Breaking the Blocks
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Thanks for stopping by! Life is tough, and I think this podcast might offer you some relief. My aim? To inspire you to overcome some of your own blocks through the inspirational, honest, and at times, downright raw conversations with some wonderful guests, not huge celebrities, regular people like you and I. Let’s see how they have overcome the difficulties in their lives and offer you some advice and more importantly hope.
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Breaking the Blocks
Quilting Through ADHD: Kate Sandford’s Creative Lifeline and Journey of Self-Discovery
What happens when quilting becomes a lifeline for someone managing ADHD? Artist Kate Sandford joins us on Breaking the Blocks to share her transformative journey. She recounts her path from art college to embracing quilting, highlighting how this creative outlet helped her navigate the complexities of ADHD while raising young children. Listen as Kate reveals her early memories of making things and her passion for art, explaining how quilting offered a structured yet expressive way to channel her energy and creativity.
Returning to art after intense self-doubt and a recent ADHD diagnosis at 48, Kate offers an emotional and candid look at her struggles with feelings of inadequacy. She discusses the significant role of hormones, how her children's experiences with autism and ADHD influenced her self-understanding, and the importance of seeking help and support. The episode touches on the challenges of growing up as a creative child under pressure to conform and how these experiences shaped her approach to parenting and personal identity.
Kate also opens up about the therapeutic power of crafting in managing mental health, emphasizing the importance of authenticity and self-expression. From the excitement of attending a two-day masterclass to the mixed feelings of receiving an autism diagnosis later in life, she reflects on the continuous process of healing and self-discovery. Join us for an inspiring discussion on the transformative power of art, the necessity of understanding one's unique neurological wiring, and the value of finding supportive communities.
Follow Kate on @katemustsew on Instagram
Well, hello and welcome back to another episode of Breaking the Blocks. I'm your host, rachel Pierman. Today, my guest is Kate Sandford. She is a fantastic artist. I say artist because she has tried her hand at most things which you'll find out about in this interview. But I've come across her as a quilter and I did make a correlation with the type of quilting that she does and her mind and how it works, because Kate actually suffers from ADHD, and when she came to me to offer me a class for Crafty Monkeys, we talked about scraps of fabric and how you could put them all together, and I said to her maybe there was a correlation about bringing all of these different elements together, which is what her brain is trying to do as she suffers with ADHD. It was a very moving interview, it was very insightful, but I hope that you'll enjoy it and perhaps learn about the condition, because if you've got someone in your life who's suffering from ADHD, it might be helpful to know a bit more about their behavioral patterns and why they do the things they do. So sit back and relax and I hope you enjoy the episode.
Speaker 1:Well, here we are, kate. We've made it. We did have a few technical moments then, but you know what we did? We laughed our way through it, we sorted it out in the end. It always reminds me of that film, you know, castaway, with Tom Hanks, where he makes the fire and he goes. I have made fire, and that's how I feel. Whenever I managed to record one of these podcasts, I go. I have recorded a podcast because there's so many things that you have to think about. Anyway, it is lovely to have you with me today. Thank you for joining me and, of course, you and I have only just met, because you rang me or emailed me I can't remember Instagrammed me and just said hello, I've got this class. I don't know how to do an online class. Can we do it?
Speaker 2:together.
Speaker 1:And you know, kate, you are in the record books with Crafty Monkeys already, because you, literally, from when you messaged me and we got that class up, it was like three days or something. That is incredible. Normally I speak to people it takes six months. You know when the date is in and then the stuff comes in and it gets on the website. So, you, it was amazing, but I think it was kismet, I think it was in the stars, I think it was meant to happen. I think we're all meant to meet the right people at the right time. So, kate, I want to know a little bit more about you, because all I know at the moment is that you like wearing lots of strips of fabric around your head and I'll do anything for the gram.
Speaker 1:I will yeah, you will. You are a good grammar. I have no shame. Let me know a bit more about you, kate. How, how long have you been sewing? Let's start with that, um.
Speaker 2:I did a little bit of sewing at school back in the days when you had to do um home economics, and then I didn't do sewing for ages and ages and ages and ages. I had kids and I was desperately looking for a creative outlet that I could do. I couldn't paint in the house because my kids were literally into everything. I couldn't make three-dimensional things because they would pull them apart or eat them. I discovered quilting, and it's portable. It's not messy. As long as you police your needles relatively well, you're not going to kill anybody with it. Nobody is going to mess it up. They're not going to stick their fingers in the is going to mess it up, uh, they're not going to stick their fingers in the wet bits and get it all over your walls. And then I haven't stopped really what?
Speaker 1:what was it that made you want to sort of, as you said, find a creative outlet? What you know, what? What was that kind of driving force within you? Have you always being creative?
Speaker 2:so I did go to art college, um, and when I applied I spent ages. I find filling in forms and doing like artists, blurbs and things like that really, really difficult. But I remember my application form for art college which went something along the lines of I am a maker, I make things. Please, please, accept me so I can make more things. Um, which seemed to work because I got in, but, like my earliest memory is sitting under a table. I don't know where the table was. I remember sitting under the table with a pair of scissors and just cutting a piece of paper and like cutting shapes and cutting and cutting and cutting until it got smaller and smaller and smaller, and then I get another piece of paper and I just keep cutting it. I wasn't like talented at school or anything you know. At primary school I was very middle of the road drawing. Nobody ever said, oh, you're amazing at drawing or you know, I wasn't a Picasso who's drawing realistic stuff at like four. Um, but I practiced a lot and when I got to high school, any opportunity to be in the art room, any spare lessons, lunchtime, break time, study gaps I'd I'd sneak through into the art room and do something in there. So I took a punt and I applied to art college. So that's kind of where it started and I really enjoyed my foundation year.
