EVERY SPOKEN WORD
60 min read · 11,734 words- 0:00 – 0:31
Intro
- APAlex Partridge
Kat, welcome back.
- KBKat Brown
Thank you for having me. I love what you've done with the place.
- APAlex Partridge
It's looking-
- KBKat Brown
Very festive
- APAlex Partridge
... a little busier than when you were last here about a year ago.
- KBKat Brown
Yes. [laughs]
- APAlex Partridge
How have you been?
- KBKat Brown
Lacking in tinsel, so I'm delighted-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... to actually be overloaded by it today, but yeah, extraordinarily well. How about you?
- APAlex Partridge
I've been very good. Very good. I've been excited for our second chat.
- KBKat Brown
Yes.
- APAlex Partridge
It's been a little while. Um, last time you were on, you told a very emotional story, which I'm sure many people will be able to relate to. So perhaps we can start there.
- 0:31 – 4:34
Early memories of feeling different
- APAlex Partridge
What's your earliest memory of feeling different? Were you bullied?
- KBKat Brown
There's this really odd thing about difference or feeling different, is that in my experience, you may not necessarily feel different, but it becomes evident that other people think that you are. And so you're merrily going along on your path, you know, la, la, la-ing through the world, not a problem at all. Um, but then you keep coming up against these people who are like, "Oh, you're weird," and you're like, "Am I though? I'm just, you know, going around, doing whatever." And if you come up against enough of those people, whilst also just thinking, "I'm quite happy with who I am. I'm quite happy with the things that I like and that I'm doing," uh, it just becomes this e- enormous, more than a disconnect. It's incredibly hard to deal with. Um, for stupid reasons related to my growing up in the 1980s, I was moved up a school year at seven for being tall, and that missing school year, I think, uh, it turned out to be quite difficult for me and my prospects as a cool girl, uh, by the fact that I just missed out on this whole year of socializing and knowing how to socialize with other people on my level. And, you know, it, it just didn't get much better, particularly when I moved to the countryside and, oh my God, turns out I was ginger, Alex.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
I was ginger all along, which was a shock to me 'cause I just thought I had red hair and that was fine, but no. Turns out I was guilty of a million different crimes and, yeah, when you... Again, it's just difficult when you discover that the person that you thought you were turns out to be somebody very different to other people.
- APAlex Partridge
I think there's a point in so many neurodivergent people's life, often early on, when they have that realization that they're different, and often it's sometimes as a result of lots of exposure to, to, to little comments, little criticisms, little microcorrections, like, "Stop fidgeting. Why can't you just be normal?" Do you think your was a singular moment, or do you think it was a gradual realization over a period of time?
- KBKat Brown
It's so easy to look back now and be like, "Well, I think when I was seven this happened, when I was 10," blah, blah, blah. I remember, um, when I was first coming to terms with the idea of my having been and continuing to be depressed over the years, um, looking back to when I was 11 or 12, in my second year of secondary school, and thinking, "Yeah, okay, that was when that sort of translucent film came down over my brain," if you like, and sort of everything started to feel a bit dampened since then. But it's, it's so difficult once you're going through something to sort of notice something standing out more than others. I do know that things that I experienced as a child in secondary school in the '90s were very different to what a child at secondary school now is experiencing, um, not least because we didn't have social media, so for all the bad that it does, y- you know, we were, we were also sort of entirely isolated if we didn't have, you know, pals on our wavelength or something like that. Um, but also if you were different or weird or sad, that word that went around a lot when I was at school, I don't know about you, then you just sort of had to pick it up because it wouldn't necessarily just be your school fellows who would pick up on that, it would be the teachers as well.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm-hmm. Very much so. I mean, someone said to me on the playground when I was seven, "You could be one of the cool kids, Alex, if you weren't so weird." [laughs]
- KBKat Brown
[laughs]
- APAlex Partridge
So, so there's so many comments like that, I think, that, that... I think as, as a standalone comment, doesn't sound too damaging, but I think when you add them up over years and years, they, they can compound to create someone who truly does feel like there's something wrong with them.
