Episode 11: Newly Diagnosed with ADHD: Relief, Grief, Self-Understanding, and What Comes Next

In this solo episode of ADHD Wise Podcast, Jannine explores what it can feel like to be newly diagnosed ADHD or another neurodivergent profile might explain parts of your life.

Diagnosis can bring relief, but it can also bring grief: grief for what might have been different if you had known sooner, anger about what was missed, and doubt about whether the diagnosis is really “true”. Jannine gently explains why this emotional process is normal, and why you are not newly neurodivergent. You are newly understanding yourself.

She also shares her own journey of recognising ADHD through her daughter, whose ADHD diagnosis was added to an existing autism diagnosis at 19. At first, Jannine struggled to accept it, but later realised she had been wrong.

This episode explores why shame is not a support strategy, why acceptance and commitment matter, how masking can be protective, and why unmasking needs safety. Jannine also talks about time blindness, the ebb and wave of ADHD energy, reasonable adjustments at work, rejection sensitivity, and the importance of finding people who understand.

If you are newly diagnosed, waiting for assessment, recognising yourself through your child, or supporting someone you love, this episode is designed to be a steady place to start.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to ADHD Wise Podcast. I'm Janine Perryman, and this is a space for open conversations about ADHD and neurodiversity, bringing together lived experience, professional insights, and the questions that help us move forward. Wherever you are in your journey, you are welcome here. Hello everyone, and welcome to this week's edition of ADHD Wise Podcast. My name is Janine, and today I want to talk to you about being newly diagnosed. Now we are going to focus mostly on ADHD, but the other neurotypes are also relevant to this mix because the process in terms of coming to terms with your diagnosis is very much the same. I know this because I'm also diagnosed with dyslexia and identified as autistic, although not actually formally diagnosed autistic. I'll come on to that a bit later. And also diagnosed with CPTSD, and again, that created a level of understanding, a level of grief, a level of all sorts of other stuff. But what a diagnosis actually does for you is gives you a chance to take a deep breath and recognise that basically what you did was you took the evidence to somebody, they pulled it apart, they put it together again, and they said, Yes, this is what's going on for you. Now that gives you an awful lot of clarity. It feels really good. It feels like a deep breath. But that isn't where it stays necessarily. There is a phase of grief that everybody that I have spoken to about a diagnosis relating to neurodiversity has expressed. So the the grief for what coulda, woulda, should have been if people had realized sooner. The recognizing, oh, if I'd have known sooner, maybe this wouldn't have happened, or if if they had realized, maybe they wouldn't have done this. And that's all really, really valid. I just want to say to you that even if you were diagnosed today, a couple of weeks ago, a couple of months ago, even a couple of years ago, it's really difficult, and you will still doubt your diagnosis for a long time. Now I've been diagnosed ADHD for 12 years, and the occasions where I question it now are definitely less and less and less. But then I have made a job out of it, I've made a career out of it. I used to be a special needs teacher, and now I work as a send specialist, teacher consultant, and also as a neurodiversity coach and trainer and speaker, etc. So I know a lot about this field and not just about neurodiversity and the neurodivergent types, but also about co-occurring otherness, etc. So if you ever want to have a conversation with me, then that would be great. My team as well are also really, really knowledgeable. So, what I want to talk to you about is that do expect there to be a period of grief for what could should have been if you'd have known sooner. And don't try to rush that phase because it's real, and you're allowed to feel angry, you're allowed to feel sad, and you're allowed to feel like relieved, and everything else, your feelings are valid. How you feel about the situation as was and as is now is absolutely valid. There does need to be a shift into the future and what now, and we will talk about that too here today. But I just want to say if you are feeling that it's valid, and you will go through it for a couple of years, most likely, in loops, like you would a grief cycle. So expect a grief cycle of resisting it, of accepting it, feeling happy about it, feeling sad about it, doubting it, feeling angry. All of those things are going to be part of it. It's a grief cycle, okay? Just so just recognize that right from the beginning. But I just want to say to you, you are not neuro, you're not newly neurodivergent. You are not newly neurodivergent, you are newly diagnosed as neurodivergent. So you've just had your neurotype validated, you've just taken the evidence to a professional who knows what they're doing, they've pulled it apart, they've put it back together again, and they have said yes, there is enough evidence that this person meets the criteria for this condition. It doesn't explain all of you though, because you are you, and your neurotype is very, very specific to you. Now, we do quite a lot of work helping people to understand their broader profile in terms of recognising that if you've got if you are ADHD but you've got traits of autism, traits of dyslexia, traits of dyscalculia, traits of ticks and tourette, etc., this is going to change your presentation, as is your life experience. Okay, so if you've had a lot of adversity in your life, it is going to change your presentation. Lots of people come to a diagnosis via their children. So they notice it in their children, in their nieces, in their nephews, in their family dynamics somewhere, and they're going, ha, okay, this is me as well. So that's quite common. There's also the the people who have come to it because they've had some sort of therapy or coaching, and their therapist or their coach or somebody similar has said, I wonder if it might be this. And that's another way that people kind of come to it. And another way is just that you were feeling lost and bewildered, and one day you came across something on social media that felt like it resonated, felt like it felt like you, and you felt seen, and you've therefore you've kind of gone on a journey exploring it from that point of view. Now, all of those things are really valid. I do want to point out to you the stuff on social media. The research suggests that it's actually just slightly more in favour of misinformation than accurate, well-researched, grounded information. So I'm really glad that you're here because we do a blend here of the lived experience, but based in what is what is researched. Okay, so I'm not going to say to you that we've researched the sort of like the process, but I can tell you, having spoken to hundreds, probably thousands of people, that the process of coming to terms of a diagnosis includes grief. You don't need to do loads of research in order to know that because everybody will tell you that they went through a phase of grief in terms of coming to accept that, all right? But where where possible, I'm leaning into research. So just remembering that what you see on social media, just because somebody says it doesn't mean that it's true. And actually, it slightly leans towards the fact it probably isn't quite true. But if it resonates with you, take it as useful, but just recognise okay, that's what this says. Who can I check that with? Alright, so we get people coming and checking. Is this right all the time to us on social media? Is this I saw this, is this right? And I'm like, I'll I'll tell you whether it's right or not, to what extent it's right, because usually there's there's some truth to it. And if it's useful, then it's useful, and that's great. But if it's lift left, you feeling discombobulated, do feel like you can send us a message on any of the social media platforms, and as soon as we see it, we will respond to you with a yes, it's right, or no, it's not right, actually, it's this or it's that, or have a look at this resource, etc. So, whatever happens, if you see something and you're not sure, tag us in it and ask us if it's right or not, or forward it to us, and we will do that for you on any of the social media platforms because you deserve to have quality information, and there's a lot of misinformation out there, more misinformation in the social media domain than there is accurate, it's about 46% of it is accurate, and so 54% of it is inaccurate, which is a bit wow, isn't it? When you stop and think about that. So just keep that in mind, all right. Okay, so when I was I came to this journey when my daughter had ADHD and added to her autism diagnosis, so she was diagnosed autistic or asperges, as it was called back then when she was eight, and then when she was 19 and I was struggling with this teenager, they added ADHD to her diagnosis, and I was angry, really angry when they even suggested it. Because although I was an autism researcher or an autism practitioner, I was working one-to-one with children with additional needs, particularly related to autism, I didn't really believe in ADHD. And I was wrong. And my daughter is the one who brought me round to recognizing that. I talk about that more in episode one, so I'm not going to labour that point. But I'm just going to say that if you're in a situation where family or even you have struggled to come to terms with it, it's okay. It's really difficult. Point them in the direction of episode one if you need to. But it's just that whole thing of it's difficult to challenge your assumptions because mine was so deeply embedded in what I believed about myself, what I believed about my family, and it takes a real shift, and it's usually love that wakes people up. And it doesn't mean that they don't love you if they're struggling to make the shift, but you might have to keep taking information to them until they can make that shift. Okay, so just recognising that it can be very difficult for people to make that shift. I know because I I found it difficult to make that shift, and now this is my job. And on the back of my daughter being diagnosed, my son was then diagnosed, then I was diagnosed, and eventually my daughter was my other daughter was diagnosed, and she's been on the podcast as well. So there's part of her