Navigating ADHD Media, Menopause and Motherhood with Jennifer Crichton

Jennifer Crichton joins us to explore how ADHD has shaped her successful career in radio and journalism, where constant novelty and deadline-driven tasks perfectly match her neurotype. She shares her late diagnosis journey, triggered by early menopause, and the surprising reaction from her parents who immediately recognised her symptoms from childhood.

• Finding the perfect career fit with ADHD as a fast-paced radio producer and journalist
• Following diagnosis breadcrumbs through others' stories and recognising traits
• Overcoming dismissive medical professionals who initially rejected her concerns
• Discovering the crucial connection between hormonal changes and ADHD symptoms
• Creating a holistic management approach beyond medication including exercise, creative outlets, and sobriety
• Building a relationship with another ADHD partner and the complementary coping strategies they've developed
• Using fidget toys, Lego building, and "sweary word" coloring books to manage mental noise
• Finding the value in late diagnosis as validation rather than seeing it as a missed opportunity

Transcript

Introduction to Jennifer Crichton

Speaker 1 0:00

And what was hilarious to me is that my mum is one of those people who you know on Monty Python, the guy that's got like no arms, and no legs and he's like it's a flesh wound. That's my mother. She could be missing a leg and she won't take a paracetamol. Yeah, and when I said to them I've been diagnosed with ADHD, I thought they'd be like, oh you know nonsense. And they both just went.

Speaker 3 0:29

Today we are navigating media menopause and motherhood with color book connoisseur and radio producer, jennifer crichton. Warning you might leave this episode wanting to build ikea furniture or even buy yourself a lego set. Okay, welcome back to our second episode of fast brain women podcast. I'm your host, danny, with my lovely co-host, lorna, say hi, hello, and we are joined today by the lovely Jennifer. Please give us the honour, introduce yourself and let's get stuck into some juicy ADHD conversation.

Speaker 1 0:59

Hello, I am Jen Crichton. I'm a journalist, broadcaster, radio producer, adhd, I suppose congratulations thank you, welcome to the.

Speaker 3 1:10

We got the. We got it right. We got it right. We've invited the right person, and you feel very familiar in this setting with the microphones in in your face. How did you? Yeah, I'm not so familiar with the cameras.

Speaker 1 1:21

I wasn't warned about those. That's um. Yeah, that's new for me. You've got stuff that we don't have only the best for you.

Speaker 3 1:28

Well, this podcast is all about winging it from how it was conceived to how it is executed on a weekly basis. Um, so not telling people that we're filming. It is just something we were experimenting with this week just to see.

Speaker 1 1:42

I brought a lipstick. I'm not gonna lie.

Speaker 2 1:45

But apart from that, I mean, it's wearing well, it's the end of the day and looking cracking, I have to say, and actually this is probably you know full circle, because I think you and I have both been victim to jen. I would imagine you've had a similar experience. What are you doing tomorrow? Uh, would you like to come on the radio and talk about this?

Speaker 1 2:02

so you know yeah, I think I'm winging it as kind of just the audio way, right? Yeah, certainly my way I.

Speaker 4 2:10

I don't know if there is another way well, I don't want to know if I don't want to know if there is another way, because I seem to just be okay with that scenario yeah, there's nothing more exciting, is there?

Speaker 2 2:21

sometimes you don't have to worry about. You know what am I doing next week and all the factors it's like tomorrow. I can think that far ahead. So for me it works anyway. So tell us a little bit about your career then, because you know there must be pros and cons as there are with all careers of realising that you have ADHD.

Speaker 1 2:45

Yeah, I mean it's quite interesting, I guess that the odd occasions I mean I've been a journalist since I left university. I've been in journalism for 20 odd years but the odd occasions where I've been in kind of adjacent roles, like you know, between jobs. A radio station closed down. I went and tried PR and various things where I had to actually sit at a desk. Not good Doesn't work for me and it's strange. Strange now looking back, knowing that I have ADHD to go.

Speaker 1 3:09

Actually I kind of found myself into the perfect job really, because I think the thing with radio is that 30 seconds is a long time and you know if you've got ADHD and you struggle with boredom or with sitting still and doing long and monotonous tasks. Radio is a gift because you know we do three hours of live content a day. In those three hours you'll maybe have six to nine guests they're all new people that you get to ask questions of and then you've got a few hours before the show where you're getting the show prepared, and then you've got a couple of hours after the show where you're getting the next day's show organized. So I've got a new task to do pretty much every five minutes and that's great because I don't need to worry about sitting getting bored, and that's where I get into trouble. I have to actually sit still and put my mind to something. That would take longer. So it's it's a really good job.

