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SEND Parenting Podcast
Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, Dr Olivia Kessel, and, more importantly, I am a mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent daughter, Alexandra, who really inspired this podcast.
As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity, I have uncovered a wealth of misinformation, alongside many answers and solutions that were never taught to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks.
Each week on this podcast, I will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade.
SEND Parenting Podcast
Underdiagnosis of ADHD in girls and women with Rosie Turner
This episode focuses on the underdiagnosis of ADHD in women and girls, exploring the emotional impact this has on their mental health. Rosie Turner shares her journey from misdiagnosis to understanding her ADHD, highlighting the unique challenges faced by women's evolving symptoms and the importance of exercise and self-acceptance.
• Examining how ADHD presents differently in girls compared to boys
• The emotional toll of misdiagnoses and societal expectations on women
• The role of hormonal changes in exacerbating ADHD symptoms
• Validating the uniqueness of ADHD as potentially beneficial
• The critical importance of movement and lifestyle changes in managing ADHD
• Practical strategies to engage with the ADHD experience constructively
Click to join our Send Parenting Private WhatsApp Community today for support and connection with other parents navigating these challenges.
Reach out to Rosie @ ADHD Untangled
Bali retreat ( one space left)
www.sendparenting.com
Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, dr Olivia Kessel, and, more importantly, I'm mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent daughter, alexandra, who really inspired this podcast. As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity in a UK education system, I've uncovered a wealth of misinformation, alongside many answers and solutions that were never taught to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks. Each week on this podcast, I will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade. Before we start with the episode, I'd like to invite you to become a member of our Send Parenting what's Up? Community. It's a private space designed just for us. Parenting neurodiverse children can come with its own set of challenges, but it's also full of incredible moments of joy and growth. So I wanted to create a space where we can come together as neurodiverse parents to connect, share experiences and offer support to one another with no judgment and a lived in understanding. If you're a neuro navigator like me and have felt alone on this journey, then this is the community for you. Join us as we navigate this unique journey together. Join us as we navigate this unique journey together. The link can be found in the show notes or you can direct message me on 078-569-15105, and I can personally add you in Looking forward to hearing from you in the community.
Dr Olivia Kessel:In today's episode we're going to talk about how ADHD can present differently in girls and women, often leading, sadly, to underdiagnosis and misdiagnosis.
Dr Olivia Kessel:We will explore the emotional impact this can have on a young girl into womanhood and onwards in terms of their mental health, and how that can change once they've had the validation of being diagnosed correctly with ADHD. We'll be joined by Rosie Turner, who'll share with us her personal story about the challenges she experienced before realizing she had ADHD and how she's been able to harness her ADHD brain to thrive, becoming an ADHD coach, promoting exercise and movement to really flourish in her life. So welcome, rosie. It's an absolute pleasure to have you on the Send Parenting podcast.
Dr Olivia Kessel:I'm a huge fan of your podcast, adhd Untangled, and how you kind of focus on looking at ADHD as a superpower and not as a deficit you know we need more messages coming across and also how you link it to exercise and health and fitness, which is just, you know, speaking to my heart and soul as well. So I'm so happy to have you on our show today and I just wanted to ask you if you could open it up by sharing your journey and I know you were late diagnosed, kind of what that looked like for you in terms of ADHD.
Rosie Turner:Of course. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. Yeah, so obviously, you know, throughout my whole life, until I got my diagnosis, when I was, I think, 31 or around that, so it was 2021, so I'm 36 now, so actually 33, I think it was there we go time blindness, um.
Rosie Turner:So you know, basically I'd lived my life not really understanding why. I lived my life to the extremes and was running from one extreme to the other and constantly trying to be so many different people, um, within that. So you know, rushing into a marriage very young, thinking it would help me feel normal and accepted, trying to get on in a corporate job um, and failing miserably time and time again, um, and struggling with things like passing my driving test. So I did like nine driving tests and in school I just really struggled to get by and I always struggled with chasing highs and dopamine and had, you know, some quite a long time of my life in addictive patterns and behaviors. And it got to a stage where I had been doing yoga for a while and you know, I'd found this amazing tool. That really changed a lot for me, well, changed everything for me. It changed the way I, you know, reacted to things in life, the way that I've started to view myself, and it also changed the way that I was, you know, trying to manage that urge to chase the bad dopamine. So it really helped me overcome addictions.
Rosie Turner:But despite that, I started to notice that once again I was getting bored in a relationship that was actually a healthy relationship. I was struggling again in the workplace and my emotions whilst I had meditation and, you know, many different tools to help manage my emotions it felt like they were going back to those extremes, those very big highs and lows, and I it was. You know, I couldn't understand why, when I was doing all these different things, that I was still struggling and I kept asking myself what the hell is wrong with you. Because before I assumed it was all to do with hangovers. I thought all these struggles of losing my belongings all the time and living so chaotically was because I was always hungover and obviously that had a big impact. But when I had been doing all these things, all these things, you know, living my life very differently and, as I say, things started to feel a bit better, I couldn't understand why I'd come again to a crossroads of wanting to chase, you know more dopamine, feeling bored and being scared of boredom and why I was struggling again. So you know my partner at the time. It got so bad actually that, especially in terms of like forgetfulness and leaving stuff on, like I left the gas hob on, I walked out of the car door and left all three car doors open all day. He came home from work and he was like all the car doors are open outside and you know, and literally you're losing belongings everywhere I went.
Rosie Turner:So when I was teaching part-time, every studio I went to I'd get a phone call after or I'd have to ring them and go and get something, and he was quite concerned and he said I think you know, there's something going on in your brain. I think we need to get brain scan or something. So I actually went through a whole process of that and at first they thought they found something. So we went through worry of that for months, having to go back for scans and stuff, and then it got to be all clear.
