The ADHD Focus Friend - Grace Koelma helps you understand your ADHD brain

This week I'm joined by Grace Koelma of Future ADHD

This was a special conversation. Grace is the newly published author of “The ADHD Focus Friend”. We chat about the book, launching January 8th, which explores strategies for managing ADHD, alongside her popular digital planners which have been transformative tools for many.
We open with Grace sharing her personal journey of motherhood and discovering her neurodivergent traits, emphasizing the importance of self-diagnosis, advocacy, and creating neuroaffirming environments.

Resources Mentioned:

• Grace Koelma’s New Book: “The ADHD Focus Friend” 
• Future ADHD Planner: Available at Future ADHD’s website
• Your ADHD Besties Podcast: Hosted by Grace Koelma

More from Grace: 

• Website: FutureADHD.com
• Instagram: @future.adhd  |  @adhd_besties_podcast
• Podcast: Your ADHD Besties Podcast 

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Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, medical professional, or mental health professional.
I am sharing my lived experience. If you relate to any of the content in these episodes, do your own research and speak to a medical professional if needed.
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Transcript

 Welcome to 2025 friends. This is the first podcast of the year. And.

Grayson. I recorded this in December, but I wanted to save it for now because I know you. If you're listening to this, your ADHD, maybe some other letters. And you're probably doing what all of us do the beginning of the year. And trying to plan and figure out new systems and new routines, because obviously the ones that we did last year didn't work because we have ADHD.  

And we're now frantically trying to find new systems and routines. And that is where Grace's new book comes in. The ADHD focus friend.

So absolute plug. I will tell you it drops tomorrow. The 8th of January, it's going to be available globally on the same day, which is amazing. If you're in the U S you probably don't notice there's a difference, but those of us in Australia know a lot of the times we get stuff later.

So it's available same day for everyone. 

You can head to her website now and pre-order it. The link is in the show notes.

And a little background here. Grace actually has a planner. Funny enough, she developed an ADHD planner, which I've talked about. On social media in the past, because I actually have. Used the planner for the last couple of years, not consistently because I have ADHD, but it is not just a planner. It is also basically a workbook. 

There are. Templates for focusing and I don't know how she makes any money because once you buy one of the digital planners every year, you get the update for free. But her book has basically expanded on the planner. So you can use them individually or you can use them together. The first half of the book. 

Amazing. It helps you understand your ADHD brain. And she does talk about the overlap with, things like autism and some other neurodivergency is in there. I said to grace in this interview, and I will say to you now, 

I've wanted to write a book for a long time.  This is the book I would have written. And this is exactly how I would have written it. 

It is. Evidence-based. She has study after study. Cited in there, which is how my brain works. And. 

It takes all of the woo and the fluff and quite frankly, the BS that we might hear on social media.  And breaks it all down. Like I said, the first half of the book, it helps you understand your brain, why you do things, how your brain works. Fantastic. Amazing. And then the second half of the book is similar to some of the things you get in the planner. 

The second half of the book are templates and things you can use to then actually implement what you've learned about your brain. From the book. 

As happens many times when you get to neurodivergent people together. Grace. And I had such a fun chat. We actually talked way longer than this episode has been cut down to because. The conversation was flowing and we were just bouncing off each other. So I have.

Edit it down. I've kept all the really exciting, important bits. And I really hope that you enjoy this conversation.

In addition to Grace's book and planner. If you enjoy listening to her, she is also one half of the ADHD bestie podcast, which I highly recommend it's her and her best friend, Tara. 

They both have ADHD, as you can imagine. And it is a fantastic, you learn something, but you can also have it on, in the background. 

And it's like an easy listen. So I've linked that in the show notes. If you want to hear more from grace. 

  📍 Last little thing before we jump into it, if you haven't subscribed yet, please do. And if you are subscribed, thank you so much. Something else you could do to help this podcast grow because. Hot tip. That's one of my goals for 2025. Is share this podcast with someone you think would enjoy it. And if you haven't please give us a review. That is how other people find this. 

And. 

Not to sound too cocky, but I think it's actually a really good podcast. I know I put a lot of work into it and I've had some really incredible guest. And I'm hoping 20, 25 can just springboard on that and grow this thing even bigger, even more amazing. So like I said, if you are subscribed, thank you. Something else you could do share the podcast and please leave a review. Now. Onto my conversation with.  

 

 

Now published author, Grace 📍   

Let's just jump in to a little bit of your motherhood story because I know that started Before your diagnosis and figuring out your ADHD.

So if you can tell us a bit about that and then we'll just flow on through.  

Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me, Sam. I, yeah, I've been a mom now for nine years, which feels a bit surreal. And I've got two little ones, so I've got a nine year old boy and a three year old boy.

And I, yeah, taking me back to when I first became a mom I really,  I feel like it was an absolute baptism in fire as it is for pretty much all first time moms, but I think it was particularly. Difficult because I was undiagnosed neurodivergent and I didn't get a diagnosis until my oldest was seven.

So seven years of pulling out my hair and wondering why motherhood felt  so simultaneously incredible and terrifying and frustrating at the same time. It's really hard to make sense of it. And I think It's hard when you feel more alone in it because you feel like other mums seem to be enjoying it, or when they do complain or say this is frustrating, it still feels like it's within this realm of they've still got it together.

And you think, well, I'm feeling all of those things, but I'm I'm in a mess on the floor. I'm pulling my hair out or I'm up till 3am every night. Not because my kids awake anymore because I'm not in the newborn phase anymore, but because I need the stimulation. I need the alone time. And other moms are going to bed at, 9 30 and getting up at 5 a.

m. for a morning walk. And I'm just feeling like I can't eat healthy. I can't exercise enough. I'm, I love being with my kids, but also at the same time, I'm bored of being at home as a stay at home mom. I need more to stimulate my brain. So yeah, that, that was my experience with my eldest and  I think looking back as well I like to think about neurodivergence, especially pre diagnosis with that kind of tipping point analogy, because I think for a lot of us growing up, especially as women where we mask in different ways we may not realize where neurodivergent until there's a tipping point.

