Professor Green Opens Up: “40 Years Of Being Me Nearly Killed Me"

0:00Coming up, today we've got the amazing Professor Green. Woo!

0:03Professor Green:He had literally pulled part of the placenta away from the wall. Ding dong! Like an Eddie Starbard. It's important to try. It's not how either of us foresaw it being. You know, we didn't imagine separating twice, especially not after childbirth. But parenting is not for the faint-hearted. 40 years of being me nearly killed me. I was less than what I intended to be at times. So that was my parenting fail. I've never sat and spoken about all this stuff before. Oh really? Not wanted.

0:37Hey, it's Christy from Lululemon and I'm here at the office checking out the Shake It Out shorts. These have been my go-tos and I kind of think of them as a middle ground between a true run short and a more playful, athletic, sporty short. They have all the performance you want for running, so a comfy liner, our lightweight, swift fabric, even a pocket for your keys. But what I really like is the flowy fit and layered hem. It gives it a little bit of volume, a little bit of fun, so they feel as good on a run as they do just at coffee afterwards. You can find the Shake It Out shorts in-store now or online at lululemon.com.

1:07I wrote a little song to remind you, Choice Hotels gets you more of the experiences you value. The Cambria Hotel's got it all. A rooftop bar, have a ball. Bring a date, your squad, or even your mom. Book direct at choicehotels.com. Good morning. Good morning, Louise. We're here, we're back. Louise, I've missed you. I know. You weren't here last week. I know. I'm so sorry. However, when I was away last week, I did send you a lovely message from Michael McIntyre. You did. Who thinks you're fabulous, by the way. I literally nearly weed my pants. I was sat at home. Actually, I was working. And I was like, oh, my God.

1:46My husband's like, what is it? What is it? And I was like, Louise has just sent me a video message from Michael McIntyre. And I saw him across the room. Like, I don't know him at all. and I was like right I don't care I love I need to talk to this man about you and comedy and and I just did and he was I've got to say he's so lovely he's exactly how you'd expect him to be like the same as he is on tv and it's not I always used to think he was putting that voice on well it's maybe he was I don't think so but he was this lovely man he didn't need to to talk to me or send that message but he did and he was very lovely and I did say to him and Michael if you are listening I did say I was like you should come on our show yeah and I said it's about parents and stuff and he was like well my kids are all grown up now it doesn't matter you're still a parent you have failed in there we've all you know you can teach us the ways whatever so watch this space yeah watch this space maybe you'll come on the show you made my day Louise thank you and he fails this week Bradley caught me off guard the other day because he said mummy I was like yes you just know it's going to be a question that you're not prepared for he's like what's a wet dream oh crikey and I was like wow and he goes and we're learning we're doing sex education at school so I know what it is and I was like well what is it then and he was like is it when you wee yourself and I was like oh and he said but I asked daddy the other day and daddy said ask you oh of course did he I love that did he though standard me Louise I proceeded I gave a full anatomy and physiology lesson in the car but I do remember finding out that babies came out of vagina when I was nine yeah and it did traumatize me a little bit because back in the day you only found out with a picture of a woman that looked like you know like something out of the Egyptian era with her legs open and a baby hanging out of it a flower and I remember being like oh my god you know when you find out about periods and stuff oh my god it's awful and then he was like mommy and because I've told him like I've had a few ex-boyfriends yeah in the past he was like mommy did that mean you had sex with and then he listed off the names of the ex-boyfriends that he knows about and he was like you had sex with all them people and I was like he goes does daddy know oh my god well I think daddy's probably had a good time with girls before he met me and And I was like, oh my God.

4:16And I was like, Bradley, do you want a McFlurry or anything? Or like a cup of tea? Or what would you cost her? Should we do a drive-thru? And I was like, I've told him, I don't know if like for other parents, what other parents of nine and 10 year olds when they start having sex education at school and they know bits. They know bits. He knows what periods are. Yeah, which is great, which is great. I mean, my kids think I've had sex three times and that's it. In my entire life, I've had sex three times with the same man. And I'm like, yeah, that is correct. Yeah, how long does it last for? One of the friends is going, oh my God.

