In true ADHD style, it's taken ages to get started on series 3. But here it is. Our latest episode takes you through the often-missed connections between binge eating disorder and ADHD, pulling back the curtain on the reality that many face in silence. We dissect the challenges of ADHD in healthcare, especially for women, and how creating more comprehensive support systems is vital.
It's no secret that the healthcare system can feel like a disjointed puzzle, each piece critical but often failing to fit together. We probe the progressive approach of a surgeon who integrates mental health support into physical care, a pairing as natural as rhythm and blues. We also reflect on the personal healthcare journeys that reveal the stark contrast between private and public services. Finding joy in creative outlets amidst the chaos of life with ADHD, for instance, through the delicate art of jewellery making, also finds its way into our heartfelt discussion.
Outro
This is a special edition episode recorded from a webinar.
In true ADHD style, it's taken ages to get started on series 3. But here it is. Our latest episode takes you through the often-missed connections between binge eating disorder and ADHD, pulling back the curtain on the reality that many face in silence. We dissect the challenges of ADHD in healthcare, especially for women, and how creating more comprehensive support systems is vital.
It's no secret that the healthcare system can feel like a disjointed puzzle, each piece critical but often failing to fit together. We probe the progressive approach of a surgeon who integrates mental health support into physical care, a pairing as natural as rhythm and blues. We also reflect on the personal healthcare journeys that reveal the stark contrast between private and public services. Finding joy in creative outlets amidst the chaos of life with ADHD, for instance, through the delicate art of jewellery making, also finds its way into our heartfelt discussion.
Outro
This is a special edition episode recorded from a webinar.
So it's lovely to see you're looking very, very slim. You're still taking the Olympics stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I have a question about that Now that you've lost so much weight, what happens with your Olympics? Do you take it the way you were, or does the dose need to?
Speaker 2:be all over the world I don't know, I've read that to stay on it regularly. Excuse me, but I think it's a matter of I think, for me personally, understanding binge eating disorder and how it links in to having ADHD and how my brain works is key for my future, and I'm not at a place where I can fully explore it yet. I feel like taking these as an pick is like a real and the elephants as well, you know, because that absolutely has an impact on my impulsivity, my sense of binging. But I think I need to wait until I'm at a point that I can comfortably kind of withdraw from some of that these I'm particularly and how I manage things, because what I don't want is to I don't want to start overthinking and going back into that cycle. But you know, what is really tricky, laura, is that there seems to be very little to know support for people with binge eating disorder and it is a classified mental illness. Now, yeah, it has been for a few years, I think. Since 2015 it's been the DSM.
Speaker 1:In terms of other eating disorders. Just interestingly, is anorexia and bulimia in the DSM.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Is it on? It's been a long time, For a long time, and that I just think there's so much work still left to do for those of us who do have it. And it's exacerbated by environmental factors, isn't it? Like you know, the easy access to these ultra processed foods, the addictive nature of them.
Speaker 1:I think it'll.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like a perfect storm, really creating problems.
Speaker 1:And there's a lot of stuff around. That reward system isn't there, like, oh, I've been good all week with what I'm eating and you reward yourself at the weekend with a huge takeaway and 15 custard slices of your meat?
Speaker 2:And I just think, wow, how can we you know, and I have done it and do still to a certain extent how can we move forward if we continue to shame ourselves around having food that isn't the right time to have it, or it's not the weekend, or, but I ate too much yesterday and didn't have enough to stay up. There's so much around it and I'm not an expert. I'm an expert in the sense that I'm living it, but with regards to the psychology behind it, I know what doesn't work, if that makes sense. So I would like to say more of a joined up way of working for professionals.
Speaker 2:But all sorts of teams and I know we've had so many guests on, haven't we, and some of them in particular, have shed some light on some of the work that's going on that bariatric teams and our screening, or some of them in our screening for ADHD. I think it's really important that I mean we had Sam on from she lives in Marighele, actually, and her you called her a coach, yeah, and when she said that she went to the gynecologist about PMD Day, the gynecologist said, well, how long have you had ADHD? And she's like I didn't know I had it. Do I have it?
