This episode contains sensitive topic discussions, including suicide. If you or anyone you know has been affected by anything you hear in this episode, please contact the Samaritans on 116123. That's 116123. Or head to their website, samaritans.org.
This is a Global Player original podcast. Hello, I'm Katie Breathwick. And I'm Sam Pittis. And welcome to our podcast, You're Wrong About ADHD.
Sam and I have been friends for nearly 20 years, and a couple of years ago, we both found out we have ADHD. I think it's fair to say we feel fairly differently about it. Getting an ADHD diagnosis answers lots of questions, but it also raises new ones. Each week, we're going to be talking about everything, from our experience as being diagnosed as adults, to relationships, coping strategies, and how we manage these nice sexual brains.
So we can learn more about ADHD, and what it means to be neurodiversion. Hello, Katie, how are you? Yeah, really well, how are you? Yeah, I'm okay.
It's Mental Health Awareness Week this week, and ADHD isn't a mental health condition, but there's such a crossover between ADHD and mental health. And that is certainly true of me, and of my story. And so we're going to talk about mental health today. And it's an episode that I've really wanted to do, but I have to be honest with you, it's also one that fills me with some trepidation, because it feels a bit like an exam.
It's like there's always information in my head that I've got to recall to try and tell this story. But there's a sort of natural instinct inside of me to sort of push it away. Because the information is difficult information. I think so.
I think honestly there's been, you know, I have had quite a lot of mental health struggles, and I have processed them, and I feel all right about them, and I'm happy to share them, but there's always a natural instinct to say, I don't really want to dig that up, so I'm just going to put it to one side. It's a really interesting subject, because it's become clear over the course of making this podcast, actually, that most people present at the doctors seeking an ADHD diagnosis with a mental health condition first. That's the thing. There's a crisis point, isn't there?
And the ADHD has caused anxiety, has caused binge eating, has caused depression, you know. And that's why it's such an important thing for us to talk about, and I entirely believe the reason I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until I was 37 is because I had lots of other things going on. I had mental health conditions, I was depressed, I had suffered anxiety, I was, you know, I had traits of borderline personality disorder. There's so much stuff going on to make sense of that the traditional notion or view of ADHD didn't answer all those questions.
And yet now I look at it and see I had undiagnosed ADHD for all those years, which contributed to having mental health problems, and that's how I ended up the way I did. I mean, if I look back over my life, but certainly even just my adult life, I had these patterns of just going really fast, going at 100 miles an hour, my head racing, my body racing, my mind racing, just everything going really quickly, hyper-focusing on things, never taking a break, never sleeping properly, never stopping. But partly that was an emotional thing as well, and I rarely stopped then to re-identify how I felt about things. And I've got to a point in life, I think, where strong emotions became too much for me.
I found that because I couldn't regulate how I felt, I think as I got older, I learned to kind of avoid emotions, so whether that's disappointment, embarrassment, putting myself in a situation where I was going to be hot or sweaty or uncomfortable, any sort of discomfort that was going to, I suppose you'd use the word trigger, that was going to trigger an emotion, I would try to avoid. But that is a quite small box to live in, and what happens with that, honestly, is things outside your control make you feel disappointed or make you feel sad or uncomfortable, and you explode with anger, and that's what I did. And why, if you don't mind me asking, why do you think you did that? I mean, you know, I sound like an expert, I've had a lot of therapy, too.
Well, you want to tell you, sir, I think you're allowed to talk about yourself. Well, I think because when I was younger, I had ADHD, and I think at school, particularly, school is a particularly fertile ground for this conversation, I felt sad, I felt squashed, I felt like my brain didn't work like other people, I felt like I couldn't do what they were asking, I felt like I was always getting in trouble, I felt like I just desperately wanted to break out and break free. And you sort of get to a point in life where you say, well, I've got to push myself into this box, and I've got to be at school, and I've got to sit quietly, and I've got to just get on and do the work. And then you go on into the workplace, and I chose a job that was brilliant, and I absolutely loved, but there are still responsibilities, and you are constantly trying to sort of squeeze yourself into a shape that perhaps doesn't fit, and doesn't fit our brains.
