Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.

I'm Kate Moore Youssef and I'm a wellbeing and lifestyle coach, EFT practitioner, mum to four kids and passionate about helping more women to understand and accept their amazing ADHD brains.

After speaking to many women just like me and probably you, I know there is a need for more health and lifestyle support for women newly diagnosed with adhd.

In these conversations, you'll learn from insightful guests, hear new findings, and discover powerful perspectives and lifestyle tools to enable you to live your most fulfilled, calm and purposeful life wherever you are on your ADHD journey.

Here's today's episode so hi everyone, welcome back to a new season of the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.

It's been a little while.

I've taken some time off over the summer.

You may have been hearing all the mash up episodes which I absolutely love bringing to you because there is so much content and amazing resources on the podcast and the conversations.

If you listen to them two or three times, you'll always glean something new.

And today we have a brand new guest.

I'm absolutely delighted to have this guest on, but first I just wanted to let you know that the Toolkit, the subscription version of the podcast, is now launched.

So if you're listening on Apple, this is where it's available.

And I have created the Toolkit as a supplementary and additional podcast to really help you dive into the more intricate parts of your adhd.

To help you to get that support.

I'm basically opening up this vault.

I keep saying the word vault because I don't know how else to describe it.

Of all the content that I've been creating over the past few years.

So this is workshops, extra interviews, webinars, coaching sessions, I'm bringing it all to you for such a fraction of the cost that it normally would be.

Because I desperately believe that more people need to gain access to this help for adhd.

Especially if you are on a waiting list.

The amount of people that message me and say I can't go private, it's not possible for me and I'm on this three or four year waiting list and that is not okay.

That is not okay for people to gain an understanding and an awareness and validation and help and guidance to making small manageable changes.

Now, it's not to replace medication.

We need to get that straight because unfortunately with adhd, medication can be vital.

And if you are waiting for medication, I am sending you all my love and I wish that the system was different.

But right now, if you are waiting and you are just wanting someone to hold your hand, someone to give you some ideas, some ways that you can tweak and change your lifestyle.

So if you are listening on Apple podcasts, it's literally the price of sandwich per month, a coffee, whatever you want to look at it, or you can pay a full year subscription and it's slightly less.

Give yourself a free trial.

It's two weeks and I hope that the content that's being uploaded in that two weeks that you can listen, you'll realize how helpful it is and you'll carry on listening.

And by all means, please tell me, tell me what you want to hear as well.

So today's guest is Joshua Fletcher.

He's Anxiety Josh on TikTok on Instagram.

He's a psychotherapist and he's an author and he uses his platforms and books to provide psychoeducation about anxiety.

And he has got an amazing book that's just been out called how does that make you feel?

And it's sold thousands of copies.

So I really hope that you enjoy today's conversation.

Here it is.

Josh Fletcher.

Hi.

Okay, yeah, thanks for having me on.

I've been looking forward to this.

Yeah.

And I'm excited because we're actually just down the road from each other.

I literally interview people from all around the world and you are just down the road in Manchester.

So it's lovely to talk to you.

We probably could have done this in person, but never mind.

We'll do it as I have to with all my other guests and just rely on tech.

But thank you.

I'm really looking forward to talking to you about your perspective on anxiety and how you help people in your unique way, which is like really fresh.

And been watching your social media videos.

I know your book has been incredibly popular, but I was just wondering if we could go back a little bit, you know, further and maybe talk about your own experience.

I know that you've gone through anxiety yourself in different capacities.

Could you perhaps just share with us a little bit about your background?

Yeah, sure.

So I grew up near in Greater Manchester.

I always wanted to be a primary school teacher.

It was like the dream of mine.

After I finished my undergrad, I went through a very stressful time in my life.

Obviously finished uni, I was broke, going through a lot of stress, went through a breakup, moved back to Greater Manchester, trying to find a job, trying to get out of debt.

I moved back in with my mom and my little brother.

And unfortunately at the time my younger brother became very unwell, so that added to the pile of stress I had then.

I wanted to keep working, though, as well as being his primary carer, because, you know, you need money to pay for bread.

And, yes, I went to work in a pupil referral unit, which is one of the most fit, my favorite jobs ever.

Lots of anxious kids.

And if you're not sure what pupil referral unit is, it's for where children go when they can't access mainstream education due to their behavior or various reasons.

When I was there, all the stress built up and it built up, and it built up and it built up.

And one morning I dissociated.

Now, if anyone, is very prevalent with people with ADHD and people who struggle with anxiety and stress.

One morning I just made a cup of tea.

I looked up and the whole room looked weird.

I felt weird.

I was like, oh, my God, what's going on here?

People's faces looked like clay.

I could hear my voice, but didn't feel like me.

I experienced something very frightening, followed by a panic attack.