Speaker 1:And that's another example of realization, because I know I had sent you some stuff a few weeks ago about the connection between polycystic ovarian syndrome as well and that I suppose it links in as well to weight gain and struggling to lose weight because of the insulin resistance. And so there should there definitely, between all the PMDD, the menopausal, postpartum, all that kind of business, there definitely must be a niche to be screened for ADHD or autistic type conditions within gynecology settings. I don't know, but it just seems as if you'd need to be a rocket scientist before you could actually facilitate that.
Speaker 2:I think you're right and I think that we're so disjointed our health service is so disjointed whereas we know that everything links to another.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nothing happens in isolation. Does it? It doesn't does it.
Speaker 2:And you think about connection all those things, yeah, and you think about things like chronic pain, yeah, and just my alga, my alga, things like this. It's really interesting and I've had some referrals from a physician I'm going to keep it very kind of the information, very scan, so that it doesn't identify anybody but from a surgeon, let's say, who deals with purely physical health referrals from him. So can you please see this person? I think they're depressed, anxious and it's impacting on their ability to recover or I just Wow, how progressive is that? Yeah, I mean, this is all in the private sector, so I'm not talking about NHS or the equivalent that you have in Guernsey. So if you have the means and you have a health professional who feels that they have the means to refer on which he did, and this person wanted support and it's really identified a lot of trigger areas. But that was so, like I said, I feel like that was so progressive with that surgeon and I imagine a lot of health professionals just feel too overwhelmed to even consider.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I've done what I need to do. People's styles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So there's no time to be progressive like that. But actually, what's the long-term? So many sectors within the NHS are being subcontracted out third party companies, aren't they? And actually, if it means better health, I would rather stop paying national health stamps and pay for things privately, I think. And if we're getting insurance and obviously it all depends on your financial situation but if you have the means, then it is a good alternative, because it just feels as if systems are a bit broken, disjointed and that's not beneficial to our health collectively.
Speaker 2:And very, very kind of reactive, isn't it? Rather than?
Speaker 1:It's problem-solving. Rather than looking at the person holistically, it's looking at broken down individual points.
Speaker 2:Yeah exactly, yeah, absolutely. So we haven't done an episode for a few months. Now I'm wondering. I know we've managed to catch up, but with regards to your treatment, that you're having free day, your functioning, lots of check, lots of change for you how do you feel things are going for you?
Speaker 1:Yes, I think that I am definitely in a good headspace. I still have the tendency to over-commit myself, we shall say, but it just always feels as if I'm in a hurry because there are so many things that interest me. The common denominator is women's health.
Speaker 1:And actually the things that I'm interested in don't happen in isolation either. The ADHD teenager has gone through lots of menstrual things relationships, navigating teenage life. That person will then become an adult who potentially goes on to have a child, and then we've got that whole postpartum journey for ADHD, and they will then go on to become a woman who goes through the menopause. And so, even though each of those are quite individual topics themselves, the common factor is the people, and that's what really holds my interest is the experiences of people, and I can't help myself but get involved in it all whatever there's an opportunity. But then what happens is I end up feeling really overwhelmed when I'm already substantially committed to other things. That's a lesson for me that I need to try and work on is how to prioritise those things.
Speaker 2:I do sometimes feel that, although you know you know that you should be pacing yourself and you know all of the techniques that sometimes the urge is just too strong, because that's how I feel, like I almost like it's and sometimes it makes me feel quite hopeless.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, absolutely. And it just still comes with that sense of urgency that I've talked about before that. But this feels so important right now that we must take action. We must do this and we must do that. And I'm my own worst enemy, because I feel it all the time. With the reason that I do, I don't ever really pick up a fictional novel anymore. I pick up a book that's designed to teach me things I'm probably not doing as much of the basic well-being, self-care type things I'm not really taking anything from it.
Speaker 2:It's trying to be consistent with those things, isn't it Consistently? Which is what we are and I'm the same. I recognise it, but it's difficult to stop. It's still difficult, even, you know, even with treatment and things like that. It's an understanding ADHD. It's so difficult to because the urge, when you have an idea or you have passion for something, it's so strong I don't know about you it feels so strong. Yeah, it just takes me, if I feel that there are any obstacles to it and I look at things from the right angle, to support whatever it is I'm interested in Heavily biased, towards Heavily biased and then I can just quite quickly just lose interest.