Speaker 2:Art school is a bit different to university. You apply to get in and then you normally do a foundation year which is like three weeks in each section. So you'll do like animation, sculpture, ceramics, fine art. We'll do life, drawing, color studies, uh, photography loved that year, loved it, loved it, loved it. And then I thought I would like to do fine art. I wanted to be a sculptor, so I applied. I didn't think I'd get in again confidence issues and I tried it and I went from the Isle of White, which is where I was brought up, and then I applied to go to Kingston University to do sculpture and I got there and even though it's right on the edge of London, to me it was like a huge culture shock, huge student housing bits. It was very, um, like alienating and I felt really alone and lonely and I was just like this tiny, tiny fish swimming against the current.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's all a lot of self-directed study and at that point I didn't really feel like I had a lot to say and everything at that point was like the YBAs like Tracey Emin, and it was all either big brouhaha or everything had to mean something and I just wanted to make pretty things. I just wanted to make stuff that was nice. I wanted to make shapes that felt good, and every time I tried to articulate articulate that it came out all stupid. Everybody else in the class was I felt much better at communicating and bullshitting. Really, they didn't really know they were. They were all 18 as well. They didn't have anything interesting to say. Nothing had happened to them, um, but they were all better at lying and telling people what they wanted to hear, and I couldn't do it. I just felt really depressed, so I went home oh, so you didn't.
Speaker 1:You didn't finish the course.
Speaker 2:No, no, no. I got to Christmas and then I was like I can't, I can't stay here anymore. It it was. It was very depressing, but I didn't have any support. You know, I think now if I went to university now I would apply for, you know, accommodations and support and things like that.
Speaker 2:But I didn't know that I was struggling. I thought I was just bad at it. I didn't understand that I was not coping with the structure of the course. I needed more um support. I've always been kind of like oh, get on with it, no one's gonna help. You, get on with it, you do it. But when I was, you know, alone in a big city not that Kingston is a big city, but it felt like it to me I sunk like a know, alone in a big city Not that Kingston is a big city, but it felt like it to me. I sunk like a stone, went home for a year and then I waitressed for a year and got some money and then I applied and I went back to Farnham, which is where I did my foundation, and I applied to do glass.
Speaker 1:I think there's a really interesting juxtaposition there, kate, because you were saying, you know that you didn't have the confidence, you didn't feel talented enough, you didn't feel good enough, you were sinking, you sunk like a stone, you left, okay, so I get all of that. But then to go back in a year later and put yourself not there, but to put yourself again, that's a big leap. That's a big leap. So there must have been within you, underneath all of the I'm not good enough, there was obviously a little voice that was saying yes, you are, yes, you are good enough.
Speaker 2:Do you feel that? I don't think it was that. No, so the Isle of Wight at that time, I mean still, it has a huge teenage pregnancy rate. It has a huge. It's a really deprived area. You're either old and have a house or you're young and you have nothing. You know, members of my family still all live there. The drive was to get off the Isle of Wight. I didn't care how I was going to do it. I was going to get off the Isle of Wight. So I ran screaming. As soon as I gathered myself I was like, okay, we're just going to leave.
Speaker 1:But but, kate, you know, no, no, I'm, I'm, I, no, I'm going to talk about this voice because, okay, so I get that you want to escape the island. But you could have escaped it by going to get a job or by going to do something different. But you returned back to art and you had such, when you were talking about it, you had such a kind of gut, a guttural reaction. I wasn't good enough, I felt stupid. I, you know, just wasn't talented enough. But yet you did go back to art. So that's the key thing for me. So I do think I think the big voice was I've got to get out of the Isle of Wight, but I do think there was another voice underneath that was telling you that you are good enough. You are good enough to do this.
Speaker 2:Honestly, rachel, I still struggle with that negative voice. I still, you know. Now I'm recognizing that it's not a true voice. The voice that's talking to me is not, you know. It's not something I would say to other people, or am I saying it to myself, but sometimes you know when you're really low. When I was living in Kingston, you know it was all I could hear. That's all I could hear was you're not good enough, you're not putting yourself why is he not asking you the question? Why is he listening to that answer? That was a rubbish answer.
Speaker 2:I couldn't motivate Motivate is not the right word. I couldn't organize myself well enough to put my name on the thing that said right, you're going to be in the forge at this time. I just didn't. It wasn't the confidence, it was um, I now know I've got ADHD. I've been recently diagnosed at like 48. Looking back, I can see oh, that's why you couldn't do that, because you couldn't do it and you didn't have any help saying, oh, you're finding this difficult, you need to come in and we will do this together, or this is what, how we will structure your time and I will check in on you. I didn't have any of that, so of course I just spiraled downwards because everything just got hugely on top of me. I felt like a failure. And then you just spiral, spiral down. I wanted to do it. I just couldn't get over my barriers to push myself up. I was just sinking, sinking, sinking. You know, I went back to college, I did my three-year degree. I passed. I would tackle it differently.
Speaker 2:How would you tackle it differently, differently, I would give myself more grace that I find certain things difficult and I would be more upfront with that than trying to be, um, self-sufficient when I'm. I am not a self-sufficient person. I tried to say I'm a self-sufficient person, but I do need help and I do like need a cheer squad sometimes. I would make sure that I had a plan of what I was going to do, and if I didn't have a plan, I would ask somebody who knew me what my plan should be, how, how would you tackle it? I would definitely ask. For, you know, I see lots of things in the news and about how people in universities get disability support and I'm just like, wow, if I'd have had that, I just wonder what I could have done. I mean, I still would have been really bad at blowing glass because I don't think I've got the coordination, but I think I would have come out with a better degree. But I'm more aware of my limitations now. So, technically, 48 years well, 48 years and two children.
Speaker 2:I've learned a lot from my children who, um, both of them, are autistic and have ADHD, and especially my daughter. The more she has grown and the more I have tried to help her and recognize her struggles, the more I've, like reflected on myself oh, you're me. Yeah, oh, I get it now. But it's very hard when you're on the inside and you don't, you can't see, you just think everybody else gets it really easy and you're struggling for no reason. You're just rubbish. I didn't realize it wasn't that I'm not good enough. I struggle sometimes. That's sometimes it's good and I get something out of the struggle. Sometimes it's not good and I have to go lie in bed and watch a Netflix movie that's really terrible, like a really really awful romantic, not even comedy, like terrible movie, because I just don't have the brain space to watch a good film. And then I hope that I'm feeling better the next day.