parts of her story that you can listen to there as well. Okay, so recognising that family and you can struggle to come to terms with this. So when you're going through that grief cycle and you go into denial, remember that is part of the process and it's okay. It's okay for you to challenge it and think, oh, this isn't me, this isn't me. And I know people who have gone back and had their ADHD diagnosis overturned because oh no, trauma, trauma extra explains it more, and it's like, well, okay, if if trauma explains it more, you wouldn't have got a diagnosis in the first place because a decent clinician, and to be honest, if you're diagnosing, you are a decent clinician, would already have considered to what extent adversity in your childhood had been was a contributing factor, it's past the diagnostic criteria that they have to look at what else is going on in that mix. So, shame. You cannot shame yourself into being somebody different to who you are, and shame is something that we have experienced an awful lot of. Now, there is a quote that goes around about the 20,000 additional negative messages received by the age of 10 or 12, depending on who you're listening to. I just want to say, in terms of how we re how well-researched that is, it's an extrapolated number based on somebody who was working with individuals with ADHD and was calibrating how many negative messages they'd received over a period of time, and then ex extrapolated that into a number. So I wouldn't say it's a well-researched number, but it's a really, really well-researched and well perceived, well-received way of understanding that if you are neurodivergent of any kind, but ADHD in particular, because it comes with some traits that society doesn't like, is more you are more likely to be on the receiving end of negative messages. So whatever number that happens to be. So even if we went with the 20,000 additional negative messages, that is an extra 4.56 times per day if we're saying to the age of 12 that a child has received from zero to 12. But the reality is your zero-year-olds aren't getting it, but your 10, 11 year olds are getting an absolute barrage of it. And if that was you, then that will have impacted your life. And negative messages don't have to be all of the sit down, shut up, you're annoying, etc., but that you would have received. It can be your eye rolls, you just knowing that you're irritating people, that your energy is irritating people, that your inattention, the fact that you miss something, your time blindness is annoying and frustrating and inconvenient to people. These are all negative messages and they take their toll. Okay, and you cannot shame yourself into being anybody other than who you are. And I'm not saying that you just say, Oh, I'm ADHD and therefore that's it. I'm done. I can't, I can't do anything else, I'm stuck. No, you're not. No, you're not. You do need to learn about your ADHD. You really do need to learn about your ADHD. You need to know how it's impacting you, not just your ADHD, but what else is going on for you in terms of your neurotype? What is your presentation? Find yourself a coach if you possibly can. If not, self-coaching is a thing that we're we're developing research resources on because actually it's really important that people do know who they are. Because if I'm saying to you, the first thing you need to do is accept who you are, you need to know who you are, you need to do that exploration and that diagnosis is a big part of the way there, a huge part of the way there. But then knowing else what's going on for you, building up that picture of who you are, that's part of the acceptance, and then you move into commitment. And the commitment for me, for example, time blindness. I talk about that an awful lot. There's one whole episode assigned to time blindness because for me it is one of the most disabling factors of ADHD, and for the most part, I don't consider myself to be disabled. I do recognise that the fact that I am not well anchored in time, I do know do not know what time it is, I do not know what date it is, I don't even necessarily always even know what season it is, I get very lost and what year and what decade sometimes I get very lost in the in that I am not well anchored in time. Now, if that's you, this is part of your time blindness, and if you are time blind, do go and listen to that episode. You will always be time blind, and you're going to need to learn the workaround in order to be able to manage that time blindness because clearly you still need to function in this world, and you have a right to thrive, you have an absolute right to thrive, okay? So acceptance goes a long way, and then moving into commitment, it's like, okay, I find this difficult. What am I going to do about it? That's your commitment phase, okay? So you don't have to just sort of take it on the chin, that's part of it. And now I want to talk to you about masking. Because lots of people, when they get their diagnosis, they say, I want to tell the world, I want to go and talk about it from the rooftops. And I've done that, and I know lots of people who've done that, and some people who've come across doing it, and some people who've had great success doing it. It can go either way. What I would say to you is you've got to know who you are underneath your mask before