So, hi, everyone.

Welcome back to another episode of the ADHD women's wellbeing Podcast.

And today I am speaking to professional broadcasters.

Not.

Not me here, just doing my podcasting thing.

We've got Classic FM broadcasters and hosts of the you're wrong about ADHD podcast brilliant podcast, Sam Pittis and Katie Breathwick.

So welcome to my podcast.

Delighted to have you here.

I think that.

That we're gonna have a really interesting conversation.

I've got lots of questions about how you've moved from Classic FM to podcasting about adhd, so welcome.

Oh, it's so lovely to be here.

Thank you for having me.

Your lovely intro, first of all.

But it's such a.

It feels like such an honor to be on your podcast, which is also wonderful and fabulous and has been enormously helpful to me.

So thank you for having us on and it's really, really lovely to see you again after you joined us.

Absolutely.

And we'll see how professional we are in the next one or so.

Yeah, be careful with that.

Yeah.

Well, how.

How we slowly dissipate into sort of ADHD chaos, but hopefully not so obviously.

Super, super intrigued as to.

We were just talking a little bit just before we started recording about how you guys met and how your careers have sort of gone side by side.

And you're obviously broadcasters on Classic fm, not on the same show, but how you guys have sort of met and how you've progressed into a podcast together.

And I'd love to just hear a little bit about.

Where did your working relationship begin?

We met a very, very long time ago in radio newsroom.

Long time ago.

A really long time ago.

And I was kind of old in the tooth, A very young mum at the time that Sam joined the same radio newsroom that I was working in.

Barely out of school.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, weirdly, about the same age that my youngest is my.

Which I find a bit weird.

Isn't that strange?

I'm trying to guess.

Yeah.

And a very.

How old were you, Sam, when you came?

I think I was 22 at the time.

22.

I mean, imagine, imagine.

And we worked together on lots of different news programs and radio stations and kind of sort of followed each other around a little bit.

There was a period of my career for a couple of years where we worked on the same news desk on different radio brands, but we were working quite closely together.

It was LBC and Classic fm and they had quite a similar news agenda.

And I think that's probably when I feel I got to know you a little bit.

Better.

And I saw what I now know was a little bit of Sam's adhd.

Then at that point in his life, he probably saw a little bit of mine as well.

I definitely think so.

And I think, you know, there's a spark in a newsroom.

There's a way of working, there's an immediacy, there is attention, There is.

It's an unusual place to work, and it has.

It's all about running on adrenaline.

And I think both of us thrived on that.

And we had periods of, you know, really intense periods of working together, really fun periods of working together.

And we always got on and I think always were able to sort of communicate through that.

And I think later in life, here we are now.

I think we both know why that is.

Yeah.

And it's so weird, isn't it?

We kind of.

So we sort of followed each other through news to Classic fm.

We host neighboring shows on the air.

And when I got my diagnosis for adhd, which was, what, coming up to three years ago now, I remember going into the studio to see Sam and I told him, Cause he's my mate, you know, it's like this.

Things happened.

Oh, my God.

This thing that can explain me to myself and to my colleagues has happened, and I want to tell you about it.

And he looked completely crestfallen.

I mean, like I dropped smashed something in the studio right in front of him.

And he said, I've just been diagnosed with adhd, too, but I don't feel like you do about it.

And that prompted a lot of conversations.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I didn't feel the same way.

I think that has changed over the period of doing the podcast.

I'm sure we'll talk about that.

I felt like this was all the difficulties, the depression, the trouble, the relationship issues I'd had that I tried to sort out through therapy and other things.

I felt like my ADHD diagnosis was saying, right, you're stuck with this for life.

And that was a very different feeling to the one you had.

Yeah, that's so interesting that you had those different kind of reactions.

I mean, Katie, what was yours in that respect that you obviously got these answers and you've.

Did you feel relieved or did you feel excited?

Like, what was that for you?

Huge relief initially.

And that was largely because I thought I had Alzheimer's.

Genuinely felt my diagnosis came as a combination of me realizing I had adhd, but also in the midst of perimenopause.

So it was all of those things, the kind of hormonal rollercoaster of that period of my life.

And I genuinely thought I had Alzheimer's.

My dad has dementia, and I could see some of those cognitive difficulties in myself.

And so when I eventually kind of got diagnosed with adhd, it was like, oh, what a relief.

Okay, finally I can start to figure out what this is and start to do something about it.

I mean, obviously, obviously there was grief, there was anger, kind of looking back on elements of my life that could have been easier if I'd had the understanding then.

But, yeah, genuinely, there was a real sense of, I feel this is a positive step.