Then subsequently, I went home, because that's what you do.

Thought not very well.

And then I developed agoraphobia.

Couldn't leave the house for six months, Became very unwell with what I now know was the start of an anxiety disorder.

I feel like I didn't have the appropriate help from the doctor.

Can you imagine now going to the doctor and being like, hi, Doctor, I feel like I'm in the Matrix.

You look weird.

What's going on?

I can hear my own voice.

Very hard to describe what I now know as dissociation.

I subsequently struggled with panic attacks and feared those panic attacks I would shape my life around not having panic attacks, which doesn't work.

And it was a grim place to be in.

I didn't feel like I had the right help until I did find some help.

The works from of Dr.

Claire Weeks, who's my hero?

Then more modern therapists and doctors who write about anxiety disorders.

So then I thought, I'm so passionate about anxiety and learning about it, but I also love teaching thought.

What's the best profession to do?

So I combined them both and did my masters and more subsequent training, become a psychotherapist.

Then at the start of COVID my mate said, everyone's losing their minds.

Why don't you start an Instagram page about anxiety with helpful content?

I was like, all right.

And then it went from there.

And then my Instagram page exploded.

And I write books about it, et cetera, but Yeah, I mean, that's a bit about where I came from and why I do what I do.

I'm really passionate about helping people with anxiety feel seen.

Wow.

Okay.

Thank you so much for sharing that.

I mean, what were the tools that you found the most helpful for yourself.

For me, is psychoeducation.

Psychoeducation saved my life.

It's learning what was happening in my brain and how my brain worked because I felt weird.

I felt like no one got me.

I didn't understand these intrusive thoughts I was having.

I didn't understand these waves of fear and fright, didn't understand dissociation, why that was happening.

My heart racing, skipping beats, the need to run out of places that weren't dangerous.

But I felt unsafe.

Why my brain fixated.

I'm a fixator.

As someone who's a high functioning autistic, I didn't understand what saved my life was being able to acknowledge what my brain and body were doing and then ultimately one, leave it alone or to put in a behavior to help calm me down, to stop fueling the anxiety.

Anxiety is a very broad topic and each person's anxiety presents differently.

And for me, it was really helpful to identify that I was a fixator.

So if I had panic attacks, I'd fixate on them.

If I had an intrusive thought, I'd fixate on them.

If I worried about what someone thought about me, I'd fixate on it.

Don't get me wrong, being a fixator is cool.

If you fixate on productive stuff, then, you know, great things happen.

If I fixate on work projects, whatever.

But that fixation part of my personality was really, really helpful to identify because I can label it and step back.

Yeah, when you say about fixator, I'm sort of thinking about like the hyper focus element of adhd.

Of yeah, and really kind of like having those things where we hyper focus.

But when you say about fixating it is.

I do see that more in like the anxiety sense.

You mentioned autism and we know that with neurodivergence, adhd, autism, there's a much higher propensity for anxiety.

I don't know one person that I've worked with and part of my community who hasn't had some form of anxiety or an anxiety disorder, whether, however that shows up.

And like you say, it shows up so differently for many of us and I know that there's so many people listening here that may have been diagnosed with anxiety and the neurodivergence has come decades later.

So they've been sort of given anxiety tools, practice or maybe they haven't, they've been medicated and they just know that there's something else beneath the surface.

And we know now with ADHD that it's the internalized, the restlessness, the mind, the nonstop thinking, the ruminating, the overthinking, the catastrophizing, all of that, that really kind of helps kickstarts that anxiety and we spiral with it.

And so when you talk about psychoeducation, for me as well, that was the biggest thing.

I was like, oh, okay, so I'm diagnosed with adhd.

I now understand about my wiring in my brain.

I understand that this is happening for me, this is why it's different, this is why I'm more prone to anxiety and hypervigilance and all things like that.

And I then was able to distance myself from thinking it was all about my personality.

And I just, if I just powered through, if I just tried something different, if I just did something better and that again, the understanding, the awareness, the recognition has been so powerful.

But if someone's sort of thinking, what psychoeducation, can you break that down a little bit?

Yeah, sure.

So I mean when we look at psychoeducation, we look at what anxiety is.

Anxiety is the brain's threat response, the almond.

In our brain called the amygdala.

Everyone has one.

Whether you're neurotypical, neurodivergent, whether you're a mammal.

We have the amygdala.

It's the fastest, oldest, but not the smartest part of our brains and it will fire off either when it detects threat or it will fire off in response to accumulated stress.

For a lot of people that accumulated stress could be over a long period of time.

So if you're someone with ADHD who hasn't known and has tried to conform and live in a very heteronormative society whilst being neurodivergent, that's going to add to your stress.

When you go just going through general life stress, family stuff, relationships, work, grief, chronic illness, things like that, that all builds up.