Speaker 1:Especially if there's an obstacle, you think, oh, I don't have the capacity for that, I can't overcome that challenge, so set that off.
Speaker 2:I think that is the trigger for me losing interest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Because while it's still a good idea and you still believe in it, you kind of you don't want to deal with that obstacle or that challenge Because it feels too challenging.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not worth my while.
Speaker 1:And then you think it must not be the right thing to do because it's not a smooth path, yeah, and then you sack it off. So a couple of months ago I developed a new hobby in the way of polymer clay jewellery. Say what so? Who Play polymer clay jewellery? Because I was watching. Ah. So just a few little play doh and you can get like tips and then you make your shapes or whatever you want to make, Put the wee holes in it For your, you know your earrings.
Speaker 1:And then bake them in the oven and then attach, and then you've got your jewellery.
Speaker 1:I mean, I was obsessed with the point, like it was similar to previous hobbies like crochet, micrame, upcycling furniture, but to the point where I was doing it all the time, I was unable to have much conversation about anything else other than, oh, have you seen this? Anyway, I bought all the stuff, spent an absolute fortune watching people do it on TikTok and Instagram, where they have this pasta machine that they put the clay through. They obviously then don't use it to make pasta, but it's obviously to flatten it out and make it the right thickness, and even, rather than using a rolling pin, I even spent I mean not a lot of money like 15 pounds or something getting one of those UV resin kits. You know, a bit like when you're getting your shell act nails done or your gel nails and UV light.
Speaker 1:So you just make the jewellery, you put it underneath the lamp and it happens, not the resin. You need to put the clay in the oven, but not the resin. So, anyway, I've got loads of earrings there. Now John ended up hiding all the stuff somewhere in the garage because I literally couldn't stop doing it. I just, every time I come home, I'd left the stuff sitting out in the living room and I would sit for hours, and hours, and hours and hours.
Speaker 2:I find it interesting, Is it? I think there's an argument to be had that some of that behaviour is like disassociation.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I know what I was disassociating from. I was putting off Master's work. I'm at the stage where I've done some of the interviews. Lots of people had contacted me, which is absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 1:What I found, though, then, was it felt too much, and I had all these emails sitting in my inbox of people interested in the study, and then the tasks surrounding it that I was finding really challenging was taking the information out of the email, putting it into my spreadsheet and asking them, because I would need to then say oh, thanks very much for your interest.
Speaker 1:Here's some participant information and here is a questionnaire just to get some demographic details and to see if you fit the criteria for the study. So then they would have to send me that back when it was filled in, and then I checked through to make sure that they meet all the criteria to participate in the study. Then I would need to send them a consent form. They would need to read and sign the consent form, send me that back, and then from that point, we would go on to arrange when we were going to do the online chat. That, for me, felt whoa. This is a lot of executive function required here for this, and I was putting it off and putting it off, and putting it off because it just was completely overwhelming me.
Speaker 2:I suppose that's kind of procrastination, isn't it At its finest? At its finest, yeah, it's hard to understand. I've been doing a lot of work around trauma personally with a clinical psychologist and she's taught me so much and the connection with ADHD and some of the symptoms of ADHD are really closely aligned with a trauma response, aren't they? And particularly if it's childhood trauma, because of the development of the brain and when the trauma occurs and I'm seeing so many, I'm noticing so many things that I've done that how can I word this? So many things about me that I dismissed or didn't think were a thing or an issue that actually are.
Speaker 2:I suppose that is the point of having any kind of psychological therapy. Isn't it that you're discovering things and learning about ADHD? And also I mean the fact that for most of us it's hereditary, but then you have trauma on top of it. How to trauma? Which actually, if you think about it in a sensible way, it makes sense, doesn't it that you have, if it's hereditary, that you have parents who are probably dysfunctional or not treated, maybe addicts, maybe impulse, all of those things that affects you, and then it's almost like a snowfall, isn't it kind?
Speaker 1:of building and getting bigger and exacerbating ADHD and I find that I wonder are you more likely to experience trauma because of those? What's the word I'm trying to use, like it's handed down, you know, for the generations, I know intergenerational, but you know if you have a parent that's dysregulated emotionally, dysfunction, etc then you're more likely to cause that trauma onto your child because you don't know how to regulate yourself. So, there's a difference. What is the difference between the two?