And I could also see that the ADHD brought parts of my personality that actually I'd used in my life, like being on the radio and working in a newsroom and all those things.

And so there was that sort of.

That came up in our conversations so much, didn't it, before we started doing the podcast, that sense of, oh, come on, Sam, this is why you're funny.

This is why you're great on a night out.

This is why you like singing and dancing and all that kind of stuff.

And Sam didn't quite feel that way.

No.

So, Sam, you obviously were explaining your mental health challenges, relationship challenges.

Had that shown up throughout your life and had you, like, how would you internalize what is now your adhd?

Yes.

I mean, it was a pattern that went throughout my life, and in some senses, and now I am much more positive about my adhd.

It does unlock a lot of the past.

It makes things clearer.

I had had periods of depression.

What I now know to describe as emotional dysregulation had been something that happened my entire life, from childhood.

School was a particular struggle and battle.

A battle is the way I describe it, a sort of a sense of suffocation, a feeling of wanting to burst out.

And that would then demonstrate itself in me, quite often bursting out, you know, whether that was sort of lashing out or shouting out a lot.

Physical pressure, I would find, and this goes through school and into the workplace, where I would put myself into the box I had to be in to get on with my daily routine.

But I would find that that pressure would build up in me and it would burst out in, you know, itching skin and my hair attacking me and feeling I could never be comfortable in my clothes.

I. I would find that quite often Saturday would come and I was unable to function.

I'd just crash because I'd been going.

My brain had been going so hard all week.

And these crashes became sort of pattern of my life to the point where I got used to managing them and I got used to saying, well, when I crash, I take myself away and I hide away and wait till I rebuild again.

When I got married, when I met my wife, suddenly somebody else sees that and says, hang on a minute, this is not the way it should be.

Let's try and get you some help.

I went to therapy and I had some really good counseling, but this stuff would, it would help me release it, but it would build up again.

And this brilliant counsellor said to me one day gently, look, have you considered adhd?

And honestly, I had, but I think all of the descriptions that I'd read of ADHD didn't seem to take that into account.

It all seemed to be about being disorganized and messy and forgetful, and I wasn't really any of those things.

But now I can see that so much of the way that I had tried to manage what was going on in my head had led to emotional dysregulation and these crashes.

It was very much a case of you sort of over compensating with your ADHD by building a sort of super strong structure around yourself, unlike me, who was your kind of classic messy, untidy, disorganized ADHDer.

And so much so that you, you doubted for a very long time that you even had adhd, even though you'd been diagnosed with it.

Yeah, because I think, as I said, so much of what you see and read about or find out about ADHD didn't seem to relate to me.

But funnily enough, you talk about building structures.

It was when I had children and suddenly all the structures and plans and routine that I put in place for me to manage myself could no longer happen.

Because if you have kids, you're not able just to say, well, I'm going to go and take myself away for a day, or do you know what, I'm going to opt out.

This thing that I'm finding really stressful, it is something you enter into and you don't have a choice but to be there, present in what can be a difficult environment.

And that was when I was diagnosed with adhd.

That's what led to essentially a crisis, you know, a lot of depression, emotional problems.

And then I was diagnosed, and then when I was diagnosed, I essentially had a, I suppose what you call an emotional crash leading to a nervous breakdown.

Because I just thought, well, this is it then.

So I was trying to get a solution.

Now I've been told I've got ADHD and it's never Going to be fixed.

This is me forever.

It's so interesting to hear that that was your reaction.

And you know how two different people talking about their experiences, male and female, and we know how ADHD is such a spectrum.

We know how autism blends now in so many different traits.

Ocd, depression, addiction, how it's never the same picture for anyone.

And I think sometimes it can feel a bit invalidating when one person's having an experience of it being like this and another person is like, well, that's not me, but I'm still been diagnosed with the same condition.

So I just find it really interesting that you have these.

These different experiences.

And I wonder, Sam, I'll start with you.

Has there been an evolution and what have you done for yourself to pick yourself up from what sounds like quite a difficult, dark time to a place of acceptance?

If you are there yet?

Yeah, I think I am.

And I think part of the podcast, honestly, was a way of almost professionalizing the research and the work I had to do in the sense that I was told I had adhd, but I didn't really know what it was.

I didn't know what that meant.

There wasn't a lot of guidance.

Okay, well, this means.

This means this part of your life can be explained by this.

So what I needed to do was explore that.

And I had a lot of therapy.

I had dbt.

I was sort of told I had traits of Borderline Personality Disorder.