Maybe there's self esteem issues about your identity, what it is to be valued.

You mentioned a bit, hinted a bit about productivity anxiety, where you're constantly driven.

I have to keep doing stuff because if I don't, if I keep still, I feel guilty, etc, etc.

But what happens is this oldest part of our brain, which isn't linked two ways to our thinking brain, tries to look after us like an overprotective parent.

You know, it's kicked in.

And when stress has got too high, when you have panic attacks, often people say, oh, I had a panic attack from nowhere.

No, usually when I sit down, my clients, my practice, I say, well, tell me what's happened in the last month.

And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, maybe, maybe that was coming when terms of psychoeducation.

It was really helpful for me to understand that the amygdala is something that fires off out of my control in the short term anyway, and it fired off for me because of accumulated stress.

So it floods my body with adrenaline and cortisol and hijacks my attention to bring my attention to potential threats.

So suddenly I'm in ASDA trying to buy my beans and my bread, and now everything looks weird.

The lights are brighter, my peripheral vision is shut down, my heart's racing, I'm dissociating and I feel really scared, like something awful is about to happen.

And that's because the amygdala's kicked in and flooded me with loads of adrenaline and cortisol.

You know, it's.

The psychoeducation is really helpful.

I used to struggle really badly with morning anxiety and rumination.

The body needs cortisol to wake up, but cortisol is a primary component of anxiety.

So if you're someone who wakes up with that feeling of doom and dread and you lie in bed ruminating, try not to just get up, honestly, get up, put your shoes on.

Honestly, do not ruminate through that lens because it's cortisol.

It makes you feel icky and horrid.

And this doom feeling for someone who struggles with pmdd, perimenopause and menopause, you know, rather than having those lovely balancing hormones of progesterone and estrogen, the body's like, best I can do is cortisol and just gives you loads of cortisol instead.

So, you know, if you wonder why you feel like, awful during these times, it's because of that cortisol chemical.

Just understanding why you feel the way you do, you know, and understanding it's actually okay.

Your body can handle it.

It's.

It's there.

The natural occurring things happen in your body.

But trying not to fear and misinterpret it is one of the cornerstones of my practice.

And it was really helpful for me too, honestly, with.

When I struggle with panic attacks.

I was diagnosed with OCD as well.

It would feel very important to give this potential threat, whether it's a thought or a feeling or something or a situation, attention and what I learned was to do the opposite whilst feeling like rubbish, to rewire my brain.

And I managed to get to a really good place, live a very happy, content life now.

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?

Because that power of understanding and the labeling and then saying, okay, this is what's going on neurologically.

We're understanding the amygdala, we understand what's happening with our hormones and the cortisol and the adrenaline and all of that.

What that does to our body in the sense sensations in our body, that in itself is sort of taking us out of our kind of like, oh my God, what's going on?

And kind of like going into that even further down that anxiety, that spiral and getting back into our body.

And I find a very helpful tip is to, for myself is to almost talk to the anxiety, talk to the situation and say to myself, like, okay, I can.

You can feel that this is happening.

You can feel that it's brewing, the sensations in your body, and really sort of almost distance myself from the flood, I would say, and help myself kind of almost talk myself through the situation.

And that has been really helpful for me.

And I spoke to Dr.

Russell Ramsey and he said this, that it is a psychological term called distance self talk, which I found really validating.

I shared on my Instagram and so many people said that they've been struggling with anxiety all their life.

They said, I've actually just been doing that intuitively.

Like, I've realized that if I talk to myself in the third third person and kind of like almost taught to myself, like a friend would talk to myself, it really helps.

And so I think it validated for a lot of people that although if we're out in a public situation with outwardly talking to ourselves, it does look a bit strange, but it can be, it can be very helpful.

Would you.

Do you have any tips about something like that?

If someone is in the supermarket and they do feel that panic rising, is there anything that you can help with?

Yeah, I mean, listen, if something works for you, you do that.

I think it's really cool.

I often speak to myself to give myself a pep talk, maybe to give myself some encouragements and compassionate pats on the back and encourage that.

It depends again what your anxiety is.

If you're someone who fears anxiety and you're someone who, as soon as it arises, you want to get rid of it, sometimes you've got to be quite aware of the intention behind why you're talking to your anxiety.

If you're trying to talk to Anxiety to get rid of it, you can end up in compulsion territory.

Which one in five of us will have compulsions to get rid of horrible feelings, me included.

And so for me, actually talking to me and my anxiety, don't get me wrong, encouraging myself definitely works.

Talking to my anxiety, it actually didn't work for me.

It actually made me feel more anxious because I techniqueified it.

I was like, well I'm telling myself I'm brave and I'm doing this and the anxiety is not needed and I'm safe and I'm breathing and I've stopped and I've done my belly breathing and I've done my visualization.

