Is it ADHD or Life? Claudia Devonshire | Late Diagnosis, Parenting, Meds & Farm Chaos

This week on Is it ADHD or Life? – A Couple’s Perspective, we’ve got a proper special guest episode with Claudia Devonshire from Keeping up with the Devs (and yes… it’s as chaotic and funny as you’re hoping). 

We get straight into it with Donna’s podcast voice, and then Claudia’s TikTok journey — how she started documenting real life chaos (including the iconic moment of Claudia dancing with her duck) and the shock of actual real-life school runs.

Then we go straight into ADHD and Claudia’s late diagnosis… which happened accidentally because of her son. We talk about how ADHD can really shine in parenthood, but also how brutal early parenthood can be, especially when sleep disappears. We cover the terrible twos (is it even real?), turning your back for one second and the baby’s eaten 8 bananas, “special hot chocolate”, and kids swearing (it is funny isn't it?)

We also have one of the most unhinged conversations we’ve ever had about “mating season” and the question every parent dreads:
Do gran and grandad mate?
What age do you even have that conversation with kids?

We talk about Claudia when she was younger (self-confessed “bitch”), the recent magpie video, and then get into the diagnosis properly:
- How did it feel?
- What did it change?
- Did it bring out the real Claudia?
- Does diagnosis make you feel like you’re “too much”?

We chat about the assessment process, the whole “TikTok diagnosed” debate, and whether you’ve got ADHD if you accidentally buy a plant. We talk down days, exhaustion, and that classic situation where you get diagnosed with depression… when it’s actually ADHD. Cue breakdowns, CBT stories, and intrusive thoughts.

We talk Claudia’s husband Dan and how he copes with Claudia’s ADHD. Communication is everything, and we get into mood mirroring, reading people’s faces, family life pressure, and that ADHD instinct where you can basically smell a rat. We talk over-analysing, acting differently with different people, and why ADHD people together is both comforting and dangerous.

And then we realise both Adam and Claudia have started medication… so obviously we get right into that:
- How fast it starts
- Placebo vs real effects
- That first-day feeling
- Does medication bring music back into your life?
- Titration, time scales, routines, and the ups and downs

Then we go full farm chaos. Claudia’s animals are a whole storyline:
- Chicken lady era
- Ducks
- Bridgerton in the garden
- Quails (Adam doesn’t know what a quail is)
- Should Claudia get a turkey?
- The goat situation (you do not want to miss this story)
- Is Dan an enabler?
- How do you get rid of goats named after grandparents?
- Should Adam get chickens?

We also talk Claudia’s new clothing brand Dev & Co (comfy stuff, genuinely lovely), and we finish with Claudia’s Good, Bad & Ugly of ADHD — working well under pressure, rejection sensitivity, overthinking, and caring way too much what people think. We talk family, Claudia’s mum thinking she’s turned into a Hullite, and her private school roots… and then Donna makes a special request for Claudia to do the Bridgerton voice to finish us off.

This week we cover:
- Late ADHD diagnosis (and how it can happen through your kids)
- Parenting with ADHD, sleep deprivation, and chaos routines
- ADHD vs depression misdiagnosis, burnout, CBT and intrusive thoughts
- Relationships, communication, mood mirroring, RSD and overthinking
- ADHD medication: first-day feelings, titration, routines and side effects
- Social media pressure, people pleasing, and work becoming addictive
- Farm life and the animal chaos (including the goat story)
- Dev & Co clothing brand and Claudia’s Good, Bad & Ugly of ADHD

Watch on YouTube:  
https://youtu.be/Gq5VQLz3PgA  

Find Claudia / At Home with the Devs:  
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@keepingupwiththedevs  
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/keepingupwiththedevs/  

Dev & Co clothing:  
https://devclothing.co.uk/  

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YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ADHDorLifepod  

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Tune in every week for more conversations and revelations! Send your good, bad and ugly stories to adhdorlife@gmail.com.

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