ADHD Chatter PodcastFounder of Europe’s No.1 ADHD organisation reveals scary side of ADHD
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
60 min read · 11,747 words- 0:00 – 1:49
Trailer
- SPSpeaker
ADHD is indiscriminate of gender. If we look for naughty boys, we'll find naughty boys. If we look for inattentive girls, we'll find inattentive girls. If we reconstruct our thoughts and go and look for the hyperactive woman, we'll find the hyperactive woman, the impulsive woman. We just don't look, and society hasn't looked over the years. So there isn't the gender split that history would say.
- APAlex Partridge
Phil Anderton PHD has over 20 years of experience in the field of ADHD and has assessed over 50,000 people. The founder of ADHD 360, Europe’s largest ADHD organisation.
- SPSpeaker
He has a wealth of lived experience rivaled by no other. He is the ADHD expert. The impact of ADHD doesn't come from pure inattention. It comes from the emotional things that come downstream. Why is it that the lad next to you, who's perhaps not as bright as you, gets the answer right when the teacher asks, but you're made to look a fool 'cause you haven't followed the lesson? When you build a life pattern of all of those things going on, you very soon get to be quite anxious about what's going on in your life, quite depressed, but not clinically depressed. You're actually situationally pissed off. Part of the diagnostic process is to look to see if the symptoms and impairments have been caused by trauma. We've gotta flip that. What if the symptoms and impairments have caused trauma? And I don't think we understand that enough. I look back now and think, "Crikey, we didn't understand what we were doing."
- APAlex Partridge
Phil, thank you so much for joining us.
- SPSpeaker
Thanks for having me.
- APAlex Partridge
It was about a year ago we first met.
- SPSpeaker
It was.
- APAlex Partridge
We were at, uh, a festival under a big tent, and you were interviewing me-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- APAlex Partridge
... and, and a couple of other people. And I remember thinking at the time, to go into the... go to the effort of hiring out a tent, organizing all of these ADHD people together, you must have huge motivation towards the topic. So
- 1:49 – 3:53
What is your mission in the ADHD world
- APAlex Partridge
what is your mission?
- SPSpeaker
Wow. That's a, that's a big question to open with, isn't it? Um, what's, what's Phil Anderton's mission? I think it is, it is really to make sure people who deserve help get the help they deserve. I think there's a national, you could call it an international injustice against ADHD, and, um, we've, we've a long way to go, haven't we? We've got a lot of work to do for people to get the help they need. And, um, yeah, I think that's the, that's the goal, is to have better services, more accessible services, and for people to be understood so they can go and lead their best life.
- APAlex Partridge
And you were in the police force for how many years?
- SPSpeaker
27. 27 years, man and boy.
- APAlex Partridge
27. That's a huge career. And do, do you think that gave you a unique vantage point when coming to look at ADHD as a condition?
- SPSpeaker
Unique? Certainly difference, perspective difference. Um, I could look back on my policing career and think how many people who had ADHD had not got the help and support they'd needed from me and, and from others. Um, and then as I grew in policing and, and, and educated myself a fair bit, starting to look at perspectives slightly differently. So I think policing back in the '80s especially, was based on the premise that people were choosing to do wrong. But what if that person wasn't choosing to do wrong? They were doing wrong because they were poorly. And does that give us a different construct to the whole criminal justice system? Does that give us a different opinion on how we should look for the, the outcome of any proceedings? Is punishment appropriate or is help and support appropriate? Now, as a, as a, an 18-year-old cop in Oxford in 1980, there, there, there were never any of those thoughts in my head. But, you know, roll forward 25 years as a senior police officer, I, I do think that gave me a perspective which has gone forward into forming what, what we now see as ADHD 360 and Phil Anderton's mission, as we described it earlier.
- APAlex Partridge
And how many people do you think ADHD
- 3:53 – 14:49
The link between ADHD and criminality
- APAlex Partridge
360 has assessed now in total?
- SPSpeaker
50, 52, 53,000.
- APAlex Partridge
Wow, okay. So you've got a lot of experience. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Fair bit.