Why do I feel 10 times worse?

Because I feared and misinterpreted the anxious response itself.

I actually stopped.

I was safe and I wasn't showing the brain, particularly the amygdala, that this situation is safe because I stopped.

I stopped and gave it my attention.

And I did this for years.

And so for me, what I would do is say would use positive self talk, but I'd frame it in the sense of, yeah, I'm going to feel uncertain right now.

I'm not going to speak to my threat response to the amygdala because it isn't wired that way.

Interestingly, to your thinking brain the amygdala is a one way street.

So there's one telephone line from the amygdala to your thinking brain but there isn't one going back.

So you can talk to your amygdala all you want.

Shout at it, scream at it, compliment it, ask it out on a date, it ain't listening because it's not wired that way.

So you know, I hear a lot of tell the anxiety that it's not needed, it's not listening, it's got you on mute.

But what you can do is show it and talk to yourself.

So for me, when I was doing exposure therapy for agoraphobia or intrusive thoughts, I remember not long after that time I said at the start of the episode was I needed to get back out there, I needed to look after my brother, but I couldn't even leave the house.

So for me it was going to the local shop.

And where I did use self talk was like, okay, right, amygdala's fired off, I've got a load of adrenaline and cortisol, I feel really scared, I feel dizzy, I feel sensitive to light, feel like I'm gonna have a heart attack, collapse, faint, feel like I'm gonna go crazy.

That was my favorite One, you're gonna go crazy.

And then I would say to myself, no, Josh, you know what this is?

You know exactly what this is.

This is normal.

This is.

Okay, yes, things feel in Congress because you're in Tesco express feeling like there's a gun to your head.

But actually this is very physiologically o you can do this, you can be brave and ride it out because the body could only has a finite amount of adrenaline and cortisol.

So, you know, call it bluff.

And then I would go in and get my five items.

It would take me forever because one, I can't concentrate and two, I'm feeling scared and want to escape, but slowly doing that.

And same applies to my intrusive thoughts, just riding it out, not talking to it, not engaging in safety compulsions and slowly started to rewire my brain so now I can do normal things again and exist.

So, yeah, I say to people, it's usually everyone experiences anxiety, find what works for you.

But if you are in that realm of anxiety where you struggle with intrusive thoughts, panic attacks, excessive anxiety, don't be disheartened.

If one thing that works for someone else doesn't work for you, you will find something that will work for you.

I think what you're sharing is really powerful for so many people because like you say, you're labeling these things and you're, you know, like you said, some tools and practices just don't work for certain people and some do.

And, you know, that's why it's so personalized, I think, individualized, this approach that we have to kind of recognize that people have different anxieties for different things and there's going to be different approaches.

What are your thoughts then of combining the psychoeducation alongside the medication, lifestyle changes and tweaks?

Like we can do all the self talk and all of that, but actually sometimes we need extra scaffolding.

What's your approach when you're helping people?

Ah, that's a great question.

Obviously, medication stuff, you gotta make sure you have a nice relationship with your psychiatrist, gp, health team to get the dose right.

My approach as a therapist, so I've seen, I work with a lot of people who have adhd, who have anxiety, who come to me with a multitude of things.

ADHD is just part of all the stuff that they've been through.

I use the old metaphor of the stress jog.

It's not new, it's not original, but I like it.

And in my practice, my aim is to we identify what's in the stress Jug.

So immediately.

And I got huge whiteboard in my practice and you know, once a teacher, always teacher, draw the big receptacle of your choice.

I had a client the other day, it said, can you draw a carafe?

I was like, okay, and we'll draw a carafe on the whiteboard.

And I said, let's find out what's in this stress jug.

And so we started with everyday worries, you know, like work, money, family, relationships, health, the world burning, etc.

And then we put other things in there like grief, adhd, autism and anxiety disorder itself.

The fear of fear, stress, horrible work colleagues.

Maybe mommy and daddy weren't very nice and we have some horrible resentment built up towards them.

Maybe we've been through traumatic stuff, you know, being on the receiving end of horrible things that goes in the stress jug.

Everyday stuff, politics, elections, I forgot to put the bins out.

Environmental issues.

That goes in there too.

And other things about your identity, self esteem.

How do you value yourself as a person?

Well, I only have value when I look a certain way, I've achieved a certain thing, I come and people accept me, etc, etc.

Well, that goes in there too.

And by now we filled the carafe, the stress jug.

I believe that when the stress jug's overflowing, excessive anxiety and anxiety disorders thrive because the amygdala trying to protect us doesn't understand all these subjective stresses.

It doesn't understand your work emails, it doesn't understand why you had an argument with your sister, doesn't understand why you're fretting over your social media presence.