And DBT is a fantastic therapy that essentially helps you move away from the extremes of emotion and gets you to be more in the middle, if you like.

That was really effective for me and sort of helping to manage my emotions.

But I think the key thing in terms of acceptance and the really useful thing about our podcast, you're wrong about adhd, is that we have been able to have conversations like this and learn that, you know, things appear slightly differently to people, but also things aren't necessarily fixed.

So just because I had a meltdown over something one day doesn't mean I'm going to the next day.

And actually I can start to manage and start to change my behavior.

I think the sense that my diagnosis meant I was stuck with ADHD forever made me think, well, I can't manage then.

Well, actually, I can manage, but it may be that the way I manage has to change every day or every week or maybe something works for a while, and in three months it has to change again.

And I think that being able to take control of my ADHD is.

Is life changing partly from therapy and Partly from the conversations we've had.

Yeah, it's the awareness, isn't it?

And it's knowing that sort of being controlled by something you don't understand and you're not even aware aware of, that you are able to learn and you're able to get the therapy or the coaching or learn these tools or, you know, try different techniques to feel that you are more empowered.

And I'll come to you, Katie, because you talk about hormones, obviously perimenopause, parenting, bringing.

I mean, what you said actually, Sam, was so relevant because our kids needs change and our kids schedules change and that's ever evolving.

And like you say, we really do have to kind of work around that and we have to regulate ourselves so we can have regulated kids and help them perhaps with their own neurodivergence, which I'm sure we'll come on to.

But I'll say, Katie, what was it that you felt after your ADHD diagnosis?

What did you feel more empowered by or did you feel that you were able to take control of after all these years of not knowing?

It was like somebody had suddenly translated a language for me and I could read it.

But what was particularly compelling, really about the early stages of the diagnosis when we both found out that we had it, and the fact that we were experiencing things so differently when it was also the fact that we were receiving different treatments for it.

So Sam had tried taking medication and discovered that none of them worked for him naturally.

He had quite bad reactions to them.

I found the medication, one of the medications, immediately helpful and have been taking it ever since.

And in the early days when we first started making the podcast, I felt rather smug about that.

You know, the fact that I had this, I had a key, I had the key to my adhd.

It was like, ah, I've got this thing that basically makes it better, better.

And actually what has been one of the most interesting aspects of making this podcast is firstly, the medication isn't a quick fix.

It doesn't, you know, I'm sitting here sipping a lot of water because I've got dry mouth because of my medication.

There are all sorts of aspects to the medication that are not ideal.

I also don't want to be on it for the rest of my life.

But there's also the fact that sitting here with my friend and the conversations that we've had with the various experts that we've talked to Sam, brings a different approach, which is I can't take the medication.

So how do I manage my ADHD under those Circumstances.

And that has been revelatory for me because it's meant that I have also used those tools, you know, getting in cold water when we.

When we talk to an expert about that, about deep breathing, about paired muscle exercise, all these different things which I have to say I laughed at often on the podcast.

At the beginning, I would sit here and be sort of very cynical and a bit irritating about.

Over time, I have come to realize those things are also helpful to me.

And wouldn't it be wonderful if one day I were able to survive without the medication, which I think is probably my ultimate aim?

You know, I like.

I do like to think, you know, when we talk about parenting and the.

The mother load, the father load, parent load, whatever it is, I know I am at a particularly sticky moment in my life.

I've got elderly parents who need my time.

I've got children who need my time.

I have a busy job.

I've got all of these different things going on.

I'd like to think at some point in the future, maybe when maybe life has calmed down, that perhaps I could go back to a world where I don't get up and take a pill in the morning in order to regulate myself.

I don't know.

I don't know.

It's just something that I'm happy to put on the table as a possible aspiration.

And I think that's what has been a particular, particularly interesting aspect of this whole experience, sitting and talking about ADHD with Sam in particular, is that your approach is different to mine.

Your experience is different, but your approach is different.

I would just say if anyone is listening to this and thinking, you know, ADHD is beating me, and I don't know how on earth this is supposed to be manageable.

You can manage your adhd.

And I think if someone had said that to me when I was first diagnosed, I'd have probably said, you can stick that.

Thanks.

But you can.

It doesn't mean it's easy, doesn't mean it'll always work.

It doesn't mean that it won't be hard work, but you can manage it.

I think what you just said then, I was thinking about, I wonder if society has made managing our ADHD harder.

We know that neurodivergence has always been there.

But I do think, you know, when you're talking, Katie, about the pressure that we're all living under.

Life has changed.

The pace of life has changed.

The import or the output of life has changed.

We couldn't be more frenetic.

