This is a Global Player Original Podcast. Well, nice to see you. It's lovely to be in a quiet space where we can have a proper chat and we've turned the music right down. Well, to have a conversation that we've had hundreds of times has suddenly been a podcast.
Yeah. Do you remember that night in the studio where we both first talked about it to each other? Yeah. I remember coming in to see you at work and you've been on there for a while and I told you this thing about me that I was sharing with quite a few of my close friends that I had just been diagnosed with ADHD.
I was relieved and actually, if I'm honest, quite overjoyed by the diagnosis and I told you and you looked like a bomb had dropped because you had it too. Well, it was incredible to someone I've known for nearly 20 years to say that they had just found out they had ADHD when the same thing had just happened to me and to have, I think, it's fair to say, such a different reaction. I mean, it isn't something that I felt was a positive. I don't think I feel that way now, to be honest.
And I think part of the reason we wanted to do this podcast is to explore what people's experiences are of ADHD, what it means to have ADHD and how we manage it going forward. What was your experience of diagnosis? I think for me, I suppose I ticked all the boxes as a child of someone with ADHD. All the sort of stuff that you might think of stereotypically about a hyper boy, I was one of those and I would get myself in trouble and I'd shout out and do all the things that lots of boys do.
I think the thing that made me realise as I got older that there was something wrong is the physical impact it had on me. In this prison, I'd get to the weekend and suddenly I'd have my skin with itch and my hair would sort of stab at me and I used to spend all Saturday morning just sort of pulling at myself and trying to get myself comfortable because my body was basically just completely overwhelmed and offline. And this went on for years and years and years, went on into adulthood, to be honest. I remember when we first met, many moons ago, too many moons, 20 years, more than 20 years ago.
20 years ago, I remember that you used to sit around that news desk upstairs in the global newsroom and I remember you kind of clawing away at things that you're there and dealing with it. It was a stressful newsroom anyway. It was, but the way I used to deal with the stress, I'd sing out, I'd shout out, I'd hit the desk, it was always inanimate objects you'd be hitting, but it was just relieving stress. And in some senses, you think, exactly, it's a stressful environment, this is normal, but I think really the turning point for me was when I got married because suddenly somebody else saw this behaviour, a lot of which, although these are obvious signs for everybody, a lot of it actually I kept to myself, and suddenly when I got married, somebody else saw it.
So what would happen for me, I thought about crashes when I was younger, into my adult life, the same thing would happen. I would go and go and go all week, I'd get really stressed, get really uptight, I'd have explosions, I'd get to a weekend and I'd completely crash and I would have to shut myself away for a couple of days. I wouldn't be able to function, essentially. And I used to drink heavily, I used to swear a lot, there were issues with self-harm, which I'm sure I would get onto at some point, and it's all about relieving stress, and keeping a lot of that to myself.
Because you learn as you get older that some of this behaviour, when you're really hyper, when you're really off the wall, when you're quite angry, doesn't go down very well with other people. So you learn to manage some of this by keeping it to yourself. When I got married, my wife said to me gently, look, honestly, this isn't how everybody else necessarily goes, and there might be something going on here. I had therapy for quite a long time, and that was really helpful, then we had two children, and again, taking yourself away, giving yourself some time to yourself, finding space to deal with the stress, suddenly no longer becomes possible, because you've got two small children.
And the outbursts, the emotional breakdowns, I mean, that was really the biggest thing for me, it was essentially what we call emotional dysregulation, but for me it was just breakdowns, it was being unable to function. I remember once my wife and I were going out for the day, and I realised it was 10 o'clock, and in my head I decided that was too late to go out, we couldn't go out, because if we went out now, we wouldn't have time to all things we wanted to do, because we left too late, and I got really upset, and crashed, and just wasn't able to speak, wasn't able to function, wasn't able to communicate, because I just got so down. And these emotional ups and downs became more and more extreme, and when we had two children, suddenly the pressure just became too much for me. It's a lot for anybody, but if you're somebody who is struggling with that world anyway, it's impossible.
And I think you say to yourself, I think there's probably lots of people who've got similar experiences with ADHD, where you say, this is what everybody does, this is normal, this is pressure, and if you talk to other people about it, they will say, well, you know, it's pressurised, having a family, having children is. But this counsellor was brilliant, said to me very gently, look, we are working on this stuff with you, and you are starting to explore it, and we're sort of releasing some of the pressure, but then it's all building up again. And she'd been reading, and she said gently to me, why don't you explore ADHD, it might be something to think about. And I'd always looked at it before, because there came a point where I sort of thought there is something that's not right here, and I started to look at different options, and maybe, you know, is there something going on?
Because I couldn't, I didn't want this behaviour, I wasn't doing this because I wanted to throw things, or shout, or have an emotional crash, or something, I couldn't talk for two days. I didn't want this, and I tried everything I could to stop it, and I couldn't. You were masking. The thing I find so interesting about your story, is that what I remember about you, when you first arrived as a young guy in that newsroom, was how lovely you were, and how much fun you were to be around.
You were funny, you were energetic, you would turn quite a dark situation into a funny one. You made me laugh in what was sometimes a very stressful place. Maybe that's because we both got ADHD. Well, I do now think that's exactly what I was talking to, because you were dealing with stressful situations in possibly the same way that I would deal with them, which is often to turn it into a humorous quip, or make myself laugh about it, and actually not face it, or really interrogate what's going on here.
But that's what I remember about you. I remember you just being a very open person. You would speak your mind, you would say what you think, and clearly, you were really dealing with something very, very stressful, and then going home and spending your weekend falling apart. But the thing about that is, sometimes that can be really fun, when you're really, I'm not falling apart a bit, but sometimes when you're really hyper, you're really serious.
But then my view of that is, if it's who you are, I have been too much of a people so often in my life, I think especially as a girl, and then a woman with ADHD, there are so many of us who are too much. You know, how are girls supposed to sit? Sure. What are they supposed to...
I was often told as a child by my father, girls should be seen and not heard. You know, he was born in 1929, a very old-fashioned father, a wonderful dad, but that was his view of how girls should be. I have never been able to sit there and be seen and not heard. And I think about the classrooms, I'm so sorry, Mrs.
Fernandes, to the mass teacher who tried to get me to shut up at the back of the class, and poor Abby, who was sitting next to me. You know, I'm sorry, Mr. Hammond, whose lessons I absolutely wrecked. You shouldn't be sorry, because you were a child.
I was thrown out of an orchestra at 11. I'm a class at home presenter, thrown out of a school orchestra at 11. Very sorry. For talking, because I couldn't, I could not sit still and be quiet.
And I was often told, you're just too much. And I had to learn over time that there were, over many, many years, I mean, I'm a middle-aged woman now, and I now know there are some people who like the energy that I bring, there are some people who find it really off-putting. And I have to keep out of those people's way, because I am never, ever, ever going to be the person that they want me to be. I think the struggle for me, though, was that I couldn't really control when that energy was going to come, and it would come on and off like a tap.
And this is what I mean about the crashes. So I can remember, looking forward to going out on a Friday night in my 20s, thinking, right, big weekend, here we go, we're going to have a really good time tonight, getting to the front door, and it was like a switch went off in my head. And my emotions are just completely flat-lined. And people talk about emotional dysregulation, but it's, you know, we'll talk more about this as we learn more about it as we go on, but they talk about executive functions.
And it was like my brain had gone, nope, we're not going out, I can't remember my name, I can't remember how to put one foot in front of the other. But the idea of now going and standing in a group of people and having a conversation has gone. And it was like there was a door in my head that had this sort of ability to think quickly and be fun and communicate with people and live life. And sometimes it was open and sometimes it was shut.
And I didn't really have the key. And I couldn't open it. I couldn't decide when that was going to come. And it may be that just as I wanted it to come, just as I wanted it to be able to socialise, it wouldn't let that door shut.
You know, that causes lots of other things like depression and sadness. And it's hard for families as well. You know, there are all those issues out there, how it impacts on those people around you and how much they're able to understand why you're coping with what you're coping with in that particular way or why you're responding in that way. And I hope that certain types of people find it easier to cope with others.
I mean, I'm sure you and I have ended up with the people we ended up with. Because to a certain extent, they're attracted to the energy that we have. And sometimes you say it is too much. I know that I'm too much for Robert sometimes.
And it's important that we spend time apart during the day, actually, for both of us. But these are all coping mechanisms, aren't they? These are all learning mechanisms. And for me, in my journey...
So how did you find out? Well, so my journey was much more traditional. My journey is how so many people are finding out right now, in that I had a family member diagnosed and I sat in on some of those consultations. And in fact, my husband and I both sat in on those consultations.