- APAlex Partridge
In terms of, like, what you know now about ADHD, do you see any particular traits that might, if left unmanaged and undetected, lead to criminal behavior?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot. And, and again, you, you... we as society have got to challenge the premise of the criminal code. I- if it's about choice, then, then w- we, we, we're getting the wrong idea. You know, we, we recently, um, one of the case studies we've recently published, um, was of a schoolteacher who, to be able to focus and concentrate enough to teach, had to take unlawful drugs to affect her brain to be able to get that focus that her ADHD wasn't allowing her to have, and she couldn't get treatment anywhere. And she approached her GP for help, and the GP said, "Well, you shouldn't be anywhere near children because you're taking cocaine." Now that, at the mo- at that very point, we're against the criminal code. We're, we're breaking the law, uh, and so on. And yet, within four weeks of that incident and her coming into our clinic, she's never touched cocaine again because she's now got the medicine to help her. You know, there's other types of, of, of criminal behavior, impulsive crime. Um, one lad I interviewed in prison in Manchester who was in prison for thumping a man who'd just assaulted his mum, and he broke the guy's nose, so that contravened the criminal code. But that impulsivity could've been driven by his passion to defend his mum, plus impulsivity through his undiagnosed, as it was then, we diagnosed him on the day in prison, his ADHD. So there's many different trajectories where people come into policing. And we shouldn't forget driving either and, and the, the lack of safety, um, behind the wheel of a car if your ADHD's untreated. So there's, there's a whole mix. There's a whole set of patterns that I don't think we appreciate fully
- APAlex Partridge
Do you think there's a correlation there between the, the traits of ADHD and just generally making lifestyle choices that many would call getting up to no good?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. Yeah. Lifestyle choices is a great expression for somebody with ADHD, and that you can go from poor choice of partner, poor choice of occupation, poor decision first thing in the day. What would ... Whether you've got a whole stream of lifestyle choices, or you make one big choice that goes massively wrong. Um, but it is, it is inexplicably linked to untreated and unmanaged ADHD that we see poor lifestyle choices.
- APAlex Partridge
I wonder if the whole, the emotional dysregulation aspect of ADHD com- combined with RSD, rejection sensitive dysphoria, particularly also with the impulsivity that can come with ADHD, you can probably quite easily see how maybe even after a few alcoholic drinks have been consumed, if, if a man or a woman gets triggered in a bar or a social setting, it doesn't take a genius to see how that could lead-
- SPSpeaker
Absolutely
- APAlex Partridge
... lead to a fight.
- SPSpeaker
Well, y- y- when, when we, when we t- we have an academy at 360, and we're, and there's an academy on this week, and when we teach about what it's like to, to have ADHD, to be a person with ADHD, I've coined this phrase SPO, situationally pissed off.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
And if you don't understand yourself and you've never understood yourself, and you know that other people don't understand you, and you can't work out why life is so hard for you, why are you as bright and clever as you are, but you can't pass the exam? Why is it that the lad next to you, who's perhaps not as bright as you, gets the answer right when the teacher asks, but you're made to look a fool 'cause you haven't followed the lesson? Or the work you hand in is late and it's answered the wrong question 'cause you weren't concentrating when the question was set. And you build a life pattern of all of those things going on, you very soon get to be quite anxious about what's going on in your life, quite depressed, but not clinically depressed. You're actually situationally pissed off, and all of that is a powder keg, isn't it? And as you say, the D- the DSM doesn't ... The, the manual for, for, for assessing mental health doesn't talk in ADHD terms about emotional dysregulation or rejection to sensitivity and, and it damn well should. It's so far out of date, and the NICE guidelines are corrupted by not having these considerations, that we're actually statistically looking for the wrong thing anyway. The impact of ADHD doesn't come from pure inattention. It comes from the emotional things that come downstream, in my view, and we should be looking to harness the impairment that comes from those things as much as anything else. So it's a powder keg, and it's from the age of about six, people can remember the challenges, the struggles, the difficulties that they've had, and you go through to whatever, whatever age in life that we get to, um, assess and diagnose people. You know, our oldest patient's 87. We, we had a 50-year-old patient write a, a Trustpilot review last week saying, "You've changed my life at the age of 50." And I just think, wow, that's a privilege, isn't it? You know, 50 years of suffering, fif- 50 years of situationally being pissed off, not knowing what's going on.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And, and then we can, we can get into it. So yeah, so as you describe, emotional dysregulation, um, re- sensitivity to being rejected, a bit of impulsivity. W- whether we need alcohol to make that any worse, God only knows, because it's bad enough as it is.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
That we've got a low bar for tolerance, uh, whereas other people may have a higher bar because it's been chipped away every day, and we, we miss that a lot in the way that we describe ADHD.