4:49Okay, so what is that? Because I've heard it so many times. That's what it is. I don't know if it's meant to be a sexual thing. It sounds like it's sexual, but I think they must be watching something. They have no idea. That I don't know. I can't bear it. In Tesco. Yeah. Oh my God. I can't stand it. Yeah. Oh my God. And then he said, oh, is that the noise that people make when they have sex? I'm like, well, it depends how good it is. No. I was like, well, I don't think so, Bradley. He's like, why do you keep laughing when they make that noise? And I was like, because it sounds like a budgie. I get angry when they make that noise.

5:24I'm like, stop doing that noise. And then they're like, why? No. Oh, no, I know. It's interesting that you said that. Anyone else watching who has their kids who make these noises. We won't call them sex noises. No, because I don't think, I genuinely don't think that Sunny thinks it's related to sex. it's just someone's done it and it's like everyone's doing it's like a whole 6-7 thing it's like people are just doing it and yeah it's just but obviously as grown-ups it's just a bit like don't make that noise in public yeah we're at the pick and mix in the supermarket and Bradley's like there's a man a man walking past me and I was like oh hello I wanted to be like I was like stop it just stop making that noise stop making that noise so embarrassing what's your fail I don't know if it's a parenting fail or a parenting win or just a parenting thing um I don't know I don't know if any other schools do this but in our school from reception to year two it's the same class and then everyone switches up for year three by which point you've met your mum friends and you know who your vibe is and yeah stuff and so the other night there was a meeting at the school for transitioning into year three yeah and it was it was bizarre it was like at the back of the room back of the hall was a table full of all the kids names yeah and it's all like the name and then it's like a folded over and inside the fold it's the class that your kids in all right so everyone's sitting there going oh my god we're gonna find out soon it was like being in a reality show like you know whose team you're gonna be in yeah and um so we were like raced to the back of the room and we find our kids child and you you peel it open, you're like, the reveal.

7:05And then what I realised is myself and a few other parents, we weren't really thinking about our children and the class. We were thinking what parents are going to be in that new website group. And so I went over to one of my mum friends. I was like, what class did you get? And she said, and I was like, me too, yeah. And we embraced it. I was like, yes, we're in this together. And then I realised, oh no, it's actually not about me. It's about the kids. And I think, oh God, well, I wonder if they'll be happy with this class. Today, we've got the amazing Professor Green. Hello, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.

7:41And we've already discussed loads before we started filming about you've just done school drop-off. But you're very calm. Yeah, you're so calm. I was like, oh my God, is it chaos? Yeah, he's like, no.

7:53Professor Green:It's because my son goes to a steiner school. It's all very relaxed. It's not like it was trying to get me to school in the morning. Sorry, Nan. it was the worst part of of every day we love to ask our guests on this show what their parenting fails are yeah what would you say or do you have a parenting fail that comes to mind um i did a parent in not disaster but quite chaotic moment on a really packed bus where he was holding my shirt right and he went shit and i went and then you're like you're correcting even louder than them right so it's everyone you mean sure shit you mean sure shit daddy shit i'm like i'll give up yeah i'll give up like what'd you do in that moment and you're also trying not to laugh so hard but it is so funny because a kid's swearing you don't put those two things together it's because you look at me like i made you yeah i know someone pulled out on me the other day he went oh mate i was like no yeah that's only my kids hello mate hello mate oh it's like when i you know when you say like oh fuck's sake yeah so then my kids like they think it's bus sake it's like a bus sake and i'm like oh that's actually really cute i'm not going to correct you which goes back to me not being corrected when i was younger i called it chimley until i was 32 it's the main he still he actually still does this one the long may it continue he calls ketchup check up oh that's brilliant and downstairs was down dares which i love that's so cute check up i like that and bradley and logan be like there's so much glitter on the floor i'm like it's litter oh i love that and now i was actually watching videos of bradley and logan when they were like two and four before bed last night a video popped up and i'm like oh oh my God, they were so tiny.