And I think motherhood. For a lot of women is one of the tipping points or moving from full time work into being at home full time. And I very quickly, I was meant to be full time with my baby. And I ended up starting a business when he was six weeks old. How'd you do? Yeah, I needed, So I was, when he was awake at night, I would be up.

I actually, that, that business as well was in planning. That was my first iteration of creating planners. And so I created a homeschool planner, which was popular, at that time. And that was my little foray into running my own business, but I needed that stimulation. But then also it was overwhelming and exhausting because what I've since learned is that when you have a baby, you're also a newborn mom in the sense that you're born.

The day it's born, they're born. And so, you, I was like a three month old mom or a six month old mom, and I was trying to learn how to be a mom doing it all while undiagnosed neurodivergent with my nervous system in chaos. And also trying to run a business, which was stimulating, but also really overwhelming at times.

Yeah. 

Yeah, it sounds in some ways so similar to my story to the point that at its height, I would say where my daughter was waking like every 20 minutes overnight and I just every day was having tears and I said to my partner it's like you said, Other moms are saying it's hard, but you're like, but no, it's harder for me.

Not that it's a competition, but I said to my partner, I'm like, if it was this hard for everyone, humanity would cease to exist because no one would do it more than once. Like you just wouldn't put yourself through it. There's no way. And with this tipping point,  Very much. I created a piece of content a while ago using blocks, like my daughter's blocks is an analogy.

And that's what it is. It's as we get more executive function demands, as we figure out that we have zero emotional regulation, at least that was in my case. Yes. And then we're dealing with also a child who developmentally appropriate has zero emotional regulation. It all just comes to a head.

So I know that if we think about. Fast forward a couple of years, you were going down the route of looking at diagnosis and looking through stuff for your son. And in that kind of rabbit warren, you started to learn about ADHD in adults and resonated. So when on the timeline was that?

Yeah. So my son was in kindergarten and his teachers picked up that he was ADHD and gifted, and that was the beginning of my exploration into neurodiversity. And I initially looked at the twice exceptional framework, which is a really interesting one, because again, it's. It's you've got one extreme of giftedness and finding school difficult because the work is too easy, but on the other hand, you've got ADHD and not being able to sit still in class and needing all of that extra support in that realm.

And initially we were just working with the school to support him and they were incredible, but then COVID hit and I was living in New South Wales at the time and pregnant with my second and COVID as. Many people know we're on the east coast of Australia. We all got, really crazy lockdowns. And so we were stuck inside and I was given the chance to really learn about my son in different ways during that time and do my own research.

And we decided to homeschool him when he went into year one. Just because it felt like he wasn't assimilating into the school environment and I have a background in teaching. And so I was really curious about neurodiversity and education anyway. And so that was my start starting point and entryway into it.

And then as. He went into year two, he went back into school again, a lot of the ADHD traits started showing up with social interactions as well. And that's when we thought, well, why don't we look into getting him diagnosed? So I was deep diving into all of those symptoms and traits. And of course, I came across writings from women with ADHD.

And it's just the typical story of just having only one version of ADHD in my head that it had to be, male focused with little kids with high energy and not realizing that a lot of those hyperactive traits can internalize, especially in adulthood and especially in women. So when I read these accounts of Women with ADHD, my mind was literally blown.

And I remember the moment I was reading a medium article and I remember where I was standing and I remember where I was in my house. And I remember I just sat down in shock and just thought I'm ADHD. And it's I never looked back from there, even though I hadn't been diagnosed yet. I think it's such a common experience for neurodivergence.

We all know from a young age that we're different and we can't put our finger on why, and we learn little bit by little bit that other people see the world differently to us. And we start to learn, Oh, not everyone thinks this way. And I just feel like I have the personality of a seeker. I'm always looking and searching and I'm very introspective.

I'm reading a lot of self help books and. So we actually know ourselves pretty well as neurodivergents. And so when something like this  is presented to us, we have a very good gut instinct on whether it's right or not. It's very rare, I think, in my experience working with thousands of neurodivergents now to find one who was wrong about being neurodivergent, like it's, if it's coming up again and again for you and you're needing to research it and go into deep dives, I'd say you're neurodivergent.

So that gut instinct is really strong for us. And  so then from then I, I got on the wait list to be diagnosed. The wait list is a lot of people know to see a psychiatrist is up to two years. So I went and saw a psychologist first, which meant that I got in a bit quicker. And I got one of those like  30 page reports, which was  really full on.

Yeah. I remember it was torture as well. I remember complaining. I, and having my first little bit of advocacy experiences in ADHD because the psychologist, Did several different interviews that took hours and then they took six weeks to write me a report.  And so I was waiting for six weeks to find out whether I was ADHD or not.

And I've now learned that there's so many different ways to diagnose. It's not standardized. And when I went and saw a psychiatrist, he diagnosed me within a half hour appointment, I think. Waiting that six weeks was excruciating. And I ended up saying to them, you need to change the system because this is not neuroaffirming. 

It's really stressful and really anxiety inducing for me, and I don't need a whole report. I need a short answer and then you can follow with a long report later.  

Yeah, exactly. And that's and it's funny because I got diagnosed by a psychiatrist in Sydney. And. It was the flip side of what you described of I did all the paperwork and testimonials from family and all the rest of it beforehand and they had a deadline of it has to be submitted 2 weeks before your appointment so that they had time to review it,  which also, struggle. 