you unmask. Because why did you mask in the first place? What was it that made you mask in the first place? When was it that you suddenly realised I am not acceptable as I am, I don't belong here, and therefore I'm going to switch into fitting in. Because Brene Brown will who I'd absolutely recommend you have a listen to. Not that she talks about neurodiversity, but she does talk about vulnerability and she does talk about the power of vulnerability, but also sort of learning what to share and what not to share. So very if you listen to her, even though she doesn't mention neurodiversity, I'm gonna say her perspective is very, very, very what I would say I experience and what my clients experience. So I would definitely rec recommend listening to The Power of Vulnerability by Brenny Brown. She talks about fitting in being the opposite of belonging, because when you truly belong, you don't have to mask, you don't have to think about how am I going to behave in order to be socially acceptable to this group of people. They're two different things. If you are working on fitting in, you don't naturally feel like you belong, and you deserve to feel like you naturally belong. Psychological safety, though, a lack of it, is why you started to mask in the first place. And it would have come in phases and waves, there will have been identifiable points and also lots of cumulative little bits and pieces that you won't remember. Things that made you feel like I am not acceptable as I am, and therefore I need to work harder at being acceptable. So, psychological safety was the reason you masked in the first place. Are you psychologically safe to unmask? And the answer will be with some people yes, and with some people no. Most people I know who've gone through the unmasking process have just kind of thrown it off and just been present in their home, in their workplace, in their social domain, on social media, and then there is this mess that just kind of suddenly comes out of nowhere and everybody's taken back, and nobody is prepared for this, and the individual themselves then feels really exposed and has an awful lot of work to do. I would highly recommend that you if you can get a coach to explore who you are underneath your mask, get therapist if that's what if that's preferable to you. If you can't, self-coaching, alright? So, what listening to these podcasts, for example, is a form of self-coaching. It's taking you on a bit of a journey, and then you only need an actual one-to-one coach for the bits and pieces where you're like, I need to work on this specific thing. Alright, but we are working on some self-coaching tools and a self-coaching package. So, as and when that's available, I will let you know. Are you raising a neurodivergent family and wondering what is going on for your child under the surface? My name is Janine Perryman. I'm a sense specialist teacher, parent to neurodivergent children, and I'm autistic ADHD and dyslexic myself. I wrote and deliver the Neurodiversity Family Toolkit, which is a six-week programme for parents and carers who want to better understand what's going on for their child and feel more confident that they might actually be able to do something to help. Across the six weeks, we'll look at ADHD, autism, emotion regulation, behaviour, school, sleep, medication, communication, and working with professionals around your child. We also think about what might be sitting underneath the behaviour, the anxiety, the overwhelm, the struggle with attendance, school exclusions, sensory distress, shame, exhaustion, or unmet need that can be easily missed. Because our children deserve to be understood and families deserve support that makes sense. The Neurodiversity Family Toolkit is about understanding your child, reducing blame, and building a toolkit that works for your family. You can find out more at adhdwise.uk. Just look for support for families on our website. Thank you. But knowing who you are underneath that mask, because otherwise, what happens is it's like the equivalent to opening up a cupboard that you've been putting things in for years. When you've got when you when you decide I'm going to clear out this cupboard, you make a mess, right? It all just comes out and it's all just on the floor and it's all everywhere, and there's some broken bits, and there are some things that you've completely forgotten about, and it's just there on the floor, and somebody else comes in and goes, What a mess! And that's what people are doing on social media, in public, in their homes, in their workplaces. And it's like, oh, please don't. Please find somebody to go through that process with a trusted person, plus yourself, because you should be your own trusted person, to understand what's going on for you, so you explore it first before you take it to the world, so that you don't make a mess, so that you're not taking people suddenly off guard, so that your spouse isn't suddenly saying, What the hell? I can't cope with this, so that your boss isn't suddenly saying, This is this is this is feeling unsafe for us in the workplace. We see that sort of stuff all the time. With there's a a podcast with Nikki Masterman, an HR podcast on on that as well. So, you know, there's this this whole thing around not making that mess on making sure that you know who you are before