LATE DIAGNOSED ADHD: How To Heal After Years Of Pretending (5 Steps)

0:00Good sleep is everything. That's why OLLI's Science Back Support is made with a blend of melatonin and L-theanine for both kiddos and grown-ups. So when your mind won't switch off, you've got something that can help. Erasing thoughts and restless nights won't stand a chance. Find OLLI's sleep solutions for the whole family at OLLI.com. That's O-L-L-Y dot com. People with ADHD are very emotionally sensitive. that can be a superpower because it means we can be super tuned in and it can also be a difficulty. That emotional sensitivity is such a key issue in a late diagnosis of ADHD because not only do you often feel things quite deeply, but you're going to be going through a bit of a storm.

0:41Dr. Judith Moring is a Cambridge educated psychiatrist who specializes in ADHD. She's here to guide you through the five stages of processing a late ADHD diagnosis. ADHD used to be thought of as a condition that was present in kids and then got better with age. Recently, we've realized that actually it doesn't. Not all adults with ADHD will become distressed or need a diagnosis, but for lots of adults, it causes very predictable difficulties. We don't do enough therapy, education and coaching that's really based on the neuroscience and the evidence base for ADHD. And it's actually quite complicated to get it right.

1:11Do you think there is a risk that somebody could get a diagnosis so late in life that they just feel completely lost? They don't know what to do. They feel so scared about stepping into the unknown. I've seen... Can I have just a second of your time? If this podcast has helped you understand your brain or made you feel less alone, can you do me one favour? Can you hit the follow button? And I'll repay the favour by continuing to book the best and most exclusive conversations on this topic. Please enjoy the episode and always remember, you're not broken, just different and you have always been enough.

1:44Judith, welcome back. Thank you, Alex. It's so lovely to be back. We're going to cover a big topic today, how to process a late diagnosis. And if someone's watching or listening and they're trying to understand how to process a late diagnosis, they've clicked on this video and they might not be convinced yet whether to stick around. How would you convince that person? What would they learn if they stuck around for 45 minutes or so? I'm late diagnosed myself. I'm an expert in ADHD and a psychiatrist who has taught doctors about ADHD, is diagnosed and treated ADHD. And I've also developed coaching programs for late diagnosed adults.

2:23So this is kind of my bread and butter. And I think it's just taking, picking it apart, creating a sequence that people can follow so that you understand if your immediate diagnosis doesn't bring relief or brings feelings of anger, that's okay. So I hope that people will come away from this session knowing it's okay. Whatever comes up is okay. And there are reasons for all those steps along the way. There's going to be a huge amount of emotions I imagine that we go through in this conversation that perhaps might come with a diagnosis later in life. How does the topic of late diagnosis tie into your general ADHD mission?

3:01What would you say that is? So I guess the ADHD mission is, you know, ADHD used to be thought of as a condition that was largely sort of present in kids and then got better with age and then recently we've realised that actually it doesn't go away and it causes very specific problems and difficulties for some adults. Not all adults with ADHD will become distressed or need a diagnosis, but for lots of adults, it causes very predictable difficulties. And that's my mission is to say to people, if you are late diagnosed, there's lots that you can do as well as medication. I, in the past, have treated, diagnosed and prescribed, and I teach people how to prescribe for ADHD.

3:37But what we don't do enough of, in my view, we don't do enough therapy education and coaching that's really based on the neuroscience and the evidence base for adhd and it's actually quite complicated to get it right so that's my real mission is trying to get it right for adults with adhd and their clients and therapists so they can they can follow that stepwise process what would you say is the hardest part of processing a late diagnosis so should we go straight to emotion let's do it let's do it let's go straight to emotions. So this is a hypothesis of mine, but one of my hypotheses about ADHD is that people with ADHD are very emotionally sensitive.

4:13And actually that can be a superpower because it means we can be super tuned in and empathic and great communicators and really kind and warm. And it can also be a difficulty because you feel all the emotion in the world and then you end up responding to it. And I talked the first time I was on here about pretzeling, this idea that when there are big emotions in the room, you pick up on them and think, I must change, I must adapt. so that emotional sensitivity is such a key issue in a late diagnosis of adhd because not only do you often feel things quite deeply but you're going to be going through a bit of a storm of emotion where lots of the kinds of emotions that we see in grief are going to be coming up and those are big things to process and they're particularly tricky if if you are very emotionally sensitive grief comes up a lot on this podcast particularly when we are talking about late diagnosis.