Masking. Yeah, I think, and ultimately, you get to a point in life where you say, this slightly volatile behaviour, this hyper-behaviour, this little bit over-the-top at times from ADHD doesn't always go down well with people, so you try and put a lid on that. So I suppose what I'm saying is, I think I always had a habit of putting a lid on my behaviour, putting a lid on the ADHD, and I think at some point in life, I started putting a lid on everything. And then you had therapy, and that was hugely beneficial to you.
Do you feel now that you are better? I mean, I don't know. I don't know whether, if you've got ADHD, are you ever cured of the risk of mental health issues, do you think? I think it's always something to be mindful of.
I mean, the key point for me, I told you my first point was when I got married and had children, and someone else saw this behaviour, because when I thought about keeping a lid on it, honestly, I would get so sort of worked up emotionally and physically, and have these crashes, I mean, let's be honest, you know, as I'll point this podcast, what those crashes actually meant were, I would get so depressed, and I mean depressed, you know, I was on antidepressant, so I'd get to the point where I was so down that I just felt like the world had ended, but I couldn't get the tears out, and I desperately needed to cry, and so I would self-harm until the tears came, and that was a way of releasing the pressure and frustration inside. Now, wait, before we move on, because I'm interested in this, the self-harming, I've heard people talk about, because I'm lucky, I consider myself lucky, I've had other issues, but I've not self-harmed. When you talk about release, because I've heard that word used before, what release is it giving you when you hurt yourself? Now, very clearly, I'm not advocating this, because it's a destructive one, it's important to say, it's a coping strategy, but it's a destructive one, in the same way that drugs and alcohol are.
You can numb the pain with alcohol and drugs, but they are short-term destructive releases, and that's exactly what physical self-harm is. It's another type of the same type of coping strategy and type of harm, and essentially what you're doing is making yourself feel something, it causes a temporary release, but then when that moment passes, the build-up happens again, you get back to the place where you're really stressed, where you're really overwhelmed, and then you're looking for the release again, and it's ever-decreasing circles of incredibly miserable, and it's only when I got married and had children, and the pressure that came with that, my wife was able to say, look, what's going on here, but I was able to get therapy, and then when I finally got an ADHD diagnosis, I was able to find out what was going on underneath, and that's why I was taught about awareness. Knowing I've got ADHD, being able to do all the things we've talked about in this podcast, your exercises, breathing, having therapy, medication for you, treating that means that I'm not so often getting to the place where I'm so overwhelmed, and everything's built up. It can be as easy as saying no, you know, my ADHD diagnosis has enabled me to say no to things, which I would never say no to for, because I would say yes to everything, and of course then I would have a life that was over full, and that would bring issues with it.
Before we move on, because I do think it's such an interesting symptom of ADHD, and that kind of self-harm thing can come out in lots and lots of different ways, I think, and it's so serious, I think it's such a serious, it's a serious step to take towards something much more serious, I think, sometimes. Were you doing it because of self-punishment, or was it to feel that feeling, so that you weren't thinking about anything else? It's the feeling, it's just, you just want to get it out, and it isn't, I actually don't think it's any different to having, and I'm not just about having a final two, I'm talking about, you know, when people abuse alcohol or abuse drugs, I mean, it's a similar sort of thing, it's saying, I'm doing something to either numb the pain, or to make myself feel something so extreme that I'm exhausted, I'm physically exhausted, and what I've learned to do through things like breathing and exercise is to recognise when I've got strong feelings, recognise when there are things going on, and try and process them, rather than keeping them all shut in and letting them build up. But it sounds so simple, it's taking a lot of work, but it does really work as well.
Well, that's, you know, the benefit of therapy. What about you? I mean, I've not met anyone with ADHD that hasn't at some point. Well, that's a sweeping generalisation, but I think, you know, there are so many people who get in touch with us who clearly mental health struggles are on the side of ADHD.
So, I mean, you know, isn't it interesting, an ADHD diagnosis comes with so much, and there's the grief that follows it when you first realise that you've got it, but there's also that looking back on all the episodes of your life when things can go great, and I have begun to piece back together the times when things are very tricky. I like to think that I've partly been incredibly lucky in my relationship. I met my husband at school, and, you know, we went always together since that time, but he has been an incredibly kind and supportive partner, and I think, I think actually, you know, nowadays I realise, I think he was largely responsible for the fact that I haven't been worse than I am. But, you know, for instance, weeks before I met him, the summer holidays post-GCSEs, I went to bed for two weeks, and I remember, I remember that feeling of being, I was obviously exhausted having a bit of the last minute, and I remember that feeling of being in bed with the curtains drawn, the sun was shining outside, I knew my friends were meeting, the phone was ringing, and they were, my mum was picking up the phone and making excuses for me because I didn't want to get out and leave my bedroom.
And I now realise that that was ADHD. I now realise, I think, it is depression. I also know that postnatally, I was a mess. There's a period, you will remember, four or five days after the baby is born, when your milk comes in, when we start resting the baby.
And I look back on those two periods post-birth of both boys and realise I was close to psychosis at that moment. I was running around the house like a lunatic and shrieking and crying and, you know. And I do remember a family member, probably my mother, actually saying, oh, it's your blue day, it's the day that your milk comes in. Well, I've talked to friends, and yes, it's normal to have tears.
But of course, in my mother's case, who was also probably undiagnosed with ADHD, she had a blue day like mine, which involved shrieking and bawling and crying and running around. And that lasted for a period of a few days. And the weeks that followed the birth of my children were a bit grim, actually. And postnatal depression, probably.
But I now think, I now believe, probably exacerbated by my ADHD. Because I now know and understand the relationship between hormones in my body and the way that that interacts with the puzzle that my brain is trying to work out around my ADHD. It's one of the things that we say so much about ADHD is that there are difficulties that everybody experiences. But when you have a neurological condition and one that is undiagnosed, often those difficulties are heightened or exacerbated.
Absolutely. And I think I do want to ask about the whole suicide question, because I think, unfortunately, that is the end game, as we know for some people who are diagnosed with ADHD, or undiagnosed even more so with ADHD, because of the difficulties of just leading the life that we have, the admin, keeping on top of the paperwork, all of those things, and the guilt that then rushes in, and the anticipation of criticism for failing, all these different things. And, you know, so no ADHD comes without its problems. But does any, any individual with ADHD not come with mental health issues?
I don't think they do. So I am looking forward to having this conversation. But it's a hard one to have, and it's a hard one to think about, because I know that I've got people in my past who probably were unwell, for exactly this reason, who haven't made it. And that's very sad.
It absolutely is. And I, you know, we'll ask those questions. We're going to speak to Vicky George, a clinical nurse specialist and founder of the ADHD nurse in a moment. The one thing I would like to say, I think, I think it's important to say, not that I'm a post-a-boy for ADHD, but...
I've been to some really dark places, and I've had some really difficult times, and my family have, and there is help, there is support. There is, you know, whether it's therapy, whether it's medication, and it can be hard work to get it. And, you know, we are constantly campaigning about trying to make that more easily accessible. But there is help, and there is support.
And I don't say that in a glib way. I say that as someone who was able to get it, and was able to make a difference in his own life. So I just hope that anyone listening to this knows that there is hope and support out there. And I think, you know, let's take some of these questions to Vicky George, and we'll speak to her in a minute.
Hello, Vicky. Thanks for joining us. Hi, thanks for having me. Lots of different reasons, really.