Our nervous systems couldn't be more frazzled.

And so when you have a naturally, I would say, sensitive nervous system, we're going to feel this a lot more and it's going to be a lot harder.

And we have to kind of unfortunately work harder to help ourselves with adhd.

So if you think about.

I'm going to speak for myself here.

What helps my ADHD is being outside in nature, moving my body, breathing, decompression time, time to philosophize and delve into subjects and topics that I find interesting.

You know, be creative, connect with people who I really, you know, love being with.

Kind of go into a flow of things, being mindful.

Like the list.

The list is endless.

And it's.

I've put it all in my book saying if you can just do a little bit of this here and there throughout your week, you will find things feel easier.

What happens is that all of these things that I've just talked about, it's really hard for people to access now because we're working pretty much full time.

Women have got more pressure and not much has changed within the house.

We're still juggling all the things like you say, we're looking after older parents.

There's a lot of expectations, so many different things.

I just think it's like this melting pot of how our ADHD is coming to this head and our nervous systems are struggling to cope.

I do believe that if we are able to some ways, and many of us aren't, but we can make small choices and we can, you know, put boundaries and limitations up or I guess maybe on social media or how often we're on our phone.

But also like, I don't know, like when we say yes to things we shouldn't be committing to, that we are more aware of what that can do, how that overwhelm can show up in our lives and how with awareness now of our ADHD and what does contribute, what those triggers are, two are overwhelm or to feeling like we're in this burnout, which I can hear, Sam, that you've obviously gone through many times.

Yes.

I mean, I. I would say one of the themes that has cropped up certainly in the most recent episodes of youf're Wrong about adhd, is this sense of a need for cultural change, particularly around neurodivergence.

Because as you say, we are in a society that is so pressurized, there is a schooling system which really needs modernizing.

There is starting to be an understanding that lots of us need adjustments, minor adjustments, small adjustments that help us manage to thrive at school and thrive in the workplace.

But I think you're right, Kate.

There needs to be a wider cultural change.

And I know that's a big ask and it's a long term plan, but a wider cultural change that takes into account that people are getting worn out and getting burnt out.

The only thing I would say to that is the thing that burns me out as much as going and going and going is being bored.

And it's very difficult and it's something I'm still working on, likewise is trying to get a balance.

So I might say, okay, well, I'm not going to socialize this week and I'll, you know, I'll make sure I stay off my phone and I'll just spend time with my family and I'll just make sure that I meet the responsibilities that I need to.

But that sort of emotional need builds up physically inside me and I know that I need to go and do exercise and I know that I need to eat properly, but I also need some mental stimulation.

I also need to do interesting things and meet interesting people.

And I think that is a lifetime challenge for someone with ADHD is finding that route between not burning out from overstress and overstimulation, but also not getting emotionally dysregulated because you're bored.

So.

So yes, I can relate so much this.

I was talking to someone yesterday about this, an amazing psychotherapist.

And we were talking about.

It feels like for me, I have a disconnect between my brain and my nervous system.

So I have a brain that constantly wants to learn and do and keep, you know, just being active and like need that stimulation and then have a nervous system that is craving calm and regulation and decompression and alone time.

And sometimes they blend really well.

Like sometimes I find that bal.

But then sometimes, like you say, I know I need to rest, but that boredom kicks in.

And I had it on holiday with recently with my family and my kids were like done by, you know, we were touring around America and I was like, come on guys, we're going to go and walk.

We're going to do this.

Let's go to this museum, let's do this tour.

And they were like, mum, you're exhausting.

Like, so I ended up going off.

They'd get in an Uber and I'd be like, I'm going to walk home.

Because I still have this restless energy and this desire to still kind of like learn and go have carry on looking and seeing this new area that they weren't that interested in.

So they'd go jump in a cab, go and chill on the bed and have a bath or whatever.

And then two hours later, I'd walk in with 15 minutes to go till we had to go out for dinner, jump in, dare to sit on the bed, and realize I was absolutely exhausted and fit for nothing, but knew I had to have a quick shower and go back out for dinner.

So part of me was thinking, what have I done?

But the other part of me is like, I do love doing that, but we have to find that sweet spot for ourselves where we don't find ourselves in that burnout all the time.

Do you know what it reminds me of?

And it's not a perfect analogy because I don't fully understand the condition, but a friend of mine has diabetes and he, you know, he works so hard to manage it, and he has to be thinking ahead about his sugar levels and make his insulin levels and making sure that he has eaten the right food if he wants to go and do certain things.

And again, it's not a perfect analogy, but there is a bit of that with adhd.