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know. I think this is the. I mean a lot of what I've been learning about is I need to answer this at school? Can I? Hello, hi, okay, yeah, oh, have you? Yes, I'll have a look at it. I think it might be okay. Yeah, thank you. Oh, thank you so much. That's good luck. Thank you, I'll have a look when I come in. Thank you, bye, it was just about a uniform at school. My Mary, my oldest, is in France on a school trip. Oh she. So when I saw the school number, I thought, oh, but I don't know how to answer that, but it was fine.
Speaker 2:I can't remember what we were talking about. Oh, how do you differentiate between trauma and ADHD? I don't know, I think that's the kind of million dollar question. And when you think about the DSM again, I think neurodevelopmental trauma isn't part of that, but it isn't classified in the DSM. So the manual for your children is, but obviously ADHD is, but they present very similar or the same and treatment would be the same. So it's almost like I think maybe that's where psychiatry is becoming a bit unstuck with it and I'm just only learning about it now and learning that the way probably we experience, as people who have ADHD and then experience trauma, it might be quite an inflamed response because that feels invalidating.
Speaker 2:But maybe that is the. I don't know enough about the science and things behind. But there's a lot to learn and I don't think it can be ignored. That trauma and processing that trauma, when you feel ready and that the time is right, that that is something to be explored, but again it's not something that's readily available to most people. Right Again it becomes health economics. It's the poorest in society of people. You're probably the people who are experiencing the most acute types of trauma and chronic trauma and they haven't particularly got the means then to pay privately for things or to understand. It's a minefield, but an interesting one, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. It could be one of those things that it just comes hand in hand. You might never be able to differentiate.
Speaker 2:You think about. I think about like my daughter's got ADHD and she there's no trauma in her childhood so far. You know, if you look at those, the ACEs, the adverse childhood experiences, my score was 8 out of 10 which I've had.
Speaker 2:Did you think of the same? Does any Did really good on that test, congratulations, and you think, if that's, you know, obviously it's a flavour, it's an indication of trauma in comparison to the majority of people and I think if you get over three or four, you know your health outcomes are significantly impacted, which goes back to what we were just saying about health and physical health and mental health and how they're all connected and it's just, it's almost like light bulb moments and I know we say that a lot but it's, I feel, quite similar to you like why is anyone doing anything about this? What we need to do something? And then, yeah, then it overwhelms me and I just want to take a nap.
Speaker 1:And the frustration, though, that comes with the fact that you know you there's very little. You know you can do your bit or take up your place at the wall to do a little bit to bring that wall down, but actually there's very little that you can do on a grander scale and that feels like another obstacle it does it's frustration and, yes, then you need a nap because you think, oh, jesus Christ, this is.
Speaker 1:I was saying to John not long ago that just experiences in my life over the last two years probably have gradually led me to view society and organisations, organisational structures like healthcare, education, etc. A lot of it is corrupt. I'm questioning now the goals of those organisations and how much they don't align actually with a lot of my values. But then when you look at the wider world in terms of governments, all of the things that are happening around the world with conflict, it feels as if the world sometimes is not a very nice place to be. Yeah, absolutely. It was quite overwhelming too sometimes because it makes you feel like what's the point?
Speaker 2:And I think that's where those self-care techniques come in, don't they, you know, read that book about the escapism, or? I mean, I can get too much into that escapism. So I think then that becomes just as much of a difference from me. I don't want to acknowledge my emotions, my feelings, but it's important. Yeah, it's all just a bit grim, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but then I suppose you look at the little things that you've got in your life that do make you happy. So I was telling John this morning that after school yesterday Jody had shouted me because she couldn't get. She was trying to make her bed. This is after school, you know. She's left her bedroom in an absolute riot. It's a shithole. She had shouted me because the doovie cover that she's got on at the moment is quite silky on the inside, so the doovie slips around inside the cover.
Speaker 1:And she's sitting corner to corner and that really irritates us, and she couldn't get it to work. So she was shouting me can you come up and sort my doovie cover? And I said I'm just doing some reading just now and then I'll be up. And then she said but what is it that you're reading? She's shouting. And I said well, I'm just reading an article. And she went oh, and that'll take such a long time. And she said and you've still not cleaned my bin out. I wish you would just do your jobs.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, how have you raised a misogynist?
