In this special ADHDifference episode, hosts Julie and Jel Legg reflect on the key moments, wins, and lessons of 2024. Rather than focusing on New Year’s resolutions, they highlight the power of reflection — a practice that can provide ADHDers with essential dopamine boosts and a sense of accomplishment.
From personal growth to major ADHD-related changes in New Zealand, this episode is a celebration of progress and persistence. They share personal stories of weight loss, book releases, creative projects, and reflections on the power of patience and tenacity in the ADHD journey.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Major Wins for ADHD in NZ: Pharmac introduced lisdexamfetamine as a funded ADHD medication in New Zealand, along with the removal of the costly 2-year Special Authority renewal process, making ADHD treatment more accessible and affordable.
- Weight Loss Success: Julie and Jel shared their inspiring journey of losing 20 kilos each. Unlike previous diet attempts, this approach was marked by patience, habit-building, and mutual support.
- Book Release: Julie’s debut book, The Missing Piece: A Woman’s Guide to Understanding, Diagnosing, and Living with ADHD, was released in February 2024. The book has had a profound impact on readers, with heartfelt messages pouring in from people around the world who felt seen and understood for the first time.
- Music Release: Jel and Julie released their third album, Unmasked, with their band OLDER. The album focuses on ADHD themes, and they’re already working on a fourth collection of tracks.
- Podcast Growth: 2024 marked the launch and growth of the ADHDifference podcast. Their candid, lived-experience discussions on ADHD-related topics have resonated with listeners. The addition of guest interviews with ADHD experts and advocates has further enriched the show.
LINKS
- ADHDifference – Instagram
- The Missing Piece: A Woman’s Guide to Understanding, Diagnosing and Living with ADHD (HarperCollins, by Julie Legg)
- OLDER the band – ‘Unmasked’ ablum
- ADHDifference website
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: Welcome to ADHDifference. In this episode we’ll be talking about the 2024 Roundup. We’ll be looking back at the year, a little bit like Auld Lang Syne when we reflect backwards on some achievements and some big changes, rather than a New Year’s resolution where we look forward and try to plan our future. So here we are looking back at 2024. I will start by some a big ADHD news here in New Zealand. And on the 1 of December this year Pharmac made some huge changes which are quite significant for ADHDers. And one was the introduction of a new ADHD stimulant medication which was lisdexamfetamine, so it’s a new one a funded one by Pharmac. And also, the scrapping of the 2-yearly renewal of the Special Authority number and that process you’d have to go through and get it reviewed, or yeah reviewed really, by a psychiatrist which was really untimely and cost a lot of money for many folk. So that was the big news on the ADHD front and there’s possibly news to come in the new year. But hey, at for the moment we’ll take that win.
JEL: Yes, Auld Lang Syne, yeah. And yeah, perhaps one of the most well-known New Year’s songs sung all over the western world. Yeah, and it does look back rather than forward which is very interesting because, from an ADHD perspective, I think it’s really, really, important to look back on the year. And I’ve always done this rather than look forward because I don’t know what the future’s bringing. You can have all sort of goals, aspirations, resolutions, plans, hopes, dreams, and they’re all valid but you cannot guarantee they’re going to happen. But you can take a lot of quiet inner strength from looking back on the last year and see what has worked out, what you have achieved. And just take stock of that for a moment I think, that’s the that crucial moment when the year flips over. That’s what I’ve always done.
JULIE: And I think you know, those of us with ADHD you know, sometimes the years a whirlwind. It’s like “Woohoo New Year,” and, before you know it, it’s February and then it’s June and you go “What’s happened to the year?” But just as you said to just take account of the wins that we’ve had and really acknowledge them. And I think we’re being kind to ourselves, we’re giving ourselves a little dopamine booster too and acknowledging some of the achievements that shouldn’t go unnoticed.
JEL: Yeah. One of the big ones is we obviously lack patience, and so the idea of planning days weeks/months ahead in order to achieve something or acquire something, that’s really daunting with ADHD, really daunting. Because we’re usually looking for quick fixes, quick dopamine hits. And so we talked before about, excuse me, how we break large projects down into small chunks and take each chunk as a win, as a dopamine hit, and then just build upon that. And so, it’s so ironic to even use this word ‘patience’ but we do find ourselves surprisingly patient with certain things, once we lock ourselves into that path. And a really good example looking back on the last nearly five months is we made the decision, not on New Year’s Day at the beginning of 2024, but randomly sometime in August that we were going to lose weight, and we were going to lose a lot of weight. And we worked out from the beginning if we followed a sensible government recommended diet of vegetables, salad, controlled amounts of carbs and protein and so forth, and cutting out all the junk food, the biscuits, the cakes, bread, which a lot of it is junk, butter, all the things that really don’t bring you any goodness, or they bring joy but not goodness. It looked like it was going to take about 8 months if it worked and we’ve tried so many different diets. Go on, what are the diets we’ve tried darling?