- KBKat Brown
Yeah.
- APAlex Partridge
And then you learn the solution, right? I feel like we're very good problem solvers and we, we, we recognize the, the solution to feeling different was to change who we
- 4:34 – 6:32
Kat’s masking journey
- APAlex Partridge
are. Do you think your masking journey started early on?
- KBKat Brown
I think it was... [sighs] What is so difficult is that I think when you're bullied, it's not like how it's often laid out in books or popular culture, which is that the bullies are bad 24/7 and you are good 24/7, and they're just constantly mean and stealing your lunch money and eating your crisps and whatnot. Um, the people who picked on me were really funny and charismatic, and that actually almost made it worse because when they weren't being total dicks, and it was mostly boys that bullied me, um, you'd just be like, "But you're really good at art. You're really funny. You're really good-looking, and-"
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
"... what the... I just, I'm just a bit mystified by what's going on here." But you're so right thinking about the almost like the death by a thousand cuts, and one of those, uh, you know, one of those rumors that has almost become fact, uh, is about the, the number of negative comments that somebody with ADHD hears before a particular point in time, even though there's absolutely no way of documenting that-
- APAlex Partridge
Yeah
- KBKat Brown
... at all. We've just all been like, "Yeah, sounds fine. Yep, take that as fact." But, but there is that thing that however strong your sense of identity and strong your sense of self, you know, as a kid, that is still forming and, and so when you do hear enough sort of negative things about yourself, then even if you don't necessarily believe them, there will still certainly be an element where you're taking quite a lot of those on board and thinking, "Well-All, all these people are, are, you know, saying all these rotten things, and they're all doing it to me for some reason, and I don't know why
- APAlex Partridge
Mm. I think those comments, the little ... They don't always need to be direct. They can be little body movements. You could say something, and someone could just, just, just dismiss what you've said, and you pick up on them, I think, as a, as a child. And
- 6:32 – 18:45
Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria
- APAlex Partridge
rejection sensitive dysphoria, this horrible, instant, visceral, physiological response to, to criticisms and, and rejections, did you experience that much as a, as a, as a child?
- KBKat Brown
I feel like I experienced it much more in my 20s once, once I sort of left the safety of school and university, even though I didn't necessarily feel particularly safe at university or 'cause I had horrendous insomnia and was always worried that I was gonna flunk out, and therefore, where would I go? What would my life do? All that sort of thing. So once I was sort of on my own, as it were, then my horror, uh, uh ... You're so right using that word visceral, but I, I really experienced that as just absolute horror of getting something wrong, of upsetting a friend, or being weird or un- or just off in some way because, you know, when you're a kid, you can probably be slightly more oblivious to that because you're, you're just learning what social interaction is, full stop. You're learning how to behave with different people, whether that's, you know, people that you get on with really well or perhaps distant family members or school or that sort of thing. So then when you have supposedly learnt all of that, but you're still finding things difficult for reasons that you don't quite understand, particularly when your contemporaries at least give the impression of being able to deal with everything with significantly more ease than you, then that is mystifying and really alarming
- APAlex Partridge
Mm. It's so impactful. I think when you're bullied or you're exposed to comments that make you feel different, you change who you are. It can make you so susceptible to this horrible feeling of rejection sensitive dysphoria, and when you're tiptoeing around life, whatever stage you are, and everything you do is in avoidance of that horrible pain, that visceral, physiological pain, it, it calibrates how you respond to the world. I think it turns you into a people pleaser, um, a perfectionist.
- KBKat Brown
Mm.
- APAlex Partridge
You're so worried about letting other people down at every given turn that you subconsciously, you're putting other people's needs ahead of your own, and I think the long-term effects of someone's self-esteem when you're not putting yourself f- first can be devastating. Do you think you have been a people pleaser throughout your life?