Speaker 1 4:09

And I think what is really interesting after you sort of start delving into this space, is realising just how many people in media have ADHD. And one of my friends who has ADHD said to me do you know what I reckon all journalists do? And I think there's probably an element of that because I don't know people. I think when you see broadcasting, people think, oh, you're in a sort of celebby job or a glamorous job. But actually I think most of us are just in it because we're really nosy and we don't like sitting still and we're not good at doing one thing once for a long time. And with radio, you know, some days you'll have an amazing day, some days you'll have a terrible day, but it kind of doesn't really matter. It's the same with newspapers, anything in journalism. You know you're on to the next thing more or less before you finish that, so it kind of suits really well if you've got a brain like we do definitely.

Speaker 2 5:02

I've noticed that myself because I've taken a bit of a career shift from. Previously I was what we call client side um, which was fantastic in so many ways.

Speaker 1 5:09

But having gone to consultancy now, where I get to nosy into lots of different organizations, meet different people all the time, different industries, it it does definitely pique the interest in a different way absolutely, and I mean if you've got one of those brains that fires by sort of dealing with new things, it's a godsend to be in a job where you get to do that all day long, because you never get bored definitely.

Speaker 3 5:34

I think sometimes these very like creative type jobs still come with a heavy side portion of having to be organized and having to be in charge of things that aren't as fun, as exciting, whereas actually to be able to like carve that niche. Um, one thing that I've found has just been like so important to my survival not even me thriving is just being really kind of very specific on what it is that I do want to do and absolutely deleting everything else.

Speaker 2 6:06

You can't always do that with every job no, no, you're making your own little world right now, which I think a lot of people do. I know the group that you've set up for fast brain women nice little plug there. Um yeah, I think that's what we're experiencing a lot. There's a lot of people who have been corporate and now looking to pursue their own things more interest-based, which is a lot of the battle, isn't?

Speaker 3 6:26

it. Yeah, you mentioned something about like looking back. So like looking back, jen, over time, because you're 20, 21, 22, now something over the past 20 years what's. You know what have been some real kind of like key moments that now, having understood how your brain is a little bit faster than their most typical brains, what are those moments that make the most sense to you?

Speaker 1 6:54

I think even just the way I studied for exams and stuff like that, you know very last minute. For everything I need a deadline to function and we talk a lot about how we self-select or find our coping strategies and find our own ways around. And, like you're saying about being organised, I live and die by my Trello board and my paper diary. I can't do digital diaries, too many email accounts, all of that stuff, I'll just get lost in the mire. So I've got my paper diary and I've got my Trello boards for work and if it's not on there it doesn't exist. Like I've got to be really single-minded with that stuff, but everything else like needs to have a deadline. It's not got a deadline, I'm nowhere, and so for exams for school, university, it was always I was cramming and all my report cards.

Speaker 1 7:46

You know, looking back they're all the same. It's like chatterbox, bright, coasting, and I think I did. You know, I kind of, I suppose, touch wood. I was very lucky that I was smart enough that I could get by with that. But I do, on the one hand, sort of look back now and go gosh, what could I have done if I'd actually applied myself? But on the other hand, I guess, knowing that I was deadline driven in that way and knowing that I always wanted to be doing new things and learning new things and that I just liked soaking things up as quickly as possible, it kind of led me to where I'm at. So no regrets on it. But I do think that once you get a diagnosis as an adult, it does make you look back on a lot of things that you did when you were younger and go oh okay, that makes sense definitely yeah, I had a conversation I posted on my LinkedIn that you know, fascinated me, I mean, and what it was was all about.

Path to Diagnosis and Family Reactions

Speaker 3 8:45

I felt it was like a career update and my old flatmates in uni who are my ride and dies, love these ladies all commented on this post. So nula, my lovely irish roomie, next door neighbor, commented how useful I was during exam times because I was like the notes, the studying, everything was there, and my other flatmate made a comment about my messiness. Um, so yeah, I think there's definitely those, those moments. What was it that kind of pushed you to get a diagnosis? Because I think a lot of time we find that it's, you know, comes from a place of like struggle. You know, I don't think everyone like waltzes into a diagnosis like feeling top of the world.

