kind of speaking to that inner feminist in me that I actually probably never really knew that I had at that point. But I was just going with my gut feeling. So I applied to do midwifery.
Speaker 2:Then I felt quite lucky at university and I remember the feedback from some of my family. I remember my gran was furious because she said you can't go and give up a really good full-time job. You've got mortgage fee, a child's fee and I mean to be fair, it was quite a risk to take. You know, given the kind of family circumstances. I had applied to go to university study midwifery and I got a knockback, you know a straight knockback. Never even asked me to go for an interview until two weeks before the course was due to start and they rang me on the telephone to say there's a couple of people who had dropped out. Did I want to come up for an interview? And I said absolutely so. Then they offered me a place on the course, which was fabulous. I almost nearly wasn't a midwife. That's crazy, anyway.
Speaker 2:So here I am today, 37 years old. I've now got three children. I have always been troubled by my mental health since about the age of 14. I've been on antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication. I've just always felt a little bit on the outside. I can look back and see where I've masked into situations where friends, boyfriends, work colleagues and I can be whoever I need to be at that time. If you liked to not draw attention to, you know those kind of darker thoughts, maybe that I've got about myself or that those you know, the things that you worry about, the things that makes you anxious. God, did I just say that out loud and then you really overanalyse it and just so conscious about those types of things that it drives you mad. But I think over the past 18 months it's really started coming to a head and I don't know why that is. But I've obviously at some point run out of the coping strategies that I had put in place for myself that I didn't know I was doing.
Speaker 2:But we're here in the Channel Islands, we don't have any family and I think maybe post COVID you know that kind of you're not actually allowed to travel, to go and see your family, they're not allowed to come and see you. I think potentially that's contributed to poor mental health. Our daughter, jody, also is neurodivergent and she's a teenager and that is just a catastrophic combination and so it's very difficult to manage. And so in terms of work as well, obviously midwifery is quite an emotional job. Most of the time things go really well, but when they don't really feel that, you know I'm a very empathetic person, as a lot of people with ADHD are Sort of a lot of neuro typical people. But I think people with ADHD tend to really absorb the feelings of those people around them. So you're very much aware of, you know, the vibe in the room or whatever.
Speaker 2:But I certainly take on the emotions of the people that I'm looking after and I've never been very good at looking after my own well being. And so eventually these things just come to a head and I have recently just taken the decision to leave midwifery. I've been off since January and I've resigned my position, which makes me really sad. It's been a bit of an emotional journey to reach this point, but I've been describing almost as a bit of a breakup, you know, like kind of ripping the bandaid off, going cold turkey, not really socializing that much with people outside of work or really contacting them, and I'm just trying to really take my space to find out who the real Lord is, because I don't really know who that is.
Speaker 2:I think midwifery gave me a very strong identity and I kind of lived and breathed those values, because I've spent a lot of my life masking and not really knowing who I am. But when I was diagnosed with ADHD it was like a massive light bulb moment. It was like me and myself for the first time and I'm really just trying to get to know myself and just putting myself first now, looking after my own well-being, doing things that fit around, how I want my life to be. Yeah, so I suppose that's it. I feel as if someone's given me a handbook. When you get the label of having ADHD, I feel as if simultaneously, there's so much help out there that I feel as if now I've got the handbook and I'm able to live by that, so I don't need to think about it myself. But I know the strategies now and I've got the medication and I feel like a new woman, I feel content, I feel peaceful, I feel happy. Things are ticking along really well, I would say.
Speaker 1:That's interesting because I was about to say to you or ask you and I know we speak to each other quite regularly, but I think you are a master at masking that you could even fool mental health nurse sometimes I'm wondering what the kind of low mood and the anxiety, how actually has that been very different since your diagnosis and starting ADHD treatment?
Speaker 2:Yes, I would say it was quite a rocky road to begin with.