Rosie Turner:But then that sort of left me with a bit like okay, so this isn't nothing physical or you know, like something isn't going on in my brain. This has to be me, what is it. So I went on a Googling that everyone does and put symptoms in and ADHD come up, and I and ADHD come up and I was a bit like, well, I know what ADHD is, I was married to someone with ADHD, but what the hell has that got to do with anything? And then, like we all do, I researched. There wasn't a lot in the UK at the time at all, so I found some American podcast and, you know, magazines, and then I was just like blown away and you know I say it was like connecting the dots and thinking, oh my God, this is the answer, this is what is wrong.
Rosie Turner:Like you know, this is what has felt wrong with me this whole time, and I remember like ringing my family and be like, oh my God, this is what's been going on, you know, and I had to wait on a waiting list and, like you know, everybody does and it was like 18 months and at the time, that time that you know, that's quite short now for the UK, very short, um, I got um an online diagnosis and he was like what do you think this is going to change? And I was like, I don't know, you tell me, um, but I, I refused medication at that point and um, yeah, and then they just logged off the call and said, well, if you need any therapy, you, you can let us know, um, and then, after the diagnosis, so great follow-up care.
Rosie Turner:There I was just like okay, and um, and then after that, I was just like I want to do something, so I'm going to start a podcast. I need to learn about this. The best way that I learn is talking to people. So within two weeks weeks, I'd come up with the name um ADHD, untangled and signed up to. I looked for my own ADHD coach and whilst doing that, I ended up signing up to become an ADHD coach, which I didn't even know existed, because it was really hard to get an ADHD coach at the time for me.
Rosie Turner:Um, yeah, and then, all of a sudden, I just went on this rampage of just wanting to learn more and more and more, um, and that's where it's got to. But I think, yeah, it was. It was just a life of struggling and, you know, there was a lot of good times, don't get me wrong. Like I always say, loads of adventure, loads of, you know, taking risks that sometimes paid off and meaning that I had a lot of fun along the way. But it constantly kept coming back to this cycle of right now, everything's fell apart again. Why am I, you know, constantly finding myself in this place of deep, deep unhappiness, like the self-hatred was so strong, um, and it felt like I was constantly battling with trying you know, with these thoughts of like you, what you're doing is wrong and who you are is bad, and why can't you just be like everybody else?
Dr Olivia Kessel:Yeah, so that's soul destroying really.
Rosie Turner:Yeah.
Dr Olivia Kessel:And now, since you've had the diagnosis, um, how has that helped you to kind of rise above that?
Rosie Turner:I think the diagnosis you know. Initially I went straight into relief, as you can probably tell from what I said, like a lot of people go into grief first, um, we call it like relief.
Rosie Turner:A lot of people call it, you know, you're like going through that grief and then you're relieved. But I was in relief because I was just like this makes it, I knew it, like I never doubted my ADHD. A lot of people that I coach and I meet like, oh, I thought it was just touched too much of an easy answer. Where I was like this is is this, is definitely it. Um, so the relief first of all was the compassion, and that all instantly gave me so much confidence that I obviously went off on this. You know, something I'd thought about for a long time is completely quitting the corporate world, but never had the confidence to just having that awareness in that moment was like I just know I need to do things differently now, like instantly had confidence to do things that I would never have done before, and I feel like obviously it's an ongoing untangling. I think forever in life we'll be untangling it and I think I had a bit of delayed grief, probably late last year, where I started to really realize you know, okay, there's a lot that you still need to look at and again being careful, because I think the business became another addiction, in disguise like a good one that looked good on the outside, but I noticed that maybe I was distracting myself from maybe healing, from some of what happened, being misdiagnosed for so long. Um, that now I you know.
Rosie Turner:I think life isn't perfect after, but, my god, least you know what you're dealing with and you haven't got that distraction of trying to work out why things feel different for you or why you might be struggling, or why you also find things other things a lot easier that other people look at and go well, how the hell did you do that?
Rosie Turner:Um, you sort of. I think that question was just a real big distraction in my life because I just kept wondering about that instead of focusing on what I was doing. So I think the instant thing that I can think of that, you know, having this diagnosis has allowed me to do is let go of all of that trying to please everyone, trying to fit into society, and actually now draw my attention to what's important and you know what I can do with what I have um, and help others do the same and not waste so much. You know, nothing's a waste of time, but if I can do anything. It'd be for younger people to not have to spend so much time trying to pretend to live a life in a different way.
Dr Olivia Kessel:And, yeah, it's almost like swimming upstream, isn't it? So, you know, instead of trying to, and not working towards your strengths, but trying to be normal, which isn't, maybe, towards your strengths, like being in the corporate world. It's, you know, it's not for many neurodiverse people, including myself, you know, it's I, it's just not. You know, and realizing that it's not and that there's so many other people that it's not, and you can still have a successful, great life and put your energy in that you know um it.
Rosie Turner:It's liberating, you know it really is, and I think the it's exhausting otherwise, isn't it? And all that wonderful energy that so many neurodivergent people that I coach have got, and all these amazing talents that get, they get so pushed to the side because all the focus is on starting in their place of struggle and trying to get better there. And I'm like, let's, let's, get stronger in your place of strength and then that, will you know, increase naturally.
Dr Olivia Kessel:No, I totally agree, and I think also one of the you know, one of the challenges being women or being girls is that ADHD doesn't quite present in the same way that we think of boys presenting and that kind of creates a dichotomy. You know what I mean. Because, as girls, you know we're supposed to behave, we're supposed to, you know, be good, we're supposed to be pleasers, like you mentioned earlier, and so you know, I think, awareness on how girls present and also women, because there's, you know it still is an underdiagnosed population, women, and also ethnic minorities as well, because we don't equate the same thing. So what, what kind of? What do you think are the key differences in your mind? If you were like talking to someone, how do girls present versus boys or men?