JULIE: Oh gosh, we’ been vegetarian for a couple of years, I went gluten free for a while, we had months of not drinking alcohol, and it just seemed like the most impossible thing for us to lose weight. We knew we both needed to, and we can look back at 2024 and at this point in time we’ve both lost 20 kilos each. And at the beginning of the process, which was about five months ago, I wouldn’t imagine that was possible. I thought we were … it was a pipe dream as they say. But yeah, sure and steady, it’s happened which is remarkable. And we’ll continue a little bit longer too until we reach our goal weight. But we do acknowledge that in our 2024 calendar year that we’ll take that win. That was a good one. It kind of crept up on us. We hadn’t planned it years in advance or on a certain date. It just … we just started and with our sheer tenacity of going “No, we can do this,” it’s happened. It is interesting with ADHD, we are prone, ‘we’ being very generalized, are prone due to addiction and impulsivity, we are prone to eating disorders. And so the fact that we had put on weight over a period of time is not a surprise now we’re diagnosed and we can look back at that. Whether you’re eating out of boredom, or impulsivity, or emotional eating. There’s that side but also there’s the other side too with bulimia and anorexia. But actually, getting just that really healthy balance is so important. And talk to any nutritionists in the ADHD arena they all talk about an ADHD diet. And funnily enough it’s just the sensible eating. It’s cutting out the crap. It is eating healthily, whole foods, yeah. It’s all there whether we listen to it or not but we did this time.
JEL: It sounds like we’re here to sell a diet. We’re not here to sell a diet. It’s what you know, all the government health departments recommend. It’s always been in front of you, it’s always there. It’s the standard healthy approach. For me it wasn’t just about losing weight, I just wanted to stop taking on board all the E’s, and the preservatives, and the chemicals. Some of which are fine. Some of the preservatives are okay. But I wanted to get rid all that junk and all that stuff that wasn’t doing any good. So, it wasn’t just about losing weight, it was just about having a healthier diet. And I’m not the world’s healthiest person and we didn’t give up drinking either in case you’re wondering. Drink a lot less but certainly didn’t give up drinking. So it didn’t, we didn’t make it an impossible task but in relationship also to ADHD I think the lesson that got us through it was that previously we spent about four years renovating this house we live in. And I knew I had to paint, we had to paint, inside and out. It all needed doing. There was a lot to do and I worked out early on I couldn’t do it in one summer. And you know, the painting seasons in New Zealand are relatively short because it’s either too hot, too much UV, too wet, too cold. And so I knew it was going to take two or three summers. And so you pick the paintbrush up and you start and you just keep going until it’s done. So I don’t know how actually with ADHD, I don’t know what mechanism it is. You, I think you’ve mentioned the word tenacity but that yeah, perhaps that’s the secret. But it’s forming a new habit and getting into a routine. I like to think the reason we haven’t broken the diet once, not once with a meal we shouldn’t have eaten, which wouldn’t have ruined the diet at all actually, is stubbornness. Yeah, just stubbornness. Once I start something I’m jolly well going to finish it. I don’t like failing to finish something. And so that’s where we’re at. But breaking it, from an ADHD … get back, always coming back to ADHD, our relationship to the diet is slightly different in that I will only weigh myself once a week. That’s … I don’t want to know what the numbers are in between. And so every week I have a chance of failing and then having to turn the sort of ship around a bit late to find out in case I need to tweak it. Luckily so far, it’s carried on between half a kilo and a kilo a week which is the recommended amount. However, your approach is different.
JULIE: Yeah, well I weigh myself at least once a day which sounds ridiculous but I like to know. I need to go “Woohoo I’ve lost a minuscule amount overnight,” but for me that’s my little dopamine booster to say “Yep carry on, this is working.” And should for whatever reason there is no loss, then I have the opportunity there, then, on that day, to reassess things and make sure I’m on the right track. But it works for both of us. Two different ways of looking at things.
JEL: Yes and I just want to say for those of you who might be in an ADHD relationship, and both going to embark on this, this is where the understanding of each other … or if one of you doesn’t have ADHD, this understanding of how the other one person’s mind works, how they relate to it is so crucial. Because I’ve had to go through so many weeks where Julie comes to me on a Wednesday and she’s gained a few hundred grams on the last reading on a Sunday, and I have to go through this process of supporting you, don’t I darling. Knowing, knowing that the average adult human can fluctuate around 2 kilos a day, a day! And you’re trying to lose half a kilo a week so … but it, there’s just been this reinforcement of love and support for each other all the way through.