9:48Tiny, yeah. And like cute. It's crazy, isn't it? Yeah. I'm just like, I want more kids. I know. Do you know what?

9:54Professor Green:I've been getting quite broody lately. Have you? Do you think you'll have more? I don't know. You know, we will see. Yeah. Clock's ticking. I was like, if we were to do that, I would be older than my nan was when I was born. Do you know what? I'm going to go on a deep one. I've, you know, the relationship that I was in, am in, um suffered and it wasn't any fault of of our sons it was just where we found ourselves not really understanding everything that came with having a child because it's different for everyone and i went on my first walk with slimane in a pram and a dad shouted out wait green congratulations from the other side of the road thanks he went welcome to the truth club and what do you mean what do you mean he went don't worry you'll find out and then you do start to find out right because you begin to experience it and people always say you never know until you have your own yeah but you don't and we had our son during covid um we had quite high risk pregnancy so that was tough then karima's father was taken ill he was in morocco so there was a lot of back and forth a lot of separation during a time when i really didn't want to be separate having not had my dad around you know i applied way more pressure to that maybe i needed to um and things became quite fractious and i was less than what i intended to be at times so that was my parenting fail and it took me a little while to find my way back.

11:15Professor Green:It wasn't about, you know, feeling jealous in relation to, you know, Slimane being a priority. I think actually both of us prioritised Slimane and that created some issue as well because we weren't getting enough from each other. But you were trying, we were both trying to do everything as well. But you do as a first pet, like the first time having this vulnerable... But you just don't fucking know. You leave the hospital and all you need to leave the hospital with your kid is a car seat. Yeah. and it's weird because you become a parent but like most things you've got this role now because by default there is a child you are therefore a parent right but if you've not been one before it you never get it's gonna take a while to grow into that role and to understand your place in it yeah and that's ever changing as well because he changes he changes he has different needs and kareem and i have completely different strengths and it's important to find a way to exist in support of that for each other and we still struggle to do that at times we are not perfect my my auntie also said to me um just going off the back of what you've just said um she kind of said when you have a baby i think bradley my firstborn was like a week old and she said hannah when you have a baby it's like meeting a new best friend it's going to take you a long time to get to know them they're going to get to know you you're going to get to know them so don't rush the process just let an organic friendship build and in terms of getting to know your baby i've been really fortunate in the amount of time i've been able to spend at home with slimane um and it's important right there's loads of stuff coming out now about the fact that father's brains given enough time with their child change in a similar way to um that that mothers do so our brains actually have significant change there's less gray matter and more access to the parts of our brain that allow us to feel empathy wow they make us more they make men more empathetic so when you think about all the fathers who who aren't there for what for whatever reason i don't want to go down that rabbit hole but there's an immediate negative impact in that by them not being present their brain doesn't go through those changes it literally makes men more empathetic and increases their ability to bond but i think with that you know i would definitely say that in my experience and this is only from my experience of it but Karima became her most fierce and protective and I became my most sensitive yeah interesting that's so true that's so true yeah I never meant my child no harm like you know what I mean and did you feel kind of pushed aside and a bit rejected no I just I struggled with trying to do as much as I could and you know I'll talk to my feelings not what was you know going on but just I felt as though anything I did do wasn't good enough and anything I then didn't do wasn't I wasn't doing enough and that felt quite difficult to balance in that that's sort of the definition of toxicity isn't it you're damned if you do and damned if you don't and you know I'm sure part of that was just owing to me my everything I've experienced that fed into what I was experiencing that situation as but it's hard and talking to other parents it's really common oh my god it's so common but no one talks about these things because they're so delicate yeah no they are but you're I'm sure everyone watching can relate I can relate um also you have to throw in sleep deprivation as well and hormones all of it and sleep deprivation it's just it's real to my point about trying to do everything yeah recipe for disaster because you're both going to be exhausted you have to shift work but we had a an emergency c-section so you know i was and it's looking back on it now it's gorgeous because if we have no more children there is no other opportunity to do this but i was literally taking him out of his i forgot what those are they cozies what they're called the things you put in the bed to allow them to sleep with you that could have been a sleepy head there you go and we've always co-slept um but i was taking him out and latching him on it was the most beautiful thing in the world So you would latch him onto her while she was asleep?