Speaker 2:So I'm on the highest dose of sertraline and I'm also on the highest dose of propranolol for anxiety and depression. If I compare it to postnatally, I never had the best experience with the third child and I had quite bad postnatal depression, to the point where I told my husband he had to come home from the golf because if he didn't come home then he was going to find me swinging in the garage because I was planning to take my own life. I just was a really, really low point and it was never. It wasn't the baby, it was the other children. I could manage the baby, I knew what to do with the baby, but it was the two and a half year old that I had, and then it was the seven year old that has ADHD and autism and just everything was completely overwhelming.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of women find that that postnatal depression is the catalyst for further diagnosis of other neurological conditions. I've written a little bit of it around it and I think a lot of women have reached the point of postnatally, after having children, you're running out of strategies and therefore you can identify that it's something more than postnatal depression. If I compare it to now, when I initially started the medication, I felt so lost. I was adapting to the diagnosis itself and then obviously starting new medication. I still felt a bit emotionally dysregulated. But now that I understand we're kind of six months down the line, now that I understand more about the condition, I understand how that applies to my life. I mean, I don't understand it fully yet and I still reflect back on all the experiences that I've had through my whole life and I can see now where there would have been opportunities to have picked it up. But, as we know and we talk about very often, it's that inequity of women. Females tend to present differently with ADHD than males do, and we know that the diagnostic criteria is set up for a male based assessment because all the research revolves around white male children and I don't present the same as the other eight year old boy that's messing around in the classroom or whatever. They're polar opposites, aren't they? So, yeah, there's been a lot of light bulb moments. There's been a lot of oh, I get it now.
Speaker 2:I remember actually just as a bit of a side note, sorry to interrupt Chula Weas. I remember while I was at art school. I remember after writing the first kind of academic piece at that level. It was all about the history of art. It was really a really dry, boring subject. I put it off, and put it off, and put it off, and I wrote it the day before. I stayed up all night and then handed it in and I got a very, very scraped her pass. It was so bad.
Speaker 1:I thought you were going to say you got the best mark you've ever got.
Speaker 2:I don't know, following on from that essay, having a meeting with my kind of academic tutor, they sent me for a dyslexia test, oh really. So I went to wherever you go for that and I was thinking, oh yes, let me have dyslexia because you get a free laptop. Then you start getting all the equipment. Anyway, turns out I never had dyslexia, but we had a conversation where the assessor said to me you don't have dyslexia, but you do have very slow processing ability. So at that time that would have been 2002, 2003-ish. That would have been an opportunity to refer me then for further assessment. However, it was only really recognised as a condition that was accessible in adulthood from 2008. Not to mention, I think the first randomised control trial wasn't until 2002 for females. So it's interesting, although I get a little bit angry and think, gosh, look at all those missed opportunities and I might have been able to finish art school had it just been diagnosed and I had the right support in place. But actually people can be forgiven because they didn't know Absolutely.
Speaker 1:No, how are you going to do? And I think I had a similar experience when I was. My mum had thankfully kept a lot of my school reports and so she gave them to me so I could give them to the team who were assessing me and reading through them. I had similar thoughts, just this kind of almost sadness for this girl who has clearly got no interest in things, but a little bit lost as well. I was remembering these subjects when I was reading about them and I was thinking I just didn't.
Speaker 1:Maybe a lot of that is just being a young adult or a teenager, but it was obviously more than that for me as well, and you always want to look on and blame somebody, but you can't.
Speaker 1:Like you said, how would they have known? A lot of them just said Louise needs to be more organised or she lacks the organisation to draw diagrams and things, and so it's always a case and I'm sure it's the same for lots of us and for you as well, laura that it's always a case of just do better, just take more, just try harder, and so you constantly have this theme running through your mind of I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough. Whether you know it or not, it's potentially there, if that's the message you've had from very young. And it is sad, isn't it? It's a little bit like a grief, and I've said a couple of things when I've been on the phone to my mum and she'll say well, that's in the past, now let's move on, and I agree in regards to moving on, but I also think there is an element of just processing it.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, absolutely Just processing it and accepting it for what it is, because you're applying it now, aren't you?
Speaker 2:You're looking back. You're applying it to all those circumstances from when you were younger, to those experiences in the classroom where you weren't organised or whatever. You're kind of forgiving yourself now, going back, you're forgiving that Louise, the child, for the way that she made herself feel at the time and telling her that it's okay. You know that we can let go of that now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think I've probably got more things to forgive as an adult, as a child. To be honest, I think I've just screwed up and, you know, haven't completed and the impulsive behaviours and things. But you're right, it's about reaching that level of forgiveness because if you've got that thread running through your subconscious then it really doesn't help your mental health and then enter the comorbid conditions you get like depression, anxiety, you know, guaranteed act. And so we've both. I think we've both kind of summarised a little bit of my way about how we've gotten to this point. But something you and I spoke about in quite a lot of depth is that panorama.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's get into that. That is the hot potato of the week, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Every time I think about it I get cross and then I have to stop thinking about it. What am I going to do? What are you going to do about it, louise? What are you going to do? And there isn't much I can do. I felt like that I had. I was assessed privately by one of the companies that was on that programme, adhd360. That wasn't my experience and I felt that it massively invalidates lots of people's diagnoses or people who are due to have an assessment.