- APAlex Partridge
Seems like the perfect storm in a way. We talk about RSD on this podcast a lot, and the description of the emotional response is either internalized sadness or rage, and that rage can be internalized. You sort of, you keep it in- internal. You shut down, you go non-verbal, or you can be quite verbally abusive. You can shout, say really nasty things to those really close to you. But I suppose that's just one half of the rage. It is probably, in, in a lot of people, when paired with that impulsivity, it might not be internalized, and it might not just be verbal.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- APAlex Partridge
It could quite easily transition into physical.
- SPSpeaker
Like the lad in, in the, in the prison in Manchester that we spoke to who had seen this guy reject him and his mum, and then physically attack his mum, and that was it. Bang, wallop, gone. There was no control over those emotions. The ... And the greatest example of that, I think, is, is the, the detention between school and home for a, for a kid with ADHD who is trying their best to behave at school, really works hard to mask their struggles, um, doesn't want to, to out themselves as not being able to focus and concentrate. Works really, really hard, gets home, and is absolutely shattered, exhausted, emotionally bereft of ... There's nothing left in the tank. And then mum or dad say, "Well, don't put your bag there. Hang your jacket up and get your homework done." And in the safety of their own home, wallop, uh, emotional dys- dysregulation is allowed i- in that safe space. So the parents are talking about what's going on with their child. School's saying, "We don't see anything," but you've got this kid who's trying to do their very, very best all the time, and you've got the disparity, and that's where a lack of understanding of emotional dysregulation and, and sensitivity to rejection-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... plays a major part that is just not part of the process. It's actually not part of the national system for ADHD assessment, and, and that's just bla- plainly wrong.
- APAlex Partridge
With RSD, it seems like such a visceral reaction that's almost knee-jerk. There's no, there's no warning. If, if you are someone with ADHD and you, you do suffer with RSD, it's an instant response to a perceived or real criticism. Um-Is it, is it, is there anything schools could do or parents to recognize that and see that in young kids at a young age to maybe put things in place to intercept and change the trajectory of that person's life and therefore to avoid criminality?
- SPSpeaker
I think the first thing we've gotta do is try and avoid them blowing a fuse anyway, regardless of where that is. And, and that's, that's where more information, uh, b- better quality of information c- can help. You know, we, we, we coach and talk to parents about when your kid comes home, really how important is that homework when what they wanna do is collapse on the sofa and do nothing or play on the Xbox for an hour and decompress from school? That might not be what you want them to do, but that's what they need in the moment. A parent sees that, they can give the child that space, and then things start to run a bit more smoothly. You know, similarly with, um, a child on medication whose appetite might be suppressed. You must sit down as a family at 6:00, and we must all be- eat a, a square meal together and enjoy it because that's what society says we should do. Well, the child might not be hungry at 6:00, them, their hunger might not kick in till 8:00. So plate their meal up, alter the timetable of, of the whole family construct. Doesn't matter what you do. Don't try and punish and force somebody to eat at the time that society says you should eat.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
And you'll see the tension start to float away. And those simple things, school. The, I worked with an amazing guy, Matt Morgan, an American wrestler, huge mountain of a man.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
But, but he, he, he just a, a lovely man to work with, very gentle despite being a professional wrestler. And he talked about his schoolteacher recognized his concentration would wane after about 20 minutes, so she used to give him a basketball, and he'd go out, and he'd throw the hoops for 10 minutes and then come back in. And it was only those regular breaks in his teaching that allowed him to engage in school at all. He'd have totally disengaged if she hadn't have got him.
- 14:49 – 16:37
How undiagnosed ADHD differs between men and women
- SPSpeaker
lot.
- APAlex Partridge
Do you see even, I guess, starting from that young age but even through to, to adulthood, do you see a, a, the difference in how undiagnosed ADHD might manifest in women compared to men?
- SPSpeaker
Oh, that's a classic. That's a classic question. And, and, um, there was a Loose Women episode that we were involved with, and, um, one of the comments made by, um, one of, one of the, the, the presenters was on the different manifestations for, from men to women, and we still use that clip in, in training in the academy. And young Archie Reid, one of our, one of our, um, our managers in the organization who teaches, he says, "Yeah, that was the only thing they got wrong, was the difference in the manifestation between men and women. Who says you can't have inattentive men?"
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
"And who says you can't have hyperactive women?"
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
Um, he, he, he says, "Well, what are we looking for, and what do we find when we're looking for it?" And he's absolutely right. You, you, you know, it's... A- A- ADHD, and we can talk about the title of ADHD, but ADHD is indiscriminate of gender. But we, if we look for naughty boys, we'll find naughty boys. If we look for inattentive girls, we'll find inattentive girls. If we reconstruct our thoughts and go and look for the hyperactive woman, we'll find the hyperactive woman, the impulsive woman. We just don't look, and society hasn't looked over the years. I've worked with many, many, um, both men who are inattentive and dreamers and women who are impulsive and hyperactive, so there, there isn't the gender split that history would say that, that there is. I, when I first started 20-odd years ago working in ADHD, there were a common, common swathe of psychiatrists across the globe who saw it as a boys thing.