15:24That's amazing. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. That's amazing.

15:27Professor Green:Because she couldn't, well, she'd had a cesarean, so she couldn't lift, right? Yeah. I see. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's lovely. But then you think about the sleep deprivation that comes from that, and it, undoubtedly, like, the first thing that goes is your ability to rationalise. Oh, absolutely. I mean, they use it as torture in some places around the world. So when you wake up and you're like, for fuck's sake, thanks for working there. And I'm like, you know, there's me walking into it so naively. I'm like, I've done Glastonbury. I can do sleep deprivation. Yeah. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

15:53I've done a couple of gigs a few nights on the bounce. Do you know what I mean? Got to bed after midnight. I know what I'm doing. I remember with our first, my husband and I would get up together and like change a nappy together. And so we were both exhausted together. And of course we were then like arguing. And that's the last thing you want when you've got this new baby. And then when our second was born, I actually said to him, I need you to just sleep because you can't really help me right now because I was breastfeeding. yeah and that worked because then it just meant that when I was completely irrational yeah he was rested enough to understand that and be like you need to take a little nap now and it's so easy to

16:32Professor Green:start taking that personally and then that's where you start to think differently of each other yeah and to your point about needing to have that time away from everything the sad thing is when you get it when there's been so much you know niggling going on and whatever else and it's been fractious you then want to talk about the stuff that's been happening as opposed to just existing in that moment, which is not helpful because then you're still living in the smog. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wish I knew all this before it started. Yeah, I know, I know. It would have been so much easier. Are you and Karima, are you back, are you together, back together?

17:01Oh, that's amazing. So do you reckon you've gone through that fog and then realized actually it was fog?

17:06Professor Green:No comment. No comment for just, it's quite nice to be able to just keep that. Yeah. But how beautiful you're together as a family unit. It's important to try, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it's been tough. And it's not how either of us foresaw it being. You know, we didn't imagine separating twice, especially not after childbirth. But, you know, we did the best that we could at any given time, irrespective of how poorly we did do. But we've always done give or take right by him. And he's great. Yeah. He's a real good, you know, it's like sometimes, and I know we both do this, we just look at him and think, what's wrong with us?

17:52Professor Green:We're doing such a good job because our kid is brilliant. Oh, I love that. He's thriving. I love that. Walking around with his arm in a cast, a tooth missing and a scar on his forehead already because he's... Sounds like a perfect parent to me. He's a proper little boy. Yeah, I love that. He's such a little boy. I'm like, because I was born clumsy and I was just like, when stuff started to happen I was like oh this is this is what I put my nan through the amount of calls she got from A &E like I used to skate when I was a kid so you know head injuries legs arms absolutely I was that kid falling out of trees yep and um and he is he is no bloody different my mate said to me how many scars have you got that you can't remember how you got and I was like oh no does your son think that you're like super cool does he understand what you do is he musical in any way?

18:44Professor Green:Super musical he can sing songs front to back he picks up things languages as well mum got him a song book in Arabic she's Moroccan Irish Greek but for all intensive purposes Moroccan English and we go to Morocco a lot and without her realising he was listening to them over and over playing with it and then because it's classic Arabic, not Dija, which they speak in Morocco.

19:18Professor Green:He was teaching her words because he'd learned the songs word for word, even though he didn't know the language. He can count to 10 and there's loads. He's probably got about 50 words in Arabic. But like I say, this was in classic and he was singing it word for word, like pauses and breaks in the places, even where words are really close together in song. He's got a great ear for it. From what age was he doing that then? So they got that book last year, so four or five. But he's been, I took him to a cabin, an off-grid cabin last year or the year before. And they had a CD player. He's like, Dad, what's that?