Speaker 2:It doesn't feel them a confidence, does it?
Speaker 1:But do you know, Laura I don't know if I'm going completely off topic here, if I'm just trying to look for problems that aren't there, but I know we touched on this in the day it feels like another. It just feels like another kind of swipe at women. Does that make sense? It feels like whether it's a conscious level or not, I think it's hard to tell, but we can all agree it's mostly women who are coming for diagnosis now, with assessment and potential diagnosis.
Speaker 2:In the past few years there's been an influx of women kind of identifying with the traits of ADHD.
Speaker 1:I think there's undertones of and I sense it from some people, some articles I might read and I may have been guilty of it myself at some point as well these undertones of you just making excuses, you just making excuses because you can't do that, you can't do this, or you're struggling with that or you're struggling with the other. And as women, I feel collectively not everybody and it's not always men a lot of the time it's as women putting pressure on, as women, right.
Speaker 2:Is that kind of societal pressure of these gender stereotypes that we have. So we're talking in terms of executive function, aren't we so? Maintaining house? Yes, I mean, john and I are fairly equal in the house. I don't know about you and Peter, but we tend to have the chores that we do. So he does the bins on a Monday night, that's it. No, he doesn't. He does the washing, ironing. I don't think I've ever seen him clean a bathroom, so I would have to draw the line there. It's always me that cleans the bathrooms. But we're talking in terms of those. You know being able to perform executive functioning. You know carry out the tasks and use the skills that you've got to be able to maintain your household. Make sure there's food in the fridge, prepare a meal, sort the packed lunches for the children it's your favourite of yours, I know. Oh, the packed lunches. I am. What it is is if I've got a phobia of the packed lunches.
Speaker 1:We should start a company that makes packed lunches and just delivers them to the house in the morning. There we go. That's a really good idea. You can use that best that you're going to buy off eBay to do it.
Speaker 2:That will be tonight's hyperfix. We'll be next week's next year. I was thinking about this packed lunches thing and I'm sure that could be our side hustle.
Speaker 1:It could be like here you go packed lunches Like good stuff, but for kids packed lunches?
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm on fire.
Speaker 1:today, I'm on fire.
Speaker 2:That's alongside the one that she had, the mobile grooming strope hair salon. You get your dog groomed and you get yourself groomed at the same time.
Speaker 1:I think, still think, that's a really good business idea and I have to pitch that someday See you in Dragons, then oh, you don't like that one.
Speaker 2:Oh, what about this one? Because I'll say that Hold on, I've got more, I've got more.
Speaker 1:I've got something else back here. I can think of the executive functioning and like, are you just so much yours and it being equal with you and John? Typically? I find it really boring. I find it really, really boring doing the house. I find it really boring. There are times when I feel a little bit like Marlarkin, you know, from the dawn good to May. Did you ever watch the original series?
Speaker 2:I'm far too young for that she was just.
Speaker 1:that's the kind of mother far too young for that. Just a bit.
Speaker 2:Not 40.
Speaker 1:Just this amazing. You know motherly in the kitchen. She always looked like she was ready to have sex with her husband as well. You know just this like perfect female.
Speaker 2:Which is great, and if that's your bag and that's what gives you the pomeen which makes you happy, then that's you know, that's absolutely great, Perfect. However, it's not for me and it's not for you.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, it isn't. But equally, I think this is the point I've got to, where work wasn't for me either. Nothing was for me. I love looking after my family and I do get a sense of satisfaction, but I just found it more and more of a struggle and then so it stops becoming something that I enjoy to do.
Speaker 2:Enjoy doing and so and it feels forced, kind of. You're really whatever you do. Do you feel as if you have to force yourself to do it against your will? Yeah, and it's almost a bit like it's like a magnetic force field, but when it does the opposite, you know you're trying to put the two magnets together and they don't quite match.