And during the course of those meetings, there were moments where questions would be asked about, do you do this? Do you do that? Clearly, questions related to, if you do, that's because you've got ADHD. And Robert would just turn to me and go, oh my God, that's literally you.
I had a suspicion for a couple of years. I hadn't really interrogated it because my life was fine, as far as I was concerned. I was coping. Yes, the house is a mess.
Yes, my ability to do admin is terrible. Yes, I was, you know, there were elements of my life that were, I suppose, some people would say they were falling apart. I was fine with it. But as soon as the diagnosis came through for him, and I saw how much, A, he was helped by the diagnosis, but also subsequently by the treatment, that's a big moment for me.
Because actually, I thought, do you know what? I want to just have a look at that and see if that helps me. Did you have a sense that there was something? Oh, yeah.
So it wasn't sort of, oh, that could be me. It was, hang on a minute, this might be the answer to something that I knew was a problem before. Yeah. So I did a social science degree, and part of it was psychology.
And I remember one of the very first lectures that I went to, the lecturer was saying, right at the beginning, there's a reason why you're here. All of you have something about yourself that you're trying to explain. There are addiction issues and depression in my family. And I put it down to that.
It's only now, actually, that I realise it wasn't any of those things I was trying to explain, because those things are symptoms of AHD. And I realise that it runs all the way through our family. And I think probably my grandfather had it. I think my mum's got it.
And I have it. I've got a kid who's got it. I think my brother has it. You know, the list goes on and on and on.
And we've all found different ways of dealing with it. You and I talked about how we handle these difficulties with what AHD is. I mean, ultimately, what is AHD? I would say, for me, it's an issue with concentration, because my short-term memory is shot to pieces.
So I find it really, really difficult to sit still for very long, because I can't hold that every motion in my head. And that affects my ability to complete a task, but also just to sit in a room and concentrate on the thing I'm supposed to concentrate on. We have all found different ways to mitigate that. I know that you have become super, super organised, haven't you?
Yeah, and that's one of the... I mean, really, my ADHD, I would say, the thing for me has always been boredom. It's been a sense that I just need some sort of mass excitement. And obviously, you know, at some point in your life, you kind of put a lid on that, because you go, well, I need to get on with life.
I need to manage life. And I think what I learned to do was to be really organised and manage myself almost to the point of squeezing myself, which is where I think some of these explosions came from. So I'm hyper-organised. I have a sort of running list in my head all the time, which is actually really exhausting.
Again, which then causes mental exhaustion as well. And all of these things, you think to yourself, well, this is what everybody does. And to some extent, all of these things are things that people do. It's when they become really extreme and start to actually impact your life.
And I think that is what I learned when I had two children. And, you know, we talked earlier about, this is me, yeah, and I'm not ashamed of that. But at the same time, you spend so long managing yourself when you're in a relationship with somebody else, or you have children, or you just have friendships. There is a certain amount of having to say, I need to manage myself in a different way to suit them.
You want to make sure that you have a connection with other people. And by doing that, you need to sometimes, I don't want to say keep a lid. Well, in the past, it would have been keep a lid. Now, it's finding effective ways to manage my ADHD so that I can have good relationships.
But that is still a massive ongoing journey for me. I'm not in a place where I've got that solved. One of the things I really noticed when I had kids was that other mum friends found it so much easier than I did. And I remember, I remember I'd gone round to a mate's house.
We had kids sort of within eight or nine months of each other. And she's an old friend. We were at uni together. And so, you know, we know each other very, very well.
And I remember sitting at her kitchen table while she was making a coffee and being in awe of her. While she did all of these different things, made a coffee, did some washing up, swept up something off the kitchen floor, tidied up the kitchen, prepared a little meal for her baby, did all of these things whilst also having a conversation with me. And I remember sitting at the kitchen table thinking, I can't do that. I have to lock on to one task, do it, lock on to another task.
And it was a moment of, oh, how interesting. Look, how do people do things differently? But what I was very jealous of was the fact that hers definitely made her a better mum. There's no question.
Because she could do those things simultaneously. In your head, did you not think that? Because that is, I mean, this with a great respect, that's a ridiculous thing to think. You can't grade yourself as a parent.
I know people do. Did you not have enough self-awareness to go, do you know, I'm doing all right? Or did you just not feel you were? Well, you know, this, again, people talk about the amount of criticism that an ADHD child enjoys during school and at home because you're constantly letting people down on you.
You're constantly failing. And I think I have definitely over the years asked myself a lot of times, am I good enough? Because so often I wasn't. And so often I'm not.