Speaker 1:So are you able to kind of see the triggers and the pitfalls? Are you able to see when you're spiraling into that? I hate myself, I hate myself, oh, I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough. Oh, shut up, kate, shut up. So what are those triggers and spirals? What does that feel and look like to you?
Speaker 2:Well, hormones play a huge part in it. So the only reason I got diagnosed with ADHD is because menopause had kicked in. I'm 48. I was feeling absolutely terrible for like two years and my husband said look, kate, you need to go to the doctors because something is going on. And I went and I said look, I was expecting a fight. You know all the Davina McCall. You go to the doctor and they pass you off with antidepressants.
Speaker 2:I do a lot of internet research and, over Covid as well, I was reading a lot of like late diagnosed women sites, lot about boy autism and ADHD. I didn't realize the huge gulf between the different um presentations between girls and boys. So it's been a really, really long learning journey. So I went to the doctors I said, look, I've got two children. I've got autism and ADHD. I think my hormones are leaving the building and I feel emotional all the time. I'm just grumpy. I am not myself. I am not depressed. Doctors have said I've been depressed in the past but looking back back, I don't think I was depressed. I think I was actually struggling with a circumstance and they didn't understand that it wasn't depression. It was just being a young mum with two really difficult, not difficult, challenging children and struggling with that. Or another point was I was having a issue at work once. They just whacked me on Prozac because I think that was the easiest thing to do. It didn't solve the problem. It just kind of like numbed me um, but it didn't. You know, it didn't make any difference till I left the workplace. So I went to the doctor. I said, right, I'll put you on the ADHD waiting list and I'll give you um HRT.
Speaker 2:You, you spend your life like questioning. Am I feeling this? Do other people feel like this? Am I different? Am I just making it all up? Am I being dramatic? You know, I was told for years I was like over dramatic and too sensitive and too loud and I just needed to be quiet, like minimize myself to make me more acceptable to people, other people who not necessarily were people that I wanted to spend my time with. So why am I minimizing myself for them? And it's affecting me in my whole life when they're just seeing me for like half an hour. You know why am I doing that to myself? It's very hard to kind of like unpick everything after all these years, but I am trying to be more, trying to be more considered in my responses doesn't always work, and I'm trying to give myself more grace.
Speaker 2:That the things I find difficult is not because I'm stupid, but because I find them difficult and that's. That's okay to find things difficult and other people find things difficult. They just hide it as well. We don't know what's going on with other people. They might be struggling to get out the door, you know. They might have lost their keys five times and have been swearing all the way down the road at themselves or how. What an idiot they are. And why can't they leave them in the same space? We all make mistakes, it's just, you know. Sometimes I'm able to leave that mistake and sometimes I have to carry it around with me for a while before I can put it down. But I am. I am being more like, I think, self-aware.
Speaker 1:I don't know, it's very hard the thing is, kate, that I was saying this to a friend the other day because they were I can't remember the context exactly, but I said to this guy that I was talking to my friend. I said, look, the great thing is that you're actually reflecting on all of this. You're talking about it. Yes, you haven't worked it out yet and you haven't worked you out yet, but you are talking about it and that means that you see it in yourself. And I've said that to my daughter as well, you know she said, oh, I really messed up today because I did this. And then I said that and I, oh, I'm so angry with myself. And I said well, don't be angry with yourself, because you actually have recognized what you're doing and so many people don't.
Speaker 1:As you said, they just go through their lives and they, you know, push things down or whatever, but I, they'll, it'll always come at some point where there'll just be a big crash. It always comes. You can't hide these things. So I I think you know well done to you that you are reflecting on yourself and and trying to work things out. But I have a question, because you said you'd always been told and I hear this so many times from quilters and people I'm talking to. I mean, I don't know if it's a thing with artists and children who were creative and artistic, but you said you know, I was always told to minimize myself, be quiet, stay quiet, sit in the corner almost so. Was that from your parents, or where did that come from?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it was just a lot of. You know, boys are allowed to be loud but girls should be quiet. And you're getting a lot of, you're getting overexcited. Like being excited is a bad thing. Why is that a bad thing? Yes, I'm excited because this is exciting me.
Speaker 2:You know, my mum and dad were. You know, I think they were doing the best they could. My mum's still around, my dad's died and I think my dad is definitely on the spectrum somewhere, but he was. He was very creative and he did a lot of like removing himself from situations and being quiet and supporting other people, but I really don't know what made him tick. We never really had like in-depth conversations about anything and my mum is just, I find it quite hard. I don't want to speak bad of my mum, because you know I do love her, but I always felt like I wasn't playing the role properly, like I should be doing it better somehow, like I should be, should be doing something else, like I'm creative, but I should be doing this. Like I should be doing science, I should be doing art, um, english, I should be going to like an academic university. I should be living on the Isle of Wight, I should. Be well, I'm not doing that, I'm doing this. Why is?
Speaker 1:this not enough. Do you have a guilt factor with that as well, kate?
Speaker 2:because she'll say something and I find it very hard to not fall into the things that I said when I was a teenager and I don't want to do that anymore. I've, I've, you know, I I just want to exist peacefully, so I've, I've just let a lot slide. But the things I won't let slide is if she says the same things that she said about me when I was little, about my children, to their faces. I just I will not stand for that at all and that is a firm, firm boundary for for me. I'm not allowing her to say those things to them. Um, because you do carry them with you. I know they're words, but words do stick with you in your head.
Speaker 2:Parenthood was brutal. I mean, mine is 16 and 13 now and I know I'm in a bit of a grace period at the moment and young adult Hod is gonna come and kick me, but at the moment I feel like I can breathe. So I do have a time to, you know, do what makes me happy, but there will come a time when I'm, you know, chasing around parks or whatever. I'm hoping you know that I've done enough groundwork that they feel safe and secure and able to trust me as a parent that I'm on their team, but but parenthood was, was brutal. Those first like I don't know, not 10 years, like till James was what eight or nine yeah yeah, I can imagine.