A sense of, if I'm going to go and have a big social engagement, I need to make sure that I've got some time afterwards to recover, or I need to make sure that I've had enough sleep and enough food beforehand.

It's a sort of constantly managing your levels, but emotionally rather than perhaps physically.

I hear you on the whole holidays thing, but the number of times we had that conversation, because of course, that's when you're all, you've all got bags of time and you're all together and suddenly your different needs meet, don't they?

And I was always the one going, but when are we.

When are we going out?

What are we doing tonight?

What.

What's the thing for today?

I'm gonna go on the bicycle.

I'm gone.

I'm on the bicycle now.

And.

And so many times ADHD would be mentioned in that kind of.

Ah, Mom.

Yeah, okay, Mom.

It's just.

And it is, it's very interesting how so often holidays really kind of shine a light on the different kinds of personalities that we are within A can sometimes obscure that from us, can't it?

Because we're so busy and we're running around and we're only just making the deadlines.

But when you're on holiday and suddenly you've got space, it suddenly becomes a lot more obvious.

Hundred percent.

Absolutely.

That kind of moves on to, I guess maybe we can talk about Relationships, because, like you say on holiday, our needs are different.

And I was the one that was like, come on, like, up and go, I want to be out 9 o' clock in the morning.

I want to be out all day and be, you know, investigating and just learning and doing all of that.

And, you know, this.

Sometimes there was slight differences of opinions.

People wanted to sit by the pool and people wanted to chill and just, you know, do nothing.

But we can see how that manifests and shows up in our relationships and how much we need to tend to that, because we know there's a very much higher percentage of relationship breakdown with neurodivergence.

Adhd, it can put a huge pressure, I would say undiagnosed.

When we have a bit more awareness and we're able to take response, responsibility together and individually for how our ADHD shows up, it can be very enlightening for a couple.

But I wonder, did you both have partners that could see your adhd?

Did they validate it or were they like.

No.

Well, they could definitely see it.

Yes.

Go on, you go first.

Well, I was.

I was in a situation where I was emotionally dysregulated and I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

So it was quite a difficult time for us.

And there was a sense that I needed to get support, I needed to get a diagnosis, honestly, to make sure that I could be the husband that I needed to be.

But, yes, my wife is very understanding.

She absolutely sees my adhd.

It's not a shock to her.

The more we understand, the more we read about it, she absolutely gets it.

But I've just.

Just was musing on the word you used, responsibility.

And I think that's a really key word.

It's one of the things that frustrates me, actually, when people.

There's a lot of negative talk about adhd, about it being sort of a lazy person's charter and shirking responsibility.

For me, getting a diagnosis was the first step in taking responsibility of saying, some of my behaviors need to stop and I can't manage them and I can't stop them.

Therefore, I need to learn what's going on for me and find out how I can be a better husband, be a better friend, be a better dad, don't always get it right.

I'm not perfect.

But it is a key, as you said earlier, to then taking responsibility.

And it has absolutely made our relationship better.

But certainly still, my wife is very patient.

Do you need a bit of patience?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, there's an Understanding that I'm not let off the hook.

But quite often there's an explanation for some of it.

No, we had, we had a night out in the early days of the podcast where our partners came along and they sat next to each other at dinner and they had a lot to say to each other.

You know, there was a lot of, there was a lot of sharing of kind of, oh, he does this and she does that and he does that.

But, you know, that sounds like they were slagging us off.

I think.

I would like to think that they both recognize that part of the reason why they were attracted to us in the first place, I think is probably because of the adhd.

You know, I know that the way that my husband and I fit together in terms of the way that we are at home and the way that we are out in the big wide world is largely to do with our skills.

And he definitely has skills that I don't have, but I also have skills that he doesn't have.

And we help each other in those different ways.

And I'm so lucky that I met him and that I found somebody who is able to kind of of be compatible with my various challenges.

But we do fit together in a way that helps us both.

And of course, there are times when there are flashpoints and disagreements and we've had to learn certain new ways of communicating.

But actually, my diagnosis unlocked massively the things that we were struggling with.

And he has been amazing in that.

He says so often now something will happen or a challenge will crop up and he'll think, okay, that's adhd.

I think I, I understand why this is happening, and I need to approach this in a different way.

And so the diagnosis has kind of helped us in, in lots of ways.

And there are benefits.

I mean, if my wife, there's a DIY project that needs doing in three days and it needs to be done in one day, she knows that I can do it at double speed.

So you've got 15 hour days in the attic he's been doing recently.

Totally.

And I think, think, you know, I think that's it, isn't it?