- 16:37 – 22:10
How to manage ADHD and addictions
- APAlex Partridge
And what about, um, ADHD and addiction? Do they go hand in hand?
- SPSpeaker
They're big cousins, um, without a doubt. The prefrontal cortex isn't working properly. [coughs] Excuse me. There's, there's, um, there's a lack of dopamine in the key pathways that, where we need dopamine to, to be working to, to, to give us, uh, a fully effective, uh, set of, of, of brain patterns. If you can't get that or aren't exposed to that medically, and you can't cope without that, and then you impulsively are, are introduced to something like cocaine, and you take a bit of cocaine, and voila, it does exactly what y- you need, you've got a cousin, and you've got a cousin for life. Um, we used to interview prisoners in the cells about their ADHD and their drug taking, and, uh, and prisoners would use expressions like, "There were five of us took cocaine, boss. The other four were monged and flying from the ceiling. I sat down and watched Coronation Street for the first time ever."
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
"It just slowed me right down. It switched off the tumble dryer in my head and allowed me to concentrate." The schoolteacher with her cocaine. Cannabis, um, alcohol, smoking cigarettes, nicotine all have an effect on that prefrontal cortex and, and that dopamine, um, whether it's chemically or it's actually a dopamine hit by doing something wrong, doing something risky, um, or a combination of the two. Um, there's an inextricable link. And, um, I was, I was, I was really fortunate many years ago to be introduced to a guy called Professor Tim Willings in America, and I don't know if you've ever looked at Tim's work. He, he's the world expert on ADHD and substance abuse, and the links are profound.
- APAlex Partridge
I mean, I, I, I first heard the eight, those four letters in a AA meeting, Alcoholics Anonymous. Um, like so many other people on the podcast, you sort of, you, you, you're drawn towards something just to bring you up.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- APAlex Partridge
Um, but ultimately you just bring yourself so far down because you have an inability to stop, or certainly I do.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. Yeah.
- APAlex Partridge
Um, I guess it's that you, you have a drink and you activate this hyperfocus and the, the only thing on the other end of that hyperfocus is the next drink. Um, then you get the next drink and you just move the goalposts further and you want the next one. And within a very short space of time, because of that impulsivity combined with that hyperfocus on one thing, the next drink, and if something gets in the way of that next drink, you can get very agitated. Um, and that's one of the main reasons I stumbled across those four letters, um, speaking to so many people in active and recovered addiction, and those four letters kept coming up. But I suppose it, it must be frustrating to, if you, even if you get a diagnosis and then you've got to wait, uh, for a long time to get the right medication, do you think that's why many people fall back into addiction? Because it is simply easier, it's just less friction to self-medicate.
- SPSpeaker
It, it, it... Really interesting. Truly, genuinely interesting to, to discuss that because classic treatment pathways would say you've got to be clean for a number of weeks before you can receive treatment. If you're not making an everyday choice, you're taking something to survive, to perform, 12 weeks, that's not gonna happen. And, and, uh, the recidivism rate there is incredibly high. And T- and Tim Willings, um, taught me that you've got to actually not wait that time. You've got to appreciate if someone's got ADHD and they're abusing substances or they're addicted to something, they're not gonna be able to stop and give you three months before they'll actually trust you to start treatment. That's not gonna happen. You've got to marry the two up. And, um, and, and there's lovely stories of my work and where Tim supported our understanding of that, which is against the norm i-i-in, in, in society's treatment of ADHD. But I think we've also got to actually look at the construct of what is an addict, because automatically in this conversation we talked a-about addict to alcohol or, or drugs.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
But, but a person with ADHD who needs a dopamine burst could be addicted to anything. And, and if we can turn that addiction into a positive addiction, the hyperfocus as it's called, perhaps, then we can actually still feed the addiction that we know we're not gonna beat the battle with, but we can do that in a positive way and get positive outcomes.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And, and, and I think we've lost in society somewhere the ability to accept that sort of geeky want to do something that is now put down by society. Um, I, I, the easy one for me a-as a, as a, as a, an old man now in me 60s, when I was a kid, I was a train spotter, and I would go anywhere to look at trains. Now these days you wouldn't do that. You wouldn't dare do that because you'd just be a, you'd be ostracized.