That meant, though, going into the appointment, he read all my documents, he's like, yep, on paper, it makes sense. And then we talked about how it shows up in life now and how it showed up, through high school and all the rest of it. So it is really frustrating that it's not standardized and that so many people get such different experiences.

When, like you said, say in your case, it would be as simple as going, okay, yes, we are going to diagnose you. You will get the full report in two weeks. X amount of time. Yeah. Yeah. And it's 

not that I understand that it takes time to create a report that detailed. It was more just that I would have liked a response sooner on just, yes, you are, or no, you're not.

Because I think as well, I think the difficulty is that psychologists are might feel that the news is so serious and severe that it needs a whole report. And it's really, sometimes I feel like they still feel that they're bringing bad news. We're at a place in the neurodiversity movement, which is so amazing.

And there's been so many people who've worked really hard to get us to this place. We're standing on the shoulders of giants here, but we're now at a place where If you've self diagnosed you're 99 percent sure this is your brain and you're looking for validation and like the relief of this is who I am.

This is good news in many ways. I wasn't, it didn't feel like the hammer was about to fall And I think that's something that the medical community is going to need to work on is their neuroaffirming approach to neurodiversity. So that they're really understanding the journey that it is for us as the neurodivergents to be diagnosed and how there can be trauma related to that at times through the ways that the interviews are done or the, even going to the GP for referral and being dismissed.

I've had a GP tell me I was an ADHD. I couldn't be ADHD. And so this lack of information, I think we're going to see that changing, but it's going to take a while.  

Well, and I think you highlighted the main difference is two things. One, if you're going seeking a diagnosis and I'm not saying shopping around, I'm saying I contacted my psychiatrist.

Specifically for an ADHD diagnosis so they can confirm my self diagnosis. That is a very different person than someone who's been seeing a psychologist for a couple of years and then the psychologist just drops on them in an appointment. Oh, by the way, I think you're ADHD and it's something that person has never considered.

Those are 2 very different scenarios, but I think you're right that we need to really help educate the medical community.  Most of us have some type of medical trauma, most of us have at least one, most of the time several misdiagnoses in our past.  And we're coming to this Like you said, we already know.

I went into that appointment knowing, and of course, the week beforehand, I gaslit myself and I was like, what if he just tells me I'm crazy? Not gonna do that. Not a real diagnosis. And my partner said, what will you do if he says you're not? And I said, that's not possible because I know I am. I have done hours and at that point it was over a year of self diagnosing, hours of research.

I'm like, there's just no possible way.  But I think part of it too is finding  a diagnosing practitioner that is familiar with not just ADHD, but ADHD, how it can look in, if you are female, and how it can look later in life, because we do develop coping mechanisms. We do mask, we do figure our way through it because we've been forced to.

Yeah, and I think on masking as well mask we mask because we don't feel safe  

and 

there were many times before I got diagnosed with ADHD, especially in the early days where I was just researching it, where I would do the ADHD tests, but I was masking so much to myself that I did not.

realize I was ADHD. The test didn't show that I was. And I think that we don't realize the level of masking we do because we're actually masking ourselves from ourselves. And we, and that is so ingrained from when we're children. We do that to protect ourselves, particularly in a school context where.

eat or be eaten. And I've also had a similar journey recently, also realizing that I'm autistic and I haven't had a formal diagnosis yet. But in a similar way, I had people, very close friends mention do you think you might be autistic as well? And my son was diagnosed. With audhd, when he finally saw a pediatrician, it wasn't just ADHD.

It was audhd. And I started looking into that again. And it was incredible how the first time I did those tests for autism, I didn't have a high score because I was so masked, but then the more I realized, Oh, you, I can make eye contact. I don't have that much trouble with eye contact. So that's not how my social, profile shows up. My the traits that are associated with autism are not the eye contact for me. It's the fear of being perceived. It's having to plan certain social interactions before I go into set situations to plan where I might sit. And that's not every social situation. If I'm with friends and family that I know, well, I'm unmasked, but if I feel like I have to mask in any way, then I'm going to.

Displaying more of those autistic traits. So I really had to like unmask from myself. And I think if you're going into any kind of diagnosis, whether it be ADHD or autism, there's a high chance that you're masking with that practitioner because they're not safe to you. We're worried they're going to judge us.

We're worried they're going to gaslight us. And so we are going to mask in front of them, which means they're not going to see our true neurodivergent traits fully. So it's quite a, it's a dance. I think a dance is probably a kind way of putting it. It's a wrestle. It's a fight. It's a dance with the medical community and also really celebrating self diagnosis because. 

With, and in the work that I do with my A DHD communities, with the podcast I run, it's really evident that people come to the neurodivergent run spaces  because we understand them because they can unmask and because when they unmask they start to realize that they have a neurotype and that neurotype is not medical.

It's. It's almost akin to just saying I'm introverted or I'm extroverted. We all intrinsically know this about ourselves. We intrinsically know this. And so I'm, ADHD, I intrinsically know this. A lot of the symptoms come from masking, come from stress and anxiety, come from the social model of disability where our environment isn't set up to support us.

So a lot of the difficult things about being neurodivergent come from the society we live in, not from actually being neurodivergent. So I think that teasing that apart and starting to work through that is the work of ADHD advocates like you and I.  

Which can be really hard to write because it starts so young.

It's systemic. It starts in school. You go and we're putting our in a school that's, think going to be a little bit more friendly for her neurodivergence, I hope.  But even still, it's not fantastic. It's not amazing. And so even when you pick like the best possible option, it is still, it starts from basically day one when you enter, even in daycare.

The kids who can't sit still the kids who don't understand a personal bubble like they are and we see these stats right of ADHD kids having more corrections and being criticized so much more than neurotypicals and I see my daughter compared to some of her peers and I'm like. I understand. I think some people think that 20, 000 is like an inflated number, but I very quickly, I'm like no, I understand because  in one day, it might be 100 and it might not always be like a firm, hard being chastised.