Speaker 3 9:30

This is another certificate I can get. This is another hobby. I want to take the box, do you?

Speaker 1 9:34

know it's funny, I don't, there was no big light bulb moment, but I suppose the joy of doing the job I do is that you see the trends, you know, you see the things that people are talking about. And over Covid, I was back in the UK. I used to live in Dubai. I went home for five years. I came back again. I mean, there's a whole ADHD story in there, I'm sure. But I did the boomerang thing and for five years I was back in the UK and I ran my own publication and every time that I would put out calls for pitches I would have more and more women pitching stuff around ADHD.

Speaker 1 10:13

And eventually I got somebody to write a story about her ADHD diagnosis in her forties and reading it I just kind of was going tick, tick, tick, tick and so I guess it was kind of in the back of my mind. And then my son is a great kid, does really well in school, but there's little things about him that are very like I was when I was a kid and I was sort of looking at him and going this seems like maybe there's little bits of ADHD and I've never had him diagnosed. But there were things that he was doing that, I was thinking, oh, that ties in with this and that ties in with that, and then eventually it just kind of hits that critical mass. So there was no sort of big defining moment where I went, oh, that's me. But I think it was just a sort of drip, drip, drip of becoming more aware of the conversation, of speaking to more people that were in that place and going, oh, there's kind of there's a lot of mirrors back at me here.

Speaker 1 11:14

And what was really interesting is that the first doctor I went to see to find out about diagnosis basically poo-pooed me the minute I said that I had started looking at it with regards to my son, because when I walked in the office and he said, you know, do you have children? I said yes, I do. He said who, boys, girls? I said I had a boy and he was like what's he he like? And I said, oh, you know, lively, sporty ants in his pants, really smart kid, but you know, doesn't like to sit still. And he was like, oh, okay, so you're one of those parents. And I went, oh, okay, and basically what he was saying is there were loads of mums coming in.

Speaker 1 11:49

Mums, he was very specific, there were loads of mums coming in who he felt were trying to go through the diagnostic process themselves so that they could see what it was like to protect their children, and he effectively sort of chased me off and went. Seems to me like you have anxiety, but if you want to get your son diagnosed, I would suggest that you speak to someone who's a specialist in children's ADHD, because it's not going to be the same process for him as you and I was sort of like okay, because I have no like at that point and still to this point, I've not looked into getting my son diagnosed with anything, because he's doing very well and if he has struggles in the future, then so be it. It was just that he was part of my thinking process just like part of the pattern, yeah, but just very much.

Speaker 1 12:34

Even just mentioning him that first doctor was like no, no and I think then I kind of really got the bit between my teeth where I was like, oh, I'll show you. So I went to another doctor who kind of took two looks at me and went oh, yeah, yeah, no doubt. And what was hilarious to me is that my mum is one of those people who you know on Monty Python, the guy that's got like no arms, and no legs and he's like it's a flesh wound.

Speaker 1 12:57

That's my mother. She could be missing a leg and she won't take a paracetamol. Yeah, and when I said to them I've been diagnosed with ADHD, I thought they'd be like, oh, you know, nonsense skin. And they both just went oh yeah, we could have told you that I went hang on what? And mum and dad both just laughed and they were like, well, yeah, obviously. And I said really Like did it not occur to you to say anything to me? And they went well, it didn't exist in our consciousness when you were a kid, but I mean, we've had that conversation now that we know what it is. It's like oh yeah, that's Jen, because, oh, yeah, that's Jen.

Speaker 1 13:29

Because you know, when I was a kid, they were like oh, you know, we always talk about you were a good kid, but there were parents who didn't want to pick you up from nursery because they didn't want to cross the road for you, because you were always off in your own world and you didn't want to walk with people and you were always running ahead. And I had no idea about any of that, didn't remember any of it.

Speaker 2 13:46

But yeah, mum and surprised how do you think you would have, or what would have been different, had you have known earlier?

Speaker 1 13:54

this is one I've thought about quite a bit because obviously, you know, a lot of us do talk about oh, there's traits with their own children and I don't know if my son's got ADHD or if he's just my kid. He acts like me in certain ways, but I'm not in any rush to go and get him checked because as much as there are things I look back on now and think, yeah, that would have been easier. I also think that to a certain degree'm you know, for me it was more just about getting answers at this stage than than it was about trying to fix anything. I don't think, even now, looking back, that I would say there's anything about me that's broken. And I think what's really interesting when you read more about ADHD, you know I'm not going to sit here and go, oh, it's my superpower, because it does cause difficulties.