JULIE: Yes. You know what? [Yeah.] That’s enough about dieting. [Sorry.] Any which way, we’re going and looking back at 2024 and saying what have we personally achieved? So that was a very personal thing we’re sharing with you but we celebrate that.
JEL: A little hard to hide by the way if you go back and watch one of our first videos, to be fair we’re gradually disappearing. By next August we won’t exist. So there’s a limit to how long we’ll be doing these podcasts.
JULIE: Other win really this year for us, in February this year Harper Collins released my debut book called The Missing Piece: A Woman’s Guide to Understanding, Diagnosing and Living with ADHD. And for me that was a huge thing and the response I’ve had from it has just been incredible. I’ve had lots of author talks but beyond interacting one-on-one with some of the attendees there, has been the amount of emails that have come through. Really just people writing in tears about how they feel that they’re not alone now and they’re beginning their journey. And I adore the correspondence, it’s so lovely. And it’s from New Zealand, Australia, UK, all over. So I’m just feeling really blessed that I, you know, contributed I guess to other people’s journeys too in a way. So that was a huge tick. We should tick off that list.
JEL: And on that note, what observing how long, months and months and months of hard work and hyperfocus Jules put into writing the book, and seeing it finally come out you know, again it’s like a lot of things are going to mention in this, it’s the ADHD doesn’t get the instant hit overnight. The hyperfocus can actually end up with some quite big achievements. Yeah it’s not always instant. And so if you’ve got that ability to stick at something the rewards can be quite awesome once you get there. Yeah. So we released our third album, which was called … ‘we’ being OLDER, that’s name of the band we are. Our third album in May which is called ‘Unmasked’ and it was a collection of songs really written around the theme of ADHD. So that was a good cathartic sort of focus space for us to be in. Moving forward, well, all our songs have an ADHD underlying sort of drive and inspiration however that was very focused on the subject of ADHD. Yeah. Carried on, we gathered up a bunch of songs that never made the first three albums which all were too good to throw away but didn’t really fit. So we’re now working our way toward the end of producing and putting final vocals on those to come out next year. So that’s been a good achievement.
JULIE: Absolutely. And of course we started our ADHDifference podcast. [Here we are.] Which has just been awesome. It’s …. we’ve covered such a range of topics and it’s you know, in the situation with myself and Jel sitting on the couch if you’re watching on YouTube, or just imagining that if you’re listening through other platforms. It’s really … we just wanted to be candid. We wanted to have a casual conversation about our perspective due to our lived experiences with undiagnosed ADHD. And then post-diagnosis how we view our experiences and the world differently and can really understand why some of our past happened as it did. And really try and look forward to how we can cope better for example in future.
JEL: It has been just awesome to be able to share those thoughts and hopefully you know, it’s like with Julie’s book you know, copies get sold, lots of copies get read in libraries in particular, you occasionally get a bit of feedback and the same with this. As we can see how many downloads, and how many listens, and streams there’s been and hopefully some people somewhere have got something from it. And same with the music but you know, what really drives us is just sharing those experiences and thoughts and ideas and tips, none of which we guarantee are the answer, it’s just our lived experience.
JULIE: And again, for the listeners to know that they’re not alone and I think with the responses that we’ve had is like “Ah I do that too!” or “I’m so glad you mentioned that. That’s you know, that’s a bug bear for me too.”
JEL: And without doubt there’s a catharticism to it and that we get to have to think about some of these subjects more … what’s the word I’m looking for? Not in-depth but more sort of concisely. So we pick a word or a topic that really relates to ADHD and then we have to think about it concisely. So that’s good for us too. So you know, we get to think about these things and there’s nothing wrong with that, which is no different to writing a book, or writing music, or any kind of creative endeavour that you’re sharing. It’s a cathartic process then you’re using that art or that product to convey ideas to get other people to think or get something from them. Whatever they take you can’t control, what they take from it, what you guys from it. So hopefully something positive.
JULIE: Yes. Also too it’s …. we’ve, I’ve started interviewing guests as you may have noticed and I’ve got lots more to come in coming months. They’ll be quite interesting listening. What I’ve really enjoyed about that process is talking to experts in the ADHD arena, and you know different vibes and stories. And all of them have ADHD themselves which has been really nice listening to people who have achieved and some of the challenges they’ve had to overcome to get where they are. And just the insights they’re able to share has just been amazing. So, I’ve really enjoyed the process and there’s still a lot more to come with that regard.
