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3 Important Lessons From A Late Diagnosed ADHD Woman - Kat Brown

Kat Brown is the author of 'It's Not A Bloody Trend: Understanding Life as an ADHD Adult' and editor of 'No One Talks About This Stuff'.

Alex PartridgehostKat Brownguest

Apr 16, 20241h 21mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

75 min read · 14,854 words

0:00 – 1:15
Trailer
1. APAlex Partridge
  Women and girls have been missed for so long, and why do you think so many are now getting diagnosed for ADHD?
2. SPSpeaker
  I think the-
3. KBKat Brown
  Hello, I'm Kat Brown
4. APAlex Partridge
  The author of It's Not A Bloody Trend and No One Talks About This What was the catalyst that made you really go for a, an assessment of ADHD?
5. KBKat Brown
  Having failed IVF, there being no embryos, there being no children, and having other people not going, "Oh, Kat, you're sad, tragic little book," but going, "I had a termination for medical reasons." It's made me feel seen in a way that I didn't know. This is why I think it's so important, can find somebody whose story sounds like yours, even if on the surface you have absolutely nothing in common. When I was on my own, there were so many critical voices in my head. I'm awful. I'm rubbish. You know, what did you say to that person today? You're gonna flunk out of university, and then what's left for you? And I know what I thought about that at one point. I did have, like, suicidal ideation.
6. APAlex Partridge
  When I heard the words, "You have ADHD," I felt a huge r- sense of relief. When you heard those words, how did you feel in that moment? Kat, thank you so much for joining us.
7. KBKat Brown
  Thank you so much for having me. It's delightful to be in the ADHD Chatter studio.
8. APAlex Partridge
  Thank you so much. It's fun, isn't it?
9. KBKat Brown
  It is.
1:15 – 10:10
Memories of feeling different
1. KBKat Brown
  I love the neon.
2. APAlex Partridge
  I was reading your book, and I read some interviews you did, and I want to read some quotes back to you. Uh, this isn't one continuous quote, it's a couple joined together. "Living with ADHD made me feel defective. Ever since I was a little girl, I felt that there was something deeply wrong with me. I went through crap, felt like an alien." All of these things are probably very relatable to the listeners. Could you explain a little bit more about how you felt at that time?
3. KBKat Brown
  Listening back to it, it sounds really miserable, doesn't it? It's like a sort of misery memoir section. Actually, newspapers keep dropping me emails and going, "Do you have any strong emotional feelings about this?" And I'm like, "No, 'cause I've had a lot of therapy, and I recommend everybody else does as well." Um, before we started the interview, we were talking about the fact that I'd grown up in the countryside, and nowhere, like, colossally rural, but arguably in the '90s, before we really had the internet, uh, mobile phones, anything really like that, there was this huge sense of you were here and nobody else was. And, uh, similarly, when you don't know that there is perhaps something that might be helpful to you to look into, particularly around how your brain works, which, let's be honest, when you're eight, 10, 12, is not necessarily something you have any interest in at all, you are just going to feel quite, oh, okay, well, this is just me, and, uh, maybe I just need to try something different, or I, I don't understand why the ways that other people behave either upset me or I, or I see through them in a sort of way. Um, I just found a lot of, a lot of the social, I don't know, lubricant, the sort of oil that greases everything from primary school playgrounds to, you know, being dragged out at drinks parties when your parents have got their friends R and having to behave and all that sort of stuff. I just found it quite difficult to know what gear to slip into. Whereas even if you've been diagnosed reasonably early mid in life, as I was at 37, or if you're somebody who really only has found out about this quite late on, 60s, 70s, 80s, even by that point, you've learnt enough about life, about society, about people, about yourself to be able to sort of operate in those areas, um, even if it's just sort of selecting a different mask from the shelf. But-
4. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
5. KBKat Brown
  ... you know, at that age, you don't know about masks, you don't know about anything else. All that you know is that what, whenever you try and behave like yourself, um, people seem to find that wanting, or they might call you sensitive or weird or sad-
6. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
7. KBKat Brown
  ... or something like that, depending on how old they are or who they are. And so there's just going to be this feeling inside you. Anybody, I think, who has anxiety, which is, again, such a min- mimsy word for something that is quite a violent feeling, will sort of know that roiling inside, where it just feels like all of your innards are wrong.
8. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
9. KBKat Brown
  They're sort of boiling away on the wrong setting. And when you feel at odds with what's going on around you, particularly as a young person growing up and trying to, you know, explore or expand, um, use all the areas of your imagination in a sort of safe way, then those sorts of knockbacks from people, whoever they are, can really start, you know, leaving their, their marks on you.
10. APAlex Partridge
  Mm. And I suppose over time, they compound, they add up, and they chip away at your self-confidence, self-esteem.
11. KBKat Brown
  Usually. Um, I mean, this book has been such an eye-opener for me 'cause I've learnt so many things through doing it, which is a relief because with the best will in the world, like three and a half years of hyper-focusing on everything to do with ADHD is not the same as-
12. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
13. KBKat Brown
  ... you know, decades of clinical work and research and so on. But, um, I spoke to, uh, Shamel Mashrou, who is a psychiatrist. He has worked, to his estimation, with around 4,000 ADHD patients, um, in, in differing, you know, levels of experience. And when I was sort of finding out about ADHD myself through my diagnosis and understanding about all the comorbidities that can come alongside ADHD, I'd always thought that it was maybe just they got sort of plopped in and sort of happened alongside.
14. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
15. KBKat Brown
  And I really hadn't put two and two together and realized that a lot of them can be caused by experiences in our life. It's not the same as trauma, and again, that's why it's so important that, like, somebody who not only has real experience of working with ADHD, but also a lot of other conditions and experiences, is the one doing your assessment. But I- Dr. Mashu explained that, for example, anxiety, depression can be brought on by repeated exposure to people telling you negative things about yourself, and that's not the same as going, "You know what? Setting yourself on fire is not a sensible action, so I'm gonna go and make you stand in the corner for 10 minutes or whatever." It's not the same as just being rebuked as a child or, you know, having to learn the consequences of your own actions. I mean, [sighs] some of the things that I was told at school, all of which I have, you know, dealt with, lived with, and that sort of thing, they really effed me up-
16. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
17. KBKat Brown
  ... because they were contrary to the message that I was telling myself, which is, "You're doing quite well. Look at you in school and having done your homework," and all that sort of thing. Um, I'd also been moved up a year at school when I was seven because I'm also incredibly tall, so that meant that weirdness, otherness, and that sort of thing was just compounded by immaturity and the ultimate '90s crime of being ginger in a playground. Um, so it was really interesting for me whilst researching the book and all the other ways that anybody with a late diagnosis-
18. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
19. KBKat Brown
  ... goes and looks up everything about this new understanding that they're developing about themselves, to find out all of the different ways that it kind of mapped out over your life thus far.
20. APAlex Partridge
  Even if you didn't have that awareness of masking that you've got now, looking back retrospectively, do you think you were masking when you were a, the young girl in school?
21. KBKat Brown
  I definitely did as we went through senior school, just simply because I sort of started off like a cheery little balloon animal, and then just, you know, after, there's only so many pops you can take. This is a terrible metaphor. A balloon animal can take one pop, and then it's gone.
22. APAlex Partridge
  [laughs]
23. KBKat Brown
  So let's just ... Made up of more balloons. This is really awful. I must stop immediately. But by the time I'd got to sort of my third year, my fourth year of school, um, so the years before GCSEs and that sort of thing, I knew that I couldn't, not behave in a sort of weird way, but just sort of, that whatever I did or said, there were going to be consequences.
24. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
25. KBKat Brown
  Um, some of it was physical. A lot of it was verbal. Some of it was verbal and incredibly funny, which is one of those really awful things that never turns up in books where bullying is featured, is that, you know, sometimes the bullies are really, really funny, and you're just like, "Oh, why are you doing it against me?" Um, and it's like, "Well, somebody has to, and the butt of the joke is you, and you're 6'1", and you're, like, orange."
26. APAlex Partridge
  [laughs]
27. KBKat Brown
  So at some point that sort of, you know, all comes-
28. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
29. KBKat Brown
  ... together and it's just, it's, it's a challenge. But the places where I retreated were stereotypically and pre-internet, books. Books and my friend's Super Nintendo, 'cause I didn't have one and I was obsessed. But books where [sighs] , you know, people might be different to children in their classes, but where in books, if they didn't get the good lines now, then a couple of chapters down the line they were going to get the good lines.
30. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
10:10 – 12:44
School reports
1. APAlex Partridge
  I, I've read in your book, and I know you couldn't find your school reports when you were, when you were trying to find them for the assessment, but do you remember what your school report said, if you think back?
2. KBKat Brown
  Really good in some subjects, fairly abysmal in others. Um, I think it is reasonably lazy to think that somebody who is creative in a language way, um, will, you know, therefore not be as competent in a, a numbers, maths, science-y way. But the very fact that I forgot what the word maths was and had to call it numbers is they, they were not my strong points at all. So anything where I had a real interest, I absolutely thrived, and I might, I might get told off basically for either not paying close enough attention or not working hard enough, because some of these subjects really came quite naturally to me.
3. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
4. KBKat Brown
  And so therefore, you know, if I wasn't interested enough, then, you know, I'd have a good old daydream or just not really be paying attention. But then also there was the fact that I was a year young for my year, so I'd missed out this fairly key, you know, fairly key learning about how to be a person at school, and so that could always be an explanation. Um, I also ended up having, uh, what was called petit mal epilepsy in the '90s, and is now I think called absent seizures, which is a type of epilepsy, which amazingly turns out to be fairly common in a co- as a comorbidity in children with ADHD. And so absent seizures really are just almost like daydreaming on an epic scale. They happened in the middle of my piano exams, in the middle of class, when I literally had my hand up, when I was crossing the road. So all of these things together would just be an absolute jumble of just not paying attention.
5. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
6. KBKat Brown
  Um, silly mistakes and all of that sort of stuff, particularly in subjects where I really did have to, like, work quite hard just to stay up at sort of base levels. And it was a huge relief to me when we got to GCSE and I could just drop down into the lower levels, because there was no way in hell that I was gonna get more than a B, if I was lucky, in biology or maths or something. So rather than then- You know, trying desperately to make something work and make something fit. I could just sort of ease into it and not necessarily enjoy it because, I mean, my God, who enjoys learning, uh, around GCSE time? But at least, like, fear it a bit less.
7. APAlex Partridge
  Mm. You said the, like the horrible bullies, and that's nasty. And
12:44 – 14:57
Friendships
1. APAlex Partridge
  on the other side, were you able to maintain friendships? Did you have friends back then?
2. KBKat Brown
  Yes. Um, I had some really g- good friends. Um, and they wouldn't necessarily last for hugely long, but I'd also have perfectly pleasant relationships with other people in my year, and actually, uh, one of them came to a, a book launch that I had recently-
3. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
4. KBKat Brown
  ... uh, which was just lovely, and I've reconnected with a few people from school over Instagram. Like, social media in general has been really useful for me, not just as a research tool, but, or just, you know, seeing other people. But some people have come back in, into contact and just sort of like, "Oh, what you're doing is really interesting. This is great." And, um, and then I've been able to find out what they're up to.
5. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
6. KBKat Brown
  And I think the danger of being like, "Oh, I was bullied at school, and it was all very tragic," is that then it just becomes a thing that is just on your shoulder your entire life.
7. APAlex Partridge
  Mm-hmm.
8. KBKat Brown
  And God knows, as adults, we have enough of those happening around us in our everyday lives without having to go, "Oh, that time that teacher was quite mean to me on a school trip to Germany. It was quite upsetting." It's like, I'm 41. I've got bigger fish to fry. Um, but it's, it's so nice actually seeing the people that I've been in contact with, like over the years. Um, like, everybody's just grown up now.
9. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
10. KBKat Brown
  Nobody is who they are when they were... You know, I was 10 when I went to secondary school, and awful, would not recommend that to anybody, but nobody's who they are at 13, 17, 18, 21 even. Like, there's ... I, I find it quite reassuring that there's this thinking now that, you know, adults don't really become sort of physically completed adults really until sort of about 25 in terms of brain development. Although, then you go back and watch films from the '60s and '70s, and you're like, "Well, you were running a household by the age of, like, 15," so you know, I'm just here going, "Oh, I'm just, you know, a bit, a bit anxious, actually." But it's all, it's all, it's all comparative.
11. APAlex Partridge
  One of the key points in your book early on, and I make a lot of content about this as well, so I was keen to ask you, is
14:57 – 19:59
Why have women and girls been missed for so long
1. APAlex Partridge
  why do you think women and girls ha- have been missed for so long, and why do you think so many are now seeking assessment and getting diagnosed for ADHD?
2. KBKat Brown
  I think the second part of that is probably a bit easier, which is that suddenly so many women are finding out about ADHD because their children are going through assessment, and, you know, I had ... I couldn't find my school reports, but those are useful, obviously, as tools of indicating what you were like as a child. So, uh, and it doesn't have to be a woman, obviously, but a parent sort of taking their child through this assessment, sitting with them and that sort of thing, bells are going to start ringing.
3. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
4. KBKat Brown
  Um, also other people have been listening to, like, more coverage on things like Woman's Hour and, you know, TikTok, Instagram, and that sort of thing, and also like attracts like. So if one of you in your friendship group gets diagnosed with something, particularly like ADHD, then you're going to look around your close friendship group, and there may be some traits that you all have in common.
5. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
6. KBKat Brown
  And that's absolutely not to say all of you have got ADHD, because they're just that. They're traits. It's not a diagnosis. It's not, it's not like when we all used to walk around with half a Forever Friends friendship necklace or something like that. But I suppose one of the other truisms that has gone around is that, you know, for years, the focus in research, in diagnosis, was on small, hyperactive white boys, and I mean, I've interviewed a number of middle-aged white men, uh, for the book who were also missed. So it's not, it's not to say that if you were a white man, your life was absolutely gonna be amazing-
7. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
8. KBKat Brown
  ... because you were going to be diagnosed at a young age. Um, I think also, and this is purely anecdotally, but from people that I've spoken to, my own experience, is that, um, once women or sometimes female-identifying people find out about something, your instinct is just to be like, "I'm just gonna zoom in and just inhale all of the internet and see what's happening." It's like those, those memes about if, um, if you want to find somebody, just tell, tell your friend Sarah the first letter of their first name, and she'll get up. School, education, fif- their jobs, you know, who they're going out with now, and that sort of thing.
9. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
10. KBKat Brown
  Um, so again, once you find out more about that, and perhaps if it ends up speaking to your experience, because I think one of the really fascinating things about ADHD is that it is just looking like an ... It's, it's like looking at a smashed mirror, basically. Everybody's experience is so incredibly different, and yet listening to people talking about their experiences, I mean, it's like being in a recovery meeting. Listen to the similarities, not the differences. The feelings will be similar. Um, experiences in certain areas might be similar. Um, finance particularly, a, a huge one for me, and certainly for lots of, lots of other people. But again, not everybody. If people were taught coping mechanisms or how to manage their money, how to not just budget, but how to, you know, parse bank statements and that sort of thing, and it was drilled into their routine at a young age, then that may not be in their story.
11. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
12. KBKat Brown
  But there will be so many other elements that are similar there, and lots of women talk to lots of other women, and then that's just such an easier way of finding out, you know, is this normal? What's going on? And that's not to say that, you know, women talk to each other about everything. I've literally just written a book called No One Talks About This Stuff, about baby loss, childlessness, infertility, all the other fun, lovely things I like to fill my- But it's often, you know, now it ... We're, we're living in a time where, you know, naysayers might call it oversharing. Um, if you are, for example, a male doctor and the host of one of my favorite podcast series, it will be said that you are simply exploring a topic through your own lived experience. But now we are living in a time where it's just simply easier to find out about things and to find people who are speaking about it. We have podcasts now. We have podcasts consisting of interviews, which wasn't really the case when they started 20-odd years ago. Um, yes, we've got TikTok, yes, we've got Instagram, but also, you know, YouTube.
13. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
14. KBKat Brown
  And these are all places where it's not where people can go off and explore in their own, in the privacy of their own homes. It's not like one TV, four channels, everybody's got to watch the same program. It's not like, you know, you've just got more ... You've got the ability to be more private and to be not necessarily secretive about it, but just to explore these things in your own time.
15. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
16. KBKat Brown
  And that, in turn, is incredibly valuable for people, men and women, who are finding out this new thing about themselves that is sort of taking them on this new, you know, journey, but is also going to explain quite a lot about, you know, what's happened to them, where they've been, and who they are.
17. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
19:59 – 26:01
Your catalyst for assessment
1. APAlex Partridge
  What did your personal journey through that look like? What was the catalyst that made you really go for a, an assessment of ADHD?
2. KBKat Brown
  I'd given up drinking alcohol the year before I was diagnosed, and that really showed huge gaps in my coping mechanisms. I went [laughs] , I went from drinking alcohol to basically being even more obsessed with black coffee than I had been years before-
3. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
4. KBKat Brown
  ... when I was drinking it to a quite problematic level. Um, I'd also a few years previously been treated for binge eating disorder, which was another surprise, 'cause I had no idea this even existed. Um, and whilst I wasn't binge eating anymore, I was still very much relying on certain foods or, you know, comfort foods, certain things with certain textures to sort of distract me or bring me down if I was anxious, and that sort of thing. And then, a, you know, a few months before, uh, I gave up drinking, my husband and I had two failed cycles of IVF, and the reason given was that my eggs didn't mature enough to fertilize. And I mean, I obviously went immediately onto Instagram and couldn't find a single hashtag about immature eggs that was about infertility. And I went on all the forums, nothing either, and it was just like, oh, this is, this is not great. Um, and then in, just before the pandemic, we were going to go to another clinic and start again, not really start again, but we were going to take out a whopping great big loan and do what there's probably a proper term for, but I essentially called all you can eat IVF.
5. APAlex Partridge
  [laughs]
6. KBKat Brown
  'Cause the idea is, is you keep going, um, until you have a baby, and if you don't have a baby, you don't pay for anything. And if you do have a baby, then you pay for it with probably a lot of your mental health, and your stamina, and your resilience, probably your will to live, and, um, and also about 14,000 pounds.
7. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
8. KBKat Brown
  So we'd just been told that we, it just wasn't recommended even by a clinic that was going to charge us this, uh, it's probably risen significantly by now. It just wasn't recommended that we proceed with it, and we were just sort of trying to come to terms with that and lockdown, and I just ... I looked, I'd already been looking into adoption over the last year, podcasts again, some amazing, amazing series, but from incredibly generous people about their experiences. I actually found the LGBTQIA+ podcasts, like, the most reassuring to me, because I'd never felt like a normal person, and I don't mean that in a sort of, "Alex, I'm really special, and I'm gonna be in a film very soon, and it's all gonna be very special. I'm gonna, I dunno, climb Mount Olympus or something." I just didn't feel like a, a regular other person.
9. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
10. KBKat Brown
  And I just ... So hearing from other people's perspectives, and again, this is this listening to the similarities, not the differences-
11. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
12. KBKat Brown
  ... was incredibly helpful, but I went to some of the open days around adoption, as much as you could when you're in a pandemic. So it was all on Zoom, and I just thought, I ... It's not even that I don't have the energy for this next path, bearing in mind that all of the IVF and everything was on, you know, several years of trying to conceive naturally, which is just the most dispiriting, knackering ... I mean, it's almost like the epitome of mindfulness because you are aware of every single day in your flipping cycle. Um, and it's just, it's a way to make your relationship the least romantic thing under the sun. So all, just all of that sort of came together, and I was like, "I just don't think my brain is here to be able to cope with that," um, regardless of the adoption process, because you need to be pretty tippity-top to be able to then raise a child, let alone a child that it probably has had a fairly traumatic start to their life, and may be several years old, and that's a lot for them, let alone you need, you needing to be strong. And not just strong, but also really, like, together and, and, you know, having looked after yourself. And so I'd sort of, we'd made this decision that we weren't going to go ahead with it, which is pretty fricking bleak when you've got, like, an hour, an hour of walking a day. But again, this is the same thing with both of these books, and just life in general, like, everybody's going through some pretty heavy stuff. Um, so when I saw one of my favorite people who I follow on Twitter, because she always retweets the most amazing stuff, she retweeted this question from an ADHD coach asking if you were diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, you know, what gave you the tip-off, basically. And I love all this stuff. I love finding out about people. That's basically why I'm a journalist.
13. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
14. KBKat Brown
  I'm just inherently nosy. I mean, you can call it curious. It's nosiness. And I just went down this thread, and male, female, whoever they were- It was just like somebody going, "Kat Brown, this is your life."
15. APAlex Partridge
  [laughs]
16. KBKat Brown
  This is why this bit sucked. This is why you were so awful-
17. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
18. KBKat Brown
  ... with money and couldn't budget to save your life, even though you tried to read books about it, and websites, and everything. This is why your finances suddenly took a massive upswing once apps were introduced, once, basically, once everything took an upswing, once you could outsource it somehow, just outsource an element of your head. Um, and I just sort of read to this, end of this thread, and then started on that huge Google search that I mentioned earlier, read everything about it as mu- well, as much as I could, and sort of put together a sort of mini TED Talk in my phone. And then went off to see my GP and was just like, "I think I found, like, the ultimate reason for why I have so many flipping medical conditions-
19. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
20. KBKat Brown
  ... or, you know, frequent flyer points, and all that sort of stuff. And not all of it was connected, but so much of it was. And just that moment of just being like, "Oh. Oh, it's not, like, waiting to see what thing's going to be wrong with you next or something. It all ties in together." And it was just the most extraordinary feeling.
26:01 – 30:21
A summary of your TED talk of ADHD evidence
1. APAlex Partridge
  If there was a summary of that TED Talk of evidence, what would that look like?