It doesn't understand that because it's the oldest part of our brain, doesn't understand he's trying to look after us, doesn't understand why we're stressed.

So what I do and what my approach is is that we empty as much of the stress drug as we can.

Now, there are things in the immediate short term that we can do.

So I said, well, what can we work on?

What can we empty now?

Well, I want to get my ADHD sorted.

Well, maybe not, you know, that's going to be part of you.

It's how your brain works, similar to me, but we can empty a bit of that out of how we manage the ad.

I want to talk about grief.

Brilliant.

Can we, let's empty some grief out there.

We're never going to get rid of all of grief, never.

But the cumbersome grief we can.

I want to talk about me as my identity, I want to talk about my failed marriage, I want to talk about my friend who's annoying me.

I want to talk about the world, whatever.

Okay.

And talking helps empty out the stress jug.

I want to talk about my anxiety and my fear of anxiety and intrusive thoughts.

Okay, well, here's some psychoeducation.

Does that turn the anxiety off?

No.

Does understanding it help?

Actually, yeah.

And now we've emptied half the stress jug out.

Wow.

Okay.

Have we applied perfectionistic traits and tried to get rid of everything in the stress jug?

No.

And no one's got that.

No one on the planet can empty out their stress jug.

And the perfectionists really struggle with this one.

But what we do is we try and make it as light as possible.

And that's what I do.

And I think that's where psychoeducation helps.

It's like understanding what's happening to your body eases the burden.

Understanding when your stress drug is overflowing that you may go into shutdown mode if you're struggling someone struggle with adhd, the traits that come with that may exacerbate probably will do.

I know when I'm super stressed, my sensory overload is a big warning sign for me.

It's like, wow, why is that supermarket light burning my retinas?

And certain sounds are really difficult for me to process.

And that's what I do.

That's the cornerstone of what I do.

There's no one thing or approach.

We just.

As a therapist, I try to work through and empty it as best I can.

I think that the power of externalizing isn't it?

And you know, for those of us lucky enough to be able to have like one to one therapy, it.

It really is so powerful.

Coaching therapy, journaling can be really helpful.

Being able to sit down and just have a couple of prompts of like, what's in my stress jug today?

Like what, what is really there?

What's the most prominent thing right now?

And just journaling that out and that, that, that feeling of like releasing certain things, but also the acceptance, isn't it.

Of life is pretty stressful at the moment.

There are a lot of big things in the world that we have gone through and we're going through and all the external stuff that we can't control and there's so many uncontrollables.

And I think with anxiety we like to have some control.

We like to be able to know.

And the perfectionism that you're talking about can be very overbearing sometimes.

And when there's things externally that we just can't control, maybe just recognizing that and saying, yes, politics right now is really scary.

The world events right now are really not good.

We've just gone through a pandemic and we're still in the sort of the after effects of it.

And you know, a pandemic.

Who would have thought we would have ever gone through this and gone through, you know, and we've still got these tremors that are happening four or five years later.

And you know, I'm going to speak to the women especially who listen to this podcast.

I think we are holding more than we've ever held before.

On the flip side, we're getting the more awareness and the more support than we've ever had before.

You know, menopause 15, 20 years ago was never discussed.

It was a taboo, it was a stigmatized conversation that maybe you sort of had a quick mutter with another friend.

But now we're understanding the signs of perimenopause.

We're able to understand, like you say with the psycho education makes sense, understand our health, understand those connections.

We're now understanding this with this increased awareness of ADHD later on in life.

And for women, like you said before, it's been so genderized with, you know, boys and men just being diagnosed with adhd and for us just having no clue, no understanding about why we do certain things and the masking and the hiding, it's all been so exhausting.

So I think we are in this sort of precipice of mental health, especially for women, of recognizing that we are holding a lot and that life feels a lot.

But also actually we have, we're starting to get, have resources and we're having tools and support and conversations and women wanting to empower each other.

And we've got groups and I want to come towards, you know, we've worked on the psychological tools.

We've understood that therapy, medication can be incredibly helpful for ourselves in that respect.

But from a lifestyle perspective, for anxiety, it is quite a big all encompassing approach, isn't it, to anxiety?

It's not just what we've talked about.

Yeah, multifaceted and finding out what works for you.

Exercise is really important for my mood.

I don't exercise to get rid of anxiety.

I exercise to put myself in a better mood.

So if I do get anxious, I'm all right, I can handle this okay.

I've got a better foundation to build upon.

I think one of the big ones that I forgot to mention, which is a barrier for people trying to get better or to feel better in themselves, to accept themselves, is one called emotional conservatism.

Now, often it's associated with men, but in my experience, it's not.

Particularly in the neurodivergent community.

It's not.

It's a lot of emotional conservatism is when we revere not showing our emotions or not showing vulnerabilities, you know, for fear of being judged.