5:04If someone gets a diagnosis later and they are grieving, what do you think they are grieving? Grief is a really, really, it's a really helpful topic as a therapist to think about and to hold in mind because essentially it means processing loss. And I've talked about grief in all sorts of situations with my clients over the years, you know, grieving a change of job, grieving a change in health, grieving a marriage. It's not just about people passing away. It can be all sorts of things. And grief brings with it very characteristic emotions. So often there's a sense of shock. There may be denial.

5:41There may be anger. And there's also periods of time where you feel basically okay. And then other times when you suddenly don't and it suddenly comes back. The outcome of that painful process is at the end you hopefully have processed the experience. And there's more space in your life to bring something new in. that's the purpose of grief is to allow us to process and create space for something new can you grieve what could have been different had you known that you were adhd or neurodivergent sooner because i suppose you can grieve things that you've lost but if you look back on a perhaps you've lost a life that could have been so much different had you not masked so much or Had you not taken that job that probably wasn't a good fit or not got into that relationship that wasn't right for you?

6:29But because you were trying to fit in so much and masked so heavily, you kind of made decisions that weren't in alignment of who you really are. So can you get that grieving piece? Can that be a grief of what could have been? Totally. That's probably, I think, the biggest grief piece for people is going back and going, if I had known then what I know now, I might have made a different decision. I might have been better supported. I might, if you're taking medication, I might have been on medication. I might not have done that thing. And it's like repeated sliding doors moments where you go, oh, there was another path back then.

7:03I didn't take it for what, you know, because of that ADHD related reason. So some of the resentment that perhaps someone could feel after a diagnosis of ADHD, can that be spun into a positive? So resentment. okay I love that you're using yeah we're talking emotions so resentment we would put probably somewhere in the anger family of emotions there might be a hint of envy in there as well so digging into the flavor of that emotion when we understand the purpose of emotions what they're there to help us do it helps us work out how we can put them to work for us because emotions they can be really painful they're called feelings because they hurt unsurprisingly they can be really really painful but they have a survival function so that resentment may have been something that was holding you back from doing something dangerous like you might have held you back from shouting at your boss so you were resentful every day but at least you didn't shout at him or it might be a resentment over things opportunities other people got that you weren't able to pursue so i think it's understanding what the purpose of the emotion is and when we understand that our emotions are there to help us they're not bad they're painful but they're there to help us we can then work out how to turn them to our advantage with envy i think that's an interesting one can you be envious of somebody that seems to be living their life on much freer terms than you are because you're so terrified of letting people down you don't want to expose yourself to a criticism so you don't put yourself out there you don't apply for that promotion you don't start that business can you be envious of other people who seem to be able to do the things that you want to do but your your fear of criticism is holding you back totally i remember not long after my own diagnosis watching a friend doing things in order the kind of getting shit done and she just did a load of not particularly interesting things in order and then she stopped doing those and then she switched to do a whole load of other not very interesting things and i'm like how do you do that i was astonished that you could do all these not very interesting things in order and then finish them and then not be exhausted i was like I was really envious of that aspect.

9:07For me, there's often, and I see this in many of my ADHD adult clients, so I do a lot of kind of group coaching and a little bit of one-to-one coaching as well. I see some really, really successful people who are almost the opposite of narcissists. There's a real taking on of responsibility, a fear of upsetting others, and really thinking about the impact on other people of what you're doing. And I wouldn't ever say that I envy that, that you know that some people can be quite they don't really mind what other people think or how things land but I do think it can be quite I'm going to say crippling which might sound too strong but it can really hold you back where you're always thinking about the impact of your actions on others it stops you sometimes from just being free so I think there is an envy piece there I think so much damage can be done when you're living your life perhaps you are ADHD and because of your differences, it does expose you to lots of bad messaging from the outside world.