you unmask. And if you are an oversharer, I used to be an oversharer. I probably still am by some people's standards, but I now I have learned to share and be vulnerable within boundaries, to only talk from my scars on my bruises, it's not from my open wounds. I've also learned that some people are not safe yet for me to share my stuff with, and also that some people will never be safe for me to share my stuff with. I have learnt the hard way that you have to get people to earn the right for you to trust them and that you shouldn't just automatically trust them. So that's why I'm suggesting you listen to Breni Brown, and that's also why I suggest that sort of self-coaching andor actual coaching in order to be able to get to the point where you know who you are, you know what you like about yourself, you know what your vulnerabilities are, and that you can work out who is safe and who is not, that you know how to put down boundaries, because if you if you're not great at putting down boundaries and somebody crosses one, an invisible one that you didn't express, then and if you can't say no, you are really vulnerable. Do not start sharing to that person. You've got to work on you first. Because if you cannot say no, if you cannot put down boundaries, you need to do that work first before you start sharing with anybody, other than the people who have earned your. Trust. Alright. Some people are not safe to know your trust. And there are unfortunately times when it's in our best interest to mask. I will give you a case in point because I live pretty much in a bubble now where who I am is completely acceptable. I am liked, respected, I function reasonably well, and if I'm late for something or I'm struggling with something, I can just say I am struggling with this or I'm sorry I'm late, I lost track of time rather than having to make up little excuses. I don't generally speaking have to do that anymore. I came a cropper in family law courts when I was getting a divorce from my ex-husband. We didn't have any children in common, but just the matrimonial finances. And because I live in a bubble where neurodivergence is accepted and understood, accommodated, I forgot. And although the bench book says that you're allowed to ask for accommodations, that isn't what happened. And I ended up with CPTSD, well, PTSD from that particular experience, and I don't want that for you. I want you to recognize there are times when you have got to, in your own best interest, mask. So I recently went through a tribunal situation and I was very calm. I had stated my neurodivergent needs, but I stayed calm and I stayed masked. I stayed contained, possibly rather than masked. But that's another sort of like state, it's like, how do you go from masked to contained and then into unmasked? So those are three different sort of like processes as well. So I was very contained. I had I had dis declared and dis disclosed, but I was never ever going to let that judge see my vulnerabilities because a previous judge had absolutely behaved badly. So I was never gonna let this one, okay? So we live and we learn. So I'm wanting you to learn from that. I'm going to do a podcast with Katie Harris, who's a mediator. So one of the things that we're gonna have is a a recess on resource on relationship breakdowns and mediation and what to expect and what not to expect in those sort of situations, because because I came a cropper and I don't want you to come a cropper, because I really thought when I went into family law court that the only thing that mattered was the truth. Well, that's because I'm ADHD and I have a heightened sense of justice and fairness, but also because I'm autistic and therefore I think the only thing that really should matter is the truth. But unfortunately, that is not the real world. Alright, so just recognizing that we have to keep reality check on this stuff. There are going to be times when you have to just take a deep breath and consciously mask, if not contain. Alright, and do what society expects you to do in order for your own safety. That is very different to you doing it because it's convenient for somebody else. I am not suggesting that you inconvenience yourself, you harm yourself, you hide you for somebody else's convenience. I am saying you have the right to wear various different masks to whatever meets your needs in a particular situation. Another mask that I have come to realise that I wear that is really, really useful and comes up quite a lot in my coaching conversations, may apply to you, may not, because not everything that I'm saying to you will make sense to you, and that's okay as well. I learned through this per process of coming to know me that I have quite a lot of social anxiety, even though I'm a public speaker. And I remember I went to visit the last school that I worked in, they had an event because the head teacher was leaving. So I attended just as an attendee and I was completely lost, and I really struggled with my social anxiety, it was literally bubbling away underneath the surface. And some I said that to somebody, and they were like, What, you? Social anxiety, no way. And I was just like, Yeah, because I don't have a role here. If I was the person making coffee, if I was a speaker, if I was any kind of role in this situation, I know the social rules of this situation