Right? And not just my daughter. I'm just saying ADHD kids in general, but it might just be a stop doing that. Don't do that. Don't touch that.  That adds up really quickly. 

Yeah, and I think the confronting thing about that is that I mentioned I have a nine year old son with audhd and I know those stats and I've written about those stats and yet I noticed myself having to correct him because as a neurodivergent mom trying to get my kid out the door for school and having to remind him 20 times to do something, it's exhausting and we get exasperated and we ourselves, I'm overwhelmed, my nervous system's overwhelmed, Overwhelmed when he's verbally stimming.

He does that a lot. I can tolerate it. And then it gets to a point where I'm like, I cannot hear any more beatboxing. And what I've learned to do is to set boundaries, but I try and do it by saying, I love you so much. I'm obsessed with your audhd brain, but I need a little break from this stimming. And I try and always put the positive first so that he's, I can hear you.

A million percent sure that I love him and that I am so for him, but I need space as well. And I think that's what happens when you have two neurodivergents or multiple neurodivergents in a house. It's a tug and tug of war between all of our needs. And I want him to understand that he is, he's so incredible and I love his brain, but also he needs to work in.

Fitting in society, in our family and finding his own ways to regulate. If he needs to go into a separate room for a little bit, there's no shame in that. He's not being excluded, but it's just do you want to go and do that in your room for a little bit? So you can really let loose. I need this space to be quiet for a bit.

Cause I'm feeling like my nervous system's overwhelmed. And so by externalizing this stuff, this is breaking the cycle. That, as parents, we have this opportunity to teach our kids, this language of nervous system regulation of what it means to be neurodivergent, because when we talk about things, there's less shame.

So  I think it's heartbreaking that a lot of parents will get a. Diagnosis of autism and or ADHD for their kids and they won't want to talk about it. They don't want them to be different.  

And 

I feel the opposite based on my, how I was raised. My parents had no idea. Of course, they couldn't, they wouldn't have been able to speak to it.

It was a different time. But now I want to say to my kid, you are audhd. incredible. And I like, let's talk about that. This is happening because your audhd your brain needs this kind of stimulation right now, or it needs this regulation. So we talk about it all the time in a way that's constructive, not, shh, let's not talk. 

Like we don't want to create taboos.  

Yeah, our household's very much the same. My daughter's only three and a half, but talk about being overstimulated or understimulated, or we talk a lot about sensory stuff and even just going to bed.  We have polar opposite sensory profiles. So she is like The biggest sensory seeker, and I am like a massive sensory avoider.

So when you said the beatboxing that your son does, I'm like, Oh yes. My son's the same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But the difference. For her, we do like nightly obstacle courses, and if we haven't done one and we're trying to go to bed and she's like squiggling and wiggling, we'll be like, what does your body need right now?

Do you feel like you need a big hug? Do you feel like you want to do jumps? And there's times where I've gotten out of bed and I'm like, all right, get up, do 10 jumps and land on your bum. And we so normally talk about that. And I agree with you that it should not be some hidden.  It should be something that you freely talk about with your kids because  in my experience, and I think it is so common. 

I grew up knowing I was different. I grew up understanding from like a felt sense that I was experiencing the world differently. 

Yeah, 

but I didn't have language for it. Actually, I did in high school. I said, Because this was a still a diagnosis used when I was on high school. I was like, yeah, I'm definitely Asperger's or something because I just feel things differently.

But of course, nothing ever happened.  We know we're different. We know we're experiencing things different when we have language. That is where the power comes in. And that is when it goes from moving the set point of being shamed and.  Trying to make ourself feel small and all of the self worth and self identity issues that come with that to  I'm simply experiencing something different and there is nothing wrong with that and it's a language that gives us that power.



So on the topic of language, let's talk a little bit about your book.

And I actually wrote it down because I didn't want to like, misquote something and I can't trust my memory. But in your intro you had  I guess it's a quote you had written and it just hit so like deep and I'm, I know I'm not going to be the only one that relates to it, but you said, but I've noticed that my biggest ADHD deficit isn't the sleep deprivation, the demand avoidance, or even the anxiety.

It's the shame that I've carried with me since childhood. It's the biggest unspoken fear and a question of what's wrong with me. 

Sorry.  No, it's, yeah, it, that's really the core of it. That's why I wanted to write a book. And I was approached by publishers to write the book. And they had a clear idea of what they wanted it to look like.

They wanted it to, be a planner for ADHDers. And I just said I can't make that because the first thing we need to do. is we need to help people understand that their brains aren't broken, that their way of planning is actually brilliant. It's just different. It's not that we can't, organize ourselves and achieve amazing things and work towards our goals and passions.

It's that we feel like because we don't do it in the way that school teaches us, that workplace teaches us that the traditional organizational systems teach us that we are faulty.  And. And so  what I've learned working with ADHD is when I created the original future ADHD planner I tried to make  it as neuroaffirming as possible.

And I did that by tackling first that feeling of inadequacy and the whole original planner is based on that you don't have to be consistent. It assumes that you won't be, it assumes that you're going to pick it up and put it down that you're going to have a three month break. Because, we don't need to be documenting every moment of our day.

We're going to have holidays. We're going to have our kids home from school. We're going to be exhausted in burnout. And so creating a system that people can jump back into is so crucial. And that's why I think the planner itself, the digital planner that I created was so popular, but then I wanted to create a book that would compliment that because I knew that there were a lot of people that still felt that a planner was overwhelming or wanted more.

They wanted more of that, those sort of science based explainers of the brain. And so when I started looking at what I could create that would add to what I'd already created and compliment it, I realized that I wanted to talk about shame. I wanted to talk about self esteem and masking, particularly in women.

This book can be read by anyone, but it has a huge feminine focus. And that's because I feel that.  People raised as girls, women in general, have not been focused on. And a lot of the research is still so clinical. And as a very expressive and intuitive audhdR, I want to see myself in books. I want to see beautiful books.

And I think you can probably tell from the flick through that you've had, Sam, that I've I tried to put as much color and beautiful illustrations into it. I used like a sort of a magazine format in a lot of ways. Because I want it to be interactive, like a coffee table book that people can pick up and put down.

And I want, I wanted to show people that productivity in inverted commas is not. A  something that you just need to perfect across your lifetime. It's really related intimately with our nervous systems with emotional regulation with executive dysfunction and how we see productivity and ourselves, our self concept and our self image.

And if we feel that we're broken and faulty and. We are nervous systems are constantly overstimulated from our environments. We're not going to be able to be productive. We're not going to be able to use a planner. We're not going to be able to achieve what we want to achieve. And that's not our fault.

It's the fault of the environment that we're in. So  removing that shame starts with connecting our output with. The things that we're inputting in our environment and that sensory overwhelm. And so much of the book focuses on how to regulate your nervous system. I, in a typical autistic fashion, I did a huge deep dive into breathwork and I became a breathwork and meditation teacher.

So I've infused that knowledge into the book as well. I talk a lot about emotional dysregulation and how RSD, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, just a small incident of that can set off our whole day, and our whole day can be ruined, and then productivity goes out the window.  And yeah, that's really the heart of the book, is being able to connect these big ideas so people don't feel like there's anything wrong with them, but there are so many ways that we can regulate ourselves.

Just so that we feel better, not so that we can get stuff done, but just so that we feel better, and then go from there.  

Yeah, I did note the graphics, the illustrations are beautiful and they're so eye catching and it is something that even if you just, like you said, coffee table book, if you just pick it up and flick it open, You're going to find something that's beautiful and draws you in.

If people don't know if they haven't used the planner which I'll just say, I got the first edition of the planner and I've got subsequent years since then. It's been on my gift guide last year. It's on this year because it's so well,  it's so well done though. And what I try and explain to people because they hear planner and they have this idea, right. 

And I try and tell them like. It's not just a planner. Yes, there are things that you can fill out like a diary or calendar, however you want to call it, but it is essentially a mini workbook. And you, you have like habit trackers and different routines and there's mindfulness stuff in the actual digital planner and you can get a printed version if you want.

But in the book, it's really like you've just expanded on all of it. You've added it. the why it works, which like, of course, to my also ADHD brain was so satisfying. I love it. I love a citation. 

Yeah. It has a huge bibliography at the back and, oh, I had so much fun doing that. My publishers were like, you want to do that yourself?

We'll do that. And I was like no, don't. I need to get in my citation mode. I'm thriving on all of this research. Yeah. It's amazing. 

Yeah, and in the book, too you make it, obviously, you're ADHD, you work with neurodivergent people, but it is so  friendly it is so neuroaffirming and neuroconsiderate, I guess I could say, because you even have, at the beginning of the book, obviously, there's the intro and all that, and then you have a ready to dive in section where you have these circles or bubbles of topics and then directing them to pages about that.

So it's not just going to the index and be like, I want to learn about because that's in there also. Right? Of course. 

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. 

But it's really this you don't have to read it from front to back. You can pick a point. You can flip through. Oh, you want to learn more about emotional regulation?

Jump to this page. Oh, you want to learn more about this? Jump to this. So it's so well done and so well put together. I know it's been like a very much labored process.  Love of doing it process. But well done for that. You do have you're welcome. You do have something that I think is so important. You have a AuDHD ven diagram.

So in that it's funny because I just. We made like a TikTok this morning complaining about my ADHD partner of how some people think ADHD and not ADHD are so similar, but there are so different sometimes. And so I think it's really interesting on the Venn diagram, you lay out, obviously, The traits and it's not exhaustive, of course, but you lay out common traits and then the overlap that we see. 

And what I think a lot of people don't get is sometimes they might have overlapping traits, or you might have what seem like similar traits, but the core or the root of those things. Might be different, like someone who has restricted eating as an autistic person might have a very different root reason for that than an ADHD person.

And when it comes to that overlap of ADHD, it might be both, or it might just be one, or it might be both.  

Yeah, it is it's so difficult trying to disentangle  those two and there's such a huge overlap and in the 50 percent of people diagnosed with ADHD are autistic and if you're autistic, you've been diagnosed first with autism.

up to 70 percent are likely to be ADHD. I think this is just depending on which diagnosis you come to first. I think the overlap is just extreme. 

Absolutely. Cause I've seen up to 80 percent of that. If you're diagnosed autistic first and then ADHD and I  quite frankly, I put it down to like ableism because if someone's ADHD, they're less likely to pursue an autistic diagnosis because of ableism.

And they're more comfortable attributing everything to ADHD versus autistic people.  It goes they're like, okay, cool. ADHD, whatevs.  

Yeah. And it could also be that I think that it's so hard because the science moves so much slower in a lot of ways than the neurodivergent led research that we see online.

And  I think that it's logically possible for someone to be say 70 percent ADHD and 30 percent autistic. in terms of the ways that their constellation of traits shows up. And so that therefore they may not feel like, they are autistic, but they still have that autistic profile. It's just that the ADHD dominates more of the time.

And the same could be true for autistic people going 70 percent autistic, 30 percent ADHD.  And I also think that what's not discussed in literature yet is that it's dynamic and it can change across your life. 

And 

what I've learned since self diagnosing as autistic, and this is only in the last six months that I've done this, is that a lot of the time it's a push and pull.

It's a tug of war. And as you're so right that the motivation is different. So for example, stimming, you can stim as an ADHD because you are bored and you need the stimulation. You need to keep your mind active. Maybe you're stuck in a meeting. My, my co host of our podcast, Tara is, she's an ADHD, a pure Basically a pure ADHD.

She doesn't have any traits of autism that we've been able to detect yet. And we have tried to detect them. As soon as you're diagnosed autistic, you want to know, you want to know whoever else in your sphere is, it's you've got that radar up. And what she has as an ADHD woman is that we'll go into a cafe and sit down for coffee.

And because I'm Okay. an autistic ADHD, I can sit there for hours. I can really sink into a conversation. She's bouncing up and down within 15 minutes and needs to move. She needs to move her body. So she's got a lot more physical hyperactivity than I have.  I often stim because I'm dysregulated and I'm overwhelmed by my environment.

I'm emotionally dysregulated. And so that's when I'll start to need to stim. And so she's stimming because she's bored and I'm stimming because I'm overstimulated.  From like sounds and noises and visuals and people's energies. So a lot of the autistic profile for me, at least has been noticing how much other people's energy affects me, just their very presence.

And that's where the fear of perception comes in that I really struggle. For instance, I can't record a podcast in a coworking space. If I had a sound booth, still couldn't do it because I know that there are people out there having other conversations that can see me. I can't relax. I can't unmask. Yeah, it's really interesting that interplay between Autism and ADHD.

And I think  for a long time, I felt it was odd that as a, because I thought I was just ADHD, I could create a planner. I thought, well, ADHD is have,  I, the ADHD side of my brain is very chaotic. I, the classic example is that I have lists in eight different places, including in my digital planner.

I have it in my digital planner, but then I don't always carry my iPad. So I also have them on my phone and on different apps and blah, blah, blah. And so that's the ADHD side of it. I'm attempting to be organized. I'm attempting to create lists, but they're in eight different places. That's the ADHD.

But then obviously the autistic side of me is able to create structures and templates  and that's why I love teaching so much. There's a routine to that. There is a system to that. And so I think both of those things cancel each other out a lot of the time, but also I find sometimes I'm really autistic and then other times I'm really ADHD and certain environments bring it out of me. 

I'm exactly the same.  Exactly. I always say that I don't have the very typical ADHD trait of losing things because the autistic side of my brain has meticulous systems and everything has a very particular space and home and  et cetera. Yeah, so I am very much the same. And on that I have to say that This is exactly the book I would have written.

I've wanted to write a book for a long time and this is exactly what I would have written and exactly how I would have written it. So reading through it earlier, I was just like, oh my god, this is It just makes my brain so happy. But one thing that I love And also, 

That's the highest compliment you can receive from an audhder, so

very much. 

I did love the, in the emotional regulation section of the book, you have I guess we'll call it a table.  of ADHD and you have regulated versus dysregulated and how something can show, say something like our divergent thinking are out of the box thinking when we're regulated, that's amazing.

And that gives us so many abilities when we're dysregulated. It means You know, we can't focus. We're jumping all over the place. We cannot finish a task, no matter how much time, pressure, urgency, et cetera, is on it. So I love that you've created that again to give people this, not just information, but like  double sided so that they can understand.

It's not, you're not saying, Oh, my God, your brain is amazing. It's a superpower, et cetera, et cetera. You're saying. Your brain is amazing and you are capable of things, but when your brain is not in a regulated state, this is what it can look like, because I think dysregulation is at the root of the majority of our struggles, and like you said earlier, it's because we are trying to exist in a world, in a society that is not meant for us, that is not built for us, which means we are existing in a dysregulated state.

The majority of time.  

Yeah, absolutely. Just to give some examples, I've flicked open to that page, but you've got that ADHD has have a strong desire for autonomy. And often this is all ADHD is as well. And so that can be incredible in terms of where self starters at work, we work really well alone.

We can gather speed very quickly on a project. We have a lot of initiative. We do that deep diving research, or if you're just more pure ADHD, you might have a real breadth of things that you're interested in. ADHDers make great journalists because they're always scanning, for example. They don't necessarily need to go deep on something.

That's the ADHD side, to go really deep on something. But the ADHDers have a real breadth of being able to connect very diverse ideas together and find patterns and see the big picture, which is really important. So that's the regulated desire for autonomy, being in charge of our own projects, leadership, but also that means that we'll have trouble working in teams.

fitting in, being subordinate. And so you can see that a lot of the time, just with that example, and there's so many more sense of social justice can be incredible means that we can stand up for things. Greta Thunberg is a really great example of an autistic leader who stands up for things.

against the biggest political powers in our world, literally. And she started off as a 15 year old girl doing that. But it can also, if you're dysregulated or if you're out of the right sort of context, it can make you fanatical or intense or overzealous. It can mean that you just info dump on people that don't need it if you're in the wrong context.

And so I think I talk about this a lot with neurodivergence in general, that it's context dependent and that. We can be in environments that either consciously or unconsciously support us, and we can be doing really well in inverted commas. And then that environment changes and suddenly it all falls apart.

And so that can be as simple again, in inverted commas, it's never simple, but that can be as as direct as being able to find a career that suits you. And when people say, I know I've just realized I'm ADHD and I'm struggling so much. One of the first things I say are you in a career that you think suits your brain?

And yeah, sometimes it's going to be several years to moving, through some different iterations to get there, but it's worth it. Because when you find a career that suits you, that can help with a lot of that regulation, just being able to run with that energy that you'll have as an ADHD or being able to work long hours in something where you, teaching's great as well for that.

Writing's great for that. Podcasting, anything creative where you can I noticed a lot of ADHDers are content creators on TikTok and Instagram because they're so inventive. They're constantly thinking of new ways to do things. They don't want to follow the norm. And that's really positive.  But a lot of the more jobs where you're forced to do the same thing every day, those don't suit ADHD as we get bored of that.

