Riding the Rollercoaster: Perimenopause + ADHD with Adele Wimsett

Adele Wimsett is a Women's Health Practitioner & Cyclical Living Expert. Following her ADHD diagnosis at 41, she was keen to explore how her hormones influenced her traits and went on to learn a ton about this condition and how to function better when considering her hormone fluctuations.

Adele is passionate about educating women on how to harness the power of their cyclical nature. From menarche to menopause, Adele bridges the woo & the science, supporting women to balance their hormones naturally. I have been looking for an expert in perimenopause in ADHD women, and Adele was just the right practitioner to loan her knowledge and wisdom in this episode!

Key Takeaways

• The influence of hormones on ADHD traits, and how the collision of Perimenopause and ADHD can sit us on our butts
• The ridiculous concept of trying to show up in the same way every day, and how to harness hormones to live a more cyclical life
• Feminine flow and the importance of supporting adrenal, liver and gut health in midlife 
• Adele’s take on bridging the gap between spirituality and science for holistic healing and hormonal healing
  
  

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Visit Adele online and check out her ADHDivas page
• Go find her on Instagram @harmoniseyou
• Read her book Essential Feminine Wisdom 
• Attitude Magazine, including neurosparkliness screening tools 
  
  

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Transcript

 (1): [00:00:00] Hello there. And welcome to wild and finally fucking free where midlife isn't a time of crisis, but a time of metamorphosis, just like the journey through puberty and pregnancy to postpartum and midlife transition is also a powerful portal of rebirth, the wise woman inside of us is calling. Inviting us to slow down, to take stock, to speak our truth, to burn away, all that no longer serves us, ready to step forward into our next phase of life.

S3-Intro-inc-music (1): I'm your host, Kylie Patchett, storyteller and midlife self care coach. And together we'll unearth the real and raw stories of women who are right in the messy, magical middle. Or have come out the other side. And the healers who help all of us through these crossroads of change. I hope that as you listen to these tales of breaking the ties that bind, shedding skins, and courageously chasing midlife dreams, that you too will answer the wise woman's [00:01:00] invitation and set yourself wild and finally fucking free.

S3-Intro-inc-music (1): Let's dive in.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Hello and welcome to the podcast, everybody. I have an action packed, I'm sure dopamine filled episode in the, uh, in store for you today. I've got the beautiful Adele Wimsett from Harmonize You in the studio. How are you Adele? Oh, very happy to be here with you. I'm feeding off your vibrant energy. It's late in the afternoon.

SE3 15 -ADELE: I think we are running on fumes, but no, um, I invited you to have a chat about all things to do with. Hormones and when perimenopause and ADHD undiagnosed or diagnosed collide in midlife, which has been my experience. And I was talking to the lovely Juliana, uh, Julieta Durante, who just joined her two names together.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And she was like, you have to talk to Adele. So here we are. Welcome. She's amazing. Thank you. I'm so looking forward to this chat. Um, can you introduce [00:02:00] yourself for people that don't already know of you, um, what you do in the world, however you would like to introduce yourself? Yeah, of course. So, um, I'm a women's health practitioner with a specialist interest in ADHD and in perimenopause.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And this came about, um, Because I run a women's hormone clinic online and in person. So I've worked with women all around the world. And I knew I'd had ADHD for a long time. My previous life was, I was a senior manager in children's services. I was very familiar with ADHD and, you know, but usually within the context of little boys that were going to prison, you know, but we kind of had, I had this awareness of it and I used to joke in quite a flippant way, I'd be, Oh yeah, that's my ADHD, you know, I didn't really take it seriously because we kind of grew up in this world where women didn't have ADHD, right?

SE3 15 -ADELE: Yeah, absolutely. So. Um, I, uh, you know, for various reasons, I set up the clinic working with women. I'm very, you know, out and out feminist. I love [00:03:00] to kind of bring in like women, does that have good health care too? And that's models of wellbeing around our cycles and our hormonal fluctuations. So it was normal to me to go, you know, hormones are my go to.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Something's going wrong. Okay. What's going on here? What's happening in my hormones. So several years ago, I began the journey of looking at ADHD and I'd always gone, do I need a diagnosis? Do I not need a diagnosis? Um, and for various reasons, just started to get one and honestly it was the most validating experience of my life.

SE3 15 -ADELE: So, at that point, I was like, what are the hormones doing? No one could tell me, there was no research, which infuriated my feminism. Yes, me too. And so I began the journey of bringing all of this together, and so now I offer support specifically to ADHD women to understand how their hormones are affecting their traits.

SE3 15 -ADELE: I tell you what, you're like a unicorn because I've been looking for someone. No, you really are. I've been looking for someone with both [00:04:00] of these things because when I'd been diagnosed with ADHD, um, when the wheels fell off in my, the height of my perimenopause shit storm before I knew it was perimenopause.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Um, so I had a psychiatrist who didn't, couldn't talk to me about hormones. And I had a GP who was helping me with, you know, lifestyle support and HRT options and whatever, couldn't talk to me about a DH adhd. Mm-Hmm. . And I'm like, you can't tell me they're separate. Like the, I'm, I'm the one, they, they, you know, body, mind, and soul.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Yes, I know. We are. We are beginning to have these conversations. Think heavens, what has been the most. Like surprising part of understanding the interplay between this difference in our neurology and hormones. I think it's really interesting. That's a really interesting question to ask me. Because to me, it's not surprising.

SE3 15 -ADELE: There's nothing surprising about it. I'm not finding anything surprising. I think this, [00:05:00] the thing that's the surprise is exactly what you've said. That no one It's talking about the connection, yet they're inextricably linked. I have a very strong view, and it is just my view and opinion, that I believe you cannot make an ADHD friendly lifestyle for a woman unless you are an ADHD woman, unless you are taking into consideration her individual unique hormonal fluctuations and the season of life that she is in.