Speaker 2:There's just something about it that, physically, I think they refer to actually as ADHD paralysis, but you just feel overwhelmed by everything that you should be doing, or that your mind is telling you that you need to do, and you just can't do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what I find interesting is, because it is women, it seems to be. I think the statistics are sharing, aren't they? It's mostly women coming for diagnoses later on in life because of those reasons that you've just mentioned about. You know, no real research being done, it not really being recognised in women, and so it's becoming more recognisable and it's and for lots of women it probably is becoming a light bulb moment for them. And it felt like that panorama programme just undermined it all. You said it in a much nicer way than I was going to say and overall it was just the opening credits or the opening reels, I don't know the correct term for it. Had the psychologist assessor doing her hair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know, if you know.
Speaker 2:I set the lead back as if she didn't do it.
Speaker 1:She set the lead back doing putting her hair up. She was on a video call, wasn't she? It was a video assessment and she's there doing her hair and I think it was very subtle but it almost immediately undermined her. Yeah, it just makes me think. Would they have? Would it have had the same impact if it was a man running his hands through his hair? You know, I don't think it would, I don't know. It just felt like it was part of a message to send out to invalidate and discredit people.
Speaker 1:But overall, it's women, just by the very nature of what they're talking about. Yeah, because it's age HD, it's people going to private clinics, and I don't know what the statistics are for the private clinics, but if they're, you know, if they're in keeping with the other statistics we've been talking about, then it probably is mostly women. Yeah, and it's just another. It's just, it just felt like another kick in the tummy, you know, another kind of oh, just come with your housework, you know, just just can't do your housework, just, you know, all of those things that, as women, are kind of put on us to and we're kind of dismissed, and it happens in lots of areas of being, of our lives, of our health care, and you'll certainly see it in like women's health specifically, you know, when you're going through the kind of maternity process, and the same goes for conditions that are mostly assigned to women, such as perinatal mental health problems.
Speaker 1:I appreciate men have them also, but if we would talk about it from the female perspective, there's very little research and it's again it's that bias that comes in and so I felt like the program really overall discredited women, but women with ADHD, maybe that was quite. I think it was quite subtle, maybe I felt it more acutely, I don't know being all of those things, but I took it quite. I didn't take it personally, but just makes me quite cross. I think it was. I'm no expert, but don't people use the term lazy journalism? I don't know if I would, and that NHS doctor, it was just so.
Speaker 2:Interestingly, actually, you're about to touch on that NHS doctor. He's actually written a state. He's actually had an interview since. Okay and with. I'll just tell you just now I'm pulling up on my LinkedIn and I reshared it on there because I thought I was very interested in that. He has kind of spoken out about it now and actually he's a very balanced. So his name is Dr Mike Smith and he was the consultant psychiatrist that was on the documentary. It was in the Guardian Online and the title of the piece is called Is it Really Too Easy to be Diagnosed with ADHD. He goes on to say that he's the NHS psychiatrist that was on the panoramic documentary.
Speaker 2:The episode revealed the fallout of decades of under diagnosis and NHS services that are no longer fit for purpose. It's interesting that that's the heading, because actually that's not been a lot of ADHD people's take on that programme. I didn't get that, did you? I didn't get that. But I think if we, you know, if If you look further into the documentary, I can kind of see his point.
Speaker 2:He goes on to talk about how this panorama documentary provoked a heated debate. One camp is relieved that the concerns about the quality of care for those with ADHD are finally being exposed. In the face of the logged, jammed NHS waiting list. Many patients who are looking for answers to their struggles simply have no other option than to pay out of their own pocket to see a private provider and clearly some people are being let down. So I think it's really important to highlight that. You know, while that's one person's experience of one practitioner within a private company, that's not necessarily everybody's experience. One bad person doesn't make up for a bad company, because actually these companies have been created to bridge the gap for people who are waiting to be assessed. Now, while that's going to make the practitioners and the company money, the majority of these professionals working within the private companies also work in the NHS Psychiatrist, psychologist, adhd specialist, nurses. They're part-time, private, part-time NHS. So I suppose a part of it is regardless. The NHS can also not do thorough assessments. It doesn't mean one is better than the other, agree, so you're paying to get ahead of the waiting list. You're not paying for a more expert assessment, because it's the same people essentially that are providing it. Yeah, it goes on to talk about. There is obviously a need to deal with the way the market is currently organised, to improve things, but there is also a huge emotional fallout from the show, which speaks to the polarising nature of the debate around ADHD, the stigma and how to effectively manage this very real condition, which has undergone a certain awareness in recent years. So I think a lot of people have obviously written to the BBC or to this doctor to sort of complain about how it's made them feel.