2. KBKat Brown
  What? Depression, anxiety, insomnia, binge eating disorder. I mean, things that I, I know there's, there's more of them. I... God, I used to sing them along to a song, like the fast food song. ADHD, ADHD, insomnia, depression, and anxiety. Um, it was just all of these things together, and just going, "Look, this is why I've had problems in, with ad- and with addiction as well, using that as a coping mechanism. I mean, I got put off going into recovery for literally 10 years, 'cause I was like, "Well, you know, I don't drink in the morning. I don't drink during the day, unless, you know, w- work, and it's somebody's leaving or something. And I'm not a middle-aged man with a red nose and a park bench."
3. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
4. KBKat Brown
  "There can't be anything wrong with me." And I think just being able to have an idea for why I was experiencing all of these things, and I went into it with just literally, like, rather than a sort of emotional aspect, because a GP doesn't wanna hear that when you've got 10 minutes tops. But just being like, "I think, honestly, this would explain so much about all these random things that I've experienced or been treated for, and that the idea that they could just fall under this umbrella, and if we treated that, we might get rid-
5. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
6. KBKat Brown
  ... of all of the underlying symptoms," uh, says woman with modern languages degree and absolutely no medical qualifications whatsoever. But I was like, "We'll treat the big, boss problem-
7. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
8. KBKat Brown
  ... and then all of the other little ones will disappear." Um, but... And I was just so delighted, because the person that I spoke to wasn't patronizing. She was interested. She said, "I don't know anything about ADHD, so please bear with me." And I was like, "Oh, well, you know, I've been googling this for at least a week and a half now, so bear with me." And, uh, I was just so thrilled that she put me forward to speak to the mental health team, and then they put me on the waiting list. But the waiting list, and this is such a, you can tell this was a little while ago. The waiting list was a year, and I thought that was too long. Um, it actually turned out to be three years, because I got a call. I accidentally stayed up on their list, and then got a call whilst I was writing the book saying, "Oh, we're about to arrange your assessment." And I was like, I was, "Ooh, I was diagnosed three years ago." I went private in the end, um, that impulsivity, that bad finances. I basically used my tax savings to go privately, because I didn't realize how many other things are tied into assessment. But either way, I don't, I don't regret it, because it's the story that I've, I've taken.
9. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
10. KBKat Brown
  And the way that everybody comes to any kind of understanding around themselves is so unique to them, which is why it's impossible to sort of follow somebody's life and hope that it will be the same for you.
11. APAlex Partridge
  I remember when I heard the words, "You have ADHD," I felt a huge r- sense of relief, validation, grief. When you heard those words, how did you feel in that moment?
12. KBKat Brown
  I sort of cry laughed. Um, he said, "Oh, you've got, uh, X percentile likelihood of combined cha- combined type ADHD." I was just so delighted, because I was like, "I've been trying so flipping hard for so long, and I keep getting things wrong. Like, the harder I try, the more I get things wrong, the more I will upset people, the more I will, you know, confuse family members or, you know, alienate friends or that sort of thing, or just not get on at work." And just having this explanation was just, I don't know, it was like the combination of at the end of a Disney film, like characters walking off into the sunset together, and then that little circle coming around before the credits coming up.
13. APAlex Partridge
  Yeah.
14. KBKat Brown
  I mean, it never obviously focuses on what happens afterwards-
15. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
16. KBKat Brown
  ... and what they... 'Cause they have to flipping carry on walking. And it's not like the red velvet curtains come in, and then that's it. Your life is sorted. You've got ADHD now. Well done. There will never be any problems again. It's like, no. Life problems will carry on happening. It's just now you know you have ADHD.
17. APAlex Partridge
  I
30:21 – 41:16
Your mum didn't believe in mental health?
1. APAlex Partridge
  read in your book, Kat, that your, your mum didn't believe in mental health.
2. KBKat Brown
  Yeah, she was quite cross with me. Um, I, she read, she read the book. She, and they've, they're, my family's been really supportive about this. Although slightly confused about the fact that I've had two books come out in, like, two months, which is frankly just bad scheduling. Um, but also-
3. APAlex Partridge
  Very ADHD [laughs]
4. KBKat Brown
  ... it's very ADHD, exactly. And she was like, "It's not that I..." Do- do- do... Sorry, I'm not going to try and paraphrase my mum, but it was more that the generation that my mum grew up in, and our family as well- Was reasonably military, and I think just nobody knew about mental health. Uh, sorry, not mental health. ADHD is not mental health
5. APAlex Partridge
  Mm-hmm
6. KBKat Brown
  That would be depression, anxiety, my absolute hatred of getting out of bed in the morning, that sort of thing. It just... There were so many other explanations for what was wrong with people. If you were a reasonably successful white British man, um, you might be... Like, I had a great uncle who was a medic, and, um, I think one of the university bars in London was named after him briefly for a time, and the ceiling was just studded with champagne corks. God knows where all these medical students got the money for it, but still. But he was always d- you know, described as eccentric, which is sort of like a classic tell. Um, scatterbrained was another one. Like, um, or just, you know, absentminded
7. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
8. KBKat Brown
  All of these people were allowed to be because they had people keeping their homes going. They had housekeepers. They might have had wives. They might have had, you know, servants, just people to keep things together, due to, like secretaries, teams of people sort of stopping them from falling apart. But also, I think it's because the things that we now know of as being neurodivergent were then often just looked on as personality traits, and certainly if we go further back, like w- into the 19th century, when the worlds for everybody were really, really small, um, not, uh, you know, necessarily in a bad way, but people might have traveled less far and that sort of thing. So then if you showed any kind of social difference, that was really going to limit, you know, maybe marriage prospects. That might not matter if you were a, you know, wealthy genius with your own massive private income and that sort of thing. Like, people would overlook a lot.
9. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
10. KBKat Brown
  But if you were, you know, lower middle class or something and, and marriage or something was going to help you come on as a person, um, or really as a status symbol if you were somebody going into a profession, then having something wrong with you or being a bit odd or something... I mean, in all these different circumstances, it's, it's only embarrassingly recently that we stopped tying the hands of left-handed children behind their backs at school. Um, I read a wonderful paper by a chap called Chris Mc- Oh, God. I'm so sorry, Chris. I'm gonna completely butcher your surname. It's either McManus or McMahon. And, um, who did a wonderful study on handedness, which is what anything to do with left and right handedness is called, and, um, and that's a neurodivergence as well 'cause which hand you write with is wired in your brain. Saying that the percentage of people who were left-handed had risen, not massively, but from about 3% towards the end of the 19th century-
11. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
12. KBKat Brown
  ... to around sort of 11%, um, at the time that he was conducting this study. And it's not that people suddenly were like, "Hey, you're left-handed. Let's get it on and make a load of left-handed babies," which you'd probably have to do if you wanted to, I don't know, increase the ginger population, for example, 'cause both of the parents need to have that-
13. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
14. KBKat Brown
  ... recessive gene. It was just simply people were allowed, you know, to go through school without being, you know, beaten in a lot of cases if you dared to write left-handed. And if we, if we need a, a fairly clunking parallel for pretty much anything-
15. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
16. KBKat Brown
  ... uh, now, whether it's the trans community-
17. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
18. KBKat Brown
  ... whether it is neurodivergent people, you know, there wasn't all this in my day. Oh, there absolutely was. It's just chances are it wasn't considered nice, so it was hidden away because it wasn't normal, and that is basically where we get tied into the overlaps between fear and stigma.