SE3 15 -ADELE: That is the thing that blows my mind that isn't talking, because, that people aren't talking about. The psychs, as you say, or the, the assessors and diagnosers are kind of occasionally now they're starting to go, Oh, we think your hormones might play a role, but that that's it. That's kind of as far as it's going.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And then when you're talking to someone about, um, HRT, whether that's a specialist provider or a general practitioner, they will actually, in my experience, [00:06:00] largely gaslight that. a whole experience and even when I'm writing supporting letters and we're going with evidence even then it's a bit like yeah thanks for that anyway you know and it's like this is a woman's life yeah this is her quality of life yeah that is just being swept to the side and yet there's so So much we can do to improve a woman's quality of life when we understand her as this holistic being that has hormonal fluctuations within the context of neurodiversity.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Like they have to be spoken about together and it just blows my mind that they're not. I know. And I love your passion because I am similarly, I, I said to you before one of my first careers was in sleep medicine and I worked in a sleep lab, like I ran a sleep lab and we were talking to people about having sleep apnea.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And then they were going down the hallway to talk to their cardiologists about their heart issue and down the hallway to talk to their endocrinologist about their diabetes, but no one [00:07:00] was talking to each other. And I'm like, yeah, how? Can we treat people in silos? Because all these different people are only looking at their tiny little piece of the puzzle.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And these people are not the sum of all of the parts. They're this interactive, you know, everything influences everyone else. And I was like, I can't be part of this system. Like it's broken. It's crazy. And it's funny you say that because I was actually voicenating with someone that I worked with in the States.

SE3 15 -ADELE: We work closely together and it was like, you know, this system is so broken. How do we change it? And actually. We just let it be. It can't, you know, which I know it's easy to say when you're not in it, because there is so much growth in this space that actually we're just going to rise up and rise up and it's just going to be that people move into accessing the support.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Although I do want to acknowledge a privilege around that, um, but actually that that will just fizzle out and not actually be that effective. There's this new way of being that we are at the forefront of and rising up and it's changing. [00:08:00] So rather than trying to battle and fight this Broken thing.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Actually, like that is what it is. It's not probably going to change that much. We just need to evolve this new way of working and be in amazing spaces like this where we raise awareness about it. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here. You're, you are so right. In fact, when I was interviewing someone yesterday, um, a beautiful astrologer that I've just been connected with, we're talking about, um, and she is also neuro sparkly.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And so we were talking about this. Um, you know, this strong sense of justice that a lot of us share, um, is a very common trait of someone with, um, you know, neurodivergent traits. And I feel like it can get in my way sometimes because I'm, I spend so much time fighting against rather than just crowding out, which is exactly what you're saying.

SE3 15 -ADELE: So yeah, that's, that is such a good point rather than saying it's broken, it's broken, it's broken. It was built, you know, hundreds of years and it's got lots of power and money structures behind it. So yes, you are [00:09:00] right. Let's build something new and just invite people to a different way of being, um, working with someone.

SE3 15 -ADELE: How common is it for someone? Cause I was saying to you before we started recording that my experience was that, or has been that I, Coped in inverted commas externally. So everyone that knew me would have said I was coping well. I was always in management positions. I could juggle easily, bloody, bloody, bloody.

SE3 15 -ADELE: But internally, which I thought was just normal. Like everybody's brain was like this. I've had this constant, Yeah, internal pressure, you know, argy bargy, many different things trying to sort of, um, grab my attention. Um, and I, I feel like externally kind of coped fairly well and then perimenopause came and just bitch slapped all of those coping mechanisms and went, no, that's not going to work.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Is that a common pattern that you see where people? I guess it's a question of whether we are [00:10:00] really coping or whether we're just masking, but yeah. What would you say to that? I mean, what I would say is perimenopause is 100% a season of a woman's life where she's most likely to be diagnosed. Mm-Hmm. if it hasn't been picked up in adolescence.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Interesting. Or pregnancy is actually a very vulnerable time postpartum. Pregnancy is usually a great time for ADHD women because we have so many hormones surging around our body that actually we can find that our traits largely can disappear. Um, but actually perimenopause is huge because the brain is covered in oestrogen and progesterone receptors and that, that, that oestrogen sensitizes dopamine.

SE3 15 -ADELE: It's sensitizes serotonin. So at certain times of our cycle, when that is high, we have to remember we're these cyclical beings that are ebbing and flowing. We're not meant to feel the same every day, right? So this estrogen rises in the follicular phase, the first phase from like your period up until sort of just after you woke up to [00:11:00] ovulation, your estrogens rising.

SE3 15 -ADELE: So we're getting the sensitization of our hormones. So our strategies, our coping strategies, whether we're conscious of them or not, I've got this. I'm on fire. You know, we're doing it. And everyone's looking at us going, Oh my God, you're amazing. You're like super woman. How'd you do this stuff? And it's like, more dopamine.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Let's keep doing this. You know, identity does. And it's how we feel validated when often we've been little girls that grew up with really shitty perceptions of ourselves. Right. So this feels really good. So then we rise and rise until we get this ovulation. And then if we've ovulated and only if we've ovulated, and just to say, just cause you get a period, doesn't mean you do ovulate.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Progesterone then begins to rise and she can be your friend or your phone, depending how your neuro sparkly brain likes to progesterone. Okay. And that's very, that, you know, that's a whole conversation itself. So she should come in and just calm everything down, but she can be [00:12:00] quite difficult for some of us.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Um, so at that point we kind of crashed, we're not necessarily getting the joy of the estrogen anymore. And then it's like, Oh, so it feels a bit like wading through treacle. So we know ADHD, we're in a much more likely to experience severe PMT known as PMDD. We know from research, we are much more likely to have a much more challenging perimenopause because Like I've said, I've sensitized these neurotransmitters.