because they are mine. I have a role, I have a place I'm supposed to be, a thing I'm supposed to talk about, and I don't have to talk too much about me because I am there for the benefit of other people. And generally speaking, I tend to, apart from with very trusted few, prefer to be in social situations where I have a role rather than just being a participant. So that's the sort of thing I mean by really knowing who you are. It's like, oh, okay, so what now I know that it's like okay, so if I'm going as a participant, I have to kind of put myself into participant mode. I probably have to think about how I'm going to act in certain situations, which is a form of masking. But it's intentional masking, it's me playing things through, working at how I'm going to keep myself safe because psychological safety matters. So does physical safety. Knowing how you keep yourself safe is a fundamental part of this, and you learn to mask to keep yourself safe. So know your masks, use your masks in the right situation with the right people and unmask with a chosen select view and with yourself, but do that work in terms of knowing who you are and when you're gonna allow people to see you. Also, just because somebody has the same neurotype as you doesn't necessarily mean they are a trusted person. There are some really fantastic individuals in our community. There are also, I'm not gonna swear, you don't need me to. You get the point. There are some people in our community who are not trustworthy, who don't deserve to know your stuff and are not there in your best interest. They are still self-serving, even if they have the same neurotype as you. But we tend to do this thing where we think, well, I'm behaving like this, therefore they're behaving like this. My intent is this, therefore, their intent must be this. No, darling, that's not that's not how this works. That is not how this works. You have to, you have to recognise that even within our own community, there are people with a gender, there are people who are committed to misunderstanding you, and there are people who are interested in themselves first and foremost, and they're allowed to be interested in themselves first and foremost, to a point as long as it's not harming other people. If it's harming you, you've got to be able to step away from that, you've got to be able to put down boundaries in order to keep yourself away from that situation. It's important that you're able to do that. Okay, so one of the North Stars that we had in the podcast was talking with Vicky Flood, and we were talking about knowing what I need, it's about resourcing yourself, but also what do I need right now for me? And also this whole thing of recognizing that if you are ADHD, you are probably quite often riding the wave. You show your best, most capable self when you are riding the wave. Does that resonate? Can you see yourself in that? But what happens when people actually ride a wave? Do they just carry on riding that wave or do they stick back into ebb at the end of the wave and have to kind of regroup, go again when they are ready? And this looks like we are consistently inconsistent. I have learned that's not the case. It's completely predictable that when you are riding the wave, you are going to need time in the ebb afterwards. I also know employers really struggle with that concept because we see that family members really struggle with that concept. And us as individuals, because society condemns it so much, also struggle with that concept. But I just want to say to you, the ebb is part of the process. So if an employer, if a spouse, if whoever wants to benefit from who you are when you're riding that wave, your ebb has to be acceptable to them as well. And if you don't learn when to put the brakes on, they will come on anyway. You will drop into ebb either when you choose to, if you choose to early enough, or when your capacity reaches its end and then you're in burnout, and then you'll hit the ebb, and it will take you longer to to recover from the ebb. And the ebb is a good place to be, but not if you're in burnout, not if it's taken you to burnout, and then people condemn themselves for the ebb. Don't condemn yourself for the ebb. So, an all-star of this podcast episode, you could say, is don't condemn yourself for being in the ebb. The ebb is an essential part of the process. If you are paying attention to that and you're thinking, oh my gosh, yes, I absolutely hate it when I'm in ebb, okay. The longer you hate on yourself for being on the ebb, the longer you will stay on the ebb. It will take you longer to recover properly. You might manage to surface, but it will be a kind of surface rather than a real surfacing. If you can accept I am in ebb and I am actually going to spend this time regrouping before I go again and actually thinking, what can I do that are low demand tasks? What are the tickover things I can do? So, from coaching it's in a coaching way, what I would say in terms of coaching is actually when you can recognise that you're riding the wave, it's like I am riding the wave. When am I going to rest? And planning that in, it's just like I'm not going to just be able to do this forever and ever and ever. When am I going to plan the ebb? That will take you some time. You will crash many times from hearing me say this to you