19. APAlex Partridge
  It's, it's fascinating. I was thinking about this earlier. So you think if the, the rise of awareness with the left-handed population was in the modern day, people would be writing articles saying being left-handed was just a trend. Do you think that it's a similar comparison?
20. KBKat Brown
  So the difficult- not difficulty. Um, I mean, firstly, people knew that it was a physical thing because they were physically tying their hands behind their backs and making them write with their right hand, making them build up that muscle to do it. But also, like, handedness is completely visual. Anything in the brain is not, and that is where I still see that we are as a society, certainly in the West, still a bit like, "Mm, they're putting it on really, aren't they? They just wanna get benefits."
21. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
22. KBKat Brown
  After my entire newspaper was shut down in around 2009, I was on benefits for a bit because I really stupidly was just like, "Oh, I'm, I don't think I want to freelance. I just... I want the security another job." And it's like, "Okay. Well, whilst you're doing that, you're not going to get any work, so off to, you know, Peckham Dole office go you, the job center." That is... People who, who say that you might be lying about having something different, wrong with you, however you want to phrase it, to get extra benefits has just never had to try and live on the paltry sums that we try and make people-
23. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
24. KBKat Brown
  ... live on. And luckily, I wasn't on the dole for very long, partly because Peckham Job Centre kept going, "Oh, there's a job going for diplomatic editor at the Daily Telegraph. Isn't that your field?" And I was like, "I am an arts journalist. I write about Pokémon and The Archers, no. Plus, I'm also 24." Um, but it was still just that, you know... I think people like to think that life is simpler than it actually is-
25. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
26. KBKat Brown
  ... and that goes to whether that is that they want to believe that people who are experiencing real difficulties and need some help, you know, are just trying it on, if that makes them feel better about the fact that there are really stark economic differences in the UK that have only got more pronounced over the last ... you can, since 2007. Eh, I mean, fine, if that's, if that's what helps your worldview, fine. But a lot of these people have large platforms and are also content to trumpet their views around quite significantly, and whilst, you know, lots of people might be able to see through that, lots of other people either won't, and they'll go along with that and be like, "Oh yeah, they're talking sense. Great, this makes me feel better about the views that I might have been feeling a bit dodgy about." Or for people within those groups, I mean, it's not exactly gonna make any of them feel better, is it?
27. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
28. KBKat Brown
  We only have to look at the headlines doing the rounds, the TV shows sometimes, around ADHD either just being a trend, and yes, I did choose that title simply so people could just pick it up and go, "It's not a bloody trend. It's just..." No. But also, as a, not as a comeback, 'cause it doesn't need a comeback, but to all of those stories, those, those pieces, those comment ones just going like, "Is it real, or are just people, you know, a bit snowflakey and they can't deal with stuff?" It's like anybody that gets diagnosed with ADHD has probably been through quite a lot in their lives, that is on top of-
29. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
30. KBKat Brown
  ... the quite a lot that is simply being a human person in the world. But it's also why I ended up ending the book with something incredibly dry, which is like pure science. It's an extract from, um, the 2021 consensus statement around ADHD, um, by, uh, Steven Faraone, who very kindly let me quote it. Because a consensus study is when you essentially make a giant sandwich of studies with minimum 2,000 participants, like really good, big, chunky, meaty studies on a subject, and you get them cross-referenced, um, by a significant number-
41:16 – 47:45
ADHD Item
1. APAlex Partridge
  I ask all my guests to tell me an item that most represents ADHD in their life, and you have brought this thing with you.
2. KBKat Brown
  Yes. [laughs]
3. APAlex Partridge
  And I'm gonna need you to explain what this thing is. [laughs]
4. KBKat Brown
  Uh, so this is, this is actually a sculpture by the Finnish artist, uh, Mari Kuzurinan, um, and I'd love to say that I found it in an art gallery somewhere. Mm-mm. I found it when I was working on, uh, the London Paper website in the sort of mid-aughts, and when we were having to put together galleries that would get loads of people clicking and that sort of stuff. And, um, Mari Kuzurinan is an artist, like a pop, pop artist, who takes My Little Ponies, and I love this one, 'cause it is Gen, Gen One, which is what I had in the '80s, and she modifies them to look like pop culture characters. I mean, all sorts. This is Rogue from the X-Men wearing her TV outfit.
5. APAlex Partridge
  [laughs]
6. KBKat Brown
  The X-Men's recently been rebooted on Disney Plus. I think it's X-Men '97 now. And, um, and I just love this, firstly because the, I really adored the X-Men growing up. Great cartoon, also a great metaphor for any kind of difference. It's been used as a metaphor for civil rights, for LGBT rights, for everything, any kind of difference, and also sort of negates that lovely idea of ADHD as a superpower, which was instantly invented to cheer up children.
7. APAlex Partridge
  Mm-hmm.
8. KBKat Brown
  Adults don't need to take that. But the X-Men always showed that, you know, you can have superpowers, you can look great in Lycra, and you can still have the most monumentally screwed-up private life. Um, but-
9. APAlex Partridge
  [laughs]
10. KBKat Brown
  ... I also got this because I was earning buttons-
11. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
12. KBKat Brown
  ... when I bought this sculpture, and in about 2008, this sculpture cost me 330 euros. Did I have 300? No, I flipping didn't at all, but I bought it, and the amount of impulsive buys-
13. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
14. KBKat Brown
  ... that I've had, whether it is, you know, oh, I'm just really into scented candles at the moment. Could you not choose candles that cost-
15. APAlex Partridge
  [laughs]
16. KBKat Brown
  ... 60 freaking quid, or alcohol, or karaoke, or rounds of alcohol and karaoke to keep people going, 'cause I can't face being on my own? Any kind of thing. So Rogue now, Rogue Pony now sits on one of my bookshelves at home, and I don't look at her and go, "Oh, you idiot, why did you spend €330?" I go, "Well done you for being here with your bookcases-
17. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
18. KBKat Brown
  ... which you've lovingly organized so that you can look at them without your brain, you know, pinging off them, and you have a mad 330 euro pony." Um, it was either gonna be this or my Apple Watch, but, you know, you're getting this off my wrist when I die. Um, and I hasten to add, this was secondhand off eBay. Um, that would be the other thing that sort of-
19. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
20. KBKat Brown
  ... helps me the most. But yeah, so I can't possibly part with Rogue Pony, so I've-
21. APAlex Partridge
  Yeah
22. KBKat Brown
  ... printed you out a beautiful greetings card with a-
23. APAlex Partridge
  No, thank you. It's fascinating
24. KBKat Brown
  ... a portrait.
25. APAlex Partridge
  You can pop her next to the books if you like, so she's still front and center for the rest. What a visual.
26. KBKat Brown
  [laughs] I know. I mean, it is uncanny.
27. APAlex Partridge
  Yeah.
28. KBKat Brown
  She's a great, she's a great artist.
29. APAlex Partridge
  [laughs]
30. KBKat Brown
  Her Catwoman one is one for the ages.
47:45 – 52:33
Your journey to sobriety
1. APAlex Partridge
  We know that there's a s- significant uptick in alcoholism or alcohol use disorder within the ADHD community, but with, with you, was there a particular catalyst that made you stop drinking, or was it a gradual process over time?