SE3 15 -ADELE: We've been all right. And then suddenly they start to vanish. And we're like, what fresh hell is this? Yes. You know what is going on? Who am I? Yeah, I can't like, I'm finding my keys in the fridge or like all these things that used to work for me, my alarms going off on my notes or like whatever the strategy was for you isn't you're driving and it's like, where am I going?

SE3 15 -ADELE: You know? Yeah, but it's like, which a lot of perimenopausal women can relate to. But for us, it's like on steroids and it's the frequency and consistency of those things. I'm sure you hear lots of people go, Oh, everyone's got ADHD these days. I mean, how do I [00:13:00] even say like, yeah, but everyone goes for a wee.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Every single day. But if you're going for a wee 20 times an hour, that's a problem, right? So this is what we're looking at. So perimenopause women are going, yeah, but we all do that. You imagine that constantly. You start to lose faith in yourself very rapidly. It is like a fear and anxiety that comes up.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Our confidence starts to wane. Our emotional dysregulation is just all over the place because we haven't got that, those hormones supporting that executive function that we've had. And it's a really vulnerable time for us. And so we're having conversation with care providers who don't understand that and don't know what to do.

SE3 15 -ADELE: So we're trying to advocate for ourselves when we're largely overwhelmed and exhausted. Yeah. And with no emotional bandwidth to even sometimes drive ourselves to the doctor, let alone, you know, advocate and argue against a system that's not actually seeing us as entire beings. Um, I describe all [00:14:00] of that.

SE3 15 -ADELE: I used to say. I kept on saying, I just don't feel like myself. I just don't feel like myself. I just don't feel like that went on for a few years. And I was still in a corporate role where I had quite a big team and we had an open plan office, which is just disaster for my brain. Like it just too much stimulation.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And, uh, and I also was sitting in a position where I had my back to people. So constantly be interrupted from behind me. And so I'd be like, like start all the time. So I just felt like. Already I felt like I was kind of hypervigilant and then I just like ramped up. And that just meant that I, I used to chew through my emotional bandwidth so early in the day.

SE3 15 -ADELE: So when it came time for like one o'clock or two o'clock in the afternoon, I'm like, if anyone else interrupts me, I want to hit them really hard. I had no emotional regulation. And I just got to the stage where I was like, I actually literally cannot cope in this environment, which was a hidden blessing anyway, which, you know, but.

SE3 15 -ADELE: I just feel like when we don't know that this can potentially happen, and also if you don't [00:15:00] actually know or haven't chosen to kind of go down the path of like, do I have ADHD? Do I need to be more aware of that? Um, actually, that's a good question. What would you say? Because I share your point of view that my ADHD diagnosis was So much about validation and so much about not making myself wrong for the way that I'm literally wired.

SE3 15 -ADELE: You know, like I'm, I always made myself wrong for not sticking at things and not, and now I'm just like, Oh my God, I'm not meant to stick at things. I'm meant to like smorgasbord on life and snack and see what, you know, takes my fancy. Um, so when you are talking to someone who's wondering about getting a diagnosis or not, how do you frame that for them?

SE3 15 -ADELE: Like I, the first question I ask is, What do you want from a diagnosis? What is it you're seeking that you need because some people it's great for and some people it's not necessary for and I Would say any you know, what is the outcome do if you want to be [00:16:00] medicated and go down that way? You have to have a diagnosis.

SE3 15 -ADELE: So that's like a non negotiable for you Is it for your own validation? Is it something to offer yourself deeper compassion and kindness? Is it something to bring to your support group? You might be going, you've not got ADHD or like all of that. And to go, look, it's here. You know, there's all different reasons.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Is it your role modeling to your children? What diagnosis looks like? There's so many factors that play in every woman's experience that will be unique with why she wants that. And what I would say is if you choose to go down diagnosis route, be very clear about your why and it's, you know, and making sure that you have a support for afterwards.

SE3 15 -ADELE: For me personally, it's changed my life for the better a million times over, you know, the compassion I now offer myself is in vain. I'm like, that's just not how I work. I am not, I am no longer another beauty of perimenopause too. I am no longer spending my life. Other [00:17:00] people feel comfortable for my traits.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Like if you don't like my traits, don't be around me. I'm a really good person. I have realized despite, you know, being told I'm too much of something my entire life, actually, yes, I am. I'm big, I'm big and I'm a really good person. And if you are uncomfortable with the fact that I have a mouth, like. I've served a prison sentence or, you know, like don't underestimate my intelligence as a result of that.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Yes. You know, and overcompensating like stuff. No, this is me. I'm fitting into it. So it's been a gift, but that is not every woman's experience. Lots of women, for example, go through this grief process where they look back and go, Oh my God, what could have been had I know this, had this been available to me and the likelihood is for women in perimenopause, you know, we were kids of the eighties, like, no, the fact we're alive is a miracle.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Exactly. I mean, it was like, see you later. Off you go, there's a bottle of sun in a microwave meal. Yeah, exactly. Don't worry about the pedophiles. That's kind of what, you [00:18:00] know, where it was. It wasn't acknowledged. So there's no, Blame now on people, not it not being picked up because it wasn't a thing, but there is this sadness that can come.

SE3 15 -ADELE: So prepare for that. Potentially it might not. So it's just like, it's a deep experience and you're going to have to, then once you've got that diagnosis, who are you going to tell? I know women who have told nobody because they hear comments in their community and their friendship groups of like, like we were saying, Oh, everyone's got ADHD.