And so often I do fail. And I do see women around me being brilliant at buying their own clothing or, you know, getting their head done or remembering to have their nails done and all these things. I've got here today with an enormous amount of effort in an iron top and my nails are done. I've got to put my makeup on.
All these things. And this morning the question was, do I blow dry my hair? And I thought, do you know what? I don't usually because I don't have time and I forget to.
That's not who I am. And I'm going to show up here and literally be who I am every single day, which is a slightly shabby middle-aged woman who isn't terribly good at being a girl. I mean, that's the thing I've always found terribly interesting. Being a girl is very complicated.
It involves a hell of a lot of grooming and remembering to do things and, you know, being how you do your makeup and all these different things. And I do remember going through my teens. Going shopping together. Oh my God, going shopping.
I remember going through my teens thinking, I don't want to do any of those things that lots of my other girlfriends want to do. What is it about me that makes me different? And I would meet them for a cup of tea after they've all gone shopping. So I didn't have to endure that really boring, let's all go to the dressing room and all try all this thing together.
Why? That is so dull. It's so dull. Even as we talk about this, because I was late today and I was really stressed and all the ADHD stuff came out.
I could feel my trousers falling down and my shirt digging into myself and my hair. I was like frantically flicking it because I was late and all that stress was coming out. But even as we talk about this, I think that these are stories that people without ADHD could say, well, that's me too. And I still have that sense of going, is this real?
Have I actually got it? And then things happen, like when we were preparing for the series where I sat in a room for two days looking at a laptop and did absolutely nothing. Literally could not make my head work. And I think, oh no, no, I think I actually have.
And despite all the things we say, you know, you and I have talked about this before, you're quite pleased that you've got ADHD, aren't you? Or is that the right way it's supposed to be? Well, I wouldn't sound pleased to have it. I was thrilled to get the diagnosis because it has explained so much about my experiences, the kinds of schools that I went to, the kinds of school experiences I had, you know, why I only lasted at one particular all-girl school for one year.
That is now explained to me. What I do feel is that it is absolutely the reason why I do the job that I do. The reason I sit in front of my microphone and go, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, is because... I love it and every single every single week the idea that I get to look at this music and find out stories about this music and listen to it and discover something new about it there's a triangle in it I talk about that that I love that and it's gone and I've moved on and I discovered radio as a student I remember the moment I lifted the trader in that studio to the 12 listeners broadcast I remember this buzzy feeling of there might actually be something I can do for a living because up until that moment I couldn't tell you what it was I knew I couldn't be a teacher like my mum I couldn't imagine sitting down and marking books that would have driven me mad or planning lessons so for me it was definitely that sense of oh my god I love my job I love my job look at you and I just get to sit here and chat and that's a privilege to be able to do that it's a privilege to play music to listen to it to find out stories about it to talk about it it's a privilege that someone even thinks about turning you on in their kitchen in the middle of the night and so for me I feel relieved that that little strangeness about me is the reason why I get to do this and if that's the pact that I have to make with the devil I'm happy to make it really?
because we've used the word before people use it all the time you do think it's a superpower I absolutely believe it's a superpower come on Sam you know that you and I have an ability to see what's coming down the pipeline long before he does and in the early days we used to fight about it because he'd go no that's not true no that's not true and then it would come to pass and he'd say oh okay yeah alright you see things differently and that's ADHD that ability to spot trouble spot trouble I hate the idea that it's a superpower I hate people telling me it's a superpower I just think do you know what it just annoys me so much do you know what yeah great there's a relief involved of being told I've got ADHD because it explains things but I would I'd turn it off tomorrow honestly I just want to know more about it I still don't really understand what ADHD is despite being diagnosed two years ago same and whenever I kind of head online to try and find out more about it there is so much information and my ADHD brain cannot take it in there's too much information out there too much noise and I would just like someone to explain it to me in simple terms and I think you know the point of this podcast the reason we want to do it I think is to explore those questions is to work out what it is what it means and how you can manage it yeah tips I've really listened to tips on how to do better and all those aspects of my life that I know that I'm failing at apparently there are lots of them we're going to speak to some experts we're going to speak to some people who've got experience with all those things and next time we're going to speak to Dr. Tony Lloyd head of the ADHD Foundation and we'll ask him what is ADHD that's everything from us for today you can listen to You're Wrong About ADHD for free on Global Player download it from the app store or go to globalplayer.com see you next time