2. KBKat Brown
  Gradual and very sudden. I'd been circling around the idea for genuinely about 10 years, and this was such an, uh, an indicator of how paranoid about it I was. I bought, um, what in AA is called the Big Book, and to somebody who's a newcomer to recovery is a fairly impenetrable, dense text until you hear people reading sections about it, and you're like, "Oh, okay. Yeah, maybe. I can hear myself in these stories." But again, I didn't, I didn't see myself in the idea of alcoholism, and again, this is partly why I've written, like, these books, because I felt like I just wanted, like, a boring, old normal person. I wanted to hear boring, old normal person stories in both infertility and loss-
3. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
4. KBKat Brown
  ... and, and with ADHD as well. I mean, to be fair, none of the scientists are boring, old normal people. They're fricking rock stars, but still. I've completely gone off my train of thought. There we go
5. APAlex Partridge
  [laughs] Oh, no, I mean, it's, it's, um, very on, uh
6. KBKat Brown
  Oh, the, sorry, it was the recovery, wasn't it? It was-
7. APAlex Partridge
  Yeah, just if there, if there was a particular catalyst that made you stop drinking or if, if it was a crisis point decision or if it was just a, a very conscious decision to stop
8. KBKat Brown
  Um, a lit- a while after the IVF, one of my friends died, um, which is again, not an excuse, it's an explanation, and the night before I stopped drinking, um, we were all going to go and see Fleabag at the theater and I went into WhatsApp to see who was coming and she had given a message saying that, "If I'm still alive, I'm definitely coming" and she wasn't. So I used that as an excuse to think, "Right, I'm gonna go and toast my friend. I'm going to go to the lovely wine bar, very civilized, across the road from the theater, and I'll raise a glass to her." Bearing in mind, she, she barely drank at all. Um, and then went to the theater, drank some more. Don't really remember seeing Fleabag, sure it was very good, and then afterwards everybody else went off. My husband, uh, I was just like, "Oh, can we g- can we go to this restaurant for supper? Can we go to this restaurant?" And I tried to tick off all these like booze things that used to almost act as an upper, like a, a nice cocktail, steak dinner, all that sort of thing. And it just got to the end of the meal and we were waiting to get an Uber home on Haymarket, this, dating it massively as a time when you could afford an Uber off Haymarket, and I was just there going, "I didn't feel anything from that." Like nothing. And it was just such a waste. Like I'd had plenty of what, you know, might glamorously be called like rock bottoms or like, like fairly catastrophic things that happened, although touch wood I'm incredibly lucky that nothing worse happened, but like I certainly rippled onto other people's lives horribly. And so the next morning I was just sitting at my desk at work and just Googled as I had done many times before for a support group and as luck would have it, there was one five minutes' walk away and there was a meeting starting in about 15 minutes. So I went and it's been bloody hard, not going to the meetings or speaking to other people, but living without that coping mechanism.
9. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
10. KBKat Brown
  But peeling that away has just been one of a series of unpeelings that I've had to do in terms of whether it's dealing with, you know, not having kids, uh, or you know, not being able to use alcohol anymore, which is still, which was something that I had to mourn quite significantly. You know, stupid hip and I'll probably have to have the other one done at some point. And, oh Go- and the fourth one, ADHD-
11. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
12. KBKat Brown
  ... is just like every now and then they would all sort of compound and I'd just be sitting there sort of examining my little tragedies going, "Oh, it's really hard being me" and it is, but you know, everybody can say that to a certain extent and the things that I have learnt from other people, which is crucial because I isolated so hard after all of that combination of, you know, IVF and giving up booze and everything even before lockdown. This is why I think it's so important not necessarily to talk about things if that isn't right or appropriate for you, but for there to be people who do and to be as many people as possible who do so that you can find somebody whose story sounds like yours even if on the surface you have absolutely nothing in common.
13. APAlex Partridge
  Mm. I think somebody, I can't remember who said it, the opposite of addiction is connection.
14. KBKat Brown
  Yes.
52:33 – 1:06:30
Rejection
1. APAlex Partridge
  Do you think you react particularly badly to rejection?
2. KBKat Brown
  Well, yeah. Um, I was fascinated again to learn about emotional dysregulation as opposed to RSD which is just a term for those feelings that we can have about taking things particularly badly and particularly quite a lot of the, it's awful to say experts, Michael Gove has ruined the word experts for us all, but certainly a lot of the psychiatrists and clinicians saying that they are f- absolutely convinced that the next time that guidelines are overhauled, emotional dysregulation will be a key part of the criteria-
3. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
4. KBKat Brown
  ... for a diagnosis. Because I really tried to be less sensitive as a kid, but I just couldn't stop crying or getting upset or s- or, or just feeling these, boiling suddenly like from zero to straight out of the top of the thermometer res- response, responses to things. And as an adult and without any kind of understanding like pre good therapy 'cause there's therapy and there's good therapy, and pre giving up booze and therefore having to, you know, focus a bit more, um, but also not artificially inflating my responses to everything, I would still find things incredibly difficult and I would take criticism, but I would probably still go off and have an absolute sobbing fit about it afterwards.
5. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
6. KBKat Brown
  Because it, I could, it wasn't that I couldn't necessarily see things in a balanced way. It would just be one part of my brain would be, "I can see this in a very logical way and this is completely sensible" and the other part of it was, "Oh my God, I am being torn apart by knives and my body is being fed to wolves as we speak." And it's, again, it's one of those things that when you, when you hear people talk about it you're just like, even I, this is awful, this is also just, um, my lovely '90s upbringing still kicking in, but just like, "Pull yourself together. Stop being so flipping tragic." But with that emotional dysregulation it's just that. It is just emotions all over the place where in some cases where they shouldn't be, like really disproportionate responses to things, but then also there are places where actually what you are experiencing is a reasonable response to things. Ironically, like [laughs] my, the husband and I adopted a dog in 2020 and we r- we honestly we had to, and we still do, um- Pass a series of really regular and rigorous checks with the charity, and one of them was that we had to join this dog training group who would, like, teach us about all these ways to sort of-
7. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
8. KBKat Brown
  ... not just manage the dog, but learn about ourselves. Honestly, learning about trigger stacking in dogs, so when, for example, your dog, who is normally totally chill when, let's take a stereotype, the postman comes round, has an absolute meltdown when your perfectly nice postman, who's always really sweet to her, comes round, it's very rarely going to be about the postman. It's going to be about lots and lots and lots of tiny, tiny, little things that have built up over the course of that morning or that day, and taken them over threshold. And oh my God, that was just, that was just such a lovely parallel for me and my brain, and also, to be fair, the vast army of nieces and nephews in my family. Just again, understanding, you know, my brain particularly, but also just having this lovely term, this lovely visual that I could use.
9. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
10. KBKat Brown
  So if I'm finding something more challenging than usual or somebody more irritating than usual, then usually if I work back a bit, it's like, well, it's because you're not flipping Superman, and, you know, these things have all added up. Plus you're worried about that that's happening next week. You've gotta finally send off your marriage certificate to go and get your pensions sorted out, because that's been hanging over you since last August, and you're really freaked out they're gonna lose them or something, or that it's gonna take ages. So just being able to pick those apart, and then figuring out, oh, well, that's why I completely-
11. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
12. KBKat Brown
  ... overreacted to that. But generally, as long as I sort of keep to a reasonable routine, and do now bring in the exercises that I can do, and try and get enough sleep, and just make sure that I'm not, you know, gargling with M&M's before bed-
13. APAlex Partridge
  [laughs]
14. KBKat Brown
  ... then that's, it's a massive, massive help.
15. APAlex Partridge
  Do you think it's possible to tell the difference between a irrational response to a criticism or a rejection, and a rational one?