19:55Professor Green:That's music. But they only had four CDs. And we barely got past the first one, which was Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill. Oh, what an album. My favorite album. And he's like, what an album. And he's going, Dad, I want to listen to figures. And I'm like, okay, this happens a lot, right? So he'll pick a word normally from the refrain And that's what he calls the song Or he'll make, like he calls Smooth Criminal Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga And I have to try and work it out And sometimes there are absolute meltdowns Like he'll lose his shit because I can't get the song And I'm like, it's a process of elimination Bear with me, we're just going to keep trying Until we find the right song But he, so figures is ironic It figures And he's like that He calls it ironic now, but he just he's always had a real love for song.

20:42Professor Green:His favorite song of mine is Monster with Example, which he got to see me doing soundcheck at Brixton Academy. And I've got this gorgeous photo of him and I on stage where I gave him the mic and I've got a video of it as well. And he goes, one, two. Oh, my God, that's so beautiful. And then he went to the upper circle and got to watch me do the rest of soundcheck. And he knows what I do, but he doesn't. It's not abstract to him. it's not oh daddy's special because he does that that's just something that daddy does we've been quite careful to try and make sure he understands mommy acts and is on tv and she plays loads of different people and that's what she does and daddy has this name but it's not his real name but it's how most people know him yeah yeah um and i'll tell you what we were at legoland i was um with a really good friend and and he come up to me and he went daddy you're famous and i was like like he's obviously heard a whisper from someone yeah he sees that he's this summer has been really busy in the best way but that's really really hard i have a really good routine at home i go to bed at give or take the same time i'm always up at the same time normally because i've got slimane about two centimeters away from me it's that going daddy like the grim reaper he's He's scared the living day.

21:58Professor Green:He's got this wicked curly hair, right? But you can imagine the shadow he casts. And he's such a little creep. He comes into the room and I think I hear the door handle and I don't hear anything else. So I'm like, no, it's nothing. I'm just going to go back to sleep. But before I do that, I'm just going to open my... And he's just there like, Daddy, Daddy. Get into bed. Yeah. you scared the life out of me oh god and it's probably what two in the morning or something it's when they have like a plastic sword in their hand or a plastic hammer and you're like oh my god like what do you want you want a snack what time is it that's why the grow clocks are so good my kids don't give a shit what the grow clock says anyway if it's blue or yellow they're just yeah they'll just come into the room I remember those grow clocks yeah I gave one to my son and he managed to like disembark it whatever it's called he managed to turn the whole thing off and change it.

22:57So I was just like, oh, yeah, really clever. He is actually very tech savvy. Because you hear of those mums that like on a Saturday night, they'll change the clock and put it like forward an hour and be like, oh, no, that does work. It's bedtime. Before my kids could tell the time, that worked a treat. It really did.

23:12Professor Green:Yeah, it doesn't do very well in the summer though. Slimane is just like, I'm not going to bed. It's not my time. Yeah. I don't know why it's made me think of it, but if anyone's got a friend that's having a kid and they wonder what to get them, muslins help. But batch cook some food. A hundred percent. You put so much into looking after, you know, this little alien like thing that you've got to keep alive and you don't know how to. But you're putting everything into that and you just don't put enough into yourself at times. It's very true. What did you find hardest about looking after a baby?

23:48Professor Green:The amount of stuff I had to carry around. Yeah. Yeah, the paraphernalia that comes with a teeny tiny baby. Do we need all this? We do. Like the amount of times I'm back and forth trying to leave the house because I forgot my keys or I forgot my phone. You can imagine how much harder it got to get anywhere with a kid and you just start saying no to stuff, which is also quite nice. Oh, yeah. Oh, no, it's great to actually then use your child as an excuse to get out of things. Oh, we've had a really bad night's sleep. They've got, they're not feeling very well. It's a bit of a cough, a bit of a rash.