Hormones, Menopause and ADHD Connection

Speaker 1 14:54

But equally, I don't know that I would be who I was or necessarily doing what I do in the world, if I hadn't grown up having to navigate around the things that I kind of, I guess, the roadblocks that I put in my own way. So I don't know that I would have wanted to have been diagnosed any earlier. There's definitely things from earlier adulthood that I think, oh yeah, it probably would have been helpful to have known. Then there's mistakes I wouldn't have made, maybe in my 20s, and that would have been potentially helpful, but some skeletons here we could dig up many skeletons.

Speaker 1 15:31

But as I don't think a childhood diagnosis would necessarily have served me well and even now it's kind of like it's more just giving answers to questions that I had rather than necessarily changing anything, because I guess I've kind of coping strategy my way into quite a good place anyway, and we do that very well.

Speaker 2 15:52

I think one women to identify right, we're blend in.

Speaker 3 16:00

Yeah and I think it is just like you know, we have to cope. There's no other reason as a really like lovely way of thinking about it, because actually you didn't have a choice. You were there just showing up school, you know whatever it was, and just getting things done. Because sometimes I was talking about this, I think the other day to someone, and I think it was in our like goal setting when we talked about, like the concept of discipline, which I think is like it's quite a masculine, negativey kind of word, but sometimes we do need some kind of I don't know what the alternative word is, please just comment below of alternatives, or maybe I should chat gpt, I don't know just just to really have that ability to rise through it, not necessarily above it.

Speaker 2 16:48

Sometimes we do need to crack on yeah, sometimes it's about staying goal focused and realizing that the methods or notebook or trello board that works for you this week might not work in a month's time, because sometimes it's a novelty of having a new method for me that works.

Speaker 2 17:07

So yeah, keep your eyes on the prize, because sometimes you you can't just give up on math, like you say. You have to push yourself through it one way or another. But yeah, using different tools to get you there might be another way yeah, I was like would it have been different?

Speaker 3 17:21

for you if you'd have known as a child I mean I think my self-perception would have been different.

Speaker 2 17:29

I've definitely beaten myself up over the years. You know Lorna talks too much and you know she leaves everything to last minute. She has so much potential she's not reaching it. I was like, well, I'm just a disaster. You know ditzy me and I'm not actually ditzy, I'm actually quite intelligent. But the traits. So I think my self-per that I'm healing and wouldn't have had to do so much healing from had I had that frame, but it was also a different era, so I don't know what support would have been available as well, especially as a girl, and I don't think it really existed 20 something years ago yeah, definitely, for you know, boys who jumped on tables, it was boys it was boys and it was children.

Speaker 3 18:11

You know it was adult ADHD wasn't a thing. Female ADHD wasn't a thing. This is definitely something that's you know. That's why so many women coming out of the woodwork now being like, oh, box ticked. You know whether it's a radio show that they listen to, or, you know, tiktok, or a reel where things start making sense.

Speaker 1 18:33

I think as well, there's like this big kind of I almost want to call them regeneration moments in a woman's life, and the doctor who eventually said to me have you ever thought you might be adhd? Was my menopause daughter, because I had really bad endometriosis and adenomyosis throughout my 20s and 30s and I eventually had a hysterectomy in my 30s. So I went into really early menopause as a result of that, and so when I moved back to Dubai and started seeing my menopause doctor, I had been sort of through Covid, kind of effectively raw dogging menopause in my 30s, which was not a lot of fun. And when I came to her she's got a sort of symptoms checklist and I just basically ticked everything and then after kind of a few months of taking HRT, it was better, but there were still a few things. And then eventually, after a year of being on the HRT and tweaking things, I felt fantastic and the only things that I was still ticking on the list were sort of mental health symptoms. So it was sort of restless brain, insomnia, sleeplessness, anxiety, and it was my menopause doctor who went your hormone levels are great.

Speaker 1 19:49

Now this isn't't hormones. Have you thought that it might be ADHD? And of course, this had been sort of percolating in the back of my mind before then anyway. But she said to me the times that we're now seeing women being diagnosed are either around pregnancy, when your hormones are in flux, it's because you've got a little kid who you see it in them and then you see it in yourself, or it's around menopause, because those times of life where you're sort of almost becoming a different person, your hormone levels are in flux, your sense of self is in flux and your coping strategies go completely out the window. And she was like and that's where it really kind of that's where we're seeing it a lot. And that made a lot of sense to me and actually, yeah, it's completely right, because my hormone levels were were grand at that point, but there were still these things where I was like, well, why isn't it fixing this?

Speaker 3 20:40

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Speaker 2 21:38

I think this is such an important topic, even on the on a monthly basis. Our hormones are changing all the time and I think because we expect such fluctuation in moods and energy levels already, I think we gaslight ourselves a bit into being like this is normal. I'll feel better after my next period, or you know and even things like your period can affect your how your medication works as well. So there's so many layers to this that women are essentially different people throughout the months. It must be very hard.

Speaker 1 22:05

Actually, I'm trying to give the medical profession a break for not recognizing us all earlier, but it is complex when you start layering those different things in there compared to men absolutely, and it changes the way that you deal with things through your life as well, which I guess makes it harder to be a sort of constant awareness of and, as you say, your coping strategies. You know they'll change as you go on, but then you know now, like you're saying, there are things that change and ways of coping that change and different times of the month where you need different things. But it's like there's certain non-negotiables for me now that I know I've got ADHD. Like if I wake up at six o'clock in the morning I don't want to go to the gym, I will have to force myself to. But I now go to the gym every morning before work because I know that I function better as an employee, as a wife, as a mother, as a human being, if I've gotten that kind of burst of energy out of myself first thing in the morning.

Speaker 1 22:58

I function better. But for years and years and years I was sort of vaguely aware that when I exercised I felt better. But I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't motivate myself to do it, and now it's like I have to really be quite regimented, as you say quite disciplined about that because I know that if I don't go I will be a worse person later in the day for it well, that's where the discipline comes exactly.

Speaker 3 23:21

But I was like, where, like, where was the tipping? Asking for a friend, where was the tipping point in that kind of self-awareness, though, like was there a gen before that that didn't go to the gym every morning and, you know, got dragged along by the days, was a terrible employee, mother, wife, everything above. And then you were able to. But then you were able to, but then you were able to see what worked for you, like where did that, like tipping?

Speaker 1 23:46

point of. I mean again the same doctor. She was adamant like you can take the HRT, you can take ADHD medication, you can do whatever you want, but exercise is now non-negotiable for you. You were very young when you went into menopause. You need to look after your bones, you need to look after your muscles. So she was hassling me.

Speaker 1 24:01

But again, because I'd had that surgery and I'd had hormone issues and all the rest of it for years I'd had chronic pain and when I was younger I actually trained as a dancer, before I trained as a journalist, and so I'd always been really fit and healthy growing up and then, because I had all these health and hormone issues and all through the years, exercise had been on a real backburner.

Speaker 1 24:22

So I think it's been part of a whole picture of feeling healthier and feeling better and feeling physically able to exercise. But I do think that it's one of those habits that for me, if I get out of it, it'll very easily fall by the wayside. You know, like taking a week's holiday over Christmas when my family was trying to go back to the gym. After that you're like, oh really, I don't wanna, but like I have to be. I know that I have to be disciplined, because that, for me, has as big an impact on my mental well-being as the drugs do. And if I forget to take like if I forget to put my drugs in my bag one day, I can get through a day without my medication. But if I forgot to take my medication in my bag one day, I can get through a day without my medication, but if I forgot to take my medication and I hadn't been to the gym, I'm useless by 2pm.

Speaker 2 25:11

Yeah, and I really like that holistic approach because some people, some people will say you know it's just to get out of jail, free card, take your medication. You know there's a pill for everything, type thing, but actually it's still an ongoing effort. It doesn't. It's not a magic bullet. We discussed this. You know just that it takes the squirrels down from 20 to 2.

Speaker 1 25:27

Yeah, and then you've got five of them again pretty soon, like at the beginning, when you take the drugs, it's like, oh, it's like that wizard of oz. Like the color comes on moment and you're like, oh, is this how normal people's brains work?

Speaker 1 25:39

and then, after a couple of weeks, you're like, oh, okay, now I'm kind of used to them you know it's still color, but it's not glorious technicolor anymore, and so you kind of it gives you that kick, doesn't it? But you still need to to actually sort your your own coping mechanisms out, over and above the drugs. Don't do it all.

Speaker 3 26:00

Tell me a little bit about what else you do other than exercise to keep Jen on track.

Speaker 1 26:09

Oh I, my very dear colleague slash work wife, so I was having a rough week recently and bought me a Swearie Words colouring book and some pens. I was very grateful for that. I have been doing a lot of sweary word colouring at home, which my husband and now my son, who has learned some new vocabulary from my colouring, think is hilarious. Colourful vocabulary, lego, capulary Lego I really enjoy. Lego I can get lost in.

Speaker 1 26:40

Lego sets or free play. No sets, oh, it's got to be a set. I've got to follow the instructions. Like I love building IKEA, I love if you give me a set of instructions and I have to just do it. I built myself a set of shelves at the weekend. That was one of those ones where I woke up on Sunday and I went I need to organise my bags, I need to get some shelves today, and my like oh goody, an ADHD adventure day is it? And I was like yes, and I went and bought the shelves and I built them and I organized my handbags and I lint roller the inside of all my handbags and they were all lined up by the end of the day.

Speaker 2 27:11

And he was just like whatever, I love that hyper focus on one category.

Speaker 1 27:13

Yeah, that's it brilliant yeah, really good at the hyper focus. I don't drink as well and I think that's been a really crucial bit of the mental health puzzle for me, and that was a long time before my diagnosis. I actually oh gosh, it was an anniversary recently because I gave up in January and I didn't intend to give up drinking. It just kind of stuck. I did that A Scottish person.

Speaker 1 27:37

I'm going to do a month with everybody else, and then at the end of the month went hmm, there might be something to this. And yeah, it's been six years now, wow, um. But that I think was a big part of the puzzle for me was that I think I never was a problem drinker. I wasn't a like huge everyday drinker or anything like that, but I think I would definitely use it to silence the noise at sort of stressful times when I was younger, and there's a certain terror, I think, after a while, of always having that on hand, to having to feel your feelings. But once you get used to it I've realized it's just so much better for my personal mental health and sort of anxiety levels and stuff like that, if I just don't add that into the mix. So, yeah, not drinking has been a big part of it, eating well most of the time.

Speaker 2 28:37

I mean, I find that amazing and I think you know we're in the middle east and a lot of people won't relate to this, but drinking is part of our culture in a way that it's just part of everyday life.

Speaker 2 28:47

It's not that you're expected to do it, but it's just something you grow up with. So to step away from that is a bigger deal than a lot of people realize, and I know it's a choice that you've made as well. I'm saying that, obviously, as someone who's not participated in this but knows it's the right thing to do.

Speaker 3 29:01

Um, yeah, but then it's not motivating if it's the right thing to do so I don't know, maybe my, I didn't, definitely didn't accidentally give up mine was extremely intentional after the worst hangover that's ever been known to man, like it was at one point I would have been okay if I didn't survive it like I. Just I wanted out it was. I think I got home at like 7 am and the kids were like, oh, it was bad oh my god, you were a mum as well, I know it was.

Speaker 3 29:30

It was the worst. I almost feel the headache, so I think I needed. I needed that as my springboard, but kind of one thing that you were saying that I highly relate, which I feel that. Sorry this might be a bit of a spoiler alert, but when I stopped drinking I felt worse. Yeah, yeah, and I just thought it was going to be this magical you know utopia when I got there that I would like feel better, look better, like my world would all come together.

Speaker 1 30:01

Career like no did you think you would lose about six stone and then discover that you gained it because what you didn't drink, you ate in cake. Or was that just me?

Speaker 3 30:12

I don't know. I think I was already eating the cake and the drink, so I think that was. Uh, that wasn't necessarily just the one, but yeah, definitely thought that I was going to lose weight, definitely thought that things were just going to be like clearer, but it was just so evident over time that it was just a coping mechanism. It was the one thing that I could let loose, go wild, you know, not care.

Speaker 3 30:33

Um, do the dance moves that I've been wanting to do all week but felt too shy to do them. You know all of those things like the social occasions, the social anxiety, like the overwhelm, the noise insert, you know other million things here, and taking that away, it's like the blanket got stripped from underneath me and I was raging like I just could not believe that. That's, you know, that's what I was left with. So, yeah, feeling the feelings, having to, you know, really figure out how it is. It's such a big part of of culture and how you grow up and really selling it to me as well there are positives yeah, no, I don't doubt it.

Speaker 2 31:13

I'm working through my own demons. I've given up various things this year and it's about yeah, what do you replace it with and you can even go the other way with, like exercise that can become your holy grail and the other thing that you can use to push down your emotions. So I think we've all got to do the work right. Regardless of what crutches you add and remove along the way, you still get on the pinnacle of that at the end of the day, which is the, the feeling, your feelings. But yeah, yeah. So tell us a little bit about the actual diagnosis, because you had that horrible experience. It's a miracle you didn't just walk away from the whole process after that that first doctor. Then you had your menopause doctor who said go, really go, get this checked out. What actually is the process here in the uae, or what was it like for you? I should say, because it might have been different for all of us.

Speaker 1 31:56

This is where we uncover so my menopause doctor recommended a psychiatrist who specialised in adult ADHD, and so I contacted him. They did a short telephone call, spoke to me about why I wanted to look into it. Then they sent me a big long test form which I completed the night before my appointment that was part of the criteria, yeah yeah, they should have actually put on the front page how, how close to your appointment, are you completing this?

Speaker 1 32:31

and that probably would have been enough in the way I left it. Yeah, a week and a half, and then did it the hours before my appointment, um, or before it was due, um, and yeah, aced that test, um, it was. Um, yeah, I walked in and they were kind of like, yeah, so newsflash? Um, and yeah, he spoke to me about medication and I was kind of really reluctant, um, again, as I said, having grown up with a mum who, you know, had to lose an arm to sort of consider Calpol, the idea of medicating anything has always felt a bit like, oh, do I have to? But it's been.

Speaker 1 33:18

It was a game changer, I think. At first it made me realize. I think just just taking it made me realize how much that chatter in my head was playing into things. And taking the medication and getting a little bit of peace from that and a little bit of distance from it made me realize how much of the sort of negative self-talk or the rejection, sensitivity and sort of ruminating on on things you know that thing where it's like I can't remember your phone number that you told me 30 seconds ago. But I will wake up at 2am and remember in minute detail that stupid thing I did when I was 17, you know, kind of the.

Speaker 1 34:05

The rumination that goes on in my brain was was massive, and I think taking the medication and having those initial early periods where it's really dramatic and it kind of gives you a break from that, helped me to recognize it.

Speaker 1 34:19

And although now I don't take the medication every day and at the weekend I don't take it and we've had so many supply issues here, I've tried three different ones and there have been occasions where I've not had any or I've had to half my dose or whatever it is. So I've not taken it every day or taken one consistently since then. But it was like it just turned a light on to the things that were ADHD that I maybe hadn't been fully aware of, and so now I can recognize them. So it's not like they go away. But now when I find myself ruminating or I find myself being like I had it yesterday where I was like, oh, they sent me that message late. Was that because they weren't going to invite me to that thing? Was I not going to be doing that and then you go what's the matter? Like, you start to recognise it a bit better.

Speaker 2 35:11

Yeah.

Speaker 1 35:11

So it's. I think that's been. The big kind of change for me has been just being able to recognise the things that they'll probably always be there and they'll probably always be a hindrance and there'll be days where they'll really, really bug me, but it it makes a bit more sense.

Speaker 3 35:32

I guess has it changed um how people around you perceive you?

Medication Experience and Marriage with ADHD

Speaker 1 35:35

I don't think so, but I think we're pack animals right, you'd be like so many people you know what? Was hilarious is that after I got diagnosed, my husband started going hmm, that all sounds a bit familiar. And then he got a diagnosis. It's like oh see, I knew I liked you, you're one, you're one of us like I think you know lots of my friends, loads of people in my industry.

Speaker 2 36:00

You realize that there's there's a lot of us about how does it work being married to someone else, because I always see my husband as the end of my woo-woo yeah, we did the same yeah we opted for simplicity.

Speaker 3 36:13

Well, yeah, I mean not simple we found people.

Speaker 2 36:22

I think that balanced us out. It sounds like you've got. I mean, are you similar? Do you struggle with the same things or does it present differently in the pair of you?

Speaker 1 36:30

There's definitely more. I think we're, first and foremost, he's like my best mate and I think I had a practice marriage and that did not go well. So second time, second time around, like I know that he's my guy and he's the right person for me, and so there's things that were very similar on, there's things that were quite different on, but for the most part I think he is quite similar to me in the sense that he'd already worked out a lot of his coping mechanisms. He's very organized with certain things, like I mean it it's quite hilarious to me how organized he is at times, like when we started going out and my son was five and very quickly rich, my husband would be the one that arthur would go to if he needed a tissue or a plaster or a wet wipe or whatever it was, because he would always have the things like he's, he's kept and organized whereas I'm the chaos merchant.