There are upsides.

I mean, your adhd, you'll have renovated the house in about three weeks by the sounds of things, you know, and that, that is a massive positive about adhd.

I think once we get into something, it's hard to get us out again.

And it does mean that stuff happens and stuff gets done.

And that is definitely.

That's an upside.

Yeah.

And it's that creativity and like you say, that passion, if we're interested in it, that's it.

It.

But we sometimes we struggle to find that interest or we're told in, be interested in something else because we've been told that's what we should be doing.

And, you know, I'm glad for you guys that you obviously, broadcasting and journalism was obviously something you were both really interested in and maybe you found the, the topics and the subjects that you are even more interested in.

And that is where I always say to people, that is where you find, like, the gold in adhd.

Yes, there's going to be the challenges and all the annoying things and the really difficult things, but with awareness, we can get help for them.

And that's when we start.

It's kind of like brushing off the, the dust and all the stuff and finding a beautiful crystal that you can then start polishing.

And you see how beautiful it can be from so many different angles.

That ADHD can be a wonderful asset if it's nurtured and cared for and you've got that compassion and you've got a lovely partner.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of people that are struggling on their own, you know, really, and they don't have a partner that's been kind to them or they have fed into this criticism, their self criticism.

And, you know, instead of it being like, oh, there's your ADHD in a.

In a lovely, jokey way, they've had, oh, there you go again, or you can't do this, you've struggled with this and what's wrong with you?

And I can see how easily it can go in so many different ways.

We've had parents that have supported us and nurtured us and allowed us to be who we are.

We've had parents that haven't done that and have gone down more of the stifling or the suffocating or the criticizing route.

And I've seen it all play out in so many different ways.

But what I would love to say is, or ask is you've both found broadcasting.

Would you say this is where you thrive?

I know you sort of talked about the adrenaline and the excitement and all the new topics.

I'm interested about Classic fm.

Do you both have an interest in classical music or is that just where you found yourselves?

Speaking for me, yes.

Speaking for myself, I was a chorister.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a city.

I sang in a cathedral choir, in Leicester Cathedral Choir, which was the first choir, I believe, to allow women to sing in the pews in those days.

And we were late at night on a Sunday evenings when no one came to the cathedral, obviously.

But it was to give young girls an opportunity to sing.

And for me, it was the beginning of a really beautiful relationship with music and I have been in love with it ever since.

And I also loved current affairs and politics and that's how I ended up in news.

But it almost felt like it was my sort of inevitable destination to end up at Classic FM one day.

I was.

I was thrilled to get the job in the newsroom initially and then to get the opportunity to present was honestly a dream come true.

I used to listen to the station as a student, so to be on air is just an indescribable joy.

And to be able to work in that sphere, talking about music, talking about the stories behind the music and the composers is an utter privilege.

It really is.

And I would say I have similar feelings, I would say in terms of an ADHD journey, working in a newsroom, working in news, it is kind of the perfect ADHD job.

I think it's unsurprising that we both found ourselves there.

You are taking in lots of information or filtering lots of information and picking out the key bits really, really quickly.

Your brain works really quickly.

You take that information, you then immediately disseminate it.

And honestly, sometimes you then immediately forget it and move on to the next thing.

I mean, that is essentially broadcasting.

And there's a lot and there's a lot, or there was in there a lot of emotional dysregulation in a newsroom with flashpoints, which then get forgotten very quickly.

You know, come in the next day, brand new day, we don't remember what happens.

It's immediate excitement and that, you know, really worked for ADHD and really does.

And I think in terms of the music, I love the music.

This is a slightly different environment where we work now at Classic fm, but there is still that sense of first making a connection.

It's essentially we're chatting to people, which is really fun.

Being able to, to share a passion for something, but actually then sharing the music.

When you introduce a beautiful piece and you talk to somebody and you think about where they are and you describe their situation and you make that connection with them through the music by saying, and then listen to this piece and essentially feel how it hits.

And then you play this massive, you know, wonderful string piece or, you know, symphony.

It has a.

A massive dopamine hit, essentially, isn't it?

It does.

You do.

And you're alone in a studio and you can be dancing along to a piece of classical, marching around the studio, three o' clock in the morning.

You know, it is, it is, it's a huge, we know the benefits of music and how empowering and how uplifting it can be.

But there's something very special about a radio studio when you are on your own as well.

There's a weird sort of sense of peace because it's, this is a soundproofed environment where, yeah, you are communicating and you are talking to people, but actually it's more like a telephone conversation.

You're talking to one person at the other end who is listening to you.