SE3 15 -ADELE: They are not going to feel safe to come to you and go, that's me because no matter what they say, they know. that person's truth. So you aren't a safe person for me. So then it's like, God, to be me, I've now got to build new community and friendships where I can show up and be safe. This is not small stuff, right?

SE3 15 -ADELE: So it's, it's a big question, you know, there's lots to consider. It really is. I just went through, um, and I'm still in the middle of, I think, um, not, I think, I know, um, I just went on holidays with friends that I've been friends with since the [00:19:00] late 90s, we used to work together, and I actually had an awareness when I was there that we went to like overseas, and I just realized that my friendship was based on.

SE3 15 -ADELE: me masking, and now that I'm not apologizing for myself, I'm not willing to, you know, squish my neuro sparkliness into this kind of square that is XYZ and these friendship groups, and that's really hard. Like that's, that's tough. It's an identity shift, but it's also like a, I don't know. There's a true sense of freedom when you realize I don't actually have to do this anymore.

SE3 15 -ADELE: My comfort and my okayness and me being me is more important than me trying to be different so that I'm okay for you. Um, but that's big, right? I sat here and I'm like, I feel like we're going to go into like a. therapy session. I'm feeling tingles like all through my body at this. I am yet to meet an ADHD woman who was not a little ADHD girl who [00:20:00] had to abandon herself to mask her way through to survive.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And that little girl is sitting in all of us as ADHD women. And there's this unraveling, I call it this unraveling of looking back and going, That's why I did that. And then that experience, you go in and you get more and more into this authentic juiciness of who you are. And seeing that people still love you when you are that person.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And you're attracting more people like you because when you show up like that, you give permission for your other people to show up like that. And they're drawn to you and magnetized. And then you go back into that old space and it's like, Oh, This is like, I cannot show up in this anymore. It's exhausting.

SE3 15 -ADELE: The mask is off. This is me. And there's having to go through some more loss, potentially, if people can't accept you like that. You know, they start to do, I make myself smaller. You know, it's, none of this is being discussed. It isn't impacts and particularly for [00:21:00] women, because I think ADHD traits are much more accepted as in males, you know, it's not that different to just being, you know, always is a loud or, you know, whatever it is we accept a man.

SE3 15 -ADELE: It's not accepted in the gender norms and roles around women. So we're battling this double jeopardy. Two layers of having to go, I'm a woman who shows up in ways that isn't seen as conventionally feminine and loving, you know, all of that, even though I'm a great human. So we're battling that. I so, I'm, I've got the full body shiver things now because you are so right.

SE3 15 -ADELE: I. Yeah, I think that trip really made me realize that, um, I actually really love who I am when I'm not trying to be different. And yes, there is a lot of conditioning around to get love and approval. You need to like fit in, keep your head down, da da da. Hilariously, my first business name was a tall poppy project because here that tall poppy syndrome of sticking your head above the [00:22:00] crowd and being cut off.

SE3 15 -ADELE: It's such a big, like a, it's a big thing in Australia and also in Canada, it's a very kind of well known kind of phenomenon. Um, but our culture does tend to like, you don't shine, don't be too up yourself. Don't be arrogant. Don't be whatever. And so for my entire life, I've been like, every time there's this huge light inside of me that I want to shine out into the world, I'm like, don't do that.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Not safe. Not safe. Be quiet. Don't take up too much space. Don't be too passionate. Don't be quicker to make connections than anyone else. So, so like, and I don't mean dumbed down as in like, I'm the most intelligent person in the room, but my brain operates quicker than a lot of people. Yeah. And I've always felt like I have to pretend that that's not happening.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And now I'm like, yeah, fuck it. Yeah, I'm not willing to do that anymore. Do you know what? I look back, one of the things for me was the number of times I've had to sit in conversations where my face is smiling and nodding. I finished the conversation five minutes ago in my head. I know. I am now thinking about a million different things I've moved on and sat [00:23:00] nodding.

SE3 15 -ADELE: I physically now have to excuse myself from those conversations. I'm really, if someone's Speaks to me. I can't, I can't, it's that kind of feeling, right? And I never understood it. And I'm like, I'm really sorry, but I've gotta go to the loo. Or like whatever's, I'll not allow myself to become that dysregulated.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And I, but I don't want someone, it's not their. That's great that they speak like that. My brain cannot deal with that. No. So, you know, and I've always, it's painful. Been my whole life. Like, oh, slow down. You know? I'm like, I don't wanna slow down. I speak quickly. I do everything at a hundred month an hour.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Exactly. And that works for me. Slowing down, it's really stressful for me. It's really stressful and I can't do it. Like you just said, dysregulating. And that's what I realized in this holiday. I'm like, I'm actually feeling unsafe in this environment because I'm trying to not be myself. And I'm like, that is fucking ridiculous.

SE3 15 -ADELE: You're almost 50 years old. Stop it. Stop it now. There is a door that you can step through and you're just [00:24:00] like, no. My needs are as important as everyone else's and my comfort and my okayness with who I am is way more important than trying to kind of mold things. Um, but like you say, we are so conditioned to not take up space, not, you know, not stand out, not, um, Blah, blah.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And I mean, if you go down, I guess the evolutionary sort of pathways, it's dangerous not to be part of the pack, right? And here we are in front of the pack. I have this evolutionary theory about ADHD, right? And I truly believe we have always existed with our kind of brains, right? It's the world that is the problem.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Humanity would not have evolved without having people like us. In the tribe. We heard that stick break two miles away when a predator was approaching. We sniffed the food that had gone off. Like we, our senses are amazing. Okay. We were out of the box thinkers, the solution finders, the risk takers, the hunters quick go.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Right. And then here we are in this world that is [00:25:00] on steroids, pumping endless information. And since we process into us and then going, Oh, is there something wrong with you? No! It's the world! You're trying to get me to drink through a fire hose of information when my brain is not able to, like, turn the hose down.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And your brain can, so you are coping well. I wouldn't actually say that about most people. Most people are not coping with it. All of that information. Um, I'm wondering as we're talking, because you mentioned before, like this idea of ADHD, I think there's still a lot of people that are like, as little boys bouncing off the walls and they're not able to sit still, it turns up so differently in the majority of women, I think is fair to say, but if people are listening and they're like.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Yeah, I'm one of the people that think everybody's got ADHD, but there's some sort of like light bulb going as we're talking, which I'm no doubt there's people in the audience going, hang on a minute, that's me too. What would you, what are some of the questions that you would want people to be answering for [00:26:00] themselves, um, to help kind of not self diagnose?

SE3 15 -ADELE: Cause I think, you know, that's too far in one direction as well, but to kind of, Um, self assess want a better word of whether this could be something that they're experiencing as well. I would suggest a really good starting point is to go on to the Attitude magazine website. And they have got amazing screening tools on there for all kinds of things.

SE3 15 -ADELE: That's like a really good starting point to go, Oh my gosh, there might be something here. Right. Yeah. Because. Yeah. I come from a bias of hormones, right? That's my bias. I own it. Full transparency. I think everything is caused by hormone imbalance. This is my love. Yeah. So what I see a lot is, oh, I think I've got ADHD and actually it might just be hormone imbalances.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Is there a history of this? Like what, how is it negatively affecting your quality of life? And then once you have this sort of screening tool where you've, where you're seeing the things that are [00:27:00] coming up, say for example, there's a few traits on there and you're like, okay, what I would do is if there's someone you trust that you maybe live with, just say, I've noticed these things coming up.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Do you see this? Have that dialogue and start to observe your behavior. I had notes, my notes in my phone, where every time there was an example of something I did, I wrote real life examples in there. I mean, I had reams of it. So that when I actually went for my diagnosis, because most ADHD people, if you say to them, what are your traits?

SE3 15 -ADELE: You're going to get homo simpson brain. It's like, um, I can't remember anything. I can't think of anything. I don't know. But if someone starts listing it off to me, I'm like, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. So that's my advice is start to gather the evidence for yourself. You know, like my husband at the beginning, my husband was that person.

SE3 15 -ADELE: He's like, oh, ADHD, schmedy HD, whatever. You know, like, this is just the thing doesn't exist, which was really difficult because actually at that time, there [00:28:00] wasn't that much evidence. the information in the same way that there is now. And I kind of went on quite a lonely journey, actually, of this self discovery of going, and even up until my diagnosis, I was sat with this like, with these pages of evidence going, Oh God, I might've got this so fucking wrong.

SE3 15 -ADELE: It's going to be so embarrassing, like imposter syndrome. And he like wrote on this piece of paper, 100 ADHD. And I just burst out crying. I was like, Oh, thank God, you know, how validating. But I had to deal with that with my husband. And it wasn't until I really came home with that piece of paper that he sat and he heard me.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And he went, okay, that all makes sense. So I get that. I get that. Like, oh, it's everywhere. It's this. And then with him, I'm like, we need to have a chat about you and your brain. Because we travel in packs, my friend. Yeah, and so I've sat down and what I did is I had to keep the same, I'd kept a list for myself because I understood it so well by then.

SE3 15 -ADELE: I kept it for him. I was like, babe, we need to chat. [00:29:00] And we sat down and now he is just like, He's just people like we're a full on neurodivergent family. Yeah. I'm full blown. A DH adhd. Mm-Hmm. Adele's, full blown a DH adhd. Mm-Hmm. And he's on, been on that journey of acceptance, but he needed the evidence, he needed to see it.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Like I go in my kitchen, every cupboard door is always open. I'm like, oh my God, me too. Shut the door. You know, it's that kind of like that's it with him. So it's just these little things that you start to go, oh, that's why I do that. Yeah. You know, because I've opened the cupboard. I've got the thing like, yeah, exactly.

SE3 15 -ADELE: I don't want to tell you the cupboard. I don't need to. I'm thinking about the next thing. Well, I'm thinking about the eight things that I'm just about to do, or I plan to do, or I have done, or I'm just, well, I'm thinking about doing honestly, I describe an ADHD brain, like putting a ping pong ball in a tumble dryer and it's like, you know, that kind of thing.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And when I speak to a neurotypical person, like, what are you thinking about? And I say, I'm not really, really, you're not thinking about anything. That was my experience. Like the first time I tried medication, I remember [00:30:00] like getting in contact with a friend of mine who had just also been diagnosed, but wasn't on medication yet.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And I'm like, there's nothing.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Like I was in like, I had traveled to a city near us because I live in the country and I had A list on my phone as I always do, the 500 things. I wanted to get that done that day. And usually they're all competing all with different, different voices. And then I was like, I've got this list and I'm just gonna follow it from beginning to end.

SE3 15 -ADELE: I was like, is this what normal people's brains are like? Like that is insane. How much more calm. And I think that that, um, also is what I wanted to check in with you on when you talked about dysregulation before. Um, when, when we start. To have that estrogen and progesterone changing. I feel like one of the most discombobulating things for me was I know how I work.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And then this hormonal thing starts happening. And now none of what I've like the ways [00:31:00] that I have been dealing with this kind of, and I have always experienced this, like, Crazy energy and focus. And then nothing. So I always felt like I was like, Oh, so inconsistent boom and bust fight and flight, like all these, uh, all these unhelpful beliefs anyway.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Um, yeah. And I feel like that is one of the most, I don't know, for me, it was almost scary. Cause I was like, I think I'm having a mental health breakdown. Like I do really think that there is something like fundamentally wrong is my brain. Um, but now I realized, no, it was just that, yeah, like you said, estrogen and the dopamine interplay and serotonin.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And so, yeah, you're going to feel different. And so I'm interested when you're working with someone who knows that they've got ADHD and they've hit, you know, Let's just talk about perimenopause, because I know we don't have time to ask all of the questions that I have for you. But if we think about those two things colliding, what are some of the things that we can do that don't [00:32:00] necessarily need to be medication?