10:07That can start really young. So is there a sort of wish sometimes when you get a diagnosis that you could travel back in time and put your arms around the younger version of yourself? The little kid, the little boy or little girl who had that realization that they were different and abandoned their true self, and from that point kind of lived this life not really in tune with who they really were do you see that wish that fantasy about being able to travel back and sort of whispering in in your younger self and saying just you're not broken you're just different very much so and i think it's also quite a beautifully described adhd experience the imagination the rumination the ability to to bring to mind other possibilities is a can be a very adhd strength for some people because it's a default mode network piece that going back in in time and you know time traveling back to the younger self and I talk about kind of multiple light bulb moments for people as they process a late diagnosis you go through the multiple oh that was why I could never stay employed that was why I kept leaving relationships kept moving house what have I what have I lost what have I missed out on so there's this real piece around kind of reflecting on on past losses and it goes on for quite a long time you also mentioned something else which I think is really important about the loss of the true self and a sense of self-awareness is an executive function the ability to kind of integrate oneself into a whole and that can be quite difficult sometimes for adults with ADHD and also with other neurodiversities and holding on to that sense of self as a whole takes practice which is why you know I've talked to people about therapeutic journeys with ADHD who to see what the right process is you know because it's really coming to know yourself as you are, accept yourself as you are, and be really kind of compassionate and celebratory towards whatever, however you are in the world, I think is really important.

12:04I think the general concept of abandoning your true self and sort of shape-shifting and putting on this version of yourself that is accepted will be so relatable to the viewers and the listeners. have you got any stories of people that you've met patients perhaps who have their own late diagnosis story and maybe some epiphanies they've had so many epiphanies and obviously i can't share individual client stories because they're confidential but um i often say that working with clients is like reading books and you read somebody brings you this very precious text and you kind of you're allowed to to read the text and um and there are a number of i would say universal stories and we come back again and again to the universal stories in this library of all these books and one of the universal stories is about the kind of the young person who was really misunderstood at school didn't fit in and has a real sense of loss and I remember you know I've seen people who've come in and said to me I think I must have borderline personality because people find me so difficult and I'm too much and it's like being able to review that diagnosis say no that's not it actually you are emotionally sensitive and um you are trying to please people here and it's at times causing you to really feel really really caught up in that um so yeah i think there's so many stories of of people over the years coming in with with reflections and suddenly going oh it's that that's what it is i remember meeting a an amazing woman at an event, I think it was about a year ago, she was 78 years old, and she recently had an ADHD diagnosis.

13:40And she had some incredible self-reflection to do, and she did. And she described the feeling as relief. And I remember she said it felt like she had unknowingly spent her whole life underwater. And then she got the diagnosis, and it was like just coming up to the surface and suddenly getting that gasp of air in relief is that is that a common description that you hear from people who get a late diagnosis massively because it's the difference between thinking that you're lazy or stupid or disorganized and you're just not trying hard enough versus there's a reason and it's it's again it's that light i'm sure you've had the same thing the light bulb moments like years after a diagnosis you suddenly go that's why i have six sets of keys that's why i've lost my car in the big car park again yes yeah that's why oh it's that yeah it's you know the light bulb moments just they never stop do they there's so many brilliant things too you know i've got a cupboard full of reusable shopping bags unpaid parking tickets i forget to empty my washing machine that's all a daily struggle and i put systems in place to manage them but we're so creative as well like so many so many of us are pattern recognition people entrepreneurs um not everyone but i'm saying there's so many once you do unmask and you do find your true self and you kind of stop putting the effort into the wrong places and you and you position it and direct it to self-awareness and then you can really begin to realize what you're actually interested in and lean into those perhaps after years and years of pretending or doing something that doesn't really light your soul on fire perhaps you've been in a marriage that wasn't right for you a whole career that wasn't right for you and you get this diagnosis and you think oh my gosh my marriage was a mask or my whole profession was a mask do you see that kind of pattern how big can the the sort of unmasking realizations be huge it's really interesting you saying that actually because um i think so much effort goes into being neurotypical and like doing it the way you're supposed to do it and i always knew i I wanted to be, you know, I wanted to write and I wanted to run a business.

15:52And then there I was as a doctor and I had this successful practice on Harley Street. And I'd look in the mirror and go, I don't know who you are. And it's a real anguish. It's really painful when you're like, I am apparently really successful, but I don't feel it because I don't know who I am. And it's that loss of connection with the self because there's a sense that you had to pretend because you knew I knew what was expected of me. and it wasn't going off and running a business and doing the things that I really enjoy doing, which is teaching. I just love teaching. People are a joy and I learn so much from them.