Speaker 2:In fact, john and I had a conversation, john as my husband, just for any of you viewers, listeners, that don't know that John and I often have debates about things specifically around feminism and religion and racism. He very much likes to play devil's advocate because I think he enjoys winding me up, because I take these things very seriously. We have very different political views about things, because I'm the empath and I, when I watch the news, it can send me into a world of deep, dark depression because I just think there's no hope, all this is going on in the world and it's all bad, bad, bad and humanity is, you know, you just have no faith in it. After the programme, john said to me well, what does that you make you think about your diagnosis To me? That was him questioning it, but actually the diagnosis for me has been the catalyst for major life transition. It feels as if it fits. It answers a lot of why I have been and why I am the way that I am. The strategies that I've put in place using the ADHD coaching, the medication that I'm taking they are all massively helping my life and therefore his life and the children's life. So I just don't see that there's any debate about my diagnosis.
Speaker 2:I used also a private company. As you know, louise, it wasn't one of the ones that was investigated by this panoramic documentary. I took the report to the local psychiatrist here in the Channel Islands and she was very impressed by the thorough assessment that I had had, to the point where she's now started recommending people on the waiting list that they use this particular company, which is fantastic. However, my fear is that now a lot of the people on those waiting lists are not going to use the private companies either because of the way they've been portrayed by the BBC, which is unfortunate, and I know it's not the NHS's fault, because the NHS is dramatically underfunded and actually wholeheartedly is the Tory government. That's the problem. That is a whole different podcast episode. Anyway, I'm very pleased, though that this psychiatrist has spoken out. It goes on to highlight that actually, the NHS is underfunded and the amount of funding that goes towards ADHD assessments and treatment is massively underfunded, because they couldn't have anticipated the surge in people that were looking for an assessment.
Speaker 2:I think it's very interesting and I hope that it brings forward positive change. I hope that it's the catalyst for many debates going forward. Lots of people have lots of opinions about it, but it brings regardless of the intention or the way that the documentary was brought about, I think it really brings the topic of ADHD to the forefront, and that in itself can be a really good thing. I am very secure in my diagnosis, as I know that you are with yours. You started the medication the other day and you're already feeling the benefits of that, which is fantastic.
Speaker 1:I am as well. Because of my professional background, I could almost put a professional eye on the assessment I was having. If that makes sense, yeah, they're going to be able to give you a working knowledge of it. So I knew what she was asking, I knew why she was asking things and I was as honest as I could be, as in there was something she would say do you struggle with something? I'd say no, not really. I think it was the loud voice Do you have, do you feel like your voice is quite loud? And I don't think that of myself, particularly unless I'm screaming at the kids, unless, I'm required, yeah.
Speaker 1:so I didn't sit there and say, yes, I've got everything. And it was very kind of. The assessment was very led by me really. She allowed me to kind of which I would expect, allowed me to kind of tell my story and then she was able to assess bits that she was picking out from that I suppose maybe that you were using she was able to kind of say well, actually, if you break it down, yeah, absolutely that kind of that active listening, just probing questions, trying to gently touch on things that would be relevant to the assessment.
Speaker 1:And I've since seen the report that she's written as well and I think it's very thorough, I think it's, it's, I think it makes sense for me. I think my worry was that I would start questioning, and not just that I would question it, but that those around me would question it, like John did for you. But thankfully that doesn't seem to have really happened. I haven't told that many people anyway, I don't really see it. I'm not going around with a sandwich board on saying I have ADHD.
Speaker 2:I mean, essentially, that's what I did.
Speaker 1:I know, I know and I think.
Speaker 2:I felt so proud and so motivated and empowered and I really felt as if I could celebrate. I wanted to make a cake, I wanted to have a coming out, I wanted to have a party. I feel as if this just for all you people that know me, this is why I have been the way that I have been emotionally dysregulated.