- APAlex Partridge
Right.
- SPSpeaker
But, but in those days y- people did, and the, the, the autistic passion for something that people had in the '70s and '80s, '60s, '70s, '80s, planes, trains, automobiles, is almost n- by society not allowed anymore. You're, you're weird if you're passionate-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... about something. And maybe we've gotta rethink some of that and, and, and rethink how we allow people to be addicted, but not always to unlawful substances or things that are gonna cause trouble.
- 22:10 – 34:05
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- APAlex Partridge
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- SPSpeaker
It is.
- APAlex Partridge
It's incredibly hard to get, um, because like you said, it is unusual if you have a special interest towards trains or something that falls outside the sort of parameters of normal. I think it's dangerous if your special interest is, is your addiction. Um, I had a psychiatrist on here about a year ago. He said something that explained my entire life. He said, "People with ADHD struggle to maintain their life away from addiction-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- APAlex Partridge
... forget how bad life got when they were in active addiction.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- APAlex Partridge
Um, because of object permanence, the whole idea of something being out of sight, out of mind, and you can very much go through life and forget how bad drinking got for you.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- APAlex Partridge
So when that stress comes into your life and you need that vice, you need that escape, and that hyperfocus comes on towards that bottle of wine in the supermarket, um, you don't have that memory to draw on-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, indeed
- APAlex Partridge
... of how bad that got. Um, and I think it's so important. I mean, what's, what's saved me in that situation is, is bringing that memory into my now and ensuring that I have something to, to, to look at in terms of evidence to remind me how terrible it was. Um-
- SPSpeaker
Ru- Russ Barkley talks about, and, and, and, and I've s- ... I've discussed this a lot with him, how, how one of the challenges for a person with ADHD is to bring their past performance to the present time, and that's exactly what-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... you're talking about. Now, you've, you've got, uh, in you as an individual, uh, an incredibly articulate way of looking at your addiction, your alcohol abuse, and bringing that forward. And where that's come from, how that's manifested for you i- is really strong. And the way that you talk about it for other people, I think, is really strong as well, 'cause I think it helps other people. But we have to recognize there is a huge challenge for someone with ADHD to look at that past-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... and, and bring that to the present. E- especially in terms of addiction, like you're talking about. How bad was that? Well, I can't remember, so therefore it doesn't matter. We'll just crack on and do what it ... I, I think I need to do. But it's also, it, it's also relevant to, say, the child who was told yesterday, "You needed to bring a pen. You didn't bring a pen to class, so you're gonna get a detention. You haven't brought a pen today, so you're gonna get another detention. I told you yesterday." Well, that child can't recall what was ... they were told yesterday to bring that forward to today.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And, and so it's, it's a h- ... It's a whole systemic lack of understanding, that you've been told it once, therefore you'll never need to be told it again. You've experienced it once, therefore you'll never need to forget or you'll never be able to forget that experience. So why can't you relate back to when that was really shitty for you? Well, I can't because I've got ADHD, and that's driving-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And we've got a cycle now. We're on a hamster wheel, and it's very difficult to get off. You've got off it, and that's really admirable, but a lot of people do struggle to get off that hamster wheel.
- APAlex Partridge
I always wonder why we do always live in the now, 'cause I think it's easy to say people with ADHD, we're like, we live in the now and we only see what's in front of us, and anything that's in our past or future ceases to exist, so we struggle to remember achievements, therefore we have imposter syndrome. It's quite easy to say that, but I always wonder why we live in the now, why we are so eagle-eyed and alert to dangers today, right now.
- SPSpeaker
But are we only living in the now? Because if the emotional rejection and the sensitivity is because what the building blocks that have got us to the now-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... we might be defending against those to live in the now, but we're still actually very acutely aware in our subconscious-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... of what's gone before. And I think all of this boils down, Alex, to I don't still f- ... I still don't think we've got everything boxed off that we know exactly what's going on. The complexity of the human mind i- is way beyond a textbook with a single dimension of what's going on, and, and we still rely on a single textbook to understand what's going on.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And I think we're way beyond that. And, you know, since, since the latest DSM, DSM-5, and the NICE guidelines, I think people like yourselves, ourselves, are unpicking the complexity of ADHD, that those who are, who are charged with the responsibility to provide services for people, um, are still not understanding, and they can't understand why is the demand so high? Why are there so many more people with ADHD? It's because we're now bringing people to the fore with confidence-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... because we're starting to rewrite the rule book a little bit, and I think we've gotta continue to do that, 'cause it's a big challenge.