And a lot of that stems from early childhood experiences. It's obviously really, really relevant in terms of ADHD, but also in mental health as well. It's quite often, you know, the sort of factors that would be classed as vulnerabilities to developing mental health problems or ADHD in early childhood are very similar. So obviously early childhood experiences, the environment they grow up in, family history, whether there's mental health history, or neurodevelopmental conditions within the family, their experiences within school.
And for somebody with ADHD, they will have more negative experiences than their kind of average peer group then, compared to somebody that doesn't have ADHD. So, you know, in terms of feedback from parents, teachers, friends, quite often negative feedback, so much more in comparison to somebody without ADHD, which is obviously like all of those things together, or a concoction for developing mental health conditions. Yeah, they become learned behaviours, don't they? That sort of anticipation of criticism is something that we ADHDers figure out in childhood.
We learn that what we do is often not acceptable, and either we learn to mask it, which in some circumstances we can, we do, and in others we can't, and we know that that's when the problems start. And I've only really begun to recognise how much I do. I'm a 52-year-old woman, I'm middle-aged, I should know better. But I know that I will anticipate all kinds of bad reactions from friends and colleagues, because I assume they're going to behave in a certain way because I've messed up.
And that is learned behaviour. Yeah, yeah, definitely. It kind of almost forms our personality, or adapts our personality, and your own personality, because you're constantly trying to fit in with different social groups or work environments. And a lot of the time, mask behaviour is very subconscious.
You don't even realise that you're doing it, but it's to try and avoid criticism from anywhere, or kind of being, I don't know, seen to fail at something. And yeah, it's definitely a really, really common thing for, I would say, most people with ADHD, especially in adulthood. I certainly recognise that as somebody who, I didn't know I had ADHD, but essentially my issue was emotional dysregulation, I couldn't regulate my emotions. And over time, I've had a lot of therapy to work this out, I learnt to sort of try and avoid emotions, whether it's embarrassment, disappointment, or even just getting hot and sweaty.
I would avoid feeling uncomfortable. But what would happen then was obviously there would come a point where, you know, I wasn't expressing how I felt, therefore it was all building up, and then it would explode. And so I ended up having mood swings, I ended up being diagnosed with creative borderline personality disorder. I now know, at the root of that, is ADHD.
And I just wanted to ask you about emotional dysregulation. I mean, it isn't actually recognised, I think, as a core trait of ADHD, but I don't know anyone with ADHD who doesn't struggle with regulating their emotions. Yeah, and I think eventually, emotional dysregulation will become part of the diagnostic criteria. It has to, because like you said, yeah, I want to say almost every person with ADHD will struggle to regulate their emotions, because obviously the area of your brain that is impacted by ADHD or not functioning as it should be is responsible for regulated emotions as well, as well as all the other things, executive functioning.
So, you know, it's obvious why that happens, but why it's not part of the diagnostic criteria, yeah, I don't know. Hopefully that will happen. And this has huge consequences. The fact that it isn't part of the diagnostic search hunt for ADHD has huge consequences.
You know, we've talked about it in the podcast before, in the suicide rates. The figures are incredibly shocking when you start to interrogate, you know, the overlap of people who've got ADHD, especially if it overlaps with things like financial issues. And, you know, if you have a woman who is undiagnosed and maybe her husband's all down and she's left with kids and she's trying to hold her job down, all those things. And it can lead to real difficulties for people.
Yeah, definitely. And the reason why, you know, the rates are so high in people with ADHD is because of the impulsivity as well. So if you think of, you know, somebody who might be at risk of suicide because they have clinical depression, they won't always necessarily have the motivation to actually act on those thoughts. But for somebody with ADHD, because of the emotional dysregulation and the impulsivity, which is obviously more kind of prevalent in men, the impulsivity, and it can be in women, but generally speaking, impulsivity seems to be more of an issue for men.
So obviously it's that that actually, you know, leads to... to people acting on those thoughts of course i've never made that connection before it does it really does impulsivity plays a really key role in that definitely say somebody's listening to this and they have either they're either sitting on the waiting list waiting for a diagnosis we know a lot of people yeah or maybe they have been lucky enough to get a diagnosis and now they're going through titration we know from sam's story that was incredibly difficult it was a really hard time for you what advice have you got for those people who are going to be experiencing real difficulties they've recognized this this is a huge step they've recognized this about themselves but now they've got to grapple with it before they are at the point where they are on an even keel again what advice do you have for those people about how to stay to how to keep their heads above the water do you know what how to stay alive actually yeah i think for those people because until somebody's got confirmed diagnosis a lot of people almost say they almost feel like a fraud and they're making it all up in their head and they start you know constant self-doubt even following a diagnosis for a lot of people they know in their in their minds that obviously it's adhd they go and seek a diagnosis and sit on waiting list they still doubt it and that's because of obviously you know things dating back from childhood and again constant negative feedback and not trusting their own instincts as well but i think there's there's no harm in kind of self-diagnosis then up until that point obviously it's really really important to have that confirmed by a professional because it is really complex and there is so much overlapping other mental health conditions which i'm sure we'll get on to but at that moment in their life they're having the same difficulties as someone with adhd with their executive functioning obviously an impact on their mood whether it's adhd or not so i think actually reaching out for support whether that's like um some people prefer to go down the coaching route rather than therapy but i think the really important thing there is to go and see somebody that has experience in working with people with adhd because i think a lot of people have negative experiences going through therapy on and off over the years trying to resolve their problems trying to find the answers and um i find that actually a lot of people that i work with are really negative about therapy to help with their adhd but that's because of their you know previous experiences of working through i suppose their difficulties not getting to the answer you know it's not looking at it from the right angle that's why it doesn't work that's a really good point i mean i had that years and years of therapy with well-meaning people but it just wasn't working until i had one therapist who very gently said to me have you thought about adhd and that was the key that are not things and as we're talking as you're talking i'm thinking if you are undiagnosed for years as i was and then there are mental health conditions that come up alongside that when i definitely suffer from depression and anxiety it must make it more difficult to stop the adhd because there are so many other things going on that the picture is then clouded do you find that yeah definitely i think this is a huge problem you know it isn't any disrespectful to the nhs i've you know i've been working in the nhs and i loved you know working where i did my time in mental health services also in the adhd connect but obviously first protocol is go to the gp or primary care mental health services and which i've worked in primary care mental health and refer people on to the adhd service you know for the years but if that person doesn't have any insight or experience in adhd because gps don't get training around it unless they sort of training themselves right as a mental health nurse when i went through my three-year degree we didn't have any input in there's nothing to do with mental disorders in the degree because it's not because it's a mental health condition although it's closely linked it's a very specialist area so obviously the people that um are coming into that first point of contact with somebody who feels they have adhd or doesn't know they have adhd it's unlikely that that first person is going to spot it because and that's not really fault with their own they're just looking at the presenting problem so if it's no indoor emotional dyspegulation and they aren't going to yeah there are other things going on that makes perfect sense and maybe we should sort of draw out what are we you know using the phrase mental health and i've touched on a couple of them what are some of the things that you see people with adhd experience what are some of the sort of comorbidities and mental health conditions that do develop yeah well i mean it's kind of the rule rather than the exception is that the way around you say it it's i don't ever met anybody obviously i work predominantly with adults but i don't remember anybody that doesn't have difficulties with their mental health alongside of it it's just so common and actually it's that that causes a lot of the impairment in someone's life and once that gets worse the older somebody gets because life becomes harder but anxiety lonely sometimes tipping over to actual depression emotional dysregulation is massive even though it's not a mental health condition in its own right it obviously co-occurs with lots of mental health conditions binge eating disorder is really common but also things like ocd crop set personality disorders so