Speaker 1:I mean, I've only got one child, but I think when you have two children in any way, you know uh, without any kind of issues yeah well, there are always going to be issues, but two children is difficult to work with. So I can imagine that, and then with your own as you say, your own diagnosis as well, it's like you're dealing with yourself as well as dealing with the two other people who have the same or similar diagnosis.
Speaker 2:That's difficult so I was always like the weird person I couldn't do crowds in the playground at pickup. I found that really hard, so I'd be like hood up headphones on. Uh, this is before I knew I was like different. I found engaging in stupid, mindless chit chat about what level they're reading at oh god, I can't play your language game. I don't understand what you're saying. You're just I don't know.
Speaker 2:It had no relevance to me as I was battling with like school refusal and them not reading and you know them not being able to sit in the lunch hall and the mums and the dads are all like, oh, what reading level are you at? That's really not a concern. Right now. You move from mainstream to like a specialist school and then you go to a coffee morning and it's like wait, wait. We're all adults, our apples have not fallen far from our trees. That's all I'm saying. Whether they know it or not, because there are some very high functioning and very high achieving parents at my daughter's school, but whether they'd admit to themselves that they're autistic and that their child is exactly like them. Some people can see it and some people just can't see it.
Speaker 1:You know you're in the quilting world and I mean I saw a post on your Instagram about Festival Quilts and you know you'd written things like I am going and I'm going to be confident, but I'm going to try and listen more. I'm not going to ask as many questions as I usually do, I'm not going to try and be overexcitable, but I'm going to be excited. I mean, you did put it all out there. How do you cope in circumstances like that?
Speaker 2:So I teach and that is very different because people have paid to come and listen to me. So, whatever I say, they'll be happy to like spend that time with me, because they've paid for that. They've already made that choice. But I was in a class, and it was a two day masterclass. I was so excited. I was so excited and I was just like right, I'm just going to sit and I'm going to listen. I'm going to sit and listen really hard and I was being a really good student and listen really hard and I was. I was being a really good student and then I just like I lost it and I was getting so overexcited and I was being that annoying. See, it might have just been my perception, or it could have been that some slightly older ladies in the class were looking at me as if I was like you know, I'm on the floor, I'm laying my stuff out. They're all like in their neatly designated bits, like looking at me. Like what are?
Speaker 2:you on the floor for I really wanted to like get the most out of the class and I was asking questions and I was there early to class and I was like the last to leave and I was getting my tutor coffee and you know I was being a right um swat or I, but I was having a wonderful time. You know, some people don't enjoy being in a class with somebody like that, which I can appreciate. They're different people. But I tried really hard. I think I lasted like three quarters of the way through the day and it was a two-day thing and then you went no, the shackles are off, the real Kate's coming out.
Speaker 1:Do you know? It strikes me that you were actually being in that class when you were just talking then about what you were doing, and I think it's fantastic. I think you were being like a child, because children in a good way, children want to learn. If they're in a class that they're interested in, you know they want to learn. If they're in a class that they're interested in, you know they want to learn. They ask their questions. It's like that inner child. You know, maybe you're reliving your younger years as you wish you had been, because now, now, you understand yourself.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes so at school, you know, if you put your hand up too many times you were swat. It was not cool On the Isle of Wight. It was not cool to achieve. You know, if you were at the top of the class it wasn't. It wasn't something to be necessarily proud of because most of them weren't leaving. You know, we went on a high school trip and I'd say 30% of the class had never left the Isle of Wight. Um, I remember my art teacher took us to, um, the Royal Academy. They took us to the summer exhibition.
Speaker 2:My mind was blown, absolutely blown, uh, like the possibilities of art, that that world could exist uh, somewhere. Uh, that you could, you could get on the ferry and you could get there somehow. I didn't quite know how you could do that, but but that trip kind of made it seem possible that there was like a way out, that you didn't have to live on the Isle of Wight forever. And you know, have kids early and then them have kids early, and then you know there's. You know I was what? 33 when I had my eldest.
Speaker 2:Not that I did a lot with my 20s, I did very little with my 20s, but I knew I didn't want to be a teenage mum on the Isle of Wight. It felt like there was other things I could do, so I was so grateful for my art teachers that they would, because I can't see that it could have been easy for them to organize a school trip. To get the people to pay the money it wasn't included, you had to stump up money and to organize the ferry and then the travel and then taking us all to London, and then we all had to get back. Uh, you know it, it wasn't like, oh, we're just gonna pop somewhere. It was an expedition really. So, yeah, I'm so grateful for them.
Speaker 1:I think it's so important, it's so important to be inspired and I, like you, I remember going to my first theatre production, and that was a coach. It probably wasn't that far, it might have been like into the centre of Leeds and I lived in a village and it was like, oh you know. And then I saw this professional production of oh, my goodness me, do you know what Menopause does your brain in, doesn't it? Toad of Toad Hall? That's it. I was reaching for the frog. I could see the frog in the boat, toad of Toad Hall. Yeah, like you, I was like that's what I want to do with my life. It's fantastic.
Speaker 1:But you know, I think there's another thing as well. I think there's another thing as well, kate, that was probably playing into you and, as you say, you've been diagnosed with ADHD. But I think that when you are from, you know, like you say, with the Isle of Wight, you've, you've had this very safe upbringing, as you were saying. I think, then our egos want to keep us safe and I think that your ego was way louder than your soul, or your higher self, as they call it when you're in the art school, because it was basically saying you're not good enough. It's like it wanted you to go back to the Isle of Wight.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of teenagers do want to ride that edge of danger. It felt dangerous Not that I was ever diagnosed with an eating disorder, but I was not looking after myself and my mental state was was not good and I knew that if I stayed there that it could very easily get that I could like damage myself somehow further. It wasn't that I didn't that I was seeking and maybe I am still seeking safety, I don't know. That's a good point, rachel. Thank you, I don't think about that.