- KBKat Brown
Many people who know me would be like, "Absolutely not, no." Um-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... I think I probably ironically tried to be a people pleaser. I've just really sucked at it. Um, I think because, again, being incredibly tall and having red hair and therefore standing out in that way, it would've been very helpful if I had found comfort and reassurance in trying to mask and fit in by wearing, I don't know, clothes that everybody in my generation or where I grew up wore. But again, trying to find clothes to fit a giant woman essentially in the '90s, particularly in, like, the middle of the countryside, was just an absolute non-starter. Um, I think, I think what I did instead was almost try to anticipate people's needs and not always do that very well. Um, so it, it might be at work, uh, trying to, trying to do something really well or in advance and then absolutely beating myself up if I didn't do it right. I remember I was working at the film magazine Empire, which was my favorite magazine. I won a-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm. I used to get that delivered-
- KBKat Brown
Yes
- APAlex Partridge
... every month.
- KBKat Brown
God, love it. Um, I, I won a competition, uh, to be their junior trainee writer, and I challenge you to find a more-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... you're-a-junior-person job title than that. I was just over the moon about it and so desperate to sort of do well, which obviously is a, a terrible way of sort of starting any job. Um, you want to be keen but not, like, desperate to do anything. And so I remember interviewing a, a bunch of people, including Patrick Stewart, at a premiere about the new X-Men film, and I dimly remembered him having given me, like, a lovely little, I mean, tiny, tiny little exclusive about the forthcoming film, and then I got home really late, and then God knows how, what, what happened, but I ended up somehow recording over my entire interview with him-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... on the red carpet with BBC Seven. And thinking about that visceral response to RSD, emotional dysregulation, whatever you want to call it, just screaming in my bedroom into my pillow because I could just feel all my worth as a human being had just drained out because I'd screwed up by recording over it, even though, let's be real, nobody was gonna give some junior tiny person on a red carpet another film a little exclusive about one of the biggest films around. But to, my perception of that was so warped and so just th- through a glass darkly, that all I could think was that my, everything had just disappeared apart from this pulsating light that just like, "You useless idiot."
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- KBKat Brown
And it's, that sort of thing is just so awful because at that point, every sort of negative thing that you've ever done, that you've ever, you know, worked really hard to sort of tiptoe around, everything that you've, you know, ever tried to avoid in order to try and make people think that you're an actual sentient human being just disappears.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs] I think when we do actually do something that would be defined as a slip-up, if you like, it kind of reinforces that internal critic sometimes that we, we work so hard to silence or at least to contradict.When was the last time that you were triggered with, with RSD?
- KBKat Brown
I'm never quite entirely sure if it is RSD or just as a therapist rather than, thankfully, somebody on the street once told me that I'm, you know, just not very good at sitting with discomfort, and that's mental discomfort rather than, oh, no, my diamond shoes are too tight, that sort of thing. Um, one time I had ... Oh, God, I was trying to, uh, do some paint stripping in a room and got it, God knows how, I'm not a natural DIY-er, as will become evident.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
But, um, I managed to get some in my hair, and instantly that sort of pinpoint just happened, and I was like, "It's gonna go burrowing through your skull, and this will be awful."
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
And I just had this completely insane, disproportionate response, and went straight to the bathroom, burst into tears, but like the ugliest, loudest, most massive, like, crying fit that you've ever imagined. Um, and obviously it was totally fine, because people have been idiots before and have probably fit this stuff God knows, God knows where. But it was just this, the magnitude of this response, completely out of proportion to it. In terms of, in terms of anything else, oh, I'm so thrilled to say that it doesn't happen anywhere near as often as it used to, and that I know is, one, because I understand my brain a bit better now. I'm loath to say that I have complete control to the manual. Um, but also I really ... It's so boring. I really prioritize sleep, to the extent that when it is this dark outside, oh, you bet I'll probably be in bed, like, before 9:00.