that was the one for me when i was diagnosed with traits of borderline personality disorder and when i look at how adhd works through doing this podcast learning about it it makes total sense because for me when bpd was all about swings in emotion it was living in the extremes everything was absolutely awful the end of the world or everything was absolutely brilliant and if you think with adhd i'm going and going and going and going and going i'm running a hundred miles an hour everything's great then i'll run out of energy then i've crashed that cycle clearly overlaps with mental health condition yeah and it would be interesting to know i mean it would be impossible to find out in terms of misdiagnosis but my opinion and you know kind of experience as well working in mental health services i feel that that is probably the most common misdiagnosis even to send you with adhd is um borderline personality disorder or emotionally unstable personality disorder is what we call it now and it's a really damaging diagnosis for people because actually that in the future if actually that person was misdiagnosed often there isn't any support within nhs or people with personality disorder unless they meet the threshold for what we call secondary care services and you know input from the psychiatrist which often isn't the case they're you know deemed not suitable so they're left for that sport so obviously that's really difficult but actually if um because quite often um and you might relate to this yourself that a lot of people figure out themselves in terms of adhd from reading something it's so common that somebody they come for an assessment and i one of those things i ask is you know tell me a bit about how you got here basically when did you did somebody else suggest you might have adhd and it's quite often i came across this article i watched this program and i thought oh my god that's me but then when they go to seek an assessment if they've got that diagnosis of personality disorder on their record their referral is more like way more likely to be defined on that basis and they're actually no that's that you've already been diagnosed rather than seeing it as a common comorbidity and why is that why is that can i ask why are they less likely to then be referred what what's going on there because i guess it's obviously like i said go back to what i said about who they're seeing in the first instance is maybe not somebody who is experienced in adhd and just looking at the kind of presenting situation and actually that could quite easily be used as well you've got a diagnosis this explains your symptoms well it's interesting because it almost happened the other way for me in that i was diagnosed with adhd the drugs didn't work yeah there was a psychiatrist who said to me you should explore traits of bpd and therefore put me forward for dbt therapy and i then couldn't get a bpd diagnosis because i was already doing dbt and it may be that i just had adhd and that's what it was whatever it was i did the dbt and that therapy was really intensive and it was brilliant and it worked i suppose in one sense it's that thing we all say diagnosis doesn't matter but at the same token you need to know what's at the root of it to better treat it you absolutely do yeah i think you know people that say oh why do you need a label and you know things like that they clearly don't understand actually if you don't have that label or that diagnosis you literally can't turn anywhere for this and also there's treatment for adhd i mean i know you know the meds don't work for sam but they work for me and they've been life-changing you know sam's thing was emotional dysregulation mine was definitely i mean it was also emotional dysregulation but binge eating and that has stopped with medication it has stopped and there are days when i don't take my meds you know maybe i'm going out to a party and i want to have a drink or whatever and there are days when i don't take my meds and i will find myself on those days often mindlessly eating and i will suddenly suddenly wake up and it's like waking up from a stupor and go oh oh i forget that the meds don't just help me concentrate and help me think clearly they prevent all sorts of other stuff that is going on with adhd you're talking about that difficulty when you first present in front of a medical professional and they don't necessarily have adhd in their heads what would you say to that patient about making sure that that doctor or nurse sends you in the right direction what are the words that you need in order to get where you want to go i think going it shouldn't have to be this way it's not that i agree with it my advice i give to people is go on for as much information and evidence as possible which is difficult for somebody with adhd um but also you know when it's something that's really important to them they can be very driven so it's not going on with that information and actually being persistent and trying not to be bobbed off and because you know what you're asking for is a referral you're not asking that gp to they don't have the expertise to make that decision and the same as i don't have the expertise to start diagnosing people with physical health conditions you stick to your area of expertise and competence and i think yeah it is about actually being really direct and this is what i want and i appreciate that you might not agree with it but i would like a referral and that's what the gp's job is to do and support others one of the hurdles that we have heard about a lot um it's on the face as well yeah absolutely is the paperwork involved with getting a phd it's insane oh my god i have a