And that is the sort of intimacy that you're trying to create, isn't it?

Absolutely.

But I would say beyond that, that feeling, and everybody knows this feeling of when you, when you have got something really fun and then you say, hey, I want to tell you about this thing that's really fun, that feeling is indescribable because you are experiencing this joy and this excitement and then you're being able to say to somebody else, hey, I've got this really fun thing to share with you.

And that's, that's honestly a great fun job.

I do think there's definitely a very high proportion of broadcasters with adhd.

I think it's, I mean, one of my, my favorite radio presenter is Chris Evans.

I love Chris Evans Sevens.

And I listen to him and he's just like, for me, just like screaming adhd.

And I think he realizes it as well.

But every morning I'm like, does anyone, has anyone told him?

But he does, he talks about, he's talked about it with his kids and stuff.

So I think he's probably aware and he sort of, you know, alludes to it, but it is, I do see that.

I used to work in PR myself, used to work in consumer pr.

So on the other side, I was.

Trying to get the attention of you guys.

They're very similar jobs, aren't they?

Yeah.

I enjoyed everything that you were talking about.

The fast paced, everything was changing and evolving.

But what I struggled with my, again, because I do feel this, I have an anxious kind of nervous system was this terrible, terrible fear that I was going to get something wrong.

And if I pass this, you know, the wrong information to a journalist and then that was broadcast, that would be all on me.

So I would over check, overcompensate, worry, wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat that I haven't done something or hadn't sent the press release.

When I meant to.

And, you know, this is back in the, you know, 2000, early 2000s, we didn't have our phones or anything, but it was like, oh, my God, I need to get office, I need to get to the office.

And it was.

It sent me into this very anxious spiral and I fed off the dopamine, I fed off the adrenaline and all of that and the brainstorming and the ideas.

And I was the one that would be like, call Kate in, we need some ideas.

And I would literally, within five minutes, like, give them a whole campaign and walk out.

And I'd be like, can I go home now?

But what I struggled with was then making sure that every detail was right in the press release and checking and reading people's websites and all of that, so you can sort of understand why you're drawn to careers, which can burn you out as well.

But I love the idea.

I can.

I recorded my audiobook in a soundproof room and I'd never been in one before and it was a very strange experience, but it felt like you were in a bit of a vacuum.

I did have a sort of a sense of peace that there was nothing else going on in the world.

It's a safe space, isn't it?

Yeah.

Apart from.

I felt a bit claustrophobic and needed some fresh air, but.

And felt absolutely drained.

I've never been able.

It's three days of recording my audiobook and I literally felt like if I never spoke another word again, it would be fine.

Those are long days.

I mean, you know, bearing in mind our radio shows are three hours long and we're only doing sort of four or five minutes of links in the middle of a show.

So that you were talking for a lot.

That is a lot to ask of you, I think, over three days.

So I'm not surprised you were drained.

We both used to do speech radio as well.

I mean, we both did phone in radio, where you're on the line game, please call me.

Somebody call me, yes.

At two o' clock in the morning on lbc.

I've got them.

I'm talking about this and I'm really hoping someone's going, but you're in a.

Hyper focus though, aren't you?

So would you then come out of that place and be like, oh, I can breathe.

Like I've not breathed for three hours or something.

And you'd feel quite jittery and work to.

Adrenalized.

Yeah, adrenalized headache.

Did you get a headache being on it?

I. I definitely.

I still have it.

I'm in that absolutely hyper focus zone.

I'm quite often exhausted when I come off a show because you just think, right, I've given all that energy for that amount of time and now it's oh, power down performance.

It is performance.

And like, you know, I've got family members who say to me, ah, it's not a real job.

And there is a part of me that agrees because of course it's very different to what they do, which is probably much more grown up in many ways, but there is a lot of energy required in that moment, isn't there?

And it does, it definitely does take it out front of you.

And I, I have had to be careful over the years, especially being a freelancer of not overbooking myself.

You know, if I'm offered work, I say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

And there were times when I massively over scheduled and of course I didn't know I had ADHD then.

Now I know that I have to be careful, but I didn't realize at the time that I would say yes to everything because I wanted to say yes to everything.

And of course you get to the end of a period of whole month, month where I have had no days off.

I did 32 days at one stage with no weekends, nothing.

And you just, I got to the end of it, it was like I had nothing left.

Of course I didn't.

And again, that diagnosis has enabled me to realize that I need to be really careful about what I say yes to.

And the power of saying no, that's quite a new realisation for me, the power of saying no and, and saving that energy for my family who are more important than everything else.

