E1 – Difference

Julie and Jel introduce ADHDifference, discuss why they created this series of video chats and podcasts, and why they prefer the word ‘difference’ to ‘disorder’.

Upbeat and informal, Julie and Jel share their unique experiences and insights where they explore life with ADHD from a non-medicated perspective, the impact of late diagnosis, the value of their rural lifestyle, and their ongoing journey of self-discovery, aiming to foster a deeper understanding of ADHD through honest and candid discussions.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Redefining ADHD as a Difference, Not a Disorder: Julie and Jel view ADHD as a unique way of experiencing life rather than solely as a clinical disorder. They aim to challenge the negative connotations associated with “disorder” by highlighting how ADHD influences their perspectives and interactions.

• Insights from Late ADHD Diagnosis: Receiving their diagnoses later in life gave them new ways to understand their past decisions, behaviors, and relationships. They hope to help others recognize that diagnosis can bring clarity and acceptance, regardless of age.

• Managing ADHD Without Medication: They have chosen a non-medicated approach to managing ADHD, focusing instead on lifestyle adjustments, particularly their rural environment, to maintain balance. They emphasize that managing ADHD is highly individual, and that each person should follow the path that works best for them.

• The Role of Environment in ADHD Management: Rural living provides them with the space and activities that suit their needs, offering both mental stimulation and a connection with nature. They see this lifestyle as beneficial for their ADHD but acknowledge that everyone’s ideal environment may differ.

• A Personal and Honest Approach to Sharing: Choosing an unscripted podcast format, they aim to keep the conversation casual and genuine, allowing listeners to see their personalities and ADHD quirks, with the desire to help normalize ADHD behaviors like impulsivity, rapid speech, and over-sharing, creating a relatable and inviting space for listeners.

• Future Topics Tailored to Real Experiences: In future episodes, Julie and Jel plan to cover specific ADHD-related topics such as impulsivity, masking, and relationships, drawing on their own experiences to provide practical insights. Future episodes will also include guest interviews to diversify perspectives.

LINKS

Julie is the author of THE MISSING PIECE:  A Woman’s Guide to Understanding, Diagnosing and Living with ADHD (Harper Collins, 2024).

TRANSCRIPT

JULIE: I’m Julie Legg, author of ‘The Missing Piece’ and diagnosed with ADHD at 52.

JEL: And I’m Jel Legg, diagnosed at 55.

JULIE:  So why did we decide to start our podcast series? A good question. I recently released my book ‘The Missing Piece’ which is a Woman’s Guide to Understanding, Diagnosing and Living with ADHD. And it was written by a woman for women going through that process. Jel and I are married, we both have ADHD, and we thought it’s such a big topic to talk about and it would be great to hear it from different perspectives.

JEL: And different being we are in our fifties. We are not the kind of people you would typically imagine would have ADHD. It’s associated for many, in many people’s minds, as being young boys, something that people grow out of at 18 in early adulthood. So, increasingly these days there are more of us who are diagnosed as adults. We think we are a little unusual. Maybe we have some thoughts and experiences to share in that we are at the other end of life. Not quite finished yet, but we’ve been through our careers and marriages, plural, and bringing up children. And, so we thought maybe some of our ideas we could share through these series of vlogs or podcasts might just give some insights for your guys out there who are starting earlier in your journey. Or, perhaps a similar age to us and coming to a diagnosis yourselves too.

JULIE: And I think there is a growing awareness of ADHD. And, when see it in social media and we hear more of it on the news, I think that deeper understanding of what ADHD is … there’s a bit of room for movement there. So, we thought by opening up the discussion and being as honest as we can about our experiences, will just help continue that conversation.

JEL: Indeed. And the reason we’ve called this ‘ADHDifference’ rather than the word… ‘disorder’ is actually the correct word, we thought on this a lot and ‘disorder’ is the correct word but it is a medical word. It’s a word that is quite cold and in some ways brutal. Anything wrong with your body, if it’s not the standard way that part of your body physically or mentally should be, or work, from a medical viewpoint, is not ‘in order’ therefore it is a ‘disorder’. But we think the word ‘disorder’ has quite negative connotations, so we like the word ‘difference’. For us, our brains are in many ways wired differently. We interact with our emotions and the world in a different way. Everyone’s an individual, everyone. And, within our set, or our world of ADHD, we are individuals just the same. We perhaps just share a set of differences that separate us from people who are not diagnosed with ADHD and it is those differences which we’ll explore in this series, and how we relate to a whole bunch of things in life.