Speaker 1:I bet you another thing to overthink about. Yeah, I try not to overthink but yeah well, I do.
Speaker 1:I do find you. I do find you an interesting character, Kate, because there does seem to be this battle in your head and in yourself, Because, even though, if it was your ego or whatever it was that was saying stay safe, stay safe, there was something inside you going no, no, no. And then, when you did go back, you said no, no, no, and you left again and you went back again and then you know, life took over. You seem to have this battle within you. I'm going to be quiet in the class. I'm going to.
Speaker 2:no, I'm not you know, but I think I've come to the point where it's like you know, why do I want those people who want me to be quiet to be, like, satisfied with that?
Speaker 1:What are they getting out of it? And this is what I was going to ask you, kate, was are you getting closer now to drowning out that voice that says don't ask too many questions, be quiet? Do you think you're going to be able to get to that point? Where you go?
Speaker 2:I'm going to do what I want so one of the things I have about like my childhood is that I come from from, like, certain members of my family always, like ripped, took the mickey out of you mercilessly, okay, and if you cried or you reacted, you were over dramatic and too sensitive. And it wasn't them, it was you. And you know all the stories I hear about myself. When I don't remember ever hearing like a pleasant story about me as a child, it was always obviously because I was, like, autistic and having meltdowns not that anybody ever used those words in my family, that I was having a meltdown, I was having a tantrum and I was overreacting. So all the stories I have are me having meltdowns in department stores and having to be physically removed from a shop before I broke everything. Uh. Me being removed from a school because, uh, the teacher would let me sit and cut things up and I didn't want to learn to read. I'm dyslexic. It was hard, um. So this is all the stories that I hear. I never hear.
Speaker 2:Oh, do you remember when we went? We did do nice things. I'd have very few memories of my childhood, um, but I know we went to the theatre. Why don't, why don't? Why were I not told those things. Do you remember when we went to go see Starlight Express, that that was so exciting? I never get that. I never get that reflected back to me. All I've ever had reflected back to me is you were having a melt, you were tantruming, you were angry and we had to leave. You were screaming and we left. It was, you know, it was always um, and that's been really difficult to hear.
Speaker 1:I wonder why it is that they bring back those things. I don't know. I don't know how are they now with your, with your artwork now and what you're doing?
Speaker 2:I don't really share it with them, to be honest.
Speaker 1:Rachel, because you're so full of life and you're so vibrant, you're so colorful I am. I wonder why that is you. You see, I think they're triggered. I think often, when people say you're too needy, it's a projection of themselves, it's something within themselves. You know, when we meet people, we're mirrors to people. Sometimes, if we need to learn a lesson and they need to learn a lesson, I think we're brought together and show each other what we actually need to learn from each other. But it triggers us, you know. We go oh, I don't like that in you because it's something in me.
Speaker 2:I think that's probably what it is with me and my mum is that she shuts everything down. She's just. You know, she shuts. I see it, I've done a lot of reflection and I know she had a difficult childhood and I know that I've never heard her say anything positive about her relationship with her mother. I don't know, I feel that she shuts. She has shut herself down a lot. I just wanted to fly her freak flag. You know, I don't think. I think she used to be fun. Sometimes I have this feeling that she was fun, but I don't know where it went. I don't know whether she found like being fun hard. Maybe she wasn't fun, maybe she wasn't comfortable being fun. But yeah, I don't think I'm going to get to the bottom of it. I know that she's not going to come with any like revelation about herself. I know that if I ask her anything about herself, that I'm not going to get any answers um, have you asked her?
Speaker 1:have you actually sat down and asked her that question?
Speaker 2:I've. I've tried to ask her about her family life and she deflects or she goes back to the same stories that she tells. She's very repetitious with her stories even before you know her brain's starting to, but even before that it was. She's very. She's got a lot of like resentment and people doing her wrong and that that seems to be the the thing she reflects she jumps back to is that she's been wronged. She never kind of like opens up to people. It's very guarded, it's just always. It always comes back to the suitcase of money that was taken or the doll that her sister took, or you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1:She finds it very hard to be uh, positive and I find that very hard to deal with you see, what's striking me about this is and I do think there are so many people of that generation you know, the generation before us who are trapped within themselves, and they do. You know, and I've talked a lot about, if you hold resentment, if you hold bitterness, if you hold anger within yourself, you're just going to bring more of this into you and you're not going to progress through your life. I mean, I've done a lot of reading about breaking generational trauma and ancestral karma and things like that, which some people might think is a load of nonsense, but the more I read about it, I think, yeah, that's very true. There are so many of us like you in this generation that are breaking free from that way of living and are not taking on those behaviors and we're saying, no, we're going to do something different. We're going to, you know, help other people and we're going to help ourselves. So how are you actually releasing that for yourself and letting that go?
Speaker 2:I think that's a work in progress. To be honest, rachel, I think yeah.
Speaker 2:I think it's still really early days. So I only got the diagnosis just after Christmas, and before that I was like, oh, maybe I'm imagining it. You know I read too many websites. You know I'm obsessing over it. But to be honest, as I told somebody else who got an autism diagnosis quite recently, if you're spending a lot of time reading those websites and you're spending a lot of time dwelling on those thoughts, there's a reason for that. You're not making that reason up. You're drawn to those sites because they're speaking to you.
Speaker 2:So I think it's going to come in waves, as lots of emotional things do. It's going to be. You know, some days I'm going to be feeling OK about it, some days I'm going to be feeling okay about it, and other days I'm going to be looking back and thinking I could have lived my life very differently if I'd known now what I, what I didn't know then. But it's, it's gone now. There's no way that I can change anything. I can just, you know, try to breathe through it and uh, you know, everything you do gets, gets you to a place where you are. I don't think there are anything, even you know, like bad things. Bad things I've done.
Speaker 1:There's choices in my life that were difficult and hurt people, but I think if I went back again to get to where I am now, I think I would still make those choices. Yeah, I think that's why it's so important not to have regrets, because everything has led you to the point where you are now and I'm the same. I've made some very bad choices, I've hurt people, I've done things, I've acted out and I realize now it's all. To get me where I am now, it's all because I had to heal myself.