friend who has been in touch in the last 48 hours and he's had a light bulb moment he's been listening to the podcast and he's gone oh my god and you know his wife has been saying it for years and finally he's done something about it and he rang to say what do i do next and i put the phone down to him and i pick up the phone to his wife to say what you need to do is make sure that you help him fill in the paperwork because both sam and i had really understanding partners who helped us and you know i think if you are going through this on your own and you haven't got a supportive partner alongside you that can be really hard too because you know some in some areas they're giving you like a three week deadline or less to fill in all that paperwork it's a lot it's so much to ask the people who find this stuff really hard yeah and um i know obviously i've got more insight into the area that i work in in glostershire but i would imagine well i hear similar stories but the other issue is um if that paperwork isn't completed in the level of detail that that service expects the referral can quite often be declined back to square one and going around and that's really difficult because then it's like back to the gp which is hard enough in itself and it is the most un-adhd friendly process or if they you know they get a letter this is again something really common i hear they get a letter through the post saying do you wish yourself a waiting list if you haven't heard within two weeks then we will take you off and that happens and it's wrong it's wrong it's so wrong but i mean it's frustrations i have every day but i just feel like a small fish in a big pond and it feels impossible to try and advocate for the whole country yeah this is why the task force feels like a really important moment doesn't it because these sorts of things can be raised finally at a level where structural change comes absolutely and in the short term actually what we've talked about today we've talked about making sure you've got someone who can help you do the forms we've talked about what to say to the doctor we've talked about making sure that if you're getting therapy or support you try and find someone with adhd specialism i think that's all really helpful stuff it is mental health then this week the theme is movement i was thinking about if you even if you know you've got adhd you're still for me certainly there are still battles with mental health what are some of the things that people can do maybe it's about movement and exercise what are some of the sort of simple practical things people can do to help with their mental health and sort of their general health um exercise obviously is the next best thing to medication i say the next best thing it can be just as good as but there's obviously a real issue with consistency and motivation to keep that going to somebody with adhd so i'm very conscious not to um sit there and lecture you know patients that i see about well you need to do an exercise obviously i can advise and guide them and ways of trying to keep that consistency but for somebody who's not on medication that is actually even harder because it's not the knowing you know i think most people will know adhd you're not actually exercise nutrition and sleep is the best thing for our mental health you know we hear that from all directions don't we but it's not the knowing it's the doing that is difficult for somebody with adhd and other things become a priority or if they and it's that all or nothing mentality as well absolutely if you have paralysis if you are in bed and you can't get up you're not going to be going for a run yeah but one of the things we talk about i have two other things we talk about actually is one giving yourself a break but also setting small achievable goals and that's something we've talked about a lot whether it's exercise whether it's starting jobs is that what you'd say sort of just start small yeah definitely it's right but it takes time and perseverance trying to change your mindset around things and i can talk from you know my own personal experiences with that kind of journey and unhealthy relationship with food and exercise because i lost a significant amount of weight weight sorry about exercise basically but um when i found that this is like pre-diagnosis as well when i found exercise it was helping me in a way that i had never like i didn't realize it would it was a desirable way it felt amazing but it got to the point where i was like going to the gym to ice a day so for class in the morning it became an obsession completely and it was so unhealthy and i was obsessed and that's all i thought about and if i had a weekend off i felt like i could put on too soon which is ridiculous so i've had to work really hard to try and change my mindset around that i started a boot camp six months ago and i loved it for a couple of months i haven't been back since i cancelled mine so i'm okay with that now i'm like oh that happens i get bored of things i get out for walks that is my main thing now and that for me is enough i'm like i've been out i do that you know several times a day even if it's for like 10 minutes yeah i'm a walker and that's that has been that's been such a revelation for me because i was i was like you there was i would go to the gym and rather than staying for half an hour an hour i'd be there for three hours and i'd be swimming on the rowing machine on the other and it was only when i went with my husband one morning and he was the one who pointed out to me what are you doing on the running machine for an hour and a half i was like well because i'm there i'm there and suddenly it's about going