JULIE: Absolutely, and as you were saying Jel, within that ADHD arena – and we’ve all had very different life journeys to date, or to that point of diagnosis – but it’s the differences that are actually quite similar when it comes to ADHD and when you think of those traits and how we experience them. They are very interesting.  I have always felt different, since I was a kid but it became my norm, so while I’ve always been different inside my head, it was only in the big wide world of workplace and socialising did I actually feel ‘obviously different’. That triggered a whole bunch of challenges for me to overcome, so it’s been an interesting journey. Since diagnosis, I think what I’ve come to understand is that it’s okay to be different, and it’s okay to think differently, and at times to be that odd-ball. It’s absolutely okay and I’m really enjoying that perspective now.

JEL: Yes, this diagnosis process at this stage in life, and then the realisation when you look back on your whole life of why things happened, why you did and said things, why you related to things in the way you did, it’s a lot to unpack. For us, it’s been at least two or three years now and in that time you don’t really unpack all of it. You don’t work it all out. It may be you never quite work it all out because it really redefines, or re-frameworks your relationship to every memory you have. We’ve both lived happy lives, and good lives, and productive lives and we wouldn’t want to change anything about our lives. We live with no regrets. We don’t want to go back and change something massive in our life, even the big mistakes perhaps we’ve made or the things that have been hurtful to ourselves.

JULIE: It’s that difference though, undiagnosed, that has guided us.

JEL: It’s informed our decisions and choices, that’s a good way of looking at it.

JULIE:  Absolutely. So looking back, post-diagnosis, to go ‘ahhh that’s why I handled that situation’  or ‘of course that’s why I went right instead of left at that fork in my road’ you know … so it’s great. But we are learning every day too. It’s not like within a couple of months since diagnosis you’ll have it all sorted out – you’ll understand and love all your differences and, the end. It’s certainly not that. And we’re continuing on a daily basis too. The more we chat, the more we have those ‘a-hha’ moments.

JEL: Yeah, and very much it frameworks the future – not just tomorrow, or next week, or the next ten years, or however many years we have, but it certainly changes the future. And, we will now try to make choices and decisions aware of ADHD … that perhaps in the past we would have made, now we won’t make them. Now we’ll … they’re informed too, we just have too … we’re still as spontaneous and we’re still – what’s the word I’m looking for? Spontaneous.

JULIE: Hyperactive?

JEL: Impulsive. Impulsive is the word I’m looking for. We’re just as impulsive now as we ever were. Whether it is maturity or whether it’s an understanding of how impulsivity and ADHD are so intrinsically linked, I don’t know – but we do have crazy-mad ideas, but we do allow ourselves to sleep on those ideas and then reassess them in the morning, and be honest with ourselves that perhaps they were not the best of ideas.

JULIE: And that’s our strategy for our impulsiveness if we can catch it at the right time. There are times of course that our ADHD glows and we are unable to stop our impulsivity, you know, and that includes interrupting. And in fact, you know I really should say, I should have said at the start of this, our disclaimer is as well as not being psychiatrists and psychologists, we have adult ADHD, but also what you are likely to see in these podcasts or vlogs is overtalking. We are being very restrained at the moment. Oversharing at times. I certainly know, from my point of view, my head is so busy and full of thoughts that often my mouth can’t keep up. And, you know we have a little giggle at ourselves most days when I can’t finish a sentence because my mind has raced ahead so quickly that my mouth can’t find the words or finish that sentence.

JEL: Or I finish your sentences.

JULIE: Yes you do.

JEL: Because I’ve already figured out what you’re trying to say, and I’m bored and I want to get to the end of it so we can get on to the next sentence.