Speaker 2:You know, if I hadn't have spent my 20s recklessly, I don't think I would be the same parent that I am to my children. I don't think I would be the parent that they need me to be. I would be the parent that I thought I would be. I mean, I do have a little job I'm a play worker at preschool but also it was, it was so I could have enough bandwidth to to be present with my children when they needed me, which was, you know, very much all the time when they were smaller. It's now less and I think that's given me like scope to explore what I want. You know what? What I want to share with people. So I want to. I want to share my enthusiasm with making stuff up.
Speaker 2:You know, people say, oh, you're a quilter, whose patterns do you buy? What fat quarter bundles did you get last? I'm like I don't. I don't buy patterns, I just make stuff up. Oh, oh, you make stuff up, isn't that hard? I'm like well, have you tried? I can't follow a pattern. I think you're amazing. If you follow a pattern, I literally get lost between step one and four. I try to work to my strengths and enjoy what I'm doing and I think I'm growing into myself. It's ridiculous it's taken this long. I mean 48, that's no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:so I'm 54 and I've only just really started getting it in the last year. I'm 54. No, there may be a filter. No, I am 54 so, but I've only just started getting to know myself. But I think I'm just like a little kid at heart. That's why I kind of don't feel 54. So, no, and I was going to say to you, kate, I think you are definitely on the beginning of your healing journey now. I think it's been happening, but one thing that strikes me is those other people who say things to you really affect you and they have a huge weight on your feelings, and I think that's something that you probably need to start looking at now is how to not take on the opinions and what other people think about you, because what other people think about you is their version in their head. It's not the real version of you, and who cares what they think? Anyway, they're living their life, not yours.
Speaker 2:Also, I've learned that that's. That's something in ADHD which is called um, rejection seven sensitivity dysphoria, which is somebody says something, you have an emotional reaction. It's happened very recently at work and I'm very ashamed about it, but somebody said something. It's like perceiving criticism and then having a, even if you're not reacting internally, it is like it's like a fire alarm has gone off and you have to run and leave the building. It's like that kind of panic. I didn't get into it or work, but something happened. I responded and then literally I could not control my body, what was going on inside me, and the best thing for me to do in that situation was to leave before I said something or did something.
Speaker 2:But I now know that that's not me overreacting. That is the way my brain is wired. It perceives something that isn't true, it isn't reasonable, it isn't proportionate. But I'm not doing anything to bring that on myself. I'm not asking for that. I'm experiencing it, but it's nothing I have a control over. It's just the way I'm wired. It's. I just have a short switch for some things, not everything, and it doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, then it's. It's just like you know.
Speaker 2:That's that shame spiral is I've reacted in this way that I'm not proud of. And then, of course, you know you could quit your job. I was like, should I quit my job? I mean, do they actually want me here? All think all these things are like going through your head. No, it's because the adrenaline is pumping so hard, literally you could run a marathon. Um, it's just a physiological response. It's not your brain thinking it, it's like the little bit down in here that has caveman running away from bears. It's, it's not logical, it's just, it's just what happens. And I have to accept that that is part of me and do my best to make the right choice in that situation and then allow myself I mean, it took me like three days.
Speaker 2:People think, oh, you know they'll get over it. No, my body is still like processing it. It's like thumping. Like 24 hours later I'm still running on it and then I'm thinking about it for a full day later and then I'm like, like, should I resign? Or because of like a, like a small thing? Um, and that knowing that that is part of my diagnosis has really helped my acceptance that I am not dramatic. I am. Yes, you're not self-shaming. No, I'm not emotional because it's fun. I don't want to do that, I don't, and you try to, and also I try to explain it and people, oh yeah, yeah, sometimes I have trouble that I can know it, but I want people to know that I'm not being a drama queen, I'm. I'm not, I'm not trying to be hurtful, or it's just my perception of what I've said and your perception of how I've said it is very different, and then you know, then I feel bad because I want them to understand, but they're not going to understand. They're not going to understand. They're not going to understand.
Speaker 1:So I just have to let it go. You, at the level they can understand, exactly, yeah, and it said. It said, for example, don't expect honesty from someone who lies to themselves. Yeah, because they're not going to be honest with you, and it's the same thing. Some people will listen to this maybe, and if they hear me talking about the higher self, or ego or ancestral trauma, they will just go no, I don't know, and that's fine. That's fine. It's just the levels that we're all at and where we're all at in this world. Do you know?
Speaker 1:What I think is interesting is your type of creativity and your quilting. I don't want to get too deep and meaningful, but I I always feel like it's your creativity and your particular style of quilting, using scraps, bringing all of these things together that don't work but somehow do, and just this kind of mish mash of colors and da, da, da, da da da. It's like your brain, it's like the fragments of your brain. That's what you are. You are this mass of fragments of it's all trying to connect and you're learning to connect it, of it's all trying to connect and you're learning to connect it, and that's what you do with your creativity and that's maybe why you've done the glassblowing, and then you've done the art and you've done the quilting, and there'll be other things that you'll keep trying, because I think that that's you. I think you're. It's like you are exploding out of yourself. You're learning about yourself, you're finding yourself and you're releasing it all and that's amazing and it should be hugely congratulated.
Speaker 2:I mean so this week so you remember I was saying about when I went to art college and everybody had something to say and I didn't feel at 18 I had anything to say Like small town girl. You know Damien Hirst didn't feel at 18. I had anything to say like small town girl. You know, Damien Hurst didn't really have anything to say but he said it loudly. Whatever it was, he said it really loudly. So for ages I've been thinking I've got nothing to say or the things that I have to say I didn't want to put out there for fear of um listening to people's reactions yeah, yeah, so this week I actually picked up some stuff.