through the 10k and it's obsession it is obsession and once again it comes back to this thing about regulation we have no ability to regulate our behavior and it is it affects every aspect of our lives doesn't it even when it comes to trying to do something good like exercise yeah and it's really tricky because obviously when people and again i'm kind of talking from my own experiences i know this will be across the board for people with ahd they'll join you know they'll have some pt sessions or they'll join the general classes and actually me having pt sessions all i had you know and he meant well if you ever listens to this you've got a lot of respect for him um and yeah he actually you know took time to try and understand me but being told you know if you want something so bad you would you would go you would you know fight through that you know dip in your motivation and that to me was so negative and you know he's talking to me like i was a neurotypical person not understanding it was making me feel so much worse and it's not about that it's just about you know you don't need to be chasing a goal it's just about getting out moving clear on your mind and that can be done in so many different ways people think gym when they think exercise don't they and it's like horrible for a lot of people we had dr we had dr tony loydon from the adhd foundation recently and he was describing this wonderful system in primary school where they do that sort of pre-school mile in the morning but they've set out four different speed lanes so they're a cruise around and it goes right down to two people walking side by side having a chat just walking and i think it is about learning for all of us especially actually young kids that any form of exercise is just as good and it can be a walk it doesn't have to be uh speeding you know 100 meter sprint it can be getting out in the sunshine having a chat with your friends yeah yeah definitely i feel like i've learned lots again today it just shines a light on stuff that i think i know but it makes me sort of reconsider so vicky thank you thank you can i just say it must be wonderful to turn up in your surgery it's just so lovely and warm and accepting and you know thank you so much for joining us today because it's been so lovely yeah it's been great to have a chat with somebody so understanding oh thank you what a wonderful woman can you imagine being lucky enough to turn up in her surgery and meeting her when you're going through that horrible adhd diagnostic process and life is so dreadful and then you meet somebody so kind and forgiving actually forgiving she just understood what was going on for people with adhd and how that impacts mental health what stood out for you well gosh god it's dark isn't it but do you know what the thing she said that landed for me was the connection between impulsivity and suicide and i've never ever put those two things together before but of course that explains why the suicide rates are so much higher amongst our adhd community because we have emotional dysregulation and then when things get really really bad we have that moment and we're not thinking rationally and we act on it and you know for the normals out there the nts they will there will be that voice in the back of their head telling them not to do it or not to follow through whatever and yeah i found out that's that's really really shocking and it comes back to what you and I talk about a lot which is the importance of an ADHD diagnosis so that we can recognise it and treat it and we need to be asking more questions in more situations in more GP surgeries about mental health and whether ADHD is at the root of it because I think it's so much more than we are ever aware of and I think what really struck me on the back of that that Vicky was illustrating is that there are ways to treat ADHD there are ways that we can tackle mental health problems there are ways that actually people can feel better and live really positive lives it's about making sure people get that support in the first place one of the things for me about exercise and we talked about it before but it came up again when Vicky was talking about it is for me it was recognising she talked about changing your mindset around exercise recognising why I needed to do it remembering how difficult life was when I was depressed and when I was really struggling recognising that I don't want to go back there recognising that just a little bit of exercise every now and again just small steps maybe it's just a walk you know it doesn't have to be a big session something small the biggest change is easily accessible it's also vital for me and knowing what a difference that makes to me motivates me to do it and it is getting that message out that it doesn't have to be a 5k it doesn't have to be a jog it can be a 10 minute walk around the block and that's enough and that's all you need to do put a coat on take a set of keys walk around the block that's all you need to do to help out and got some exercise and if anyone is listening to this today and has found any of the issues that we discussed tricky and you feel like you need more support there are so many organisations out there that can help you and if you check out our show description we've got lots of links there for support organisations websites that you can look at and people you can go to for help and that was another of our messages wasn't it get out there and find somebody who can help you a coach or a therapist you can listen for your wrong about adhd for free on global player download it from the app store or go to globalplayer.com see you next time this is a global player original podcast