SE3 15 -ADELE: Because obviously that's, you know, someone's individual journey, but how can we best support ourselves or what knowledge helps? Because I think that's a big part of it, isn't it? It's like, okay, I'm not going to expect that I'm going to be at six cylinders every day because maybe I won't be. Yeah. I mean, that's a really great question and something that I'm really deep dive to into in clinic, because what that looks like for every woman is going to be quite different.

SE3 15 -ADELE: But the basic, the first thing I would always suggest women do is track your cycle. Okay. Whether that's three moon fluctuations, if you're not cycling naturally or through your own, um, hormonal ebb and flow, definitely get that data. All right. Because you're going to see patterns in there that. you didn't even realize existed.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And that's very validating. Part of the problem is, as women, we have been taught that we show up the same every single day like men do, which is beer. We don't, right? We are not meant to feel the same every day. And certainly these, there's four distinct phases in the cycle, and you're going to [00:33:00] probably feel quite different in each of those.

SE3 15 -ADELE: So get this data about yourself. Now, something I'm very passionate about exploring with women is yes, estrogen and progesterone are big players, you know, like we've spoken about, but when we look at the hormone hierarchy in the body, they're actually at the bottom of the pecking order because ovulation is, the hormones are produced through ovulation largely and the body has to feel safe.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And have all the nutrition and nourishment that it needs to ovulate, which is a wonderful contraceptive for cave women. Oh my gosh, we're in a state of starvation, don't ovulate, not safe to make a baby, right? Our brain hasn't caught up that the stress we're experiencing from our dysregulated nervous systems isn't immediately killing us.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Right. So it's still having the same response of trying to shut down ovulation. The body's like fighting back, trying to produce these hormones. We have to come further up the hierarchy and have a look at what is happening with our adrenal function and what is [00:34:00] happening with our blood sugar regulation, our gut health, our liver detoxification processes.

SE3 15 -ADELE: We know from research that ADHD people are much higher risk of type two diabetes, which is completely preventable. Interesting. Yeah. I've got lots of theories where I think that is. Um, just, you know, the way that we eat is very different. We tend to have much more sugar cravings for that dopamine here.

SE3 15 -ADELE: You know, these kinds of things tend to exist there when the, when, and cortisol is there to save our life. Right. And I am yet, you know, I take myself back again or every woman I see, take yourself back to your five year old self. You know, probably with rejection sensitivity dysphoria running parallel, you know, constantly scanning your environment about how safe am I, what's required of me in this situation.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Did you know, we have this dysregulated nervous system from the get go. And I would say that most of us don't even know what it feels like to have a soothed nervous system and to feel safe. I agree. And so we then [00:35:00] our body will get us through that for decades, you know, and then suddenly we hit premenopause and those lovely juicy hormones are like, I'm out and what should happen.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Okay, so as the ovaries slow down, the adrenals pick up the estrogen and progesterone production. They're like, forget it. I am done. I am barely staying on top of my cortisol production. You have depleted me. Like, so we see this massive premenopausal symptoms. So how I work with women, Is we want to love on those adrenals and get those supported.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And there's a specific way that I do that. And then we look at the blood sugar regulation, but also a massive thing for us is inflammation. Again, the research shows us that we're much more likely to have inflammation in the gut. Inflammation in the gut means neuro inflammation. We want to start healing on that gut, making sure we're sealing it up.

SE3 15 -ADELE: So nothing's leaking through. We want to do the same for the blood brain barrier. We want to reduce, you know, work on anti inflammatory diets. We want to make sure our body is eliminating and clearing things properly. And we're just going to seal this like. [00:36:00] Yeah. And then it's like, okay, this is manageable again, but no one has taught us how to do this.

SE3 15 -ADELE: No one's taught us. And if we're doing things, I see women who are like aggressively fasting or doing ketogenic diets. Stop. This is really awful. Yeah. Going to the gym. This is really good for me. Yeah. You know, they're on your period and they're going to bed. Boot camps and the please stop, you know, it's this depletion.

SE3 15 -ADELE: I've seen women doing these health practices and their hair's falling out. They're exhausted and they keep going because we're told it's good for us. It's like, yes. Stop. Yes, stop. It's just, please stop. Stop. Let's get you, we need women. I, you know, women need nourishing one. Women need pleasure practices.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Mm-Hmm. Women need to soothe themselves. Women need community authentic connection. Yes. We need all of these things. Soothe us and take a breath and go, right, what do I need? We need to come back to this [00:37:00] feminine intelligence, this intuition in our body. So we're stuck in this masculine logic of like, well, I should be doing that.

SE3 15 -ADELE: I should be doing that. No, that is not what you're designed to do. So it's giving that space and permission to do that actually and surrender into it because lots of us have. Messages that we're lazy, not doing enough. So we're compensating. We're burning out. We're exhausted. There's a lot of unpicking to do.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Yeah, that is, Oh my goodness. As you're talking, I'm like, yep, that is the old, I'm still, you know, at the age of 50 going, Oh, here I am again, feeling like I fried myself this week. And I've worked too many hours and I'm slowly, but surely getting to the root cause of all of this. And I'm like, A, I lived in a chaotic environment where I had a, you know, parent addicted to alcohol.