Speaker 2:I've been watching Zach Foster who did something on um, making little typeface things, and um, he's a very different kind of quilter because he's very spiritual, I think, and I'm yes, I'm not quite that deep, but I like listening to the way he phrases things. I had a friend who came around friend, she's a friend. I have difficulty with friends and, like acquaintances, I don't really know what friendship is. I don't think I don't really quite understand how it works, even at 48. I'm working on it, I'm trying. Um, what don't think? I don't really quite understand how it works, even at 48. I'm working on it, I'm trying um, what don't you understand, kate?
Speaker 1:what's the difficulty with friendship?
Speaker 2:I don't understand like what people want from me or what I'm expected to do in situations, or like am I meant to ring them? Like how long is too long to leave between a text I have? I have like one friend, um, and I whatsapped her like two weeks ago and she'd replied and she said how are you? And I went I'm fine. We haven't spoken in like six months, but I know that if we, if we were in the same room, we would non-stop talk. But there's other people that I can't, that I feel like expect so much from you, and I don't want to let people down and I don't really I don't know it's, I just don't quite get it. Um. So anyway, I was, I was, I picked up my scissors, like what I did when I was little, and I found this I don't know this fabric and it's I think it's an upholstery fabric, it's got kind of like a semi-plastic-y thing and I thought, oh, that would make a good thing to cut because it's not going to fray. And I had this thing.
Speaker 2:That I wrote down, which is how I felt when my friend left and we were having a discussion. She was an addict and she got into AA and recovery and she's done a lot of self-discovery and I was venting and she had her AA hat on. I made her uncomfortable with my emotion hat on. I made her uncomfortable with my emotion and she was trying to like organize me in a in a pretty little. Well, you need to do this. Let's open a spreadsheet and let's put all of these thoughts down. I'm like I don't you're in my home. I'm allowed to feel this way about things that are making me feel this way, and I felt that she wasn't listening to me. She was just hearing like my attitude, and then trying to marshal it into a more pleasant experience for herself. I understand from her position. You know you come to somebody's house and you don't want to be moaned at about you know things in school or what's happening or whatever.
Speaker 2:But it made me really sad that I couldn't express myself to somebody who came to my home that I felt I needed to be guarded with her. So I wrote something down about that like a couple of days after she left and then like so this is, I don't know, like last year maybe, and then, like this week I've picked up those words because I was tidying up my studio and I was like that still really. It still really resonates with me that that some people that come to my house and expect me to be who I am outside in my own home, I was emotional, but I wasn't like thumping the table, I wasn't being out there and I felt like she was saying that I had to push, push my feelings into her shaped hole. So I I picked up my scissors and I cut words out and it's the first time I've felt like I wanted to use words and something to express myself. So I think that's probably like I don't know, but it feels like a big thing.
Speaker 2:What were the words? It was like if you come into my home, I will not mask for your comfort.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's fantastic. Zach Foster would love that. That's brilliant. I couldn't express in anything but words yeah, it's kind of like scrapbooking. Yeah, well, go with that, because that's I mean. People talk about journaling, don't they? As a therapy. So I think that's fantastic. I love that word masking as well, because, as you say, the worst thing to do in this world is to wear a mask, because that mask will slip anyway and you're only fooling yourself in the end because people begin to realize there's something off. But one thing I would say to you again Kate is just picking up on something else and I had a chat with a life coach yesterday who's going to do a podcast episode for me and he's amazing.
Speaker 1:I've known him for years. It'll be a really interesting episode. And I said you know this whole thing of exactly what you said there. I made my friend feel uncomfortable and I remember I did therapy years ago, years ago, about my childhood issues, and my therapist said to me I remember saying, oh, I made her feel. And my therapist said at that time you know, rachel, you can't make anybody feel anything because we're all responsible for our feelings. Now, I didn't really understand that at the time. Now I do.
Speaker 1:It's very difficult, but it is true that when you have a reaction to something, now obviously you've got the ADHD. Your brain is functioning in a different way to mine, which is not. I'm not suffering with ADHD. But if someone says something to me and I feel angry, it's not that they have made me feel angry. They might have triggered me. I'm not saying that they're behaving correctly. No, they might be behaving really incorrectly, but how I feel from it is my feeling they haven't made me feel that way. So, and that's just where you have to learn to deal with your reactions. So, with your friend who's in AA, she probably was triggered by your deeply emotional conversation and responses your deeply emotional conversation and responses and maybe she, because of her own issues and addictions and emotions, needed to kind of box this off and she might've just felt as well that she was being really helpful because of everything she's learned. Well, these are the things you need to do.
Speaker 1:Somebody once said to me Rachel, you can be toxic positive. This was some time ago, and I said what do you mean? And they said well, you know, be toxic positive. This was some time ago. And I said what do you mean? And they said well, you know, when you are like, look, this is what you need to do, that's actually quite toxic, because you're not really listening to that person and you're trying to put your will. There's something trying to be helpful and they were like no, that can be toxic positivity and also helping people in the hope that you'll get something back from it. Maybe you'll be seen as a good friend or something. This was quite a few years ago, but it is.
Speaker 1:I think, for anybody listening to this podcast, it's so important that if a friend does come to you and goes bleh, that you actually listen to it and maybe don't try and solve it. Yeah, maybe I would do this in your position, but only you can know, because you're the only one in your position. It's about being that ear. I had a friend who used to do that. She would say, well, why don't you do this, this and this? And then she used to go job done, I'm gonna go.
Speaker 1:Life is not a job done, it's a never-ending shit show. It is, it really is a never-ending shit show, it's true, but with some good bits thrown in. Oh, definitely, but you are going to have that shit thrown at you. So, kate, obviously we've said that you're in your healing journey. Where do you see this year going for you? You've started expressing yourself through words, and I think that's fantastic. I think that's a real leap forward. I think you're in a great position. You know, kate, I do, and I think you're learning as well that the people who accept you for who you are are your soul, family Before.
Speaker 2:I was like I don't understand why you want to spend any time with me, because I'm just you know, I was always like well, why are you being like that with? Because I'm just you know, I was always like well, why are you being like that? Well, I'm just you know. I think maybe as I'm getting older, I'm trying to find people to be with. I think quilting has definitely helped me as well, because I was doing it in isolation for a long time and then, um, I found a modern quilt group and you know I love going to that once a month and they're all just like oh, kate's crazy quilts why are you making those months?