24:19I used to say it, a bit of a rash. Gonna have to stay in, not socialize and just like wallow in self-pity. I bet there's loads of parents out there that have used their child as an excuse to get out of something. Yeah. I've got friends that do that. Comment on the below of this video and let us know your excuses. It's when it's real, though. I had to.

24:39Professor Green:We both got norovirus and we were away in Cornwall. But yeah, you can imagine I woke up on a Saturday morning. We've only got there on the Friday. Slimane cannot wait to go swimming. I've woke up. All he's heard is me trying to get to the bathroom, but I've fallen over on my way and fallen into the desk. And then I get into the bathroom and it's, well, I'll stop there for details. But, and he's like, dad, what's wrong? And I'm like, go back into, get back into bed. I'll be, I'll be all right. Did he ask you for a snack whilst you were vomiting? Because we've been through that. I'm sure that's, I'm sure that happened later on in the day.

25:14Professor Green:That was the end of our break. And then I had to go back to work and you're like, there is no excuse around this. this is actually happening yeah but I've still got to continue and then he came down with it and it was just it's parenting is is is not for the faint-hearted when my husband turned 40 I took he really wanted to go on a safari to South Africa so I took him to this beautiful adults only we left the kids at home we had two then and um oh we had the best like three nights away and then on the last afternoon I was like oh gosh I just don't feel very well I could feel really really sick like nor a virus it was it was bad so I was up vomiting all night and then there was a last game drive in the morning and I remember I opened the curtains we just had this beautiful view and my husband is the loudest vomiter I've ever heard in my entire life so I phoned the doctor because I was like we can't get a flight back we need something to stop us from being sick the doctor came in and was absolutely howling and he was like is he is he putting that on and I was like no that's how he vomits so you're gonna have to demonstrate I'm gonna get I'm gonna get the video and play it because I started recording it I feel like you're yeah you've got that gag reflex but my kids have listened to him when he's sick when my husband's sick look his eyes are horrid I hate I hate you can imagine it was like sorry to cut I don't want to cut you off no I'm sorry to cut you off but fucking shut up about it I'm pretty good with most like I don't I'm not squeamish or anything but I can't help people when they vomit but I have had to like because I'll just throw up and what help is that no you're being sick I'm being sick we're just it's not good for anyone has Slim ever gone through that kind of projectile vomiting yeah norovirus he got up and I woke up so when he came so we had got I had to get I literally had to get someone to come and collect us because I couldn't drive home.

27:07Oh, my God.

27:08Professor Green:I was that bad. Oh, my God. But I had to get home. I couldn't stay in the hotel. And we got home, and then we were in bed that night, and then I've woken up, and I'm like, why is it wet? And Slim is just standing above me on bed, bless him, going,

27:26Professor Green:and I'm like, right, I've got to get him off the bed. But what are you doing there? I've got to get him to it. So I picked him up, and he's just going, he's like a hose, He was going all over the room on the way to the toilet. Then I've stood him at the toilet and he's like, don't leave me. I'm like, I've got to get the sheets off the bed. Just give me a sec. He's at the toilet. It's going everywhere but in the toilet. So then I'm like, wait. So I get the blankets off the bed in like 12 seconds, like as quick as anyone could. And I'm like, what do I do now? How do I? He's all right. I'm making sure he's all right.

28:00Professor Green:And I'm like, I just, what do I, where, where do I start? But like, how do I clean up this? Yeah. What did you do then? I began with the floor and getting all the bit, but trying not to be sick at the same time, bearing in mind I still had norovirus, but I would have been sick if I didn't. Yeah. Yeah. So what have you done in the past then when like, if other people are vomiting or you were literally gagged, because you see those videos of dads changing nappies around poo where they're like, but are you, Is it just sick that you're like that with? Or is there anything else that gives you the...

28:35Poonamis? Cheese.

28:37Professor Green:Cheese, yeah. Cheese-mation? Yeah, I'm all right with mozzarella, so I'm full of pizza, thank God. And Oaxaca, Mexican cheese, which is like stringy cheese and doesn't really taste of what I would call cheese. Cheesy cheese. You mean like that really smelly blue cheese? Parmesan, the cheddar, the smell of melted... Oh my God, you are literally... No, it's bad. You're like your eyes are watering. Where do you know where that comes from? It's been there since I was a kid. Really? Has someone forced you still then? No. Loads of people like that about bananas. I've got a leg that I force fed a banana.