So, you know, that's another thing that I sort of picked up along the way.

I think that realization isn't that ADHD realization of we're not infallible and we are sensitive and we do need that time and it's okay to not take everything on even though our brain is going, yeah, yeah, yeah, stimulation, dopamine, it's almost being like having that pause, that breath, that, that let's just take a beat here and checking in with our body, checking in with our nervous system, checking in with our schedule.

Whereas that version of us maybe before a diagnosis would have been, yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem, I'll just deal with consequences.

And we do deal with the consequences and the people around us had to deal with those consequences as well.

So I always say that life might be a little bit more boring, but I do feel more regulated after my diagnosis, definitely.

Can I ask you a question, Kate, about that?

Because I absolutely agree with you.

The awareness is the key and has made me able to make those choices.

Choosing to sort of say no, or choosing to breathe or choosing to have a moment.

How do you manage emotionally with that?

Because as much as I'm able to say I'm not going to do that because of my adhd, or do you know what, I'm going to make a different choice because that'll burn me out.

I still get quite frustrated with the fact that.

That maybe I can't always do all the things I want to do.

Yeah.

I mean, I think it's just an acknowledgement of it, of, like, oh, you know.

But I've got.

I found more peace with it that the FOMO isn't there anymore.

I've had to make do some diary reschedules recently and I've had to say no to something which I know probably would have been really fun and really nice, but it would have involved an overnight stay in London.

It would have involved me cramming my diary even more to make space for clients and other things in my podcast.

And I was thinking, what am I doing that for?

And it always comes down to genuinely my kids and my family.

And as much as I love everything here, I love doing all of this.

The most important people are the ones that suffer when I'm really dysregulated or burnt out or exhausted and I just check back in and I just think, right, I want to be around for my kids, I want to pick my daughter up from netball, I want to be able to go out for dinner with my husband or.

Or sit in front of the TV with my pajamas on and do that.

And it's given me a bit more perspective, whereas before it would be like, ambition and do more and, you know, get that validation.

And now I'm just a bit more at peace with saying no more.

But you can see the benefit in a way, can't you?

Yeah, 100%.

My last question is, do you think Mozart was neurodivergent?

No doubt about it.

There's no doubt about it.

And we've.

We've had a chat about this on the podcast and we.

I.

There are a few others as well.

Yes.

Definitely was.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Marla, we think might have been autistic.

I mean, I. I think what's really interesting about the world of music actually is I think it attracts a lot of neurodiversity and in lots and lots of different ways.

And I think if you were to look at an orchestra, you could almost look at the different instruments.

I'm not going to do it now because the violinists would be horrified if I thought what the violins were and what the trombonists are.

But, you know, you get those different personality types in the different sections of the orchestra.

And I.

And what it involves, the creativity and the outlandish thinking on a huge scale, I think requires adhd.

And then the ability to sit down and put that all on paper requires hyper focus.

And sometimes that arrives very late, as it did for Mozart and it definitely did for Rossini, who did everything at the last minute, which meant that there were people in the orchestra getting their sectional parts, like five minutes before the performance.

Well, you know, we recognize that as a way of working, don't we?

And I've always been attracted to musos, as I call them, the people who work in classical music.

And I do think it's partly because there are so many, many neurodiverse individuals who work in that world and, you know, long may that continue.

Oh, I love it.

I think it's a conversation that we could go down a whole rabbit hole on.

But no, it's fascinating and it's been an absolute joy to have you both on the podcast and to talk about your experiences and you tell everyone about your podcast as well because it's excellent.

I love directing people to other podcasts as well.

Well, thank you.

Thank you for having us.

It's been great to talk to you again.

And, you know, thank you for coming on our podcast as well.

Thank you.

It's called you'd're wrong about adhd.

And essentially it's our trying to figure out what ADHD is.

I think we come from different perspectives, as I think we've made clear, and it's figuring out our experience, certainly listening to some of our listeners and their experiences and then saying, okay, what does this mean?

Why is this happening?

Let's talk to some experts and try and see if we can figure out what's actually going on.

So I think for us, it's really a good place to understand more about what ADHD actually is.

Brilliant.

Well, I will put the link in the show notes.

And Katie and Sam, thank you so much for being here.

It's been a real pleasure.

Thank you so much for having us.

If this episode has been helpful for you and you're looking for more tools and more guidance, my brand new book, the ADHD Women's well Being Toolkit, is out now.

You can find it wherever you buy your books from.

You can also check out the Authority audiobook if you do prefer to listen to me.

I have narrated it all myself.

Thank you so much for being here and I will see you for the next episode.