SE3 15 -ADELE: So that like the safety thing that you're talking about, I had another layer of that. And then, so I don't, I, and exactly as you were saying, I do not have a lived experience of feeling calm and safe as a default. And so [00:38:00] that has taken a lot of time. Time to learn and be comfortable. Cause those things are deeply or were deeply uncomfortable for me.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Like I remember the first time someone said, you know, sit, sit still for 15 minutes and just, you know, allow yourself to, and I'm like. Uh, no, I'd rather stick a fork in my eye or run from a tiger because I am like, I am, you know, addicted to the feeling of being able to push through and live on that cortisol until you can't anymore.

SE3 15 -ADELE: But also, as you said before, like if your identity is someone who always copes with things because you've formed it through trying to mask and trying to fit in and trying to, you know, I've always had this sense of, yeah, like three times as much as everybody else. And my husband's constantly saying to me, you know, that if you just operate it at your 60%, it's probably actually more than enough.

SE3 15 -ADELE: But we don't know that six, what does 60 percent feel like? Exactly. This is just me. I have no lived experience of this. What are you talking about? Yeah, exactly. But the [00:39:00] play and allowing that, yeah, small person inside of us that, yeah. Um, may never have felt that default. And as you're saying, come into circle and feminine wisdom.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And yeah, not be adhering to these structures of like, you've got to turn up and give 5, 000 percent every day. And it doesn't matter how you're feeling. And it doesn't matter what your emotional bandwidth is. And you must serve everybody else in your life. And, you know, your needs come last because you know, you're a mother.

SE3 15 -ADELE: So that's just like, this is not working for any of us. When I, when I When I got my diagnosis, when I began to understand it, I began to meet my little girl inside of me and I promised her I would never abandon her again. Like she is with me, but of course that's not reality. This is, you know, we have to keep coming back to it.

SE3 15 -ADELE: So I have a picture of her up to remind me like, who is this for that you're doing for? And I think we're always naturally going to be in this burnout boom cycle. It's how we're conditioned. Yeah, [00:40:00] I totally, I totally agree. I actually, um, have a good, um, have a, that will just cut out then for me. It's all good.

SE3 15 -ADELE: It's fine. We've still got you. Um, we, yeah, I have done a lot of work with, uh, someone who is a spiritual person, um, like a support person. Um, to just help me with navigating that reconnection to my little self. And I'm so relating to what you're saying about abandonment, because I do, I have always really loved the language of IFS, like internal family systems.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And I have I've been working really hard to build trust with the wounded little person in me that keeps on seeing me abandon her and going here you fucking are again, and all that blame and stuff and actually being able to understand the drivers behind it and then just Gently, gently, gently nudge [00:41:00] myself back to, okay, this, this is not what I want to recreate because you know, when you can't trust yourself, then that's a pretty, it's a pretty rocky foundation, isn't it?

SE3 15 -ADELE: It really is. Yeah. I feel like that. Yeah. Sorry. Um, you know, I think he's alluded to being a mother as well, like holding that space for your children while you're reparenting yourself. Oh, it's tough. It's hard. It's tough. It's tough. It's tough. It's tough. Right. I mean, like, Oh my God, I've got all this knowledge about myself.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Now I'm looking back. I'm looking forward. I'm being present. I'm trying to change things for my children. I do believe we are a generation of cycle breakers and change makers. We didn't take this task on lightly. You know, it's, it's hard. It's hard. And I think it's going to be a lifelong journey. I think we have this misconception.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Oh, the work is done. You know, I've seen that therapist. I've done this work. We're like, Oh goodness, like no, he's here again. Here we go. You know, but it's always moving forward. Yeah, definitely. And I do feel that, um, [00:42:00] yeah, I feel like when, when perimenopause, yeah, created the changes in my hormonal landscape, it just, Yeah, like the autumn phase in normal cycles of nature, like it just caused me to have to, you know, um, endure some winds of change and drop some leaves because I'm like, I can't do this anymore.

SE3 15 -ADELE: I don't, I don't have the bandwidth, but I also don't have the desire to pretend that this is okay on many levels of life. Um, but what a blessing that is like, it's been an absolute clusterfuck. Don't get me wrong. Like, you know, line up friendships and left jobs and bloody blah, like changed a lot of what I do.

SE3 15 -ADELE: But like you said before, I feel like I'm closer and closer to who I actually am rather than the surface level stuff that we've all been taught to do. And I think that is a great gift of perimenopause. If we have, yeah, that, um, like you said before, the privilege is a big thing, but, but also, you know, the willingness to, I don't know, go through the [00:43:00] portal, right?

SE3 15 -ADELE: I love what you were saying about that, um, reference to shedding the leaves, right? This is our inner autumn. This is that season of life. And just as the trees are letting go, That's what we need to do. There's no time to women hold on to relationships out of obligation. Let it go. You're not a bad person.

SE3 15 -ADELE: If you say this relationship isn't serving me, look through your diary and go, what makes your heart think that you're seeing that cancel it. Don't do it anymore. You know, this is a time of massive empowerment. If we can embrace it and not still think that we're 20, we have to change how we're showing up, you know, and that is difficult for people around us.

SE3 15 -ADELE: You know, once we step into that place of sovereignty and power to say, no, this is not how I'm going to show up in this place. Cause I refuse to abandon myself, exhaust myself, burn myself out anymore. I'm not doing it. People don't like that. No, they don't. Because then we feel like we're being a bad person.

SE3 15 -ADELE: I put a post about this out on [00:44:00] Boundaries the other day, you know. I'm not a nice person. I'm kind. I'm a kind person. That person that I don't want to see, doesn't want to come knowing that I don't want to see them. And I've got to sit and mask my way through it. They deserve better than that. I want to see people that I'm like, yeah, I can't wait to see them.

SE3 15 -ADELE: It's going to be so nourishing, you know, we're going to have deep conversations. Like the conversation. These are chats I want to have in the school playground. These are the conversations I want. I don't want the surface level stuff, you know, and that's good, but I'm equally comfortable if someone doesn't want to do this with me.

SE3 15 -ADELE: That's okay too. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But like you said before, if we're our full selves, then at least the person that you're interacting with has a chance to know you and decide, whereas all this masking stuff and pretending or trying to appear normal and inverted commas, it's just is holding richness of relationships away from us.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And that is, it's really sad. Like when I, [00:45:00] when I had these realizations, I was like, Oh my God, that's just another way of abandoning myself. Um, but I think. Also then like the leaves falling. It's like, okay, so that's clearing space for, well, what is possible? Like what, what does a deeply nourishing, um, friendship look and feel like?

SE3 15 -ADELE: How, how does it feel? And I actually love, I wanted to say, um, your tagline, be seen, be heard, be harmonized. And I was just like, Oh my God, this is love person. I always say. Be seen and be heard. It's the first time in my life. I've all felt like I'm even showing my full self so that I can be heard and seen.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Um, and I know that that's also a salute from you for you to like, you know, we deserve to have good high quality healthcare that is cognizant of our hormonal landscape and it's changing. Absolutely. Absolutely agree. That was a bit beautifully. Yeah. Yeah, it's yeah, it's one of those things. Um, I want to ask for a final question, actually two final questions.

SE3 15 -ADELE: I want you to tell people about the beautiful ADHD [00:46:00] resources on your website, but before that, what would be one thing that you would leave us neuro sparkly women with, who are in the thick of the discombobulation of the perimenopause, about What's on the other side, potentially, like what, what does the changing landscape, you know, post menopausally, and I know it's always going to be individual, but is there any wisdom you can, you can throw back to us?

SE3 15 -ADELE: Apparently, it's

SE3 15 -ADELE: I'm looking forward to it because everything flatlines, you know, where you are, you've been through the messiness, you're in your truth, you're in your power. You've got your people like this is, I mean, again, I know like this is unique to individual experiences, but you know, the ADHD women that I see who are post menopausal, they're like, it's wonderful.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Yeah. You know, so, you know, hold on to that. That's what I keep on thinking. It's almost, and I'm actually, I'm at the stage where I'm starting [00:47:00] to like go long times in between periods. And I'm like, Oh, we're at the pointy end. It's exciting. But then I'm like, because I do think that the, like getting how to manage things and then things changing again, because of the, you know, things have changed again with your perimenopause.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Um, yeah, it's just, Annoying. And also in Australia, the ADHD medication and oestrogen is in very short supply. So that's fun. Same here. I'm in the UK, just insane. Um, now I'm, I'm aware that you need to, you need to be completing cause you have somewhere to be, but, um, you have amazing, I've going to actually add the attitude magazine link to the bottom of this, and we've got your online home, but you were sharing with me before about an ADHD specific, um, resource that you would like to send people to.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Yeah, so if you check out that ADHD divas tab on my website, there's an image on that of the women's cycle, which is based on the most up to date research that we have. We have, I say the most up to date, we have a piece of [00:48:00] research that validates the specific points in the female cycle where traits can flare up.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And interestingly, what we're seeing, um, is that around ovulation, when we have this estrogen withdrawal, a flare up of hyperactive traits, there may be more risk taking behavior, more substance. more aggression, that kind of thing. And then when the estrogen drops in the second half of the cycle towards the period, a flare up of inattentive traits.

SE3 15 -ADELE: So yes, I've just put that on that to completely validate women's experiences. So go and have a look. Um, and there's lots of different podcasts and resources that you can access and the websites in the process have been, um, changed as well. So there'll be more on there. I was looking at that image last night, just going, Oh my God, that makes perfect sense to me.

SE3 15 -ADELE: Cause that has been my experience of like, just totally checking out and that week before my period, like, Oh, sorry, I don't know where I am. Whereas every other time. Yeah, exactly. So yeah. Amazing. Thank you so much. It has been a [00:49:00] deep joy. I knew this was going to be wonderful, but yeah, thank you for sharing.

SE3 15 -ADELE: And we didn't actually mention your clinic and I know you have to go, but you have just opened a clinic. Do you want to give us a quick shout out? Yes. The, The first, um, women's ADHD clinic, and it's looking at ADHD diagnosis and women's hormones at the same time. So where we can bring it all together, so you haven't got to do, go and speak to the GP about hormones, go and speak to my psych about ADHD, we're bringing it together.

SE3 15 -ADELE: So it's a pilot and we're going to see how it goes. Now, do you see people all over the place or just on in person? Yeah. Oh, no, you do. Oh, exciting. Yeah. Great. Amazing. All right. I'm going to grab that link and put it in the show notes. Thank you so much Adele. My pleasure. You have been a joy. Oh, and have you.

SE3 15 -ADELE: I've really enjoyed this. Bye bye. Bye bye.

S3-outro-inc-music (1): Thank you so much for tuning in, my friend. And if you enjoyed this app, please share it with another [00:50:00] midlife friend, or take the opportunity to go and rate and review the show on your favorite listening platform. All of these things really help us to reach more women in midlife. Now, I don't know if you know, but I am both a storyteller who helps women.

S3-outro-inc-music (1): Healers and helpers capture and communicate their work through the magic of storytelling. And I'm a midlife self care coach who is super passionate about helping other women reframe perimenopause and midlife as a powerful and purposeful time of transformation. To find out more about me and my work, you can head to Instagram at Kylie Patchett.

S3-outro-inc-music (1): Or my website kpcreative. com. au and that is k p k r e a t i v e. com. au. And you will find all of those links in the show notes. Have a spectacular day and may you be setting yourself wild and finally fucking [00:51:00] free.