Or perhaps we see the ability to hide emotions as strength.

You know, the cliche is men is a man doing it.

But I see a lot happening with women as well because of the shame.

You mentioned before there about, you know, talking about the menopause 20 years ago wasn't even considered, and still now people are quite ashamed to talk about it.

I hear about it in my practice.

Very honored when people open up to me, particularly as a dude about it.

You know, I'm like, yeah.

I'm like, cool, let's talk about it.

So it has to happen.

You know, it's a very human thing, just being able to not be ashamed of who you are, being accepting of who you are.

It's something I've comes with only recently, to be honest.

I did a talk the other day in London and, you know, I'm autistic, and one of my stims is to wave my hand around like a seal.

Yeah.

And I was just like.

And I was just flapping my hand around, and then I was like, if you're wondering what I'm doing, that's just what I do.

You know, I'm not.

It's just what I do when I'm.

When I have emotions, you know, it was nice to unmask in that way.

I also have.

There's a few stims I won't do.

I'm not very uncomfortable to do that.

Yeah.

But like.

Yeah, in general, it's like, I'm not ashamed of who I am.

I'm not trying to conform, push myself into a norm for people anymore.

And it really helped.

I think the esteem thing as well is.

So.

It lightens the load, empties the jug a lot.

I don't mind if I'm anxious in front of people anymore.

Thankfully, I don't get that anxious anymore.

But if I am, I don't care.

I'm not ashamed of it.

You know, it's the thing that we all get.

And I don't mind asking for help.

I don't see any shame in asking for help.

I think a lot of people, particularly in the neurodivergent community, as a reaction to always feeling like the outsider and not feeling part of things is to do the opposite to become hyper independent.

Look, I can do it.

I'm hyper independent.

I will show you this and this and that.

For me I was the same.

But then it was like, actually no, this is a humility and a gift and to ask for help and tell people what I need, should I need it.

So yeah, I just wanted to talk a bit about that emotional conservatism side of things.

It's okay, don't get me wrong.

Don't go to your mate's birthday party and start crying on the cake and making all about you.

But what I'm saying is it's okay to convey what you need.

Yeah.

And I think that's really powerful.

First of all, I've never heard of that terminology before, so thank you.

I made it up, Kate.

Modern day Shakespeare down the road here in Old Trafford.

Also fixator.

Fixator isn't a word.

I made that up.

So there's going to be all these terms and I was like, who's this?

Absolutely, you can tell me anything.

I'll be like, yeah, you're a psychotherapist.

I'll just.

But it's, you know, especially with you, you've got a big social media following, you're a young guy and you are modeling to a lot of other.

I'm going to speak to men mostly that who have kind of like found it hard to show their emotions and talk about their emotions.

Just to articulate, just to be able to say this is what I'm feeling and to be able to actually convey their emotions.

I know so many men who have been so shut down that to talk about their emotions, it's just, they just don't have the language for it.

So what you're doing on social media is incredible and we need more men to be in touch with their emotions, to be able to talk.

And I wanted to ask you about your autism diagnosis and how old you were when you got that, how you felt and did it help connect dots for you or was it just sort of like a by the by diagnosis?

I've always been feel different and stuff.

I remember watching a video of me in the school play as a kid.

I was Father Christmas walking along and I just think stimming the whole way, you know.

And no one brought attention to it.

My mum never did.

She was very unconditional, very loving person and she's like, that's just what he does.

But I noticed actually as I got older it started to play apart and things.

It's only a few years ago, two, three years ago that I got it.

For me, it wasn't like it wasn't changing.

My brain's always been like this.

But it was nice to have the clarification and have that moment where it's like.

And I'm sure a lot of people listening to your podcast would be like, oh yeah, that childhood makes so much sense.

It's like, wow, totally.

Let's just how my brain's been, you know, I don't.

It's high functioning.

In terms of high functioning being the measure by what society means deems to be functioning.

But in terms of like social accessing, conventional work hours, things like that, I would say I was high functioning.

So it's never really been too much of a bad thing for me.

It definitely contributed to my anxiety disorder because of the stress joke.

So when I'm stressed and when anyone's stressed, they want control, don't they?

Have you noticed that you might be one of these people when you're stressed?

You like get productivity anxiety.

So you're like, well, I need to make to do lists.

And, and then I can feel sated because I feel like I'm doing things.

And then you're chasing these to do lists.

And then before you even completed it, there's another to do list and you're chasing that and you're making yourself more stressed.

I used to do that and it used to make me more stressed and make my stress drug overflow again.

It was all part of the package for me to understand that my brain works this way, particularly with panoramic sounds, sensory stuff sequencing.

When I'm super stressed and the jog is full, three people are talking at me or around me or if I've got multiple sounds around me.

My stress stroke fills up very quickly if someone gives me non sequenced instructions.