16. KBKat Brown
  Well, they're both going to be rational in the most literal sense of it, because your brain is like, "Oh my God, a bear!" And it's like, it's, but it's not a bear. Um, a few years ago, I really got into horse riding-
17. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
18. KBKat Brown
  ... which I'd loved as a child, and then I went to the 2012 Paralympics and saw the para dressage, and was just like, "Horses are amazing. Must start it again." And I, it was absolutely terrifying, and it wasn't terrifying because I'm really tall, so the horses I ride are quite big. Actually, that usually means they're much slower than the ponies, who are just absolutely terrifying.
19. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
20. KBKat Brown
  But my responses to everything was just mad. I mean, objectively, like, I would have, like, real over-the-top panic responses to going round some corners sometimes, and I'd usually end up in tears, and my poor riding instructor would come up, and the amount of times that she'd say, "Kat, it's supposed to be fun. You're n- you're paying for it. It's not supposed to be torture." And I'd just be there going, "Oh, I don't know what's wrong with me." I ended up having hypnosis for this, for goodness sake.
21. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
22. KBKat Brown
  I mean, hypnosis for horse riding, that's tragic. But at the same time, it was incredibly useful, because I could take apart what I was worried about, would go through these feelings over and over again, and just sort of, you know, work through it. And actually, it just ended up being that partly it was all of the things going on in my brain that I didn't know about, but also it was all of these worries that I'd had the last time that I'd been riding, which was about, like, 15 years before, very briefly, just all of these things-
23. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
24. KBKat Brown
  ... that I'd sort of still kept in my body and worried would happen. And, and again, one of the reasons that I've got not over that, but through that, and I do take this as a parallel to everything else that I experience with ADHD, is partly the sort of 10,000 hours of practice. Um, I'm still an awful horse rider. My favorite T-shirt just says, "I'm the world's okayest horse rider." That's great. My, you know, I have okay tattooed on my wrist-
25. APAlex Partridge
  [laughs]
26. KBKat Brown
  ... because perfectionism-
27. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
28. KBKat Brown
  ... is very real for this woman. But also, it's just knowing... That's, sorry, I keep saying something like an awful, like, soapy self-help cliche, but just knowing myself more, and being able to go, "Okay, well, this is, this is why you're feeling this, and, and, and why."
29. APAlex Partridge
  Mm.
30. KBKat Brown
  And this is again, where talking things through with somebody is so helpful, to get that, you know, with somebody trusted, whether it's a therapist or a loved one or a friend. It's just being able to get a second opinion or something, and, and sort of analyze it that bit further, but without analyzing yourself into the ground.
1:06:30 – 1:18:07
Positives and negatives of ADHD
1. APAlex Partridge
  and I was curious to know what the positives were and what the negatives were.
2. KBKat Brown
  I mean, two of the positives are sitting in front of you. I mean, I find it mildly hilarious that even completely separately, published by different publishers, my brand is apparently blue and yellow.
3. APAlex Partridge
  [laughs]
4. KBKat Brown
  That's wonderful. Um, the, the ADHD book was wrote, was written and published and pitched in under a year, which for a traditional publishing, um, and sorry to all of the non-publishing geeks here, is just unheard of. Like publishing is slow. It's not necessarily reactive. It's famously, you know, oh, this book is gonna come out in, you know, June 2027 or something like that. Um, but then, uh, the other one, um, was not traditionally published. You can still get it in bookshops. It's still a normal book, quote-unquote, 'cause that was hugely important for me as somebody who has felt hugely stigmatized around all elements of infertility, because obviously for me, that really intersected with not feeling like a normal woman because, you know, oh goodness, I've got a deep voice. I'm very tall, a redhead. I'm, I'm awful at basketball. What? And oh, I've got ADHD. And so I went with a publisher whose model is crowdfunding, and that book took about three and a half years from start to finish. And the amount of effort to be positive, to bring people along on your journey, because you're the one crowd- crowdfunding, as it turned out, 20,000 flipping pounds to get this book that you know will be really important to so many people, and other people are just like, "What is this, uh, is this like your next take on running a marathon?" Uh, that is a humble brag. I have indeed run a marathon, #ADHD. Um, but, uh, I couldn't have done any of that without the passion- Mm ... the purpose, the absolute cast iron knowledge, not that I was just doing a good thing, but that this was something that needed to be in the world to slowly expand these bookshelves. And I, I'm thrilled that like the ADHD book is doing, you know, it's doing well in terms of I'm getting so many messages from people about, "Oh, this bit has been really useful, and I really love that." And to all of those people, I would say, "Please leave a review on Amazon," honestly. Mm. Um, no, not really, but still. The, but the other one, it was just ... The response to that was like, it was like nothing I could have imagined because as miserable or difficult as I found, you know, life with untreated ADHD, and it's been amazing. Don't get me wrong. I've had an absolute ball. The grief and the disenfranchised grief, that grief that isn't recognized by a society- Mm ... of having failed IVF, not even getting to the stage that, you know, people doing IVF usually do, there being no embryos, there being no children, you know, names being taken up by other children, those timelines in which your children would've existed and had those names, it's just not. And having other people not, not going, "Oh, Kat, your sad, tragic little book. Oh, poor you," but going, "My determination for medical reasons," which is one of the essays covered in the book, and I just collapsed inward and didn't know what to do with myself. But reading Hilary Freeman's amazing piece of writing about her experience in the book has ... It's just, it's, it's made me feel seen in a way that I didn't know, and that is what I'd forgotten that I'd written the book and the ADHD book for, is because whilst we think that everybody has the same access to support, that's categorically not true, and the same channels that, you know, might be really popular in certain circles or might be really well discussed, you know, you walk into another circle, nobody's heard of them at all. Mm. So again, just by being able to have these ... I mean, and I ... Again, recovery has been incredible for me, flipping hard, but I think of them as support groups in a book. Mm. I think there's so many negatives of ADHD that are fairly well-worn, um, but they can often seem completely intangible to somebody who's looking at you, uh, and like, "Oh, you're middle class. You've got makeup on. You're wearing a nice suit. You know, you seem reasonably successful. What could possibly be wrong?" And it's, for that, it would be like when you see a beautiful shell or rock on the beach, and you pick it up, and then it's all filled with wet sand and little worms and everything, and that's fine. That's just the way it is. But for me, the underside of ADHD, even now treated, therapy, you know, done some, you know, books, all absolutely fine, is things that if I get overly stressed or life becomes a bit unmanageable, I mean, which obviously it will do for everybody, then things can absolutely spin out of orbit. I'm trying to be really sanguine about this and not be ashamed about this, but I lost my engagement ring last month. Um, my finger had swollen up, and I was about to go and, um, and do some exercise, and I thought, "Okay, well, I won't put it on today." And then the ne- a week passed, and I still hadn't put it on, and it's now like three months later, and because I've been completely preoccupied with other things, I have absolutely no idea where my ring is. Mm. I've looked all around the house, everywhere else, and it's just not there. And instead of tearing a strip off myself, which I have done so many times before, 'cause losing things, you know, it's a stereotype for a reason, just the, the brain just not latching onto this. I'm really, I'm kind of gutted that I didn't have an Air Tag or like a tile attached to my engagement ring. But it's only a flipping finger. You don't think you're gonna lose it. And then I think also, like in order to be able to make life work for me at the moment, to be able to do like joint rehab, uh, that's literally on, on, on my hip, and the therapy and everything else, I've taken a step back from like full-time office work also 'cause I just found that quite overwhelming. And so frankly, the amount of money that I make is ... I mean, it wasn't, it was never, you know, fantastic. I was a journalist, for goodness sake. I still am, so it's ... I'm now a freelance one, so it's, it's still probably even worse, but I'm not, I'm just not earning very much money, and that matters to me because I still think of myself and my value- E- externally and in society to how many hours I'm working a day, even if the way that I work is completely different to other people, and the work that I'm doing is different. But also, I still mentally think, "You should really be an accountant." Just that underlines everything.