Speaker 1 37:29

So we complement each other in that way, in the sense that we've both kind of worked out our coping mechanisms differently. So he'll be the one who will be really organized on certain things and there's other things that he's a bit more chaotic with. I'm more chaotic on most things.

Speaker 2 37:46

OK, so you're also like, but I can kind of pick up his slack.

Speaker 1 37:48

So between the two of us we work it out. But I think it's he always felt very safe to me and I think that's a big part of why, because I think he gets how my brain works and I get how his brain works. Yeah, and that made sense before either of us had a diagnosis, but it makes a lot more sense now, knowing that we're both actively like, do have very similar working brains.

Speaker 3 38:14

Yeah, so cute it is like the safety is like so important, whether it's, like you know, for a child or for a partner or for a friend, and like, god bless my simple husband, the one thing that he's done, she's sticking with it he has just doubled down on the research and you know he he's reading another book now just to like understand, because both me and my son have pretty wild, pretty wild, uh, adhd and that conflict and not backing down, like you can almost see, like you're in the background, just like not knowing between me and harvey like where to where to jump in, like do I let them go.

Speaker 1 38:51

So that has definitely helped the safety side of it what I found wild, though, was that, despite having ADHD, rich doesn't have the monologue, which I didn't even realize until quite recently, that some people don't like. I thought everybody had that, like the constant sort of inside your head narrator, but apparently not my husband, actually said to me last night.

Speaker 2 39:18

You know I couldn't sleep and he was like tell those voices in your head to shut up and it's like, it's not like I have people talking. But yeah, there's, there's noise for sure. Yeah, and then you start telling the story in your head and connecting all the dots internally and then you continue the conversation with the person with zero context and they're like I'm not, we're not having the same conversation.

Speaker 2 39:39

That happens yeah so we're asking all of our guests so um, for sort of your top three life hacks resources, what's something useful that you'd like to give back to the ADHD community that you think maybe has helped you or will help someone else?

Speaker 1 39:55

uh, mine are really boring. It is just like it's trying to be as healthy as you can exercise getting outside. I really need to be much, much better at putting my phone down. I'm really bad at that. I would love for someone to give me the secret to that, but by and large it's trying to sort of just live quite healthily has been the big change for me. Speak up, I guess, and realize that it's not a flaw. I don't know really. I'm trying to think what else Lego anything, anything little with like that keeps your hands busy.

Speaker 1 40:37

I find that if it keeps my hands busy and they're not on my phone, it helps keep my mind quiet. So anything that kind of occupies my hands. You sent me a fidget toy when I first got diagnosed and that really helped me as well. Anything that kind of keeps your hands busy.

Speaker 2 40:54

It helps me focus on the TV, which sounds like a crazy thing to say, but it's very hard to sit and watch TV without doing something with your hands busy. It helps me focus on the tv, which sounds like a crazy thing to say, but it's very hard to sit and watch tv without doing something with your hands, which is why you end up with two screens or yeah, yeah, rubik's cubes, anything like that, fidget toys, anything that keeps your hands busy, keeps you off your phone.

Speaker 1 41:09

It's good, because the phone is the phone will do the devil's work with my brain very quickly, very, very quickly.

Speaker 2 41:16

Anarchy, great well, thank you so much. It's been an amazing conversation, found out so much more layers and depth to you and I'm dying to meet your husband now. He sounds like an absolute gem. Yeah, he's ease and console your husband for that.

Life Hacks and Closing Thoughts

Speaker 3 41:31

You called him simple twice and no, you love him dearly, I do. God bless him. So, yeah, thank you so much for joining us. We will be back with an episode very shortly and continuing this crazy, chaotic conversation. Let's see where it goes and that's a wrap. Thanks for hanging out with us today. Before you dive back into the chaos, we've got a five minute relaxing end all soundscape to help you reset, unwind or just stare into space guilt-free. If you loved this episode, it would mean the absolute world to us and also ease our rejection sensitivity. If you hit subscribe, share it with a Fast Brain friend or, if you loved it, leave us a quick review, take a breath, stay wild and enjoy no-transcript.