Speaker 1:What the fuck? How are these my jobs?
Speaker 2:Is this your stuff?
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, You're jobs I went to.
Speaker 2:I went to get Jack from nurseries. He's just turned three and he's talking a lot more. And Emma, the, the, the nursery worker, said to me oh, he's been really chatty today. He's been saying Mary and Iris are at school and daddy's at work and mummy's at home cleaning. I was like well, there we go.
Speaker 1:I love how the feedback is.
Speaker 2:And it's. It's shocking, isn't it? How, probably going a bit deep with this now, but how is women's society is just, is just built around us doing the fucking cleaning? It's you clean, you need to clean up in that and the expectation is that you do it. No, I don't think Peter, you know, I don't think the kids that will ever say to Peter why haven't you, why haven't you washed my jumper that I want to wear Tomorrow? They just wouldn't. It would be me, you know, and I bet it's the same for you, and I work and you work, you work a lot. So yeah, Jodie.
Speaker 1:I mean it did make me laugh. I didn't jump to it the way she wanted me to. I did have to give her a bit of a time scale for how long I was going to be reading this article for, and then I thought I'll do what. I mean I could argue back with her, but actually it just I just laughed and thought, gosh, you are naive, you're in for a hard drive. You, when you come to get through the world, you're still not cleaned up in. And that I did sort of do the cover because you know you've got to pick your back. And the other morning I went into a week or up because she's fast asleep, just looking really angelic, and I'm saying come on, it's time to go to school. And then she went OK, you can go now.
Speaker 2:I get that a lot.
Speaker 1:I was like kind of OK, thanks for your permission, but I'm not going out of your room until you're up at your bed. You're lazy me too, I know.
Speaker 2:So thank you for marrying the goat. You can go out now I'm awake, go out, go out, and then I go back 10 minutes later.
Speaker 1:You're fast asleep.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to bed. I get a sense from her that. Why would you even doubt me? Of course I'm going to get up. Of course I'm going to go and do what I need to do, and I'm always like you're talking to me, like this is something completely alien to you.
Speaker 1:Because I constantly have to. Yes.
Speaker 2:And the other day Iris, and she just makes I mean, like most kids, but she's, I think, particularly bad. Just she starts these projects and at the moment it's getting paper and making things out of paper. So there's lots of cuttings everywhere and glue and stickers and I said you need to tidy this up now. And I got the huffing and that, oh, I'm tired. I said to her really calmly tell me why you think it's more reasonable for me to tidy this up than it is for you. And she said what's your house?
Speaker 1:Well, she's got a point, it's your house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, isn't that crazy.
Speaker 1:I know, I think it's just yeah. Little shits. Lewis is bad for that as well. They're the same age, aren't they, lewis and Iris.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they are.
Speaker 1:But he's like that as well. He's quite crafty and it looks like a little pile of rubbish lying in the table that I'll say tidy that away. And if I start tidying it up, oh my God, you put that high angle piece in the table.
Speaker 2:I have like a holding cell for staff.
Speaker 1:Like a stop gap.
Speaker 2:I'll leave it a few days and then, but yeah, she'll just leave these massive bits of paper that have been stuck together and then she takes the stuffing out of cushions and puts it in between paper, wraps all up and calls it like a fidget toy, like a squishy I'm finding, like the stuffing from cushions everywhere, and I'm thinking I'm really glad you're not just on YouTube, but fucking hell.
Speaker 1:But that would be much tidier if you were. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it might be much more beneficial, but it would be much better yeah.
Speaker 1:I know, oh, that's so funny. I was going to say I don't know if I sent you this article yesterday, but about the health inequalities for people who are learning disabled.
Speaker 2:No, I think you did.