16:25Couldn't getting a diagnosis later in life be quite risky? Because I think of the film Shawshank Redemption. Have you seen that? Yeah. You know when they've been institutionalized for so many years and then they get out. Yeah. Some of them get out really, really old and they get their freedom, but they don't know what to do because they're so used to their old way of life that's been that way for so long and the outcomes are in that film not good do you think there is a risk that somebody could get a diagnosis so late in life that they just feel completely lost they don't know what to do they feel so scared about stepping into the unknown is that a risky position for someone to be in i guess it varies from person to person i haven't seen it that much i've seen one pattern is for people to be really furious like absolutely furious how could this have been missed for so long how could it have been missed um and also the anger at all the things that may have happened along the way but you touched earlier alex on the strengths of adhd now obviously strengths vary and your diversity is different in everybody but many people with adhd will have as a strength adaptability and creativity and i think that often comes to the fore so when you can turn the shame down increase the self-acceptance very often you'll be like oh well i could create some ways around this the difficulty then is actually not creating the techniques every six weeks.

17:40Yes. A new process. Yay. I mean, I was relatively young. I was 34 when I got my diagnosis. Again, I mentioned, I spoke to that lady who was late 70s and it's, you know, it's very common for people to get diagnosed in their 50s, 60s, 70s. I think 94 was, I didn't meet her, but I saw a story on Instagram and she got a diagnosis. Do you think the the emotions the big emotions that people feel correlates to the stage of life they're in when they get their diagnosis in other words do you think the older you are the bigger the emotions well interesting sorry i'm i'm distracted by thinking about asking for the 94 year old school reports do they exist that would be like going down a family tree and some archive job but be impressed if they found them it would be amazing wouldn't it and here are the school reports written on vellum yeah yeah sorry you asked me something else i've forgotten what it was um so do you think the scale of the emotions that come in response to the diagnosis do you think they get bigger the older you are when you get your diagnosis and they tend not to generally um and the reason for that is that older people are better at emotion regulation generally and it's to do with changes in the brain that older people are better dealing with difficult things which is kind of quite handy because often as we get older in life more difficult things happen but um it does also depend because sometimes when somebody has a history of trauma um lots of you know lots of things might come up that are related to their adhd diagnosis as well what other complex emotions do you think might crop up when somebody gets a late diagnosis so um one of the commonest adhd emotions is irritability and frustration and impatience so that's a real common one that we talk about a lot so in the groups I run for adults we often talk about kind of the power of the pause and learning to create a little bit of space and then what comes into that space is a sense of don't make me stop and and working at what the function of that is that itchy scratchy irritable for goodness sake let's get on um and the the function of that i suspect is that it in the past or perhaps as part of our neurobiology it keeps us going it keeps us busy it keeps us active and engaged because if you don't have a certain amount of kind of active engagement your brain will disengage so i think there's a function to that emotion and it's understanding that you don't always have to be on edge um another complex emotion is anxiety many many adhd is a very anxious we talked about this before um and it's it's function there is to turn the heater up as it were to turn the burners up so it's like if the anxiety is there if i'm worrying enough then stuff might happen and you know rumination so often we've got the washing machine away rumination so often is is a an emotional a sort of cognitive response to that emotion which which comes from the anxiety that we're just worrying because if i worry enough i might remember all the things I have to remember.

20:45So it's unpicking the function of those emotions. What are they doing? They're protecting us. How can we use them more adaptively? My sincerest apologies for interrupting your hyper focus, but a quick word from our sponsor. Like many in the new year, we want to turn over a new leaf looking to be more productive, more organized, and never late. Well, Timo app is here to help. Timo wasn't named app of the year in 2025 for no reason. It's the ultimate planning partner gently guiding you towards busting your day-to-day chores list. The important difference is Timo is designed by neurodivergent brains for neurodivergent brains.

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22:10Then you get a diagnosis and you might suddenly realize that actually you don't like playing squash or you don't like cooking or that friend isn't good for you. And you might sort of fall into this void of not having anything to do. and therefore that irritability could go up in the short term. I think you've named something really important, Alex, about how people process anything difficult, which is if you have a way of being in the world and you've kind of learned to cope, and maybe you've learned to cope by always being on the edge of burnout, by being so busy, so manic, so frantic, so worried that you're getting everything done.

22:44And then you get a diagnosis, maybe you get given some medicine, maybe you get diagnosed with anxiety, you get given an SSRI or something, which obviously is not not the ideal thing but you get to that point where you're so you're so burned out and then you get a diagnosis of adhd and then you think i've got to change things you have to unlearn and unlearning means unpicking your previous ways of managing so that takes time and it's like learning i can't swim front crawl can't do it can only swim breaststroke whenever i try and swim front crawl i can't do it because i have to unlearn and i think i'm going to drown and I think it's that unlearning piece you have to unlearn the rushing you have to I was late today because I've tried to unlearn rushing not always successful you've got to unlearn and that's hard so I think yeah giving yourself time to to practice new ways of doing stuff and going that's not going to be perfect oh that was a fail oh that was a success is really really important when we're kind of I don't know did you have experience of doing things differently Yes, drinking.

23:43Yes. I mean, I knew for many years that I had an issue of drinking, and then I got my diagnosis and made the connection between addiction and ADHD. It was very clear that if I didn't unlearn that I can't drink, then that wouldn't have ended well. So that was your kind of baseline. If I've unlearned that, then I can go from there. Yeah, I mean, my sobriety is 100 % the foundation of everything. My relationship, my work, looking after my dog. if I have a drink then everything falls down and that was for me that one of the biggest realizations of my diagnosis so if someone has just got a late diagnosis how does one go about unlearning a version of themselves that perhaps doesn't serve them anymore um it's that's a really lovely question because actually it's sort of something I've become more aware of in the last year or two is that often that emotion of irritation and frustration is is recognizing that you're you're nudging against unlearning that you're having to do something differently and maybe you don't want to maybe rushing works really well because it gets you focused maybe over scheduling works really well because it means that you've got a lot to do so you you always get something done even if it's not the thing you hope to get done um and it's that irritation that arises is so healthy because it's like i know what i'm doing i've learned to manage this way don't make me unlearn and it really is just about being conscious of it and going ah okay maybe this is how i've learned to manage i guess i might have a choice here i could choose to do it differently um if i wanted to adapt that and then making a conscious decision i might try that differently i might not so time management for me massive piece of unlearning i've had to work really really hard to make time visible even today i was half an hour late because it wasn't in my diary the right color so and there's a lot of kind of you can't do it the way you used to because you keep tripping up and it's upsetting it's costing me so it's like if it costs us as individuals then I think it's valid to say I'll try it differently but don't change on behalf of other people I suppose unless they're your boss yes yeah maybe then change yeah and I suppose as well as unlearning you can learn new stuff right you can learn new hobbies perhaps new careers have you met anyone who's got a diagnosis and they've completely abandoned maybe a career and started a whole new one loads of people it's a really really common thing to do so um ned halliwell who i think you've had on the podcast haven't you um he um talks about right career the right job right partner and i think that's so true a partner who accepts you and loves you just as you are um and a job that that suits your strengths and your skills and works with who you are um yeah i remember somebody once who became a tree surgeon after their diagnosis and that was like a big big change lots and lots of lawyers who've gone from being external working for external clients to going in-house and maybe doing HR law I've had people go and retrain as therapists I've had people go and retrain and do just go off and do completely different things maybe becoming a yoga teacher having previously been an ordinary teacher very often it's about taking your previous skill set and saying how can I segue that into something that allows me to move more or introduces more variety or more human contact so that i mean the career change piece is huge for adhd as i think yeah definitely what i see a lot of it seems like a bit of a risk and i don't know if you agree if people get a diagnosis of adhd and then they might talk about it they might share it with their friends or family and then because of unhelpful narratives in the media and on social media sometimes they could get comments like oh you're just making it up is that a risk to someone's self-esteem at that point it's not just a risk to self-esteem but it's also a reflection of internalized stigma so in the one-to-one work i do people will often this is a very this happens again and again in the first year or two it's like no no i'm just making this is i can't have adhd because i have this successful career as or this this this and it's it's sort of saying well you you managed but it was costing you which is why we came to chat and talk about it um and now what we're doing is a bit of unlearning and going actually no it is real it does cost you and these are the things that are causing you difficulty so let's work on those so it's i think we internalize the idea that we it must all be fine we're just we're just making it up we just need to try harder so and then obviously there are plenty of people in the world outside who will tell us that if we could just do it the way they do it it would all be fine if you could just learn to be organized, it would all be fine.

28:19Is there a risk there that somebody could be gaslit by friends or family? They get the diagnosis late, they go to their family and they don't believe it or they kind of make excuses on behalf of the person who's just been diagnosed and then the person who's just been diagnosed starts to doubt or question the diagnosis because of messages from their family saying, oh then that's normal or you don't have ADHD it's not a real thing can the person who gets the late diagnosis be gaslit by their nearest and dearest over the diagnosis yeah I mean I guess so yeah and I also talk about not gaslighting yourself that it's easy for you to doubt it and think no no no no I'm really just I'm making this up and that's one of the joys of group work is in a group you've got eight or ten ADHD adults together and we talk about something called the empty pez task what boring things can you not do everybody comes up the same boring things and it's like normal things that normal people appear to be able to do without like finding your keys doing the laundry cooking a meal getting showered brushing your teeth putting the bins out the the empty pez toss is so universal across all the adhd adults everybody goes oh it is real it really is me ah okay and that i think is really helpful is to find other people so we can gaslight ourselves we can be gassed and i don't think it's difficult if you don't experience the world this way to understand how other people experience the world.

29:42So it could be gaslighting, which has a toxic element, or it could just not being, not having the imagination to know what it's like to be time blind. Yeah. And can you, when you get that realization and you suddenly realize that the old cliche, you know, you've been living life on hard mode, but you just didn't know it. You didn't have the instruction manual. Can you be angry at that point when you realize that fact? Can you look back at your past and think of specific examples where perhaps things weren't fair because you didn't know? For example, you could be doing an exam at school and you should have been given extra time, but you weren't because you were masking your struggles.

30:21Can you look back as a late diagnosed person with anger at things that were unjust? Totally. Yeah. I mean, I sort of don't want to quote Oasis, don't look back in anger, but I think we often do look back in anger and go. So, and particularly for some people, when the consequences of not being diagnosed are some of the mental health problems or the addiction or losing jobs, moving house, you know, it's not all vanilla what happens on the end of undiagnosed ADHD. It can be really quite unpleasant, you know, very, very difficult going through life with things repeatedly trying, repeatedly failing and not knowing why.

30:59So, I think it's really, it's important, again, with emotions, that anger is justified. You don't want it to hang around forever, but you want to give it some space to at least be appreciated and go, thank you. Yeah, okay, fair enough. Yeah, you're allowed to be angry that this was so difficult. And also that society still struggles with the idea. We struggle with diversity that we can see, so we really struggle with diversity we can't see. And I talk a lot about making thinking visible. We have to make thinking visible for each other to go, yeah, my brain is different from yours. And, you know, and we're all different.

31:30But for some of us, the world's very different. I've spoken to so many people in sobriety groups who wish that they knew sooner. Like the drinking took them to terrible places. People who could never understand why in relationships they blew up so quickly. At this tiniest little comment or perceived criticism from their partner. Why they took out that huge bank loan to start this hobby. And then lost interest in it and got themselves into debt. You know, it's huge, the realizations sometimes looking back. And I think without the context of ADHD and that sort of understanding of why, why you did those things, there's huge amounts of shame and guilt and embarrassment sometimes is the feedback that I've heard.

32:19Is there a process, an order, do you think, that these emotions come in? Do we start with grief or does that come further down? I really just want to respond to that piece that you said about sobriety groups because I think you've nailed something really important for ADHD work which is actually ADHD is so much about shame and isolation and thinking I'm just getting it wrong I'm living life on heart mode but when you meet other people who are also going I'm getting the same things wrong are we oh okay there's a reason that actually the group is where the shame is shame's like a vampire it hates daylight so when we can shine daylight on it and go none of us here can cook a meal without or well you know the fridge is full of moldy food the drawers are full of you know tables that from god knows what and this is the way things are that feels like you've been spying on my flat

33:12exactly but that's it it's like the shame piece of like other people can do this stuff this is not hard i am an adult and then going no it's quite hard if you out of sight out of mind it's quite hard so so grief in itself is more of a process but and traditionally people talk about stages but they don't happen necessarily in those particular stages often it's early stages to kind of shock or denial and that might speak to that piece we were saying about is it really true do i really am i really adhd am i making it up and then there's often anger and frustration and then that sense of loss lost opportunities if only i'd known earlier i might have not left my job I might have a pension.