So like, can you go outside and put this in the bin?

But before you do that, can you actually clean the banister whilst also doing that, but then go outside?

But my brain just goes, what are you on about?

And.

And it just shuts down.

It's like, oh, it just goes into executive dysfunction.

Just go.

And being aware of that's really nice because when you're aware of it, you're not so harsh on yourself.

So I can say now, sorry, my brain can't handle that now.

Rather than shaming myself or getting more anxious and stressed because I was comparing myself to others, just be like, I just, I'm happy to say to myself, now listen, my brain don't work like that anymore.

You know, you're gonna have to go easy and with no shame.

And actually it saves me so much stress.

Yeah, totally.

That, you know when people say, oh, what do I want, you know, a label for?

Or I don't want to give my child a label.

I don't want them to grow up with a label.

And I.

And I kind of think you're missing the point.

Because to have that awareness and to have that opportunity to remove shame and to remove the what's wrong with me?

I think it's like, so empowering.

I mean, that's my personal take.

Some people kind of go, well, I don't really need the diagnosis.

Cause I know what my brain's like.

And they're not that bothered whether they want to know if they've got ADHD or autism or both.

But for me, it was just.

I could breathe.

I was like, oh, okay, absolutely.

I'm with you on that.

And I often have fights with psychotherapists, fellow colleagues about this.

I get on my soapbox, you know, like, stop giving everyone labels.

It's reductive.

It's like, no, I'll tell you what's more reductive is assuming that everyone is the same.

You've reduced everyone into one equal singularity.

If there is, there is nothing more reductive than that.

Having labels can be empowering for people.

Don't get me wrong.

There is an over medicalization of mental health and it's progressing.

Stuff like that.

I'm not disputing that.

But for me, when someone told me I had panic disorder, when someone said I had, the biggest one for me was ocd, obsessive compulsive disorder.

It's just a very real thing.

And I was like, oh, my gosh, you know, that.

That was a life changer for me.

And with the autism diagnosis and things like that, it gave me the tools to understand how my brain works with compassion as opposed to being like, why can't I do what they're doing?

Why can't I do what my brother's doing?

Why can't I do what my friends are doing?

Why can't I fit in?

Why can't I do these tasks?

No, it's like, oh, I can do these things.

And I'm actually really good at doing loads of cool things.

But there's some things that I'd need a bit of care to access.

Totally.

And I think being neurodivergent, whether I'm generalizing or not, we have a lot of questions.

We're big thinkers, we're deep thinkers.

And to not have answers to questions is really hard to manage and to hold.

And for me I had so many questions and never had any answers.

And so that caused me to just constantly be in self criticism mode and put other people in a pedestal and everyone else is doing so much better or doing things differently.

Why can't I do it?

And then the kind of the epiphany of the adhd, I was like, that's why I'm so creative.

That's why I have a million ideas.

That's why I'm so good at this, that and the other.

But that's why I can't read board game instructions and that's why I can't hear people tell me directions.

Like all these different things that I.

For me it was like life changing.

It really has been life changing because it's changed the course of my career.

It's brought me, you know, doing this podcast, it's allowed me to help and support so many people.

And so yeah, I think to never diminish the power of a diagnosis, if that is what you are, you know, you really are looking for.

And did you find you were kinder to yourself when it made sense?

And how much stress does that take off you?

So much.

Some of our biggest stresses of when we're an absolute dick to ourselves, probably the.

Yeah, I was in such.

I was so self critical the whole time and I just, my poor husband just hear me going, why is this person always doing better?

Why can't I stick to something?

Why do I keep changing my mind?

And he didn't have the answers.

He was just very supportive.

But he got to a point where he was like, you need to get out of this.

I was very much in victim mentality and I wasn't empowered.

I didn't feel strong, I was hyper focusing on all my negative traits in adverted commas and I never saw the strengths for what they were.

And even I saw my strengths as a negative.

Like having so many ideas was you're so flaky, you can't stick to anything.

Like you've always got these ideas but you never follow through.

Where.

When I got the ADHD diagnosis, even though I got two brothers and even though it looked completely different to the way their ADHD showed up, I was like, well, of course I'm got ADHD because it doesn't look like my brother's.

And then, you know, with the psycho education, with the understanding with then going into complete hyperfocus of wanting to learn everything I could about adhd, then I was right.

I'M not going to.

This is it.

I'm changing the way I speak to myself because I don't wanna see my daughters talk to themselves.

And we've got a whole family of adhd so powerful.

And it's really nice.

That's.

And particularly I love it when I hear parents be like, nah, just cause I went through it doesn't mean my children have to.

And I'm gonna change things.

I love stuff like that.

I think that's me being cliche therapist.

But no, that's lovely.

And that will change and there'll be a cultural shift with it as well.