JULIE: And sometimes you’re right! And other times, it’s like “I haven’t finished”

JEL: There is another disclaimer which will probably underpin a lot of what we talk about in these series of chats, is we are not medicated, and we have chosen not to be medicated. We have no strong feelings either way on that and we certainly … each person must take their own path according to how their relationship with ADHD impacts their life. I think from our perspective we’ve got through life happy, we’ve done reasonably well in life, and we don’t really want to change of relationship with the challenges, and the fun, and the opportunities around us.

JULIE: It’s almost like a personal challenge to go, right, okay! Acknowledging the trip-hazards that we’ve had in the past, and being aware of them, and therefore just, you know …

JEL: Living with it.

JULIE: Living with it, and thinking about it, being really open about how we’re feeling about it … and do things differently. But my policy, well amongst many mantras that I have, is ‘never say never’ so while I am very happy to explore this non-medicated future for me, if circumstances were to change and I felt that it was impairing my life so much, I’d be silly not to consider that option.

JEL: I can imagine situations like that. Because we live a relatively free-range life. I don’t like the word lifestyle, we’re not fashion people, I just don’t like that word – but our lives are relatively free-range in terms of timescales, timetables, and how we live. And, we’re blessed enough to live rurally so there is a lot of nature around us, but it may be a situation in the future through circumstances that we are confined into a space. Maybe if we were ill in the future, or something, where it may be really difficult for us to manage being in a very confined space, working on other people’s timetables. Anyway …

JULIE: Can I just add to that Jel? And that is that I think we haven’t accidentally [fell into] living in a free-range lifestyle. We did have lives before we met each other, but both independently had adapted our world to make it a better place for us. And for me, there’s been many, many job changes, location changes, friendship circle changes, relationship changes. And it’s, unbeknownst to us because we didn’t know we had ADHD, we were actually making changes to make our lives better. I don’t think we’ve sat for too long going “this is absolutely miserable”. We …sometimes it’s taken a year or so, but, we get ourselves out of that situation.

JEL: We change very quickly, yeah. Whether it’s premeditated or overly thought through, but we do change quickly. But it again, it’s being in this rural situation is not some ideal that would suit everyone. So, we’re not here to sell this idea that, hey, if you want to manage without being medicated ADHD, you must move to the country and be surrounded by nature. That might drive a lot of people … well, it wouldn’t be too good people. It doesn’t suit everyone.

JULIE: And let’s talk about what we like about living rurally. Because it actually … it’s isolated. We don’t have neighbours within yelling-over-the-fence distance. We don’t live near a cafe or we can’t walk to the supermarket. We have lawns to cut and fruit trees to prune, and chickens to feed. There’s a lot to do. So, it’s not, you know … we’re not lying in hammocks going, wow, this is the life. So why does rural life suit us Jel?

JEL: Because, yeah, I like to say it’s because, you know, you’re almost in a battle with nature all the time, trying to control nature, but you can’t. Nature always controls you. And so every moment, well, every day through the season, you see the changes. There’s something going on. It’s different insects. It’s different growth rates of different plants. It’s different, things to look after. And so you kind of get a bit of perspective. Yeah. You get perspective on how you fit in in the world. Look, that could almost be an episode I think entirely in itself. Environment. This is how we want to sort of framework this going forward. Each episode, will be 1 or 2 short words. It may be Impulsivity, we’ll talk about impulsivity. Another one might be Masking, or Environments, you know, and then each episode you can just pick and choose something that talks about a particular aspect of ADHD that at that time may there might be some words in there and some thoughts and ideas that you just might help, or not.

JULIE: So, today’s episode really is just introducing ourselves. It will be relaxed. We will be ourselves. And as I said, we might stumble. We will certainly not pretend to be people that we are not. And so you will take us for who we are.

JEL: Oh, and the other thing, too, of course, is it isn’t always just going to be us. Jules will be interviewing various interesting folks along the way to bring other thoughts and opinions into the space. I’m looking forward to that too.

JULIE: So we’ll be we’ll be covering things going on now and the news, and we’ll be talking about all sorts of things, how we tackle certain situations and, and what we’re up to – because we’re always up to something!