- 34:05 – 48:25
How to be happy with ADHD
- SPSpeaker
it."
- APAlex Partridge
Do you think therefore ADHD is the antithesis of balance, and do you think humans need balance in order to be happy?
- SPSpeaker
Do you know, I went round the, um, the Air & Space Museum about 20 years ago in, in Washington, and it was, it was something like the, the 80th anniversary of flight for the first time, and it was a big Wilbur and Orville Wright exhibition. And they ha- And I, I, I love aviation. And, and I was reading their school reports which were on display, and without a shadow of a doubt, both of those gentlemen had ADHD.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Without a shadow, you know. Um, so did they give balance? No, they upset the whole world.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
They invented flight. Um, were they happy? I would hope so. You know, they pulled off something that was totally unique. And then you get to thinking about whether somebody's an entrepreneur and upsetting the balance, and you know, we've talked about entrepreneurial i- in, in other interviews and other work. So do we need balance? Absolutely bloody not. We need people that upset balance.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
But we need that to be society relevant, accepted by society, and for that person to be comfortable, more comfortable than perhaps we are at the moment with... You know, the correlation between ADHD and entrepreneurial s- stuff i- is, is fascinating and, and we're doing some work with that at, at the moment. Um, and an entrepreneur is by definition probably not in the balance-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... because they're going out and doing something completely unique that's never been done before for the first time. Um, so do we need balance? No. Do we need happiness? Absolutely. People need to be happy, and I think that's the part that matters, is that if you don't fit, can you be happy not fitting? Can you, can people be happy around you when you don't fit? And people talk about, "I don't wanna label my child. I don't want the label." But actually, I challenge that. I think that if you understand yourself, and you can therefore allow other people to understand you more, people are more tolerant, a- and if not, they should be. And therefore, there is a balance about that moment, but that still allows you to be not the balance that everybody would expect.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
So entrepreneurs, inventors, the chaos that, that, that needs to actually make things happen, I think w- if we didn't have that, we, we wouldn't have half the things that we cherish in the modern day. Um, you know, we look at sports stars. Um, how many of, how many of our sports stars, our legendsUh, are probably ADHD and didn't have a balance. They needed to do something different, needed to go out and do something different. Lewis Hamilton talks about his ADHD, whether he's ADHD or not, I don't know, but he talks about where he gets his passion, his drive, his commitment, his willingness, his almost recklessness to go and do something that's never been done before. Um, so do we need balance? No, we don't. But what we need is a happy balance.
- APAlex Partridge
Hmm.
- SPSpeaker
And society needs to address that to allow us to still have entrepreneurs, but happy entrepreneurs, to allow us to have inventors, but happy inventors. Let's get James Dyson and, and screen him for ADHD. Yeah. Richard Branson, let's actually get him and screen him for ADHD.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
Nobody... Everyone says, "Oh, he's definitely got it." I don't think he's ever been screened for it. He's been screened for dyslexia. But let's get these people and, and just think, well, society's relied on you-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... to change the construct of vacuuming or record production or whatever it is. So we can't accept the balance, or we'd always live in caves, and we'd still be drawing on the walls of the caves. But we have to be happy in the way that we address it, and I think that's where we can make a difference.
- APAlex Partridge
It's interesting, the ADHD entrepreneurs, the high-achieving men and women with ADHD I know, the, the output that they're giving to the world is tipping the balance. They're doing incredible things, but there's nothing balanced about them as people.
- SPSpeaker
Absolutely. Absolutely.
- APAlex Partridge
And in fact, that's the thing that is driving them to do-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- APAlex Partridge
... extraordinary results. Th- they, to them, often, work-life balance is, is just, it's, it's a myth because they understand that their, their hyperfocus and obsession towards the, the, their mission is so strong. Um, and whether that's healthy or not, but there's very often little balance within their life-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- APAlex Partridge
... other than their mission, which is what has enabled them to achieve the incredible output that is tipping the balance societally. When you were in the police force, you must have seen a lot of trauma. So taking this all into account, Phil, and, um, where would you like to see the world of ADHD, schools, the prison system, education in 10 years?
- SPSpeaker
10 years. Well, that's not that far away, is it, 10 years?