to you getting to the stage where you can see it coming and say it's time for me to drop into the ebb. And in the ebb, another way of looking at that from a coaching perspective is saying, in while I'm while I am in the ebb, slightly sooner than burnout phase, just before burnout phase, hopefully a lot before burnout phase, I'm going into tickover mode. I'm going to do the basics in order for everything else not to fall over. And that's all I'm going to do until I am recovered, and then I'm going to ride the next wave. And that, my friend, is thriving with ADHD. It is that whole beneficial thing of recognizing I am riding the wave and then I'm going to be in the ebb. But I'm going to tick over while I'm in the ebb so things don't fall over, and I'm going to plan my ebb. I'm going to know that I'm reaching that point. Before I reach that point, I'm going to drop back and then I'm going to do the thing. I just want to say to you, the reason I know that is not actually because of ADHD, and it's not actually because of coaching. It's because I got bitten by a tick. And I learned that I could not ride my adrenaline waves, and if I did, I would have massive health implications. So I'm not wanting that for you. I'm wanting to give you the wisdom that came from the fact that I cannot ride my adrenaline wave for too long because I will be really ill if I don't. Alright, so hopefully that's not the case for you. But if you've got a chronic health condition, if you've got an autoimmune condition, etc., you will know what I'm talking about. We have to learn, and all of us do. If you are riding the wave, you have to learn where is the point at which exhaustion is going to hit me, where I am going to be ill if I carry on and intentionally pull back, go into tickover mode so that you can go again. It's saying no to things, and that is really hard because are you a people pleaser? So many of us are people pleasers, and we don't that's a big part of this. So that whole thing of this is the part of the journey that you've got to go along. I mentioned the time blindness thing, that whole thing about not being angered in time. Do go listen to that episode if you feel that it's you because that's really, really important. Support at work and in systems, disclosure, reasonable adjustments. Nikki Masterman from Inspired HR talks about reasonable adjustments in the workplace, not being a privilege, then being an absolute need. We do, we need them, and they are it's okay to ask for them, but it's also recognizing that there is a dual responsibility. It's being able to build a relationship, hopefully, with your employer where you can get into a give and take situation where it's just like I need this, I'm communicating this, and your employer can see the benefit of that situation and hopefully go with it. Please understand employers are a mixed bag, some are really good and some are really not. I mentioned I've been in tribunal recently. Well, you know, these things happen, and you have to I in my case, I felt like I had to stand up for myself. Not everybody does. I coach lots of people who are like, I can't, Janine. And I'm like, no, that's okay as well. You don't have to fight every single fight, you have to look at the reserves that you've got available to you. But some employers do things badly, and that isn't your fault. Most of the people I have coached have had some level of workplace adversity that is still impacting them today. So therapeutically or coaching base-wise, that's probably work that you need to go through. You probably need someone to hear your story and say to you, it wasn't okay that they did that. Okay, because it often isn't okay that they did that. So if that's you, if you're experiencing workplace difficulty, recognize that there is a dual responsibility. But if you're doing your bit and they're not doing theirs, you're not alone. You are not alone. And again, give us a shout because that's not the sort of work that we that we get involved in. Knowing what's yours and what's not yours. Now there's an episode on rejection sensitivity because we are very, very sensitive to rejection, to real and perceived rejection. I talk about rejection attunement where we get really accustomed to scanning the room for the threat, scanning the people for the threat, pleasing other people because that feels like the safest thing for us to do. And that's rejection attunement. And rejection sensitivity is where we perceive the threats, we perceive the rejection before it's actually happened, even if it hasn't happened. We are attuned to it, we're sensitive to it, maybe not even oversensitive to it, because history has taught us stuff, and we are supposed to pay attention to that. So if that's you, go and listen to the rejection sensitivity episode, it's pretty good. If you joined this episode because you were thinking about your child, or or not, you joined because of you, but you're thinking about your child or your children, that's a whole journey as well. You need community, you cannot, you cannot do this all on your own. You need community, adult or parent, in an adult perspective or in a parent perspective, you need other people. So just to signpost you to those episodes. If you are a parent, I'd specifically listen to episode two and episode 10. There'll be other episodes coming up, but