5. APAlex Partridge
  Mm-hmm.
6. KBKat Brown
  Even though if I were an accountant... I mean, I hire an accountant because I am such a bad accountant to myself. Um, i- but still mentally, there is still that, that thing just going, "What you do isn't real. It's just not." And I would be saying that even if I was a flipping accountant because that is just how my brain has been over the years. But I can hopefully, you know, have some grace with myself about it and be like, "You know what, babe? If you look back at the last four years, it's not been great for you. It's not been great for your husband. It's not been, you know, fabulous for people around you, so just, this is not a normal period of time. If you need to work in this way so that you can go and get your body to stop falling apart-
7. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
8. KBKat Brown
  ... and hopefully get your brain to stop falling apart and everything, and deal with quite a lot of heavy stuff with a 330 euro My Little Pony in your bookcase, then that's just the way it's gotta be for the time being."
9. APAlex Partridge
  Congratulations. I mean, there's a huge amount of value packed into those two books. Um, yeah, I mean, I've, I was, you know, reading the ADHD one and heavily relating to a lot of it, and just learning so much. Learning so much. So congratulations. You know, it's very... And for them to come out so close together as well, it's very ADHD on brand, right?
10. KBKat Brown
  [laughs] Truly.
11. APAlex Partridge
  Oh, Kat, every week I ask my ADHD community to send me their woes. It goes into the washing machine of woes, and we'll see what they say this week and see if there's some relatability or advice from the guest. So this week someone said, "My life is, my life is totally unmanageable. I love being creative, but I get overwhelmed by most of the things I know I need to do as an adult, like paying bills and staying organized. I want to see my GP, but I'm worried I will be dismissed because I'm not a hyperactive male. Any advice before I go to the doctor's?"
12. KBKat Brown
  Such a lot, isn't it? It's so interesting that you've got the washing machine, because that is a washing machine brain right there. It's keeping everything inside your head, and trying to keep all the balls juggling away, and worrying that, y- you know, if you look away for even a moment, that you'll drop one. People are always... Not people are always, that's a generalization, but any time that the, uh, that the word list and ADHD come up together, there's almost a theatrical hiss response. It's like, "I can't do a list, I've got ADHD." And it's like, babe, just trust me on this one. Even if it's not necessarily a list, having, like, two pieces of paper or whatever, one which is purely for creative, lovely things that brings this person joy and makes them feel fulfilled and wonderful, and the other for the scary crap, like, like my pension stuff. That is on a piece of paper. I'm dealing with that this week. I don't want to, but I've been putting it off for, like, nearly a full year. This is bad. Um, working through that, just literally putting everything, everything down, getting everything out, all of the things that you feel really super guilty about, the things that you, you're just like, "Oh, I don't want to confront the fact that I haven't done that, and that I need to do that." Even if it's a library book, which can give you the most guilt, because then you are depriving libraries of books, and let's flagellate ourselves with that for a bit. Tell somebody else. Y- I mean, it's very unlikely that this letter has come in from a monk who is hermetically sealed in the world's only isolated monastery comprised solely of them. So if they have a, a flatmate, if they have a trusted friend, a colleague, even a family member. Even if it is literally just googling the ADHD Foundation or ADHD UK and finding one of the helplines, one of the advisors. And look, I'm a millennial. Obviously, I hate using the phone. Sometimes it is actually worth it. Sorry, that sounded really patronizing. It's never worth it. But in this case, it would be.
13. APAlex Partridge
  Mm-hmm.
14. KBKat Brown
  And then you've just got somebody completely impartial on the other end of the phone who you can talk through all of your concerns with and just be able to explore that more. But the really key thing is just for God's sake, don't keep it inside your head, because either you'll forget it again, or you'll forget it and I woke up at 2:00 in the morning last night and just suddenly went, "Oh," and had an almost, like, body spasm of guilt over something that I just suddenly remembered. And if you literally just get it down on a piece of paper, it's so, it, it's so basic, but that b- that doesn't make it any less hard to do. Because, yeah, you can write, I can write beautifully. That's absolutely great. But if it is confronting what you are keeping inside your head, then getting that down is really difficult.
15. APAlex Partridge
  Mm-hmm.
16. KBKat Brown
  But honestly, even just giving that a go, and just writing one of those things down, you'll just suddenly feel like you've peeled something away.
17. APAlex Partridge
  Great advice.
1:18:07 – 1:21:04
Advice for younger self
1. APAlex Partridge
  Just finally, Kat, we have a, um... I wanted to ask, if you could go back in time and give your s- younger self, the, the little girl pre-ADHD awareness, some advice based on the knowledge that you have now, what would you tell her?
2. KBKat Brown
  Well, as one of my favorite memes shows, young children mainly think that 41-year-olds are, like, impossibly old and probably about to die. Um, so she wouldn't listen to me at all. So I think I probably wouldn't give her any advice at all. I'd just tell her what I think every person deserves to hear, whether they're children or adults, which is what, which is what my diagnosing psychiatrist told me after we'd titrated the medication, which is just, "You have, you've got through such a lot in your life, and to have achieved what you have done, and to have got where you are, and to have become the person who you are," and that stands the same whether you were at seven or 41. You know, hopefully I'll get much older. It's just amazing, and having that validation from the psychiatrist was incredibly important. But I also think that's the validation that everybody needs to hear, and that's not in a sort of like, "You're doing amazing, sweetie," sort of like Kardashian sense. It's just having that genuine, honest, and that awful, you know, lovely word that's, you know, always ends up being misused, but kind, authentic feedback from somebody that you love and somebody that you trust. It means the world, and it helps you to build self-esteem, and sometimes that person has to be you.
3. APAlex Partridge
  We have a bit of a closing tradition, Kat, on the podcast, to ask you what your most impulsive thing is.
4. KBKat Brown
  Oh, I'm really awful at forking my fingers and issuing curses to bad drivers when I'm driving. Um, if- oh, it's so awful.
5. APAlex Partridge
  [laughs]
6. KBKat Brown
  It's, I think it's basically to sort of siphon off some of my road rage. So when I was, um, when I was at university, I found that a really good way of calming myself down or removing busy thoughts from my head was literally to make a physical moment, a mis- physical movement like that and then just blow them away, and I'd find that really helpful. It's a little bit convoluted when you're driving, and I'm afraid I'm not as calm as when people insist on swapping lanes endlessly without indicating, which seems to be a horrendous-
7. APAlex Partridge
  Mm
8. KBKat Brown
  ... new fashion. So then I'm afraid I fork my fingers and say something absolutely unrepeatable on a podcast or in polite society. And, um, uh, my husband is always horrified. Uh, but he's, he's got mainly used to that now. But, um, I'd probably do that even if there was somebody even more important than my husband in the car.
9. APAlex Partridge
  [laughs] Yeah, road rage, very relatable. [laughs] Kat, thank you so much. This has been great fun.
10. KBKat Brown
  Thank you so much for having me, Alex. It's been a total joy. [outro music]