33:54That's a common sense. I might have a pension. And lost relationships, that's very painful for people. The kind of sense of it's difficult to manage relationships. And again, then the process, I think, is often this slow light bulb moments. There are issues like it's difficult as if you're a colleague, it can be quite difficult working with other people if you're quite emotionally sensitive. and that's a difficult thing to talk about actually that it's you know working with other people is a lot because you're thinking about them all the time and then you're not sure where to put yourself and you don't quite know how to respond and things like that that other people might find really intuitive and you're like nope no manual for this so there's a lot that goes on under the surface I think isn't there huge I think you when you learn about the subcategories or the more niche traits of ADHD, I think there's a huge lot to unpack, particularly like rejection sensitivity dysphoria and perhaps the perfectionist that that might have made you or the avoider that that might have made you.

35:00And had you known earlier that not everyone hates you, like the ADHD brain will convince you a million times a day that everyone does for no good reason other than you sensed a tiny shift in their tone of voice. and it's so sad because you go through so much of your life tiptoeing around avoiding that rejection you don't put yourself forward for opportunities you might not start that business you might not get into that relationship you might leave that relationship because you've sensed that they don't like you on one day um and realizing those 20 000 horrible messages and there is actually a reason why you you perceive criticism differently and how much that's held you back do you think yeah do you think i mean that's a huge emotional realization isn't it to to see to look back and see how much damage your behavior that's been dictated by an avoidance of criticism has caused there's so much in what you're saying um i'm going to try and respond with a few sort of pieces one is the um there's a very recent research actually i think it's from last year showing that people with ADHD, about 80 % of people with ADHD have differences in their sensory profiles, really significant differences.

36:16We've only just woken up to this. It used to be very much it was a feature of autism. People with autism have sensory differences. People with ADHD, major sensory differences, either hypo or hypersensitive to, it might be touch, it might be taste, it might be smell, it might be noise, all sorts of different sensory experiences. And also increasing the understanding that actually the ability to perceive emotion in others is one of our senses it is a really and it's to do with mirror neurons our ability to mirror other people's emotional states and perceive and then process that and turn it into something meaningful so that experience of being very emotionally sensitive it can i used to talk about feeling emotionally porous like i was a sponge just soaking it up and then talk about the pretzel that you're the sponge that soaks it up and then the pretzel adapts and then you lose any sense of self because you're always shape-shifting like a chameleon that's very difficult to live with as an adult because you lose who you are um this the corollary of that i think when you work through emotional sensitivity and you begin to recognize that it can be it's not a gift but it can there can be positives and that speaks to some of the adhd strengths around transcendence and spirituality that sometimes when you really open yourself to the world what you open yourself to is magical in all of its awfulness and joy all at once is that everything everywhere all at once piece where you're like wow okay that's a lot that so do you do you know what i mean when someone goes through that positive realization is there a growth piece that comes post diagnosis so there's a whole piece of research around something called post-traumatic growth um and i've done you know done a little bit of work in working with trauma one-to-one and also teaching people about trauma and i've got experience of of ptsd and and the experience of going through that is extremely unpleasant um and when you're able to process it and work through it um and integrate it we know from the research actually it builds people develop extraordinary resilience and connectedness um and can often come out the other side with a sense of growth and a sense of possibility where having worked through something difficult you develop new skills new ways it's that learning piece new ways of managing and adapting and i think that's that i can see that in spades in many of the people i work with adhd people who've been able to pull on different resources take their time because it does take time um but really come out the other side with a new sense of awareness and of of their strengths and when to deploy them and when to ask for help so i think it is very possible to grow through this yeah truly fascinating judith um i'm really excited about the next section in the last interview that i did on late diagnosis i went through the comments and the three top questions on the topic of late diagnosis i want to ask you now if that's okay no pressure i feel like i'm having an exam no pressure there's a lot of the most in demand questions okay but don't worry i've been helping my son with his maths homework so long as it's not like it's a diameter of a circle or something yeah they're in the washing machine of woes which regular viewers will know is a representation of my memory loss because i always forget the washing machine in the machine like i mentioned earlier but the timo app has helped me the first question is i've been diagnosed with adhd and i swear as soon as i did my symptoms got worse is this normal yes it is and it's to do with selective attention that when we suddenly become aware of something so let's say you've been diagnosed with ADHD so you've gone and you've spent time working with someone to go through your symptoms or difficulties or areas that are problematic and obviously to get the diagnosis you have to be experiencing distress or difficulty then you have to provide evidence of them you have to say oh yes I forget things all the time yes I lose my car keys yes it's very difficult to get organized yes time management is a problem I struggle to finish things I struggle to listen I'm fidgety I'm restless it's really hard for me not to over talk i'm impulsive i'm impatient you know you list all these things or you go through and you suddenly your awareness has just shot up so because it's salient suddenly this is really salient you just notice it more so yeah and it feels like it's got worse um but i don't think necessarily it has got worse it's just that you're much more aware early stages post-diagnosis so fascinating Judith and in a quick fire fashion on to the next most in-demand question someone has asked when I got diagnosed I was so angry at the world and I still am it's made me a bit more depressed I lost years to confusion how can I overcome this okay brilliant brilliant question yeah um this is also very common it's called an adjustment reaction even has its own diagnostic name which is when something changes in our kind of mental model of the world like oh there's something everybody missed about me then we have to adapt and we have to process that and very commonly that's experienced as a period of low mood i'd really recommend to that person that they find a group of adults with adhd to talk with or perhaps a one-to-one therapist or a good friend this will pass this too shall pass but it probably needs a little bit of time and and space and that might be a therapeutic space.