29:10Professor Green:I kind of get, I like bananas, but I kind of get that. There's a point at which they're a bit sickly. I prefer a less ripe banana than a really overripe banana. It's like textures, isn't it? Yeah. And what would you say then? So if something's triggered your childhood, someone's fed you Stilton in the past. Sorry, sorry, I won't do it again. But how would you describe your childhood in relation to how you are as a parent now? I think I got away with a lot because... Is that the best way to explain it? So I wasn't really parented at a point or beyond the point from quite young. and so I think that's allowed me to not repeat the way in which I was parented if that makes sense and you were raised like in the matriarchy because you were raised by your grandmother and your great-grandmother yeah so do you think that being raised in such a matriarchy that you that's affected how you are because you're brilliantly open with your feelings and everything no they didn't help me be open with my feelings you're kidding me okay it was my great-grandmother lived through two world wars and uh was orphaned and was brilliantly soft she was so gorgeous but you know my nan was very stiff british upper lip um stiff upper lip sorry and um you know she was brought up on rations and just kind of keep calm suppress everything and carry on until the occasional yeah yeah and inevitable which is understandable but you hear a lot of people say now my parents should have therapy and what and just like shut up you entitled little guy fuck off your parents should have your parents were doing everything they had to to give you the opportunity to grow up in a way in which you could exist and even have the notion that you can say your parents should have had therapy maybe they should but guess what when you have therapy for it to work you kind of have to come undone and then put yourself back together if my nan came undone she wouldn't have been able to parent me while looking after her mother wow yeah did you have any like predominant male men in your life growing up that you could look up to um my uncle mark so i was when i was born there was six of us in a three-bedroom flat it was uh my nan sorry my great-grandmother my nan my mom her two brothers and me um and then my mom left paul left my great grandmother died when i was 13 and it was me my man and my uncle he was severely epileptic probably autistic as well i would imagine um if he were to ever have an assessment um but because his epilepsy was unmanageable he stayed at home um and you know he used to change my nap i i say this to him now you know i'm very grateful for because i just i took it for granted i feel so silly ever having taken him for granted but you know in the last few years i've really like you know tried to have conversations and spoke to him and just you know and my uncle paul and just just say thank you because my dad weren't there doing it and

32:18Professor Green:yeah they were and still till this day oh they're just such pillars of strength for me and i was really lucky to to have him there changing nappies taking me to the cinema you know yeah and having a kid yourself now you know like we say it's hard it's hard work yeah how old were you when you were diagnosed and did you feel that it's actually helped you in a way to like understand how you were as a child yeah yeah it made much more sense of I kind of I understood parts of it but not in relation to a difference in my brain and brains are not binary anyway right um we're all different but it helped me understand a lot more i didn't i felt really ignorant i was 40 when i got my adhd 40 assessment and diagnosis and what brought you to that and i 40 years of being me nearly killed me um i think like the cumulative and compounding effect of that being undiagnosed and therefore not even mismanaged it was just unmanaged and it just it does it accumulates doesn't it all of that throughout life and not having any understanding of it you're really hard on yourself other people can be harder on you but then when you find out it's not that's not an excuse it's not well okay that's just how things are going to be like you can then I suppose if you haven't already which I definitely hadn't you can try and be more forgiving of yourself you can explain things to people you know I'm not being rude i just tend to notice everything in a room i hate sitting with my back to a door really yeah but then if i'm sat looking outwards onto a room and you're in front of me i'm going to be looking at everything that passes me i don't i just i i don't feel easy unless i'm aware of my surroundings sorry can you tell our um what just what you're actually diagnosed with yeah um so uh asd level one which it still feels weird to me because autism is such a varying spectrum and people at the higher end of it who are more impacted can be non-verbal.