Speaker 2:Crying and everything can't take criticism because of you know, actually that's rejection, sensitive, dysphoria and emotionally dysregulated. I've had these hyperfocuses and where you think I've been really flaky and can't stick to things, it's just because my attention is shifting from thing to thing to thing.
Speaker 1:I know absolutely same for me and I haven't. It hasn't made me question my diagnosis. In fact, as time goes on just I mean, it's only been a week it's been a week since I got my positive diagnosis of ADHD. So I'm like I'm like an embryo of an ADHD awareness person. That made no sense, but the more time goes on, the more I'm learning and actually in listening to other people talk about their ADHD, when I hear other people talk about their ADHD, I think, oh my God, I'm so much worse than that In like an embarrassed way, because of some of the things I've done, and I still carry a lot of shame around my behaviors and I think that's probably why and being slightly different personality is probably why I'm not as open I wouldn't be closed off from it but I don't feel like I could properly trust many people.
Speaker 1:My masking hasn't fully left me yet. I don't think so. It hasn't, thankfully, hasn't made me question my diagnosis and it hasn't made you, and that's important because I think you put in one of your social media posts that you're valid. You experience the knowledge and you know. I mean, this label is amazing and it gives you some reasons, but actually, at the core of it is recognising how to react to yourself, how to how to carry out those self care tasks, and recognise things in yourself and get the right help. That's what it's about. It's not about a beacon of identity, because it's not about a trend.
Speaker 1:Still you and I'm still me.
Speaker 2:Who are you?
Speaker 1:Who am.
Speaker 2:I Well, I won't go through that as a topic of next week's podcast. You've got an extra three hours, absolutely right. I think it's important to have your feelings validated. It's important for you to come to grips with your diagnosis and just slowly work through it, learn what it's like to take the mask off if you can, but I don't think it's an easy thing to do. It's a bit of a lifetime. It's very easy to just slip back into whoever you need to be at that time. It is very tiring pretending to be someone you're not. It's exhausting, but actually meaningful as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Really painful, emotional.
Speaker 2:I think it's really important to be gravitated towards each other and I'm glad that we have each other to support each other's journeys. I think that's really important. Business ventures yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Any kind of ventures, advents or travelling adventures. I think that's really important to be aware of. I think that's really important to be aware of. Being a health professional does not make you superhuman. We have our struggles and we're human and we do shameful things and what I do and I think sometimes, I think almost always just breaking down those barriers, is really, really helpful for people.
Speaker 2:A lot of people have said to me gosh, I just don't know how you do it all, because when I'm experiencing one of those kind of hyper fixations, I have so much energy that I can do so much. I can well, recently, not to promote myself, but I one weekend just felt it right in a children's storybook so I wrote three, illustrated one, and then the next day I wrote another, but then I absolutely burnt myself out because I was staying awake so late at night. I had so many ideas floating around in my head and it's almost this kind of sense of urgency that you get. You need to get it down on paper and you need to write it down. You need to just do it, because if you don't, you know that you're going to lose interest in it and all this stuff in your head is never going to come out.
Speaker 1:It's always a sense of urgency, isn't it, laura? I don't know, I feel that as well. Even if it's, I want to make a change in my life. I need to do it now, because, exactly, I'm not going to. Why would I wait? I need to do it now, now, now, now, now. And you're right, that can be really, really exhausting. But you've written a beautiful, well more than one book and almost published.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, about to be, I'm guessing. It's probably quite a slow process, but if you want to donate to the GoFundMe that I've got started, I'll pop the link in the bottom of the podcast. Also, if you want to contact Louise and I will also pop our email addresses when the podcast goes live and you can contact us. Let us know if there's anything that you specifically want us to chat about or you know we can chat about it. We can get people on and chat to them and I think they've experienced these of being a late diagnosed ADHD female will be really interested to hear from lots of people, so please do get to go ahead and contact us.
Speaker 1:And I think, even even if it's other other things relating to being a female and and having any mental health problems or issues like that that you'd like some advice or help with parenting maybe not parenting. I just think that they open really lovely conversations, don't they? And really helpful conversations for us all to learn.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's been lovely chatting to you, Louise and you, and next week. Yes, same time, same place.
Speaker 1:Same Decav coffee.
Speaker 2:Yes, plus these podcasts, you know.