So that's one of the things I think that helps. And another thing is having neuro affirming people around you and your family. If you're, partnered up with somebody or you're married. If you've got housemates, friends, if they start to understand your neurodivergent profile and can support you, that's another thing that really helps you regulate more.

But the job thing is great because it means that you have a bit more control. You can't always control, who you're married to or who your partner is,  how supportive they're going to be, but you can to an extent control what kind of career you move into.  

Well, and it's interesting because I know you've said that your husband's neurotypical.

Yeah. Yeah, which just blows my mind a little bit. But that has been that, that regulated and understanding sensory profiles has been a big shift in my relationship lately of  understanding and respecting and honoring each other. Because I think we've understood, especially I have, because I'm, of course, the deep diver in the relationship.

We've understood that we have different sensory needs, but really in the last couple of months, trying to honor and respect each other's sensory needs. And obviously our daughter in that as well has been huge. So with your household, this is totally shifting gears. But with your household, how do you guys  juggle all of that between you being ADHD and ADHD, but sounds slightly different sensory profile child.

Toddler and neurotypical husband. 

Yeah, and again it's not something we ever thought would happen. These things evolve and we've always been who we are. I always love to say to my son, to myself, I'm still me. That's the biggest thing. I'm still me. I've always been me. These are just labels that help us access supports.

And it's beautiful. Particularly on that shame point quickly, it just helps us feel less shame because we're naming something and we're proud of it. And we're reclaiming words like weird and words like autistic and words like ADHD. And we're saying these are good words. They are amazing words. But yeah, my husband is neurotypical with, I've grilled him.

I've been convinced at certain times that he must be an audhdR as well. He, we've decided that he's a massive audhd appreciator. Yeah, he really loves. And I think all of us have, every single human has ADHD traits. They're just, it's just the extent to which they impact our lives. My husband's neurotypical and 

we're raising children together. We've traveled the world together. We traveled for three years when my son was between the ages of one and four, my eldest. And. That again was something that really suited my ADHD profile and less so his, but he's quite a flexible, easygoing guy. We've also run a business together, Future ADHD, and I think that's why the business continues to be successful because I created the planner.

I've moved on to, writing the book. And also I've, I run your ADHD Besties podcast. And so there's a lot of stuff that. pertains to the running of future ADHD business. That's a lot more mundane. Stuff to do with talking to our accountants, stuff to do with customer service and releasing planners every year and checking every single link and every single planner is correct.

He is the person that sits there and goes through every link in the 365 version. Wow. I, yeah. And that's how I know he's neurotypical with a slight sprinkling of autism possibly, but no, he's, definitely he's definitely. Incredibly supportive. And one thing we've worked on is making sure that everyone's needs are met because we have myself as an audhder running two businesses and launching a book, which is almost like a third business in a way because of how much work it takes to launch a book.

And so I have less time to be able to be in the house. And cleaning and cooking and that kind of thing. So what I do is I focus my attention on the well being of our kids, because that's what I'm really good at. And that's necessary. He carries a lot of the practical load in the house because he's good at it.

He's an amazing cook. I like to take credit for that because I have given him so much opportunity. Because I don't so he's amazing. He's really really improved across our 15 year relationship. And now he's like chef levels. Good. Thank you, Eric. And yeah, and then he runs the bit the sort of more serious side of, and the mundane side of the business with the finances and stuff, and he. 

Supporting me, supporting our eldest son with audhd and then also supporting our three year old who's just a toddler and needs a lot of support means that my husband burns out because he's exhausted and so he's neurotypical, but the pressures on him sometimes render his executive functioning pretty poor because he's exhausted and so we need to just keep all of that in mind.

And working to our strengths, I focus so much on the emotional wellbeing of the kids, which creates a more regulated house. And I make sure that he has lots of time out on his own because he's an extreme introvert and I'm an introvert too. So I think, I'd love to read a book. I don't know if you've got any recommendations Sam, but I'd love to read a book on parenting as introverts because I think that is something that I've struggled with a lot, both of us.

I 

don't, but parenting as introverts, parenting an extrovert is like, Yeah, my life. And I, yeah, I sympathize with you because as much as my daughter is a sensory seeker, it does absolutely show up and being an extrovert. And I've seen it from the time she was six weeks old when we went to our first mom's group.

And she just was like, having the time of her life and lit up and I was like, Oh my God. Oh my God.  

It is overwhelming. And yeah, I think I have I think my youngest is definitely an extrovert and I think my eldest sort of is both at different times. Yeah, it's full on it. You just don't get a break.

And we're also living, in Western Australia, my family's on the East coast as a choice we made, but it does mean that we've chosen to have less family support. And so there's so many elements to that, that are running two businesses, having very little family support, having multiple neurodivergence in the family.

It's just a lot. It's a lot. And a lot of the time we're both burnt out and we're taking turns and we're just trying to make it through and it's not pretty. It's a lot of meltdowns on my part. And there's a lot of, explosions where he's just I just need space. And I'm like, do you need to go camping?

He just needs to go out in the bush and he's yes, I just need to, his dream is to be on Alone, I think, that show, TV show Alone he'd smash it because he is such an introvert and he's so resourceful. 

Yeah, I do think that is another layer of complexity that is not talked about because it's obviously not everyone's experience.

It is also mine that we don't have any family support here. So I acknowledge how challenging that extra layer is when, we have friends who do have family support and when they want a date night or they want just time out, kid goes to or whatever, and they don't even think twice about it. But for us, It is a big challenge.

Yeah. I'm conscious of time. I will allow us to wrap it up. Can you please remind everyone of your release date for the book? And I'll go through all of your other ways. We did not have a chance to talk about your ADHD bestie podcast, but I highly recommend it. It is like easy listening, but you also learn a lot from it.

So it's the best of both.  

Yeah, it's a lot of 

fun.  But your book is coming 

out.  Yeah. So my book will be released in January worldwide. You can find out, there's multiple avenues to purchase it online. I'm not going to recommend anyone in particular. But if you go to our website, futureadhd.

com forward slash book, we have all of the different links depending on where you are in the world and you can, yeah. Follow those and find the best spot to purchase it in your area. So yeah, it'll be released in January. My publishers are pushing me to say pre order. Which I know is so hard for ADHDers because we just I just think it's, if I can't get it in the mail next week, I don't care.

I want it now or I'll just think about it later. So I feel that but the upside 

though, I will say of pre-order is you don't have to hold it in your kind of non-existent memory bank of Okay, it releases on this date.

Yeah. Like you've clicked the button, you've done the thing. It's just gonna be a happy surprise that shows up at your house. 

Yeah, and it's nice that it's being released in January because that is when a lot of us start to think about what's my year going to look like. So a book that focuses not just on planning in a sort of like new year, new me, but more of a let's deep dive into the complexities of our ADHD or ADHD brains and look at.

The foundations of regulating myself in general so that I can show up in my life, not just so that I can be organized and plan and do all of these sort of more surface level things. But I will say as well on that note that I think it's, I think it's significant that  In our world, a lot of people eye roll and say, Oh, people will tell you like planners will help ADHD, but they don't.

And I think one thing that I've come full circle on believing that and then creating a planner that helped people and then feeling but no, it's not about productivity. It's about our worth and we don't have to be productive in order to feel good about ourselves. The full circle place I've come to is that when people can first affirm themselves and their inconsistency.

That's the first step, and to go, yep, whether I'm doing nothing today, whether I'm doing a lot of things, I'm an amazing human, and if I did nothing, it's probably because I needed to rest, and if I've got three months in my planner where I haven't put anything in, it's because I needed that rest. I didn't need.

That in that time, but I've also realized that when you have a system that works for your brain, whatever that is, a lot of people find other systems that work. And that's awesome too. It's not just my system. Of course, it's whatever works for our individual brains.  When we can find that we do feel good about ourselves because we realize that.

we can achieve things. We can do the things we set out to do. And that self belief is something that we probably didn't get in school. So really it's just about knowing that there in our world now, there's so many ways to come at organizing ourselves as adults, find the system that works for you and customize it until it works.

And don't worry if it's not something that makes sense to anyone else. And yeah, just be flexible with it and let it evolve with you. And yeah that self belief that I'll. The reviews that I'll get from people. And I really hope that the book inspires people in this regard as well. But so far it's been with the planner.

People have just said, I never believed that I would be able to achieve the things that I've always wanted to do. There was one single mother that was able to get a PhD because she needed to stay organized with due dates and deadlines. And she'd never been able to do that. And she said, I like, I'm in tears that a simple digital planner could help me do that.

And. It's those kind of stories that keep me going because  planners may sound silly and simple, but really being able to organize ourselves, especially as ADHD is,  if we can find a way to do that, we can just fly and do incredible things and change the world. Corny, but true. 

No, very true. My kind of motto is always inconsistently consistent.

I'll circle back around at some point. It might not be tomorrow, it might be in three weeks, but I'll get there. Yes. 

And then you asked me to, yeah, sorry, I went off on a tangent completely. No, you're right. 



Yeah. 

Oh, go ahead.  

So I was going to say, so the book is coming out in January.

I gave the link future ADHD forward slash book. My podcast is called your ADHD besties podcast. It's a weekly podcast aimed at ADHD women, but obviously anyone can listen. I've just started speaking about the fact that I'm already HD on the podcast too, which is huge. And so we're just really covering all bases, which is amazing.

And yeah that's just been an incredible journey to do that with Tara, my cohost. I think it's listened to in about 140 countries now. So yeah, it's just insane, the growth. And it's just been such a privilege to get to be in people's lives like that. And what else?  Oh, and yeah, the planner, if you're interested in the planner and you want to get something now we have a lifetime access on the planner, which means that no matter when you buy it, you get every year renewed and refreshed, inclusive for free.

Yeah, we've got 2025 out now, and that's also on our website, futureADHD. com. 

Yeah, which I do need to download the next year. You guys did a massive I guess I'll call it update expansion last year. So I'm excited to see what 2025 looks like.  As I've said, I have used it since its first iteration.

And it's always on my gift guide because it's not just a planner. It is also like a little workbook. But now you have your actual book coming out, which is going to just sandwich so happily with the planner. Yes. On socials, if people want to connect with you, what's the best way what platform do you prefer? 

Yeah, I love Instagram. I'm a true millennial.  I have a TikTok presence, but don't DM me there. I'll never see it. I'm on Instagram future. adhd  and also adhdbestiespodcast on Instagram and yeah, I believe I have a, threads. That stuff too.

That stuff too. But yeah, honestly, I just, I prefer Instagram. So come over there. That, yeah, I'd love to hear from you guys if you've resonated with anything I've shared today. 

Yes, amazing. I will include, of course, all the links in the show notes. I'll include the pre order link because like I said, just click the button, order it, and then you get a happy surprise when it shows up in your mailbox.

And I know for publishing, it really does make a difference. So if we could all rally together and help you out by clicking a little simple button, that will be fantastic. 

Oh, amazing, Sam. Yeah. And ADHD is love mail anytime, little surprise package is always welcome. 

Absolutely. We always order stuff and then it shows up and we're like, Oh, what's this?

What's this?  

I'm guilty of buying far too many books. I have so many books. So that's my guilty pleasure for sure.  

I do too. I appreciate you so much. Thank you again for taking the time. And yeah, I will, I'll include everything. 

Amazing. Thank you so much for having me, Sam. This conversation has been amazing. I love speaking to another audhd brain. I'm obsessed. So yeah, such a pleasure to chat today.