Just for to be very accepting of how brains work.

Correct.

That's okay.

And that's.

Yeah.

Again, I love psycho education.

Really boring on a first date, but I love it.

My mates, I'm out of the pub, my mates, they're like, don't get him started.

Oh God, we're all going to yawn ourselves to death.

You just need to meet that person that goes, this is fascinating.

And then it'll be fine.

I mean, moving on to the psychoeducation, you've got your website, is it the school of anxiety, is that right?

Schoolofanxiety.com.

that's where I.

If you struggle with the anxiety disorders and we'll have to get you on the disordered podcast.

We talk about all things panic attacks, OCD, agoraphobia, things like that.

Me and my co host Drew, both therapists and previous sufferers of anxiety.

There's things on there like my books and stuff, including the.

Tell us about your book.

Oh, I tell you what, Kate, it's an absolute banger.

So I've written some self help books for anxiety, panic attacks, panic disorder.

They did really well.

And then I thought I want to write a mainstream book that will make people laugh and cry and then laugh again and then laugh, cry and educate them.

And so I wrote and how does that make you feel?

Which is obviously a cliche trope phrase from the therapy world that I have never said, never will say.

You need a badge that says that.

Yeah, I will not say.

And how does it make you feel?

And it's an insight into what happens behind the door of the therapy room.

So I invite you into the therapy room and we follow four client case studies.

Obviously heavily anonymized, huge ethical process, just don't throw fruit at me.

And obviously consent was gained, et cetera, et cetera.

And we followed four client case studies.

One person struggles with panic attacks, nocturnal panic attacks and self esteem issues.

And this person is a famous Hollywood celebrity.

The second is a nightclub bouncer who struggles with intrusive thoughts and ocd.

Intrusive thoughts about his family that's so taboo he can't stay aloud.

Third person is a gp.

Struggles with driving anxiety and grief.

Oh yeah, driving anxiety is a big one.

It's one of my most listened to podcast episodes.

You know, interestingly, it's connected to the menopause.

I've heard a lot of people talk about driving anxiety being a prominent menopausal symptom.

Yeah, no, it's, it's driving anxiety in my, in my opinion is a form of agoraphobia because we're afraid to be overwhelmed by the anxiety behind the wheel.

Because if we get so anxious behind the wheel we can lose control and the consequences are high risk.

These people avoid going on the fast lane in the motorway or avoid motorways altogether.

They'll avoid certain roads they don't like sitting at traffic lights, et cetera.

It's actually a malform of agoraphobia.

It's very rare that people actually suddenly look at their Fiat Punto and go it's like no, it's just like I just want to.

I'm afraid of losing control because the anxiety, particularly with menopause and perimenopause, very common to get an anxiety disorder diagnosis around that age.

And I never knew.

I did a post on my own Instagram last month, I was like here we go, I'm going to get absolutely slaughtered for mansplaining here.

And I put it out there and actually it was received really, really well as I was, made my day.

But like very.

It's not surprising for me.

My anxiety disorder started when there's a whole load of cortisol and adrenaline because of stress trauma stuff that I mentioned at the start of the episode.

Now it's not surprising when you're going through that when you suddenly have all this excess cortisol, hormonal shifts and changes on top of stress and then you, you suddenly go inwards and develop an anxiety really, really common and it makes sense and it's annoying because doctors don't, a lot of doctors don't explain this.

You know, it's not bashing doctors but it's like it's just not common knowledge.

Yes, things like that.

If you.

The books talks about a lot of issues.

It's not heavy, it's mostly funny.

I talk to about my inner thoughts, literally tell you what I'm thinking in the session and there's little voices in my head and they're all arguing like anxiety, compassion, analytical criticism, irreverence.

They're all arguing around a table.

Bit like inside out.

It was inspired by inside out, actually.

Not seen the second one yet.

And when they're all arguing as I'm working with clients and I show you how both professional and excellent I can be as a therapist, and also how utterly terrible I can be as a therapist, just to show you what therapy's.

Like, I can't wait to read it.

I mean, for me, that sounds refreshing.

It sounds insightful.

I love your take on things.

I love your humor, and I'm really, really.

I'm really excited to see what else you do, because I think what you've got is you speak to women.

I think you speak to men, you speak to teens, older people.

It's really, really powerful.

And we just need to normalize these conversations.

And no one wants to feel alone in these.

In these thoughts.

And I don't know one person that doesn't have some form of intrusive thoughts or anxious thoughts or concerns or worries.

Thank you so much.

I'm going to put all the links of your website, your book, podcast, social media, all on the show notes, and people can find you there.

I'm sure they know about who you are.

Anyway.

No, I don't know.

Thank you so much.

What a really nice podcast this was.

And thank you for having me as a guest.

Thanks, Josh.