Speaker 1:I do think this community is amazing, though, kate, because it does bring all of these different people together, and I think so many people who find a creative outlet have in some way struggled in their life, and that's why they've turned to creativity. Do you know what? I've just had a thought that maybe, when we are struggling, maybe we do go back to that little child with the crayon on the paper and you just draw a doodle because you want to do something pretty and colourful instead of listening to your parents screaming at each other.
Speaker 2:Using course. You want to do something pretty and colorful instead of listening to your parents screaming at each other. Using your hands and creating something um is I can't remember which side of the brain. So there's a side of the brain that is the doing side, and the side of the brain which is more the thinking side, and if you are doing, it is harder to hear the negative voice. You're damping down the thought. If you're doing, if you're making like a box, or knitting or painting what cooking, you're less likely to be hearing the internal chatter, um.
Speaker 2:So I think it's very useful. I think that's why there's a lot of like mindfulness crafting, because it is a kind of meditation that is very useful for people who cannot sit still. I mean, I'm sitting here, I'm doing this. I wouldn't have been doing this five years ago, but I now allow myself to have a fiddle toy or I allow myself to get up and move if I'm feeling uncomfortable, whereas before I would have been squashing that. No, no, I need to sit down, I need to maintain eye contact, I need to be doing what they think I should be react in the way that they would expect me to react, rather than being me and reacting. So I think there's a lot to be said for ADHD and crafting, depression and crafting, because you're dampening down that negative view.
Speaker 1:If you're doing something, no matter what it is with your hands, it's going to help you yeah, I saw a great quote on Instagram actually the other day from Mel Robbins I really like, and she said about movement, you have to start moving, and whether that's walking, it's going up and down your stairs, it's walking around the block, or whether it is going to a gym, if that's what you want to do, or dance or, as you say, fiddle with your fiddle toy, if you need to move, just get up and move, because you're then getting rid of that stuck energy, aren't you? That's around you and that energy can really suck your energy out of you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are days, you know when bed bed rest is necessary. But yeah, don't get stuck there don't get stuck there.
Speaker 1:No, do some crafting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do some craft I follow a great person on instagram who does art school from bed. She has a chronic condition and she does all kinds of things you can do in bed. Oh, what's the name of that account? I think it is literally art school from bed okay, love it.
Speaker 1:Well, kate, I think it's. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you today and I know how your brain works a bit more now. But I will tell you something I know that when you put down the phone from me today or you shut the window off, I suspect that you will sit there and start thinking did I overshare? Did I say too much? Did I talk too much? I should have listened more? I should have. And I want you to know that if you hear any of those voices, I want you to say to yourself Rachel said no, I didn't do any of that stuff Because you haven't.
Speaker 1:You've been an absolute joy. You've been open and honest and I think, really interesting to talk to someone with ADHD. I think that's interesting for people to know about how the brain is actually working. It's not someone just acting out and having a tantrum. It is a physiological thing. The brain's not someone just acting out and having a tantrum. It is a physiological thing. The brain's not quite connecting in certain ways. So I think it's a joy and I think you just should carry on writing those words, putting out your content, being you and if people don't like it.
Speaker 2:They're not your people there are a million other accounts to follow and loads of people who make patterns. You know, it's not like I'm depriving them of something, I'm just adding extra sprinkles for other people.
Speaker 1:Well, I like the sprinkles so you keep sprinkling. Yeah, it's been lovely.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, kate I'm looking forward to our class. Yes, coming soon.
Speaker 1:Yes, and if anybody is listening to this podcast, I mean this will go out after that class. But don't worry, you can still go to craftymonkeyscom oh yeah load it in the shop, you can watch it whenever he wants to rent kate's class. If you come to this in a year's time, it will be there in the shop and you can go scrappy, wappy, do with kate and a load of other students, because it is very busy, lots of people are loving it.
Speaker 1:So there you go listen to that as well. Listen to that as well, kate. You went on there.
Speaker 2:You know wraps onto yep, but, but it's, it's really affirming to. I do really like Instagram. It does seem like a cesspit of depression sometimes, but you know, there there are really good ways to make connections with people, um, and especially with people who can't connect in other ways, so people who cannot get out of bed, who cannot come to a quilt class, who cannot attend a quilt meeting. You know, there's all kinds of accessibility issues that can be overcome, overcome through instagram. It's just amazing. Um, yeah, so you know, you do take it with a pinch of salt, but I'm very glad that I I opened instagram and I started posting on it ages ago. It has it has been transformative. I don't think I would have done half the things I do if it wasn't for it and um technology, even though it is my like Achilles heel. Um, it is transforming our lives in positive ways as well. As you know, we do need to keep an eye on the negative things, like restricting our scrolling. I'm terrible for scrolling, but, um, you know, it can make a difference to people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it difference to people? Yeah, it can connect people. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, lovely. Well, we'll keep watching. We'll keep watching. I'm going to keep listening to your podcast. Well, I hope so. It's in the contract. Thank you, kate. Thank you Just before you go.
Speaker 1:Lovely listener, can I ask you a favour If you have a friend who you think would enjoy listening to this podcast, would you mind please telling them about it? It helps me to spread the word and you never know, they might get a life lesson out of it or, at the very least, just have a lovely 40 minutes of relaxing time for themselves. The second thing to say is that, if you have enjoyed this, it would really help me if you would give me a little quick like or a comment, especially if you're listening on one of the podcast platforms. It just means that when anybody lands on the page, they can see that people have reviewed it, they've liked it, enjoyed it and got something out of it. So if you wouldn't mind leaving me a review, that would be amazing.
Speaker 1:And the final thing to say is that if you are a business and you're thinking, how do I get my message out there? Well, you could do it on this podcast. All you have to do is reach out to me, rachel, at BreakingTheBlockscom. The details are below in the box. Thank you so much to everybody for listening and enjoying and saying the lovely things that you're saying.