JEL: Yeah, I mean this whole looking forward into next year and what you want to achieve and, being ADHDers we want to achieve everything as fast as we can, looking back and seeing how it can take months, weeks, months and sometimes accumulative years to get to a certain point of achieving something, is … it’s really good grounding and really good sort of frame-working for moving forward to have realistic expectations from January the 1st. If someone was saying this to me “You need to be realistic and patient,” as an ADHDer it’s like arrrgggh. We want to sell the house. We desperately want to keep … we really want to sell the house and move on. We’ve got great plans and dreams and things that will unlock and enable us to move on into that space. But it could take … it might sell next week, or it could take 6 months, or 12 months. We’ve got no control over that whatsoever and it is incredibly frustrating sat here. In other times it would sell within four or five weeks could be quite typical, maybe six. And now it could be months. It is beyond frustrating. So while we sound a bit zen at times don’t think that it’s all perfect in our lives. I am so frustrated you would not believe it. It is vital that we sell and move on. But the past, and what you achieve and what … when you look back and see what amazing things happen if you just let it happen over a period of time. What’s that phrase? This week’s phrase? ‘All good things come to those who wait,’ apparently. Wait? Oh there’s a trigger back isn’t it, goes around. See where we’re going with that, circles. All good weight disappears for those who wait. So yeah, but yeah. So back to how we started, Hogmanay is interesting. Go read up on it. We won’t try to explain it here and can’t pretend to fully know it inside out as someone in … who’s grown up in Scotland with the heart of what it means. But Hogmanay is a lot about looking back. It’s not all about looking forward and there’s a lot of strength you can get with ADHD to see for instance, in this last year you may have been diagnosed and that can be quite life-changing. And that’s a … in that moment, everything that came before that diagnosis now has … you have a different, a lot to unpack. There’s a different perspective. And so it is essential that you know, you have that looking back period. You may be on the cusp of a diagnosis. You may have been diagnosed a while ago and this last year is the year you said right, I’m going to try medication and your life completely changed, it became much more manageable, and focused, and you may be achieving more. There’s lots you know, lots potentially to celebrate there. And if it’s not even celebrate, to acknowledge and use as a platform for, if necessary, a better year you know.
JULIE: So I guess we’re talking about you know, with the 2024 Roundup, and Hogmanay, and Auld Lang Syne, our emphasis is, just to round this up, is just to look back with kindness, and pick out those achievements that … or part achievements if you’re partway through an extended project, and just give yourself a bit of a pat on the back. And yes, tick, that happened, that’s brilliant. And for us not to put too much pressure on the year ahead. It’s New Year’s Eve and there’ll be lots of people with you know, lots of resolutions flying about their heads as to what they should or shouldn’t do but just to be kind to yourself. And if you do have a few goals, just be realistic. And it’s a goal you know. If you don’t quite get there in a timely manner, don’t stress about it. It’s good to think ahead and it’s great to have ideas but don’t put too much pressure on yourself.
JEL: Yeah, I totally concur with that. You know, the media will be full of resolutions and all sorts of things for healthier eating, for giving up drinking, for doing more exercise, for moving on in your career. Nothing wrong with any of those things but don’t feel any pressure that is at all relevant to January the 1st, or the first week of January. March 14th, there you go. Random date. That might be the day you want to do it. Or August the 1st, doesn’t matter. It is when you’re ready. And I don’t know if it’s typical of ADHD but we’re quite sort of … what’s the word? Stubborn on things, alternative, different? We do things at our own pace and our own way. You know, I’ve always said if I’m walking down the street and suddenly there’s a big crowd walking towards me, I don’t turn around and walk with them. “Quick run this way.” Where are you running from? “Just run.” Oh, okay. So I barge through them and going to see what are you running from? Not saying it would have necessary always a good positive outcome but I just want to walk the other way, you know. It’s … and so going forward with next year just pick your time when you’re going to make that change and take strength from the last year. And … but it’s nothing to do with New Year’s Eve or resolutions. Nothing to do with that. [No.] No. [No.] You can make a resolution and start it tomorrow. Best of luck. We might, I don’t know. I think every day we make resolutions. Every day we’re changing the course of this ship called life you know, tweaking the navigation. Are they resolutions? Maybe they are. Sometimes they only last a couple of hours and that’s ADHD. “Well, alright, we won’t sell the house now.” Oh and 2 hours later “Okay we will sell the house,” and other big questions but … Absolutely.
JULIE: So, for those of you who have been following our podcast, we really appreciate your listening ear and if there is a subject that you would like us to cover in future, or some lived experiences that you’d like us to share with you, just drop us a line. All the details are in the show notes of the podcast. So, stop by, say hello, and we would love to hear from you. So, from Jel and myself. From ‘im and ‘er, have a great 2025 and we will hopefully connect with you then.