41:33Fascinating Judith and on to the final question I feel like some kind of melancholy drum roll is needed for the washing machine of my moves. It's too upbeat and finally the last question Judith my wife is 55 and I think she's ADHD she knows two but won't admit it she doesn't think a diagnosis will change her life do you think she should get one is an adhd diagnosis worth it oh that's a really that's a really nuanced question yeah i always struggle with my wife is because like oh okay let's be thoughtful here about about the relationship for these two people um so i think it a good diagnosis can be really therapeutic because a good diagnosis involves spending time with someone and going through life history and making links and that's therapeutic whatever the outcome is hopefully um so i think it is worth it uh but it's about finding someone who you trust and you feel able to open up to um we know that adhd medicines can work many people find them very very beneficial so that can be really useful for some people for other people who choose not to take medication actually just knowing about difference is helpful how you broach the question is is subtle and it might involve talking you know with her consent, talking to friends or family members, or sharing that you've got colleagues maybe who've experienced this and found it useful.

42:55And telling her, obviously tell her that you love her as she is, but you'd love to see her, you know, making even more of her strengths and overcoming certain struggles more effectively. Fantastic. Thank you so, so much, Judith. And if anyone watching or listening would like to submit a question for The Washing Machine, there will be an email in the description and just finally judith we're going to reveal your adhd item your adhd item is patiently waiting underneath this cloth in front of us and i'm going to reveal it now there we go it's very small isn't it it's a bit disappointing i should have got a bigger one yes well no it's fine i think an explanation what what is that okay so this is a very small representation of what's as a feelings wheel um which i use it a lot personally and also in kind of the groups and what we do with the feelings wheel you know we were saying feelings are called feelings because they hurt yes and very often we'll have because we're sensitive we'll have lots of emotions being able to kind of name something and there's a whole technique called name it to tame it from dr dan siegel but just being able to name go oh i think it's envy or actually i'm really irritable just immediately reduces some of the temperature of that emotion because the prefrontal cortex, the language centers are linking to the amygdala and the emotion centers and calming us down.

44:17So a really simple technique is to use a feelings wheel. I have these all around the house. I use them myself, with the kids, with colleagues, in businesses, in therapeutic settings, obviously bigger than this yes because obviously nobody has feelings that and you'd have to squint it and go oh i'm feeling uh i'm not sure so if someone wants to buy one are they quite easy to find online so there's there's um some from a company called junto they have the copyright ones junto feelings wheels which i love and then you can also get just representations of feelings wheels and all sorts i've got big metal ones and all sorts it's also attached to my house key this is one of the many many house keys i have i'm not giving you my house um but i have to have lots of house keys for every different handbag or coat otherwise i get locked out so i'm going to take my house key off in a minute and then give this to you incredible thank you very much i will probably keep that one and get a bigger one for the podcast set so it's more visual but this one will stay with me so thank you very much over to you alex enjoy your feelings incredible thank you so much Judith, on behalf of everyone grappling to understand their brain after a late diagnosis, thank you so much.

45:27Thank you very much.

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