- APAlex Partridge
Time goes fast. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
It, it does, and, you know, I've been in this for 20-odd years now, and I thought when I set out that, that we'd boil the whole ocean and sort everything out, and obviously, s- we sit here, and I still haven't managed to do that. Where do I s- where do I think? I think we've gotta be joined up, and, and, and a person's need can be met by education, health, social welfare, criminal justice system if it's wrapped around the individual, and we don't do that. We're not good at it. But nobody's gonna give us a blank sheet of paper to start again. We have society. We have it constructed in the way that it is. So in 10 years, are we gonna really change everything? I doubt it. Could we? Should we? Should we have a really good go? Yes, we should. And, you know, we have a passport to travel. What about if we have a passport that explains us and actually says that, "I am neurodiverse. I have got cancer. I am short, and therefore I feel, um, I feel different to a tall person"? Whatever it is, we have a passport that explains us, and people actually understand that reading your passport and understanding your passport is a professional discipline. So you've got... It says on your passport you're neurodiverse. What neurodiversity? I'm autistic, or I've got ADHD. Well, how can I help you? How can I enable you as your school teacher? How can I enable you as your healthcare provider? As opposed to, we haven't got the money to spend on ADHD, so we're not gonna do it, or I don't believe in ADHD in the classroom, so we're not gonna do anything different for you. Uh, and, and why can't we wrap excellence around an individual? W- we wrote a school guide for ADHD, and, and everything we wrote in that guide, whether it's the strategic level, the tactical level, or the operational level in the classroom, if it was, uh, actually applied to everybody, not just the person with ADHD-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- 48:25 – 52:03
Debunking ADHD myths
- APAlex Partridge
What myths about ADHD would you like to bust here today?
- SPSpeaker
Oh, God, how long have you got?
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Um, it's not all about naughty boys. You grow out of it. There's no hope. There's plenty of hope. There's nothing you can do about it. Medication's bad for you. All of those I'd, I'd, I'd like to just, people just recognize they are stupid myths.
- APAlex Partridge
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Um, but the big one, if there is a big... They're all kind of around the individual. The big one is, is for, for the ministers and, and, and those who are charged with responsibility providing servicesIt costs more to not treat someone for ADHD than it does to treat them, and yet we've got commissioners of health boards around the country saying we can't afford to treat ADHD. If you don't, the overall cost to society just goes up and up and up. That's the biggest myth.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
This is an investor save for the nation, and that's the big corporate message we've gotta send out, and it's been proven time and time again. We've just published a paper on it just to bring some UK numbers to it, uh, as opposed to Danish numbers or Swedish numbers or American numbers. The return on the investment for treating someone for ADHD is vast, so why are we, why are we messing about and tinkering in the margins saying, "We can't afford to treat ADHD"? We've gotta stop that. Stop that conversation outright and let people be treated for something they need the help with.
- APAlex Partridge
It's such a c- big message to close on. The cost of is greater than the cost of not. Uh, the same applies in the workplace. I do a lot of speaking in companies. The cost of not accommodating neurodiversity in the workplace, significantly more than the cost of accommodating.
- SPSpeaker
Oh, b- by a country mile. And, and it's i- it, you know, I th- I think it's two-thirds of my, my non-clinical workforce are neurodiverse.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And about a third of my clinical workforce are neurodiverse. What an absolute bloody joy. Yeah, it's been tricky.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And yeah, it's challenges along the way, but crikey, wouldn't have it any other way. And, and, you know, w- w- I remember one lad, he, he, he had a job description, and he couldn't meet it, and we could have fired him, but actually recognized he was neurodiverse.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
He didn't know at the time. Recognized he was neurodiverse, and I said, "Right, what are you good at? What do you wanna do?" And he adds value every single damn day to the organization doing half the stuff that other people don't wanna do. It's not rocket science to get-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
It's not. It's not that difficult. People want a break, let 'em have a break. It's not a bad thing to have a break, is it, to go outside? When, when I take the dog to work, th- they queue up to go and walk my dog on their break.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
They, they literally-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
... like, "Can we take Charlie out? Can we take Charlie out?" You know, those kind of things. Why would you not? You don't just provide a break for someone who's neurodiverse. Provide a break for everybody.
- APAlex Partridge
Exactly, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
You don't-
- APAlex Partridge
You see the, the, the penny drop moment-
- SPSpeaker
Absolutely
- APAlex Partridge
... when I'm having these conversations, and I say... People are, they're not convinced. Why should I spend money on basic accommodations when... And then you say, "Well, 60% of neurodivergent people will leave-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- APAlex Partridge
... in three months if there aren't very basic things to mitigate the anxiety, which is-
- SPSpeaker
Then you've gotta recruit, advertise, recruit, start again.
- 52:03 – 55:12
Phil’s ADHD item
- APAlex Partridge
I wanna reveal your ADHD item.