Speaker 1:So no, I might not have. I did intend to but obviously forgot, because there's quite a lot of stuff I forgot about yesterday. It was around why people with learning disabilities are dying in healthcare settings unnecessarily, and it piqued my interest around all the Oliver McGowan training within the NHS. You know the training that help care professionals that work in the NHS. It's been made mandatory to learn about autism and associated conditions and how that might present when they're in your setting, and I just found it really interesting. It's a huge topic right now, isn't it? Learning disabilities and autism, adhd type conditions, and actually what are the NHS doing to address that, not just in terms of meeting the needs of the people who are on the waiting list, but also how we then mitigate to understand the differences in their care needs when they're accessing health settings.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah. So the approaches need to be different, don't they?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and that's you know. Obviously I've started the whole NeuroNatal campaign now to really push forward with and that's what drives me forward about it is when I'm reading these things, like the 11 year old boy that died a couple of years ago and that the NHS have now put their hands up and said this was avoidable. Had we just understood more about his autism, then we might have picked up on the cues. And you know it's too late for him. It was also too late for Oliver McGowan. Oliver McGowan was substantially more time has passed since then. We're not moving quick enough to meet the needs. But I'm really excited about the NeuroNatal project because the professionals workshop has sold out really quickly.
Speaker 2:They sold out. Tell me about that.
Speaker 1:It's essentially a pilot training course, looking at the different. I mean mainly it's not necessarily geared up for anybody who has any physical disabilities. That probably wouldn't be my niche because I don't understand enough about it, I don't have any lived experience around it but certainly those kind of invisible disabilities, neurodivergence, autism, adhd, ocd etc. And it's geared up to. It's a four-hour workshop that's split over two evenings, so two hours each evening and it's a pilot.
Speaker 1:So I'm just testing it out with some healthcare professionals to get feedback, to see if they've found it beneficial, if they'll be able to use what they learn on the course going forward. So I was keeping the numbers to round about 15, I didn't want any more than whether you don't want to dilute it too much, because actually I'm hoping to engage quite a lot of interest in discussions. But things like you know the autistic person's perinatal journey is going to be very different to the neurotypical person's perinatal journey and likewise with ADHD. In fact the course has probably geared up a bit more towards ADHD. Just because that's naturally where my interest lies biased or not.
Speaker 1:I have given a bit of input around autism, but you know all of the stuff that I've talked about before that in pregnancy the estrogen levels are higher, therefore dopamine is higher and some people might find that their ADHD symptoms are improved.
Speaker 1:But we need to be very careful watching out in that postnatal period when there's such a sudden drop in estrogen and therefore dopamine, and on top of trying to keep this baby alive and feed the baby and all of the things externally that come along with having a baby, as well as battling your own demons and maybe not understanding enough about yourself and actually I think the healthcare professionals are really going to benefit from that type of knowledge.
Speaker 1:How can we address this? What are the things that we can do to make this better for people so that we're having better outcomes in terms of, you know, longer term that parent-infant relationship etc. And also I suppose it links in to what we were talking about before with regards to trauma, that possibly someone with ADHD or autism they've probably at some point already been traumatised by a service at some point in their life. I mean, I know I've. I hold quite a lot of trauma regards to all of Jodhya's various medical experiences and so they probably will be navigating some of that as well, trying to access healthcare settings. But pregnancy and the postnatal period are such a sensory experience for anybody, but imagine what that is like then for a new resident person and actually the bottom population as it stands currently. A high percentage of those women might not even know yet that they're neurodivergent because of the you know the.
Speaker 2:So how do you know if you're experiencing things differently?
Speaker 1:because I have a little base, isn't it? That's all you have known.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. How do you know? Because I think about myself three pregnancies. I might compare myself to other women, but I suppose I've done that my whole life anyway and think that they look, you know, they look like they're having fun or I don't know. But how do I know, as a woman, that I'm experiencing things differently to the, the neurotypical woman next to me? I just don't know what.
Speaker 1:I suppose it's for everybody isn't it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and I guess you don't know that you're experiencing it differently until you know. So the whole point, then, and the training, is that it should be made available to everybody within, like you know, from a professional's perspective, because you don't know what that person is dealing with, you don't know if that person is neurodiversal or not. Therefore, you know, having a deeper understanding of these things and applying it to every single person that comes into your care, so that they are going to get you know, neurotypical people will benefit from that as well. It just making it's really just a bit identifying the needs of people as they are individually, not collectively, as a neurotypical kind of blanket.
Speaker 2:I suppose those kind of those strategies they're going to benefit everybody.
Speaker 1:Yes, precisely and interestingly, I was chatting to a lovely midwife yesterday. Hello, sarah Neill, if you're listening. I'm from Sarah Neill, who works for rather a NHS trust and her pastoral support clinical midwife, which means essentially she gives lots of support to mainly preceptorship midwives. So within that first year qualification, or the first 18 months, depending on how long it is now, essentially it's all about recruitment and retention, so retaining the staff, how can we adapt things? What are your struggles? How can we meet your needs and adapt things so that you're finding that easier in general for everybody, whether they're neurotypical or neurodivergent.
Speaker 1:But she has noticed an increase in people who are midwives who aren't neurodivergent. So we're looking now to collaborate on a project to offer support or resources for that particular cohort of midwives, because 98% of the midwifery population is female. So actually, how many of those females have been victim to the inequalities in accessing exploration of their neurostatics? Because a lot of people don't know, do they? But actually now we're starting to see a bit of a cultural shift towards supporting that. So actually, if somebody thinks they're neurotypical or identified as neurotypical, but they might learn in a slightly different way, certainly there are things that can be done differently.
Speaker 1:There are different approaches and so I think that really needs to be promoted right across health here because hopefully it will improve by improving the outcomes for midwives early on in their career. Then that will hopefully improve the outcomes for women and children, because if the midwife is in her best space, maybe physically understands herself, then she's in a much better place to be providing top notch care that's not going to go on to cause any harm, etc. Because sometimes we do, don't we? You might not necessarily be feeling your best on that shift, you're not eating and drinking as well as you should, or you've not stopped for a break, and that then has an impact on the quality of the care that you give. So it will be interesting to see what kind of evolves from that project.
Speaker 2:Would you say that, yeah, it will be really interesting, and also interesting to know what kind of things would we be looking at, looking for or be mindful of?
Speaker 1:I suppose sensory issues, I mean imagine the sensory issues for a newly qualified staff midwife on Labour Ward, for instance, a very high pace. And actually that is where, particularly for someone with ADHD, because the nerve is coming always kind of up here Actually they're very, very good in Labour Ward. They're very responsive to emergency. They don't tend to get themselves in a flat because they are, you know, in life. They are kind of going through life looking for every little sign where they might need to activate their nervous system to a higher level. But the things that come along with that is the unpredictability. You know. They're not knowing what kind of shift you're going into.
Speaker 1:The fast pace in which the NHS Labour Ward's move, because they're so busy up to like 6,000, 7000 deliveries a year.
Speaker 1:So you could sometimes be looking after three Labour and women in the one shift having to kind of move along that quickly because you've got another lady coming in having to file through your paperwork. There might be systems that you don't understand in terms of the computer base, this kind of constant pressure from those above you asking you to move faster and faster. That can all become very overwhelming. Not to mention the emergency puzzles, the gas and air, the stress of moving from one room to a theatre room and you know there's lots of different things to consider and you can the standard accommodations that you might make for someone in a workplace, like an office where they can have ear defenders. You can't walk around in Labour Ward with your defenders on because you're not going to hear the emergency buzzer or the woman that's just collapsed in the bathroom. So I think there's a particular niche that needs to be worked through there to find out how can we best meet the needs of neurodivergent. That's incredible yeah.
Speaker 1:Leadwifes and still make it safe in terms of you know, we can't just give out loop ear things because you need to be able to hear better.
Speaker 2:They just minimised, didn't they? I think you'd still hear, would you I?
Speaker 1:think it would just be set by like 27 decibels or something and so it doesn't block out sound completely, it just it dulls it, but I think.
Speaker 2:Quite risky.
Speaker 1:It is a little bit risky. And also there's something about when that emergency buzzer does go off in a Labour ward or whatever. It almost is a bit like a sudden jolt to think oh shit, there's something wrong and I need to go.
Speaker 1:It very quickly activates your nervous system and so you go right into fight or flight, you run towards the emergency to help, and so you don't want to probably lose that and I guess I don't have the answers, but it's a bit chatting to the people on the ground, the people who are living it right now, to find out what challenges are they having, and given a menu essentially of tools or rudotes or ideas around what they might find works. Try it on. If it doesn't, let's try something else. I think it will be really interesting and I'm really keen to start off. And so you know, obviously you started your support group and then I took on a bit of the franchise and brought it over to Guernsey and it's going really well.
Speaker 2:Excellent.
Speaker 1:But I would really like to take it online to a group of midwifes to just do like a coffee and a chat with other neurodivergent midwifes, particularly the preceptorship ones, and just have a chat about you know what are the issues that you're facing? Tell me. I don't have the answers, but I can offer a sound.
Speaker 2:And maybe time-testing and understanding things.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and then working with Sarah Neal to really feed that back in and see how her service as the pastoral support midwife can then, you know, use the rudotes that she's got to develop something. That's a menu of options that might help Wow.
Speaker 2:Can we save the world?
Speaker 1:Well, that's what I'm trying to do and that's why I'm so tired.
Speaker 2:I know it is why you're so tired. It does take you a lot of effort.
Speaker 1:all the time there's something that there's always, something that needs to be done.
Speaker 2:Well, I spoke to you the other day, didn't I? And you were telling me about, oh my gosh, all these things that are going on. And I even for me and I think I'm quite similar I was like whoa, that is a lot, and you've got three kids and a dog, and yeah, it's that rush, isn't it Wanting to rush always? And I absolutely know what that feels like, because it's like it feels almost like my skin's calling beneath me, like I have to keep going. It's so uncomfortable yeah, I know, I know. Or it's like for me it can happen even with little tasks. I mean, I'm just talking about mundane things. I don't enjoy doing mundane things, but once I got it in my head I'm going to do something. I need to do it yesterday. I'm not waiting around for when I've got a spare, and planning is a real issue. I don't know if you find that almost like I find it hard to schedule things in because I never know if I'm going to want to do it on that day.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I just had this very conversation yesterday with one of my friends. They've arranged to go out for dinner for her birthday and I've not RSVP yet and I said I can't tell you whether I'm going to come on Friday or not. I would love to be able to come, but I need to wait till Friday to see how I feel on Friday. Because actually what will happen is that I'll commit to it now and then there are so many days between now and Friday.
Speaker 1:I'll have so much time that I'll be talking myself out of it. I'll talk my tail backwards and be like, oh, but I shouldn't go, because then I'll start worrying about all the things that come along with that social anxiety who will I sit next to and what should I wear, and what will I have to eat, and what if I don't like the food? And what about when there are conversations happening at both sides of you and you think I'm just gonna sit here and not talk to anyone, or am I gonna talk too much? And then people are gonna be like, oh my God, she doesn't stop talking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know this. It gives you a lot of time to kind of mull it over, doesn't it? And I've let people down doing that. You get to a point where you just constantly, well, I do where, I'm like, oh, I can't make it tonight, I can't do this, I can't do that. And sometimes for me it's not necessarily feeling that anxious about going out, I mean, but more about actually, I'd rather just stay in.
Speaker 1:Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:It's more of a question than that, yeah, but planning things, just things like anything. I was gonna do the flotation tank, really wanted to do it, and I thought the other day, oh look, they've got appointments and they've called today. I'll go and do that today. This was like first thing in the morning. I was like, but I'm not gonna book it because I don't know if, by 10 o'clock, I wanna do that, don't know if I'll want to drive there and do that in the fluff of it. So yeah, planning is tricky. I find, yeah, very tricky. Well, it's been really good catching up.
Speaker 1:It has. It's been lovely. We must get back to doing this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe every two weeks or something Pace ourselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I guess we don't need to necessarily plan it. We can kind of last a minute, can't? We People are probably better with that saying oh, you've responded yeah yeah. That's right now.
Speaker 2:That's a good idea.
Speaker 1:And I've also been, because I guess we can probably call this the start of season three, since there's been such a gap. But I've had some ideas about some interesting guests that we might want to ask on the podcast. So, yeah, we can chat about that later. But, as is true with many ADHD people, we watch and wait to see you in. The next episode falls after this, because we don't know.
Speaker 2:We have no idea, but yeah, it would be good to schedule something in and start thinking about some more guests, wouldn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and thank you very much to everybody that continues to listen, because I know that we're still getting the downloads every week and we really appreciate that. So thank you very much for your continued support.
Speaker 2:I'm listening to a video of me buying on about a load of shit. It's basically Exactly yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that.
Speaker 2:I hope you're feeling better. Don't get a wrap. I'm going to the hairdressers.
Speaker 1:Oh enjoy, are you? I am Okay, enjoy, it was lovely to chat.
Speaker 2:Speech is saying bye, bye.