Rosie Turner:I mean. So what a lot of people talk about is the inattentive side? Um of adhd. So obviously there's three types right and um.
Rosie Turner:What is said and I don't think it's absolutely 100 confirmed yet because obviously there's a lot of late diagnosis coming out yet but it said that women are tend to be more on the attentive side of adhd, uh than theactive side, which is like the externalized hyperactivity which a lot of people assume ADHD is. So they equate it to someone who jumps around a lot and an all-school boy, whereas a lot of women tend to have the hyperactivity, but it's internalized, so they will be getting on at school and lot of people, you know it doesn't equate to how intelligent someone is, which is what everyone thought before. You know they could be really smart girls doing really well in school and look like they've got it all together, um, but actually they're really struggling on the inside um to focus. They might be daydreaming more, they might still misplace their belongings, um, they might be, you know, quite sensitive and seem overly sensitive, um, and I think that's that's what we are told, that adhd in terms of women, um, and men, the difference is. The other thing that's really different is obviously, with women we have a lot of hormone changes throughout our lives, whereas men tend to have that stage when they're younger, which is when adhd presents quite extreme for them. When they're younger and you notice them, you know, maybe playing up a bit more in school or it's coming across, as you know, they're being quite defiant at that stage in their life, whereas with women, um, our hormones obviously don't stabilize and men's do. So boys can sort of go throughout their life and sort of stay quite similar with their ADHD. Even if it's undiagnosed it will sort of present, you know, similar to what it did when I was younger, but almost start to sort of calm down in some ways. You know, whereas with women our hormones are constantly changing and as we get into this stage of our lives, like, say, where I'm at now, so in my 30s, and you hit perimenopause and then maybe you have a baby, our ADHD can actually fluctuate and go up and down. So that's another big difference with ours it can change a lot, whereas in mouths it doesn't.
Rosie Turner:But the other thing that's really different obviously for us is masking. So even for me I have combined ADHD and I very much presented like the typical naughty schoolboy as a woman and obviously that meant I tried to mask. As the older I got I kept trying to be a people pleaser or I really felt I needed to be like other women around me that seemed to be very organized and they just wanted to have their you know, get married, have babies, and they didn't want to chase all this you know adventure that I wanted to chase at the time and this career that I wanted, or do things differently the people around me anyway. So a woman may mask a lot more than boys or, you know, or men. What that can do is obviously that can cause a lot of unhappiness, which can cause a lot of mental health struggles, and it can go on to, you know, present in ways where their self-esteem and their confidence is just completely and utterly shattered. So I think the thing with women that's quite difficult is you have to be looking for that, someone who is really trying hard to please and fit in to the environment around them, trying to be like everybody else, maybe quite inconsistent with that as well. Because I was trying to be the perfect housewife. Then all of a sudden I would change my mind and I'd trying to be the perfect housewife. Then all of a sudden I would change my mind and I'd want to go and travel the world and be a yogi, which was probably more what I wanted to do, but then I'd feel bad and go back and try and do it again. Let's go and get in a long-term relationship and that inconsistency, even in the workplace or at school, where you notice that right they're doing, they're going like this, like this, like this, you know, straight, quite linear, and then all of a sudden there's an extreme turnaround.
Rosie Turner:I think that's the key with women and young girls especially is noticing for those turnarounds that when they go to university, for instance I see it, a lot is in school. They tend to be getting away with it because they can mask. There's structures around them that make it easier to mask. All of a sudden those structures are gone, they leave the school environment, they go into university. All of a sudden the tools they were using, the, the masking tools, don't work anymore and they're struggling. And then that's when adhd starts to really present for them and they can't hide it anymore. Or when they have a baby, you see it a lot as well that maybe not even their first baby, maybe baby number two comes along everything that woman has done for her entire life to try and mask and keep everything together and look like on the outside that you know. This is, this is. I find this easy.
Rosie Turner:It falls apart because the hormone changes and then the structures, and I didn't actually explain the hormone changes, what I just spoke about. But the reason why it affects us so much is dopamine obviously needs estrogen and as the estrogen lowers and high as it affects us, so much is dopamine obviously needs estrogen and as the estrogen lowers and high as it affects the dopamine. Now, if you've got ADHD, obviously you've got low. You're said to have lower amounts of dopamine. So that's why we respond to hormone changes. So you know more extremely or more intensely than someone without. And it's often said I don't know if you've heard this, but when people women hit menopause, who may be neurotypical, it's like welcome to our world of ADHD because that's how our brain has felt and you know all that forgetfulness and the ups and downs. We've had that our whole life.
Dr Olivia Kessel:Well, it's funny because a lot of people, a lot of people, actually also get diagnosed in menopause too, because they've been able to cope. But what happens with you know, your prefrontal cortex develops from when you start life and it develops until you're about 28, 30. And with ADHD there's about a 30% delay in that development and as you get older that 30% becomes larger, right. So usually, like an ADHD brain will stop. The prefrontal cortex will stop maturing around 25, 26. Like you can still function really well with that, but you won't get to the 28, 30 of a neurotypical person. And then your prefrontal cortex is pretty much stabilized for the rest of until you hit menopause.
Dr Olivia Kessel:And then, because of estrogen how you just so eloquently phrased it everything goes awry again and often some of the coping strategies or how people were dealing with it becomes too much and that's when they get diagnosed. Same with kids in puberty. So a lot of girls get diagnosed at like 11, 12, whereas boys get diagnosed predominantly. I think there's a couple of multi-factor reasons why. First of all, because they present more like the hyperactive boy. Teachers and educators and parents don't recognize the signs of girls. But it's also because it becomes more prominent when those estrogen levels start to fluctuate and the prefrontal cortex gets even more challenging to cope with. And then, when you get to adulthood, we see the numbers really normalizing between males and females in terms of ADHD prevalence that we don't see in childhood and teenage years. And then you also you know you also have boys who present atypically and they also kind of get lost in it.
Rosie Turner:And what's really fascinating is that actually hyperactivity?
Dr Olivia Kessel:it's only two to 5% Okay.
Rosie Turner:I know. This is what I call it. It's tiny, tiny tiny. Every two to 5%. Okay, I know it's small, tiny, tiny tiny. Every time someone asks me about that, like you know, and I'm like, the mad thing is the one that everyone associates with is actually such a low percent and most, most girls and boys, grow out of it.
Dr Olivia Kessel:Okay, so you're not, you're not a static ADHD subtype, and that's another thing that's misleading. You know you have three buckets combined inattention, hyperactivity. Actually, you can move in and out of those buckets as you grow up and as you get coping strategies and as different things happen. So it's a really medical terminology. The same way, the diagnosis of ADHD, is also.
Rosie Turner:It changes over time.
Dr Olivia Kessel:Well, they decided in their wisdom because you couldn't measure it. Oh, we'll just take emotional regulation off of the diagnostic criteria. Now I don't know, you know what I mean. That's what my daughter had and I had no idea. As a medical doctor, I'm like well, this doesn't, this doesn't add up. You know why.
Rosie Turner:You know, like to us as well, those extreme emotions is probably the big and it's hard because you might think, is this their hormones always? But I think mine were very different to emotions that I would say friends that were neurotypical than mine were, mine were like I want.
Rosie Turner:I'm sorry, I don't know if I'd say this on here, but I want to die. I want to kill myself, and then it could be. I love my life so much. Oh, my god, the world is beautiful and I want to do everything within it. And that was that was literally like that. Yeah, and it was. You know, my mom was very concerned. You know, at times like what is wrong, it's huge highs and huge very little control and and also not knowing what it is control it's even worse very little control.
Rosie Turner:You're in those low moments you really hate yourself even more because you're like, why am I like this? And and people around you don't know how to help you because they think you're crazy. I think my mom thought what? What's happening here? My other daughter was on a bad assist, you know.
Dr Olivia Kessel:And yeah, well, and also the social impact of it too. Like you know, my daughter's found it very challenging, because other kids aren't going to want to play with you if you're going to lose it with them. You know, um, when you're 11, 12, you know what I mean. They don't, they don't get it. And it's been an interesting journey with us with medication, actually, and how we're still in the process of titrating it. So, at a lower dose of methylphenidate, her attention and her ability to focus and her ability to manage things, do homework all of that stuff has improved amazingly. But her emotional regulation was still a struggle, so they just suggested to increase the dose of it from five milligrams twice a day to 10 milligrams.
Dr Olivia Kessel:Well, now her emotional regulation is a lot better, but she's like, mommy, I'm not focusing anymore in class, so I'm like, all right, we need to now lower it and go halfway between where we were to find that sweet spot.
Rosie Turner:I'm so glad you mentioned that because I'm actually, although I said no to medication in the beginning, I I'm actually, although I said no to medication in the beginning, I went and got diagnosed again.
Rosie Turner:I've had two diagnoses now because they took me off the list after that when I said no but that's the exact same process I've had I found that the higher I went it was great for emotional regulation and then the focus it was too high because then I couldn't focus. I felt quite like, you know, erratic almost. And Dr Ned Halliwell, I actually spoke to him. He came over and ongoing, I was chatting to him about it and he he thinks that the medication doesn't really touch the emotional dysregulation and actually we should shouldn't really look at the medication for that and maybe look at the medication for the focus and the uh, you know that that side of things and try other stuff.
Dr Olivia Kessel:But yeah, well, I you know not to disagree, but I have to say, like with my daughter and you know this is an N of one and you know I've actually asked my clinical psychiatrist to send me some research papers on it but it's been really amazing because she's been able to, in class when okay, she, you know they, her teacher borrowed her computer and played a video that she didn't want anyone to see. It was heart, heart stopper and it showed two boys kissing. So everyone in the class got like ha, ha, live, you know why are, why are you? You know, why are you watching that? And it was, you know, a high a moment for her and she was able to stop, which she would not have been able to do before, and goes, please, to make me cry, whereas before she would have just exploded. You know she wouldn't, there would have been. No, you know there would be, and she's, she's more able to do it.
Rosie Turner:So I do see, and I see it in our home life just her ability to cause with, instead of just to to have that flash of anger. That can happen. Ned Halliwell says it doesn't touch sides. I know a lot of people say it doesn't help their rsd and things like that. But um, I was thinking about the reason it might. Is is also, if you think the brain is looking for stimulation a lot of the time with the emotional dysregulation as well, isn't it? It's quite stimulating those negative stories, those reactions, whereas the medication's giving us, um, you know, more dopamine as well, leveling out our dopamine, then it doesn't need to sort of go off on that tangent as much and find that stimulation, like it once did, um, with the anger or the episode, you know, whatever it is that it's trying to get as high from. So it makes sense to me why it would work. You know Absolutely.
Dr Olivia Kessel:And also the medication, like what it does, is in the prefrontal cortex. You know that gap we talked about earlier, about that 30% gap in 55% of people taking a stimulant medication it negates that gap by a hundred percent when on medication and emotional regulation, is your sixth executive function in a step-like function. So there's no way in my opinion scientifically that it doesn't help that because, instead of having an emotional regulation which is 30% delayed from someone else.
Dr Olivia Kessel:The medication has bridged that gap. Now in 35% of people 35% of people it doesn't completely negate that gap. So with my daughter it doesn't negate the gap, but it is efficacious towards that gap, very much so. And in about 5% of people 5% to 10% it doesn't help help. So that's why you see a varied picture with people. I don't think there is just a, but I mean it's pretty high percentages if you look.
Rosie Turner:So I'm going off tangent here, but like what, I've been closing the gap when you're on medication seven versions of adhd which really I was reading up on, and um, one of the ones that come up for me was like the ring of fire and I really thought about this um, because I spoke to another doctor at the nightingale that if some of us go on to stimulant medication and we've got like a serotonin issue that we don't know about, then we could get the focus. But there's going to be some it. You know we're going to struggle when we increase it, like, for instance, what we just spoke about, and we can become more anxious and restless. But actually, instead of coming off the medication, we can actually increase our serotonin, which doesn't have to actually be done by another SSR, like some. A lot of people do do that, but I've been looking into some natural ways to do that alongside stimulants, which I'm going to try out, but apparently that can can be like a quite a good mix if we're struggling to find that balance.
Dr Olivia Kessel:So if you've heard that, and I think also there's the option and I think this is, you know, because there are there's two lines of treatment with ADHD medication. There's stimulant and non-stimulant, and actually non-stimulant can be quite a good choice for individuals that have anxiety, that have OCD, that have concurrent autism, as a better choice for some of those reasons that you've just mentioned, and so it might be worth talking to your clinician about. Maybe they take a longer time to get active and you have to be more cognizant when you come on and off of it and things like that.
Dr Olivia Kessel:So there's some, some variances and it affects noradrenaline directly and dopamine secondly. So it's uh it, it works a little differently but it's, I think, worthwhile exploring that with your clinician to see if anxiety and if that could be a better combination.
Dr Olivia Kessel:It's a trial and error thing. It's very much like. You know, hrt is a trial and error thing. You know medications for anxiety and stuff. It's a trial and error thing. But I, you know, birth control pill is even the same way, you know. So you have to really work with your clinician. And you know birth control pill is even the same way, you know. So you have to really work with your clinician. And you know, for people with children, I say listen to your child, you know what I mean. They, you know. I said to my daughter how's it going? I said it really looks like your emotional regulation.
Rosie Turner:She goes, yeah, but why am I focused? You know I'm in class and I'm not focusing. The kids are so honest ignoring it. You know like you're like, oh, do it, especially because the uk, if you go back again, it's like, oh god, I've got to go back. I'm trying to shake it. You know I really can't be bothered with the steps, you know, but you're like this is so important I didn't want to.
Dr Olivia Kessel:You know, last night I was laying, now I I was, I was lying in bed last night and I was like, okay, I could just do this myself. I don't need to go back to the psychiatrist, because every time I go back to the psychiatrist it costs me 350 pounds because we go privately. So then I'm like, okay, I'll just titrate her down to 7.5.
Rosie Turner:And then I'm like, oh, God, I can't cut those up.
Dr Olivia Kessel:The school's not going to do it. So this morning I'm like damn it.
Dr Olivia Kessel:I think you know is as we get more educated about it and, you know, when we look at like parents and we look at teachers and ADHD and spreading this education about it, I think there's so many myths about medication and about ADHD. You know, I have a lot of parents come to me who are really scared to give their child a medication you know, and or teachers that you know maybe haven't picked up on the subtler signs of that the girls are struggling. So I think there's a huge knowledge that needs to. You know, medication isn't everything. It's just one part of a holistic kind of package that you need.
Rosie Turner:In fact, I think medication would have been more life changing for me when I was younger than it is now, and it actually made me really, really tearful when I came, you know, I think I ran my mom, and not as a way to blame my mom would never have known, how could she know at the time but it was a really upsetting because I think that would have have been that would have changed everything, everything. If I'd have had that then and I think that's the thing, it's not you know again.
Rosie Turner:I think Dr Tallow said it's like trying and not wearing. Not trying glasses if you're um short-sighted or you know, it's not saying that it's the only thing by 100%, but to not give it a go is like not wearing glasses if you need them and giving that a go. Well, I mean it's.
Dr Olivia Kessel:It's it's effect factor of ADHD drugs is is 1.2, and the higher the number, the more effective it is. An asthma drug is 0.5. Okay, but you can see when someone has asthma, when your child is struggling, you give them the inhaler. They breathe, their breathing gets better with adhd medication. A you can't see adhd, okay, and then you don't directly. Actually you do. When parents most parents, I think that do put their kids on medication, they're like, wow, what a difference. And actually if you start when they're children, if they're struggling more in more than one setting or as they get older, one setting.
Rosie Turner:So I literally saw a video on this that happened in the brain structure. With this I was so structures of their brain and also like being able to you know. So you actually it's been so useful for me. I know I'm a coach, but for me as a person I still have coaching wherever I can like. I think as a child, if I'd have been medicated and then had a coach, like to be able to have built those structures younger as well, because my brain was a bit more quieter and able to you know, focus would have also been, you know, you would have had probably an exercise routine earlier or I don't know, like a way to work and manage business.
Dr Olivia Kessel:My daughter called me on the phone the other day. She's like, mommy, I think I need a coach. I'm like I think you're probably right. But she said you know with her, like we had to take her medication when she first got up in the morning so that she could do her routines in the morning. And you know, we put accommodations up like stick it notes so she knows what to do. She doesn't need the medication in the morning anymore.
Rosie Turner:She takes it at breakfast because it would affect her appetite. Well, it's 30 days, isn't it? It's a great habit. So, getting ready in the morning, now go to a one. I'm sure it's 30 days, I think it's actually 60.
Dr Olivia Kessel:It's longer. I think it is longer, it's longer than you think. But people are always like yeah, you know, just keep going with. It is what I say, and you know then it does become habit, and then it takes it out of the prefrontal cortex, so it's not like you're having to struggle through it no, I don't think I'm that lucky.
Dr Olivia Kessel:I still use. I don't know if you've ever driven somewhere and you have no idea how you drove there because it's such a rude habit, though with myself. I know that's kind of dangerous, but I actually need it.
Rosie Turner:Yeah, and I still quit tom-tom. A lot of the time everyone's like what's a tom-tom that?
Dr Olivia Kessel:doesn't exist. I do as well. I always use Google Maps. I, you know, couldn't get to the airport. Yeah, so back to our topic of kind of girls and you know how they struggle before diagnosis. You know a lot of, I think, girls and women actually go on to be misdiagnosed and the emotional toil that it takes on them.
Rosie Turner:I don't know if you have any experience in your coaching Even myself but a lot of it is, you know, being misdiagnosed with anxiety, which also can be obviously a comorbidity Depression are two of the biggest, but also bipolar and personality disorder, and I mean, as people get older, then it's perimenopause and things like that as well, which I think you know, know I know that doctors aren't all up to date either on the hormone thing.
Rosie Turner:But that's another thing that they could. They can misdiagnose, start misdiagnosing women, especially in their say like late 30s, saying oh, this could be your, this is your hormone changes and it's not adhd, but actually it could be both. Um. But I think that has weighed heavy burden, like a lot of things with misdiagnosed ADHD. But getting those labels, um and labels can be obviously liberating.
Rosie Turner:I think not, not always, you know, limiting but getting the wrong diagnosis and the wrong label, because of the way the world views many of these um mental health conditions, has just added to the pile of this lack of self-belief that these women were already dealing with internally anyway.
Rosie Turner:So it's been very, very dangerous and, I think, crushing. Yeah, and I think this is why, you know, and because labels tend to come from a more negative connotation and deserits and what have you, which is why I'm really big on trying to reframe ADHD, whilst not shying away from the struggles, is if you, you know, these people have had these misdiagnosis and the the association with them has been so negative that it's I see it with clients all the time and it just makes them feel like, well, you know, I've got this um, which means I'm. You know, my therapist tells me that I'll always have disassociation. I won't be. I'm always going to struggle with this and and it just like they just start to believe this story, that who they are is this label, is this, you know, misdiagnosis, um, and like there's no solution. Basically, and I think a lot of them before their adhd diagnosis um, just accepted that and just accepted that oh, this is who I am, this is how it's going to be and things aren't going to get better for me, you know, yeah, yeah.
Dr Olivia Kessel:And that's in your heart of hearts. I would imagine that it doesn't completely resonate with you, but it's a tough pill you're trying to swallow. Versus when you got your ADHD diagnosis, it's like aha, this is it, and you felt validated because it is the wrong diagnosis.
Rosie Turner:They never really associated or felt like they connected with that diagnosis. They were got before intuitively but accepted it, um, and I think it was a different. It is a different pill to swallow, um, I think I don't know what it is and why it is, but I think when you get your adhd diagnosis for me especially, I was like this is definitely and and it shows, because I didn't take medication from. I was given medication for my depression and anxiety many times and I remember one day I took it for three days and was like I'm not taking it and didn't With ADHD. As soon as I sort of understood it more and done my research on the medication and stuff, I was like right, I'm actually going to give this a go, Because I felt that's what I need. I knew that's what my brain was lacking and why it made sense for me to to now look into that.
Rosie Turner:But you know, some people they they get these misdiagnoses and, um, what they're given, uh, medications can sometimes make things worse for them because it's not dealing with what. What's actually going on, Um, and yeah.
Dr Olivia Kessel:so and you know it's interesting to me because sometimes I speak to like multi-generational families of people because I mean it's 80 percent heritable condition adhd. So usually one member gets diagnosed and then you know, kind of look around the rest of the family, although it has many different faces, but you're like, ah, there's one, there's one you know. And then you know it often starts with a child, then the mom, then the grandmom who's been the one that's really suffered, and especially for women, like being labeled, mislabeled.
Rosie Turner:You know it all comes unstable, like I just constantly and I see it again with all like my client stuff, like that's a horrible, horrible way to feel about yourself. And I came from quite a tradition. You know old school family of like women were one you know shouldn't go out partying, for instance, or have a drink problem, but men you know a lot of men did, and they'd go down the pub and whatever I had, all I was doing, all these things maybe basically like my dad's friends might've been doing, or you know men that we knew, and you know you're called things like crazy wrong. You're a wrong one. You know you shouldn't be doing that. As a woman you should be behaving like that. That's like crushing for a, for a woman, isn't it? And to be called all these things like mad and and what have you, and it's degrading, yeah, exactly it's degrading, no, uh, and it's.
Dr Olivia Kessel:It's from a it, I mean, it's from a place of lack of knowledge, really, and and cultural norms within you know, your, your family structures you were talking about, but, um, you know, know, it's liberating. I think, and this is something that you know, even with my own daughter, like I was like when we were on the path to getting her diagnosis, it was like, you know, I was sitting there with myself maybe she has it, maybe she doesn't have it, maybe she, you know, up to the point the psychiatrist said I had convinced myself both ways, you know, and I can't get a diagnosis myself. I would be highly thoughtful that I might have ADHD.
Dr Olivia Kessel:My dad definitely does as well, and my brother but I don't have any history of my childhood that I can have someone to interview with, because my mom's dead and my dad doesn't remember anything so he didn't even remember I had a middle name so I can't use him. He wasn't really around so they can't actually properly diagnose me. But I can relate and see and it explains a lot. But you know, it is kind of still that missing thing that you would like to get.
Dr Olivia Kessel:That I'm glad that I've been able to get for my daughter because you know the long-term life consequences of not being diagnosed and not being supported are terrible. But if you are supported and you do get, you know the care and the support that you need and the kind of knowledge of where you're at and having people and you know looking after yourself, like you've been talking about making sure that you're getting the right dopamine, making sure that you know you're doing the right things in life to support your mental health and well-being.
Dr Olivia Kessel:Then you can fly. You know what I mean. You can really fly. So that brings us onto our topic of how do we live well with ADHD and what are some of the coping strategies. And I love that. You love exercise because for me and I have to exercise. If I do not exercise, I cannot function as a human, and I discovered it later. But it it keeps me. It's not about fitness, it's not about losing weight. It's about mental well-being for me, and it's well, it's, it's yes, so drinking water?
Dr Olivia Kessel:I believe I didn't so tell me about your journey to exercise and coping with ADHD.
Rosie Turner:So as I mentioned, I lived quite a like, um, a hectic life and and a life of partying and taking drugs and alcohol and drinking lots of alcohol and really suffering, um, quite badly. And one of my I lost a friend who sadly took their own life and before they passed they signed me up to the marathon, the London Marathon, but it was actually as a joke. There was no way I was doing it because I was drinking at lunchtime and you know I would never have been able to do it. I was like, oh, that's funny, ha ha, but that's not happening. And when he passed, it obviously felt like a different, had a different meaning behind it. And I said to my sister, who was working in the same building as me at the time I was like I feel like we, I need to do this. She was like, ok, well, I'll do it with you. So we started exercising together and it obviously wasn't to the point of what we should have been training for a marathon, but we'd run to work a few times and we got a personal trainer that we shared and I just started to notice that I was exercising and making slightly better decisions and not being as drawn to the party lifestyle, so it wasn't completely gone at the time. And so, anyway, after the the marathon, I was like I couldn't believe I'd done it for a start. I literally couldn't believe I did it. I mean, I looked like I was about to die when I finished but my dad was like your lips are blue. I was like I couldn't even talk. But the fact is I knew I was onto something good because I was like things have felt slightly better for me.
Rosie Turner:So, basically, I went on a make or break holiday with my then husband and I found a yoga barn and my friend had bought me a meditation book called the Practice and the Power of Now and it was a really small book and I just thought to myself I don't know why I was like for two weeks, I'm not going to drink on this holiday and I'm going to go yoga every day. I'm going to try and read this book, because I really wasn't good at reading I'm still not good at reading physical books, I have to listen but I thought I'm going to do this and somehow I did it and I could not believe what yoga was doing for me on this holiday. I was like oh, oh, my god, I couldn't get enough of it. And I'd read this book and started practicing these steps and was like I think I'm learning to meditate, this thing, meditation, um. And then came back and started getting up early and going to yoga in the gym every morning and just started creating this morning routine which became more important to me than going out and I didn't want to go out anymore because I wanted to get up early. Um, and then, eight months of doing that, I decided I wanted to go to India be a yoga teacher, so I'd left my marriage by then and did that.
Rosie Turner:And now that morning routine was what saved my life, because that saved me from uh, continuing addictions. It saved me from, you know, whilst I still struggled with my mental health after you know, I was at a stage where I really wanted to give up and yoga came along and changed that for me and gave me more meaning in my life, and I think I didn't realize, obviously, at the time, but it was giving me that dopamine that was missing, but in a much healthier way, and I don't think I'd ever paused in my entire life and listened to what was going on in my brain until I found yoga and at first I was like this is horrible. Like what the hell? This brain of yours, what is going on? But yeah, now I can't live without it. I have to move every day and my morning routine has got so out of hand. It's like three hours long now. We're reforming Pilates, yoga and walking. So I trained as a pilates teacher too, like I just love movement.
Rosie Turner:For me was was everything and it is everything and um, I would recommend to anybody with adhd wherever they can and move, and when I mean move, like a lot of my clients have a lot of barriers getting started and um, just follow what's fun. I said I don't care if you want to dance in your kitchen, I don't care if you want to go pole dancing, which a lot of barriers at getting started, and um, just follow what's fun. I said I don't care if you want to dance in your kitchen, I don't care if you want to go pole dancing, which a lot of them do. It's like one of the most popular ones that I find that my clients end up going into. Um, but just follow fun, like, don't think you've got to go to the gym, don't think you've got to run like walk in nature, whatever it is, I don't care what it is, just move like it, just move in some way yes, that's why and it's the same thing for kids as well you know what I mean it is, you know.
Dr Olivia Kessel:Go on the trampoline dance in the kitchen. You know my. You know. Do it. Do a dance performance for me. You know my daughter's like okay wait, wait, I'll get you know.
Rosie Turner:And then an hour later she's like I'm ready for you. You know, and I always think, like you know, it changes your whole. I wake up every day and think, oh, I can't wait to move.
Rosie Turner:There's obviously days, especially when I'm going through like a bad hormone part in like cycles and stuff and I think, oh my god, do I really want to do this again? So I get up at half four and do my meditation and whatever. But there's a little tool as well that I use, and it's all about language and I say I get to do this because there's so many people out there that don't have the opportunity to move right and that that reminds me of that and as we get older, we won't. It might be as mobile. So on those moments where I really want to like stay in bed and not move or do the routine, I often try and tap into that as well, of like gratitude of the fact that I get to move and it doesn't have to be any certain way, it can just be whatever way you want it to be. Um.
Dr Olivia Kessel:I always give myself like an out clause you know, like I didn't really want to go swimming.
Dr Olivia Kessel:But I was like you know what you just do just get in there and if after five, ten minutes you don't feel like it anymore, you can, you know, get out. Well, I got some cracking, got some cracking music on the headphones and I was. I called that. I pushed myself further than I thought. You know, I was in there for 40 minutes. We hate the sound of it, but that's if we say to ourselves like you're not stuck in this, it's not.
Rosie Turner:You have a choice. But let's just do it for five minutes. You can get out that, and that is what happens normally. We end up seeing people do more than they would have done, so it's that demand avoidance almost as well, isn't it?
Dr Olivia Kessel:yeah, yeah, yeah, you've got a way out. This isn't bad. It's a gateway, exactly, it's all language, isn't it? I'm like if you don't like it, you can just go sit in the sauna and like just lay there, you know? Yeah? Well, I think it's been an absolutely amazing discussion today and I would like to just ask you if you have any final advice that you could give about. I'm actually going to ask you for three top tips as well, so it's not the final final, but how can society and how can people better support people with ADHD Is the main thing and let go of judgment where you can.
Rosie Turner:And I know, as humans a lot of us, you know, tend to. You know judgment is part of human behavior a lot of the time. But in my opinion, if we can ask why, instead of point fingers, I would be coming a long way, and not just for adhd, but just as human race right. Like people don't do things because they're bad people or they want to do. You know why are people doing things and why do you care about what they're doing? And if they're doing something differently or they're, you know, maybe reacting in an emotional way or learning in a different way, like why, why does that bother you as well? Ask yourself why.
Rosie Turner:I just think understanding over judgment is the biggest thing society can do Understand, learn about it. And, you know, don't have unless you've done your research this is the point I've got to is, unless you're going to take an interest in it and do some real research, because you know you don't have to look far, you, you know, to find out that adhd is real uh, there is no debate, and that how it showed how it can show up for someone and how serious that could be, then don't have an opinion. In my, like I always say, come back to me when you've you've done a bit of research, because I wouldn't have a conversation about I don't know maths, because I don't know enough about it, or what's going on in the politics or whatever, because I don't know enough. So my opinion I don't have an opinion. Um, I would ask questions and be curious, and I think that's what society needs to do more of.
Rosie Turner:Yeah, I think there'll be a lot less people took that on board. I think that's a great uh great advice for the world.
Dr Olivia Kessel:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and just accept. You know, people accept you who you are and you accept who people are. You know, I have a wonderful friend of mine from Mozambique and she's really, you know, she's as black as our microphones and she is do you experience prejudice? And she goes to me, olivia, she goes. No prejudice is other people's problems. She, she, so believes that and she's like one of the strongest, most amazing women I know and I'm just like you know what. Yeah, it's a. You know words to live by and you know, um, I wish that the you know, the whole world could be more like that. Now, I always end my podcast with three top tips that you can give my listeners to put in their back pockets and take away with them today.
Rosie Turner:Understand your why behind everything. So for an adhd brain, we need motivation to take step forward and we need motivation to find that consistency that's often spoken about in society. Um, your brain will find its motivation and stimulation a lot from the negative story. So we need to make the why of what it is you want to do and what you. You know, maybe it's exercise routine. Whatever it is, we need to make that as entertaining as a negative story. So dig deep into your why and get a real clear picture of who it is you want to be or what's important to you, without using the word don't, because a lot of the time when I coach clients at first, they're like I don't want to be what's important to you, without using the word don't, because a lot of the time when I coach clients at first, they're like I don't want to be anxious and I'm like but what does that look like? And people really don't know what that looks like until they've really dig deep.
Rosie Turner:The other thing I would say is, when you go to take action, so you know, you figure out what is important to you and you figure out your why and where you want to be and what it is you want to do. Remember that when you take those steps forwards, that we're not doing it the same way we did it before. We're doing it in an authentic way to you. So figure out what those authentic steps are. Authentic action, um, first and foremost, let go of what you expect or think you should do things like um, and obviously break those down. When I'm talking about steps is break everything down, um, but most importantly, fun first. Our brain needs fun. It dies without fun and we see us very unhappy, soul destroying, hitting self-sabotage if we don't have fun.
Rosie Turner:People often say do the hard thing first, and I think for adhd, that is not the case. Do the fun thing first, even make the boring things fun wherever you can, um, and you know I love to have clients go, yeah, but people around me, if I'm having too much fun doing this you know, finding the job or doing my homework people are going to think I'm not working hard enough. Well, if you want, if people want you to work hard enough and get more from you, then you need to make it fun, um. So there would be my three tips, but I think I would like to say, like you know, to end on is uh, this is something I wrote before, but it's really use, uh, whatever a label or whatever diagnosis, whatever awareness you come to in life, but it know, in particular, adhd I'm talking about today as a stepping stone, as a gift, to start giving yourself the permission to strip back those layers and get rid of those masks that you've been hiding behind for so, so long and start to live a life that feels more meaningful and authentic to you.
Rosie Turner:Use this information to finally do that, because life is so short and everybody deserves to live life in the most meaningful way they can. You know, yes, exactly.
Dr Olivia Kessel:Exactly, I think those are beautiful words to end on. You know, be your true self and make sure you're having fun while you're doing it.
Rosie Turner:I mean, I think oh, I've had so much fun. Thank you so much.
Dr Olivia Kessel:Well, thank you so much, Rosie, for joining us on the Send Parenting podcast. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for listening Send Parenting Tribe. If you haven't already, please click on the link in the show notes to join us in the private Send Parenting what's Up community. It's been wonderful to be able to communicate with everyone in the community and for us to join together to help each other to navigate challenges and to also celebrate successes. Wishing you and your family a really good week ahead, thank you, you, you, you, you, you, you.