- SPSpeaker
Go for it.
- APAlex Partridge
I'm gonna lean over now and reveal it. [laughs] That looks... Now, I had to Google what a pomegranate looked like 'cause I, I'd realized how ignorant I was towards fruit. It is a fruit.
- SPSpeaker
It is.
- APAlex Partridge
It is fruit. Okay, it is a fruit. So, so that's a pomegranate. Why does a pomegranate, [laughs] pomegranate represent ADHD?
- SPSpeaker
So there's, there's two, two reasons for this. Uh, one is quite emotive. Um, I worked for two years in the NHS clinics for ADHD, seeking to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. Um, and the, the, the holy grail was to find the perfect clinic, which I never found. So I ended up, uh, with a small team of o- of colleagues. I led a team to publish a paper on what excellence in an ADHD clinic looked like, and that became the genesis of ADHD 360. And we needed to name the report, so we named it Pomegranate. Now, you can, you can, uh, you can wonder, what the hell's he talking about here? But... So here we are. You didn't know what it looked like. Okay, so there's ADHD. You didn't know what it looked like. To the common person, they don't know what it looks like, do they? ADHD or a pomegranate, there's a straight comparison there. What you do know, that inside here, there's loads of little red pips, aren't there?
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And that's what you would normally, uh, see as pomegranate.
- APAlex Partridge
Yes.
- SPSpeaker
So you would see some of the manifestations of the ADHD but never actually see the whole. Yeah?
- APAlex Partridge
Yes. Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So, so there's a, there's another correlation-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... and comparison there. It goes even further. If you don't process a pomegranate properly, you lose a lot of the vitamins. Pomegranate juice has less vitamins than the pomegranate pip, and the processing of it into something that becomes easier to es- uh, to, to consume and easier to accept changes its whole construct and its value, and it devalues it. Well, let's take that back to the world of ADHD again. So for me, this represents a seminal part of my life when I, I published that report, What Does Excellence In An ADHD Clinic Look Like? Which led to me setting up 360, but also the inextricable links between this simple fruit-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... uh, and how we define it. Uh, in Greek mythology, the pomegranate was given as a gift of wealth. It was something that was attributed to actually having more than anybody else, and I think that's my final word on why the pomegranate and ADHD.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
Because this just looks like any old tatty old fruit bought from Morrison's or wherever this morning. But actually, if this represents ADHD and represents a gift of wealth-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... we should never take away from a person with ADHD what their actual gift to society and themselves can be, and not just look for impairment and things that are symptomatically wrong.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
But actually look for the value, and the value's in here.
- APAlex Partridge
Amazing. I feel like I've been educated on what is a pomegranate [laughs] to start with. Um, but also another beautiful analogy. Um, so thank you, Phil.I
- 55:12 – 1:03:14
The ADHD agony aunt
- APAlex Partridge
wanna do the ADHD agony aunt finally. The ADHD agony aunt, which is called The Washing Machine of Woes, because my ADHD item is the washing machine because I always leave my clothes in the laundry. And I ask everyone, "Do you leave your clothes in the laundry?"
- SPSpeaker
I wouldn't even know where our laundry is.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
I've got the most amazing, supportive wife-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
... who, who runs behind everything that I do. You know, g- um, it sounds incredibly sexist, doesn't it? I do know where the washing machine is, of course I do, but I don't use it. She does.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
Um, I'm out working 12, 14 hours every day, seven days a week, traveling all here, there, and everywhere. Um, do I leave my washing, um, in, in the washing machine? No. Do I air my do-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
... dirty linen in public?
- APAlex Partridge
Yeah. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Yes. Uh, symptomatically, quite a lot.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
Um, I think, I think the point there is that for anybody to be truly successful, a person with ADHD or a person without, you've gotta have the right support around you, haven't you?
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
Um, and, um, I believe ADHD 360 is successful at what it does.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And as the CEO, I know damn well I couldn't do it without the people around me who are taking my washing out the washing machine.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
You know, I've got my secretary, Lucy.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
I've got my leadership team. I've got my support at home. Um, I'm neurotypical, but I would still be leaving my washing machine here, th-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... my washing here, there, and everywhere if I didn't have the right people behind me. And I think the Pomegranate people, the people with ADHD-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... will do a lot better if they've got people around them helping them not leave their washing in the washing machine.
- APAlex Partridge
Yeah, 100%. It's about finding out what your strengths and your weaknesses are-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- APAlex Partridge
... and delegating.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
Episode duration: 1:03:15
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Transcript of episode VvQOh_aMB18