those are the ones at the moment, the historic ones that might be useful to you. If you're an older adult, it'd be worth listening to Sharon, who's on episode three, and we talk about menopause and things like that, and we talk about workplace adversity, etc. And also Darren in episode seven who talks about authenticity, masculinity, vulnerability, masking, and safety. If you're thinking about gender differences, we are going to do some more work on gender. But Becca talks about being a twin, the girl twin to a brother who's the stereotype of ADHD in boys, and she was a girl and what she learned from watching her siblings. Becca is my daughter, but also my colleague, by the way, and she talks about the research that she did for her psychology degree. So that's a good one to listen to for thinking about gender, but also listening to the one with Darren as well would be good for that. Episode four, if you're interested in workplace stuff, support reasonable adjustments. Episode five is the rejection sensitivity, rejection achievement, and also healthy attribution, knowing what's yours and what's not yours, because that's going to be a huge part of your journey if you are ADHD. It's not feeling like everything is yours to fix, everything is yours to sort out. It isn't. If you are time blindness, have a listen to episode number nine. That is a whole bag there of useful information. And if you have a mixed profile, so if autism, ADHD, dyslexia, self-resourcing, the ebb and the wave, that is Vicky, which is probably the most self-coachy episode in terms of all of the ones that we've done thus far. We are on episode 11, and I'm really glad that you joined us today. We have so much more to come and to bring you. But look, for you right now, I just want you to know you are not newly neurodivergent, you are newly identified. Somebody has looked at your paperwork, looked at your evidence, and said, yes, this person benefits from having a diagnosis because without one, they would carry on struggling with this, this, this, this, and this. With one, they will struggle less. And knowing why you are struggling is the first stage of struggling less. So, congratulations on your new diagnosis. Please accept that you're going to go into a grief cycle now, and that that's okay. However, you feel is absolutely okay. Mask when you need to, unmask when you can. Learn who you are underneath that mask. Learn to love yourself and who you are in the mirror. You are perfectly acceptable. But you know, one last thing I just want to say to you. Everybody on this planet is a bunch of strengths and challenges. Part of the problem here is the challenges associated with ADHD are not socially acceptable. And that's built on social constructs, not on reality. You're a perfectly valid human being with a lot to offer the world. There's that combination that's needed now around acceptance and commitment. Okay, because you have to function in the world as it is now, and you might want to change the world, and that is cool as well. Do that, not just quite yet, though, yeah? Learn you a little bit more first so that you don't come a cropper like some of the people that I haven't named, but have sort of like mentioned in terms of sort of some of the stuff that I've seen, including myself. So that whole thing of knowing yourself, accepting yourself, making commitments to your workarounds, and then go and change the world. But you have to live in this world right now, and no matter how far along you are in your journey, like I say, it I was I was 11 years in, 10-11 years into my journey when I came a cropper and ended up with PTSD on the back of absolutely having all of my vulnerabilities used against me because I turned up expecting something that wasn't going to happen. I'm told I'm idealistic, okay? I'm not really prepared to compromise on those ideals, but I do know now that I need to keep myself safe, and I hope that it's useful for me to have said that to you. The world is not suddenly safer just because you have protected characteristics by a way of piece of paper. Mask when you need to, just mask intentionally and learn who you are underneath that mask before you unmask. You are perfectly acceptable at who you as who you are. But you've got to know who you are first before you trust anybody else, or at least before you trust the wider people. You might be able to trust some people in your local in your close environment. I hope that you can. I hope that you have those people. Thank you so much for listening. It's been great to share this with you. It is episode 11, so for me, that's kind of like a bit of a line in the sand because most podcasts don't get past episode 10, and we just have. So thank you for listening. Please follow. Please go on to YouTube and subscribe. Please do the same on your podcast platforms because your support that way makes it more possible for me to make more of these episodes and to reach more people. Thank you. Speak to you soon. Thanks. Thank you for listening to ADHD Wise Podcast. ADHD Wise exists to help bridge understanding and support for people exploring ADHD and broader neurodiversity. If you would like to know more about us and our services, please visit www.adhdwise.uk. Follow adhdwiseuk on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. Take care and we'll see you next time.