- APAlex Partridge
Yeah. [laughs]
- KBKat Brown
Probably won't be asleep by 9:00, because, you know, I'm not an 80-year-old woman, but I will at least just be nice and cozy and in bed and winding down and all that sort of stuff. Um, partly because if I am up and downstairs, I just start craving Maltesers like there's no tomorrow. So the minute that I start even thinking about just going and inhaling the quantity of the Co-op, uh, then it's just like, just go to bed. Um, I'd like to say-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... I'm eating better, but that's again largely linked to not eating-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- KBKat Brown
... as many Maltesers, et cetera, and all of my other, you know, junk food habits. Um, drinking more water, all of that stuff, and actually remembering to take my medication more days than not, um, for which also I largely have to thank my husband, because he very often will just bring it to me with water and electrolytes to stop my clacky mouth.
- 18:45 – 23:42
Kat’s ADHD mission
- APAlex Partridge
How much does this all affect your ADHD mission? Like, what, what is your ADHD mission, and what, what do you think you're doing to achieve it?
- KBKat Brown
Alex, can I confess something to you? I am an absolute chaotic-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... trash panda. I have no mission at all.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
My mission is whatever side quest I'm on at any given time.
- APAlex Partridge
Yes. Very, very relatable. [laughs]
- KBKat Brown
Um, my most recent mission was, uh, catching up on Stranger Things before the new season came out. Before that, it was inhaling all of a lovely Korean drama called, um, Romantics Anonymous on Netflix. Um, I've also been in search of the perfect rucksack for, I would say-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... about the last eight months. Spoiler, that turned out to be the first rucksack that I'd looked at in the first place.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
Um, I think a very common thing for people of any flavor of neurodivergence, but particularly ADHD, is this feeling of, oh, loads of other people seem to be able to focus on one thing, one career, one interest, one group of friends, in my case, one accent. Instantly, nobody else in my family speaks like this. I swear this is just the product of television.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
It's completely insane. Um, but for me, certainly I had, growing up, loads of interests, lots of different groups of friends, and I always felt like I was a bit broken in that way. Yet another way to, you know, beat yourself over the head. Um, you know, my brother has had a really solid group of friends since his teens, and I really, really admire that, and I've got lots of friends who I've known since I was little, but they're, you know, they're not all in one group. And I think for, that's basically for a similar reason that I don't have a sense of ADHD mission, because actually when the book was coming out last year, I knew, as somebody who had previously worked in social media, what I should do to, you know, really amp up my excitement and other people's, hopefully, about the book, and that I should film loads of content and, um, do lots of helpful things and bring the chapters to life, and really finally master Canva, which, my God, I just can't.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
I'm not a graphic designer. Um, and I just didn't do any of it. I did a few videos, um, that I wanted to do at the time, and that was pretty much it, because I just, there were lots of other things that were drawing my attention as well, and I think for me, subconsciously, my wanting people to understand more about themselves and also the media landscape that we're in right now, that was sort of a part of that mission. But it was all tied in together with the other things that I like to do and am interested in, which, without sounding like a completely insane Robin Hood wannabe, is basically, "Look at that injustice over there." Um, but also hopefully with a bit of humor, showing people the ways in which we are similar, um, whether it's ADHD people getting knocked over the head, or trans people or, you know, very tall women with insane accents and red hair.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
That's admittedly quite a niche, but still. Um, but hopefully helping people to unite in looking at the real people who are causing problems, who are what I call twerps now.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
Can't really be bothered with thinking about reform or anybody else in more detail.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm-hmm.
- KBKat Brown
If it is somebody who is proselytizing at length about something that they know nothing about at all, then I'm afraid they're a twerp, and that is my best way of dealing with that sort of thing, and not giving it any more airtime or any more brain space. And I want to probably empower people to look at somebody, question whether they have any knowledge or understanding at all, whether they are coming from a bad faith space or a good faith argument, and, you know, work out the amount of attention that they give them accordingly. And if it's a bad faith argument, just go, "Ugh, a twerp," leave them alone and just laugh at them. Point at them and call them weird, and we know a lot about that.
- APAlex Partridge
It's a very good descriptor, twerp. [laughs]
- KBKat Brown
It's drastically underused.
- APAlex Partridge
Yeah. [laughs]
- KBKat Brown
Bring it back, specifically for all of these idiots.
- APAlex Partridge
And you wrote your brilliant book, It's Not A Bloody Trend. How long before that was your diagnosis?
- KBKat Brown
Uh, it was about s- three years. Um, I hadn't been thinking about writing an ADHD book at all, and then in Christmas 2022, I left my phone in a drawer for Christmas week, and obviously was completely climbing the walls after about three days. But it meant that I had enough brain space to sort of be like, "Ooh, actually, I'd really like to write something about, A, this insane mediascape that we're in, but also analyze the fact that this is just a repeating pattern that we see through society over and over again." So I wrote the book proposal very quickly, um, and wrote it in about three months.
- APAlex Partridge
There's a question I find fascinating.
- 23:42 – 31:43
ADHD diagnosis realisations
- APAlex Partridge
When you got your diagnosis, what fell into place? Did you look back and think, "Wow, that decision really makes sense"?
- KBKat Brown
I had the biggest rosy, glowy, everything's wonderful, I understand myself so fully right now-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... moment after my assessment. Not least because my lovely assessor gave me some really wonderful words of wisdom, which I, I did put in the book. I mean, not even wisdom, but just comfort, and something that I think everybody with ADHD needs to hear, which is that you've been operating on hard mode. You've been doing all this-All this stuff without any understanding or any support really, and you should be incredibly proud of everything that you've somehow managed to achieve despite your own best efforts [laughs] and everybody else's. Um, I think I'd always tried not to have any regrets, um, which obviously is incredibly hard when you have a lovely litany of ADHD-related mistakes behind you, but just to accept those as part of my experience, my story, my journey, to use that ghastly word. Um, but obviously if you don't have a reckoning with what you've gone through to get to the point that you're at now, then it's gonna happen at some point. And I say that as somebody who's very merrily just sort of gone, "Well, I'm not going to feel bad about infertility because, you know, it could be worse. I could be a Victorian chimney sweep in, you know, olden days and stuck up a chimney or something like that." Or, "Well, I'm not going to feel bad about the fact that I only discovered I had ADHD." Now, "Well, I'm not going to feel bad about the fact that I had a hip replacement and it got infected, and for three months I was capable of, you know, nothing." But if you do that too many times, there's gonna be a point where at some point your mind is like, "Actually, this has all been quite a lot, and I think we really need to have a sit-down and quite a hard think about it." And actually, when I spoke to, um, Professor Susan Young for the book, um, one of the greatest privileges of doing that book and spe- speaking to people who are legitimate experts as opposed to just a journalist with a recent ADHD diagnosis, was just winding them up and watching them go over what they were interested in. And one of the many amazing things that she told me was that actually after you have a diagnosis in, uh, you know, adult life, whether it is through an assessment or through your own understanding, there needs to be a period of a- acknowledgement and mourning almost for what could've been. Because obviously our lives are all made up of the decisions that we've made along the way, um, and you only, you can only ever see the path once you've done it, a little bit like when you're trying to write-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm-hmm
- KBKat Brown
... a CV. Um, but you do just need to have a moment to sit down and be like, "Wow, if I'd known when I was a child..." And I mean, I've spoken to people who got diagnosed, got diagnosed at 14, and they still wish that they'd been assessed and diagnosed when they were younger. Just I think to know that, oh, it's not that I was, you know, to borrow that book title, crazy, Stupid, or Lazy. It wasn't that I was too sensitive or, you know, too much or too dramatic, too, too, too. It was just that, you know, my neurotype is different-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- KBKat Brown
... and I operate in a different way. And what is incredibly healing I think, apart from actually for me eventually stopping going, "Everything's fine," and actually sitting down with a therapist and crying reasonably expensively tears every [laughs] every week-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... until I had sort of, you know, worked on acceptance and radical acceptance, and that who you are as a person, regardless of what you do, regardless of how productive you are or what you put in the world, or how many children you do or do not have, what your job is or isn't, that you're good enough as you are. And to be honest, that can be one of the hardest things I think certainly I've ever had to come to terms with, um, because I've, you know, never felt that way. And so it's quite nice now to be like, well, you are allowed to go to bed at granny o'clock, and you don't have to try and write the next Pulitzer-winning novel whilst you're there. You can literally just read some Dungeon Crawler Carl novels, scroll through Reddit for a bit, and go to sleep.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- KBKat Brown
And what a luxury I think to have finally got there, and I really hope that everybody [laughs] to whatever extent they recognize that, gives themselves the grace and the time to get to that form of acceptance.
- APAlex Partridge
What do you think would've been different in your life had you got your diagnosis earlier? If you had that explanation for those highly caffeinated squirrels in your head at a younger age, what do you think could have been different?
- KBKat Brown
Oh, I'd have got even more roles in my youth, in my local youth theater, definitely. Um, I'd hopefully have been a less unbearable child. Um, and a- actually, that's a horribly unkind way to speak to my younger self, but I mean, oh my God, Alex, I was such a drama child, just obsessed. Um, one of my friends and I, despite never having watched an episode of Friends, were so caught up at the age of 10 with the whole popularity of it, that we wrote and performed Friends the play.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
I, I, I think I still have the, the scripts for it now, and it's just absolutely horrendous.
- APAlex Partridge
What character w- were you?
- KBKat Brown
It doesn't matter. I was all of them.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
And director and producer. Um, I think the phrase, like, "Would anybody like a warm drink?" was literally written-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... because we didn't, we didn't know about coffee then. It was the early '90s. Um, I'd love to say that things would be completely different and, you know, I would've grown up with more understanding. As it was, I grew up with lots of understanding for myself, because I inadvertently gravitated towards books that were written by incredibly damaged women/people that we might consider to be neurodivergent. Uh, I got a lot of support from books, from fiction particularly. But also, like, we were growing up in the '90s. That was still better than growing up in the '80s, significantly better than growing up in the '70s, '60s, go back as far as you like. But me potentially getting a diagnosis back then was not going to change the fact that schools really could only cope with dyslexia, if that. Um, we were growing up under Section 28, so whether or not you were gay, you were stillYou were still gonna grow up incredibly ignorant, um, and suppressed and all those awful things. So there were huge elements of people's personality, people's character, people's selves that were just being squashed. So I think when earlier I was sort of rather naively saying that I'd always tried not to have any regrets, I think for me, actually, that is probably a fundamental part of who I am, because it's not-- hopefully it, it isn't stupidity or naivety. It is simply that I can learn from that. Um, I can learn from how ignorant I was about particularly bisexual people. I had no idea about bisexuality even when I was at sixth form. Um, and I said and did some really, you know, thoughtless things. Um, so I'm always trying to learn from that because just because I was bullied, it doesn't make me perfect or lovely or wonderful in all ways. But that is something that I can learn from and hopefully, hopefully direct empathy towards other people without, you know, removing their sense-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm-hmm
- KBKat Brown
... of self-responsibility.
- 31:43 – 35:21
Tiimo advert
- APAlex Partridge
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- KBKat Brown
Alex, I don't wanna blow my own trumpet, but I was quite a good actor when I was little.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
Um, it was only really once I got to university and was like, "There is no flipping way I could make a career out of this," which actually I think is an excellent way of weeding out people who really shouldn't be in acting at all, because it should only be people that don't want to do anything else, that couldn't do anything else. Um, in terms of character or sense of self, I simply didn't have one at all. Um, I didn't know who I was, uh, because, you know, as mentioned, I was probably about 12 different people, um, depending on who I was with, depending on what I was talking about. Um, my dad now does joke, um, in a not too passive-aggressive way, I think, about what am I going to be an expert in today, #freelancejournalism.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
But actually, I think that is also-- there is also a huge element of truth to that. There are so many passions that I've had over the years that, you know, growing up, there was, you know, no use to being so interested in them or learning about them or pursuing them. But I can tell you that the novels of Jilly Cooper and Terry Pratchett and also the wider works of Pokémon have all-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... been things that have been immensely useful and enjoyable to me as a journalist, as a writer, but also just because loving something is a wonderful thing to do, um, whether it's an art, a piece of culture, just some way that you're going through life and meeting other people who love that as well. I'm still fairly abysmal at cryptic crosswords, so that's very much-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... an ongoing work in progress. But again, it's just so lovely to have lots of different enthusiasms and, and eventually, hopefully get to a place where they feel almost more like powers that you can call on as opposed to, "Oh, why didn't, why, why couldn't I concentrate enough to go and be a consultant at Accenture?" I mean, I don't know if that's what people at Accenture did or do, but that just seemed to be-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... what lots of people at my university went to do. And the only thing I think that I knew was that I, I don't think I can do whatever that is. But hopefully I'll find something that I can do at some point.
- 35:21 – 45:09
ADHD masking
- APAlex Partridge
Do you think women mask differently to men generally?
- KBKat Brown
Fuck knows. [laughs]
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
No, this is awful. I can really only sort of speak from my own experience and from people that I've chatted to. I mean, I'd say it probably depends quite a lot on the ADHD presentation, if you like. Um, somebody who leans more hyperactive, impulsive might be able to mask just by sort of blending in in quite a, an optimistic, gregarious, charming way, and sort of mask just simply by making everybody around them feel really good about themselves. Um, somebody who's perhaps more internal might be sort of looking around at everybody that they're with and sort of almost trying to take the temperature of the group to sort of see what's acceptable behavior and go from there. The one unifying factor, I think, whoever you are, male, female, anything, what-- and of course, once you add all the complicating factors of race, gender, sexuality on top of that, is that you're just trying to not necessarily fit in, but sort of trying toWork with what you've got. And also, at the end of a day, whenever you've had to mask in any kind of way, it can be really, really tiring. Um, I used to think that I had incredibly low B vitamins, or maybe just my iron levels were through the floor, because I'd get home at 5:00 or 6:00 or whenever, and I would literally have to go straight to bed for, like, minimum hour, two hours before I could sort of get up again and start thinking about cooking some supper or watching some telly or something like that. And I genuinely didn't realize, again, until I got a dog, and learnt that if you want to tire out a dog, you give them a mental puzzle. You don't throw the ball for them 43 times-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- KBKat Brown
... 'cause then you just end up with a horrifyingly fit dog.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
But when we, when we are having to use our brain so much, it is knackering. And when you're trying to sort of almost anticipate what the next puzzle is going to be, then that can just be really tiring, too. And I really notice a difference in my energy levels and now that I'm doing different types of work, and which I still have to mask to s- to a certain extent, because, you know, you can't just randomly go through an office shouting jolly things at the top of your voice, um, as though I'm sort of hailing sheep dogs across a hill or something.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
Um, so there will always be an element of, you know, fitting in to a certain extent. But I'm certainly not having to squeeze myself into boxes in a way that I thought I used to. Um, and I would say that, you know, a lot of men experience having to mask in a way that perhaps stereotypically we might anticipate a woman having to, um, just simply because of the way that their ADHD presents. What about you? How have you found it?
- APAlex Partridge
For me, I think the biggest realization since my diagnosis was how much people-pleasing was a mask-
- KBKat Brown
Mm
- APAlex Partridge
... and how much my knee-jerk reaction to agreeing to do things that deep down I didn't want to do, but in the moment when someone was asking me to do something, asking for my time, it was the path of least resistance in that moment to commit to that social e- event, or take on that new piece of work, or go to the gym with the person. And it was tiptoeing around their ... It was tiptoeing around having that shield that would block their approval being taken away from me.
- KBKat Brown
Mm.
- APAlex Partridge
And you can't really understand what you really want and what you're trying to get out of the world and who you really are underneath when you're constantly putting everyone else's needs ahead of your own. For me, it was like the biggest realization was how much I had abandoned what I really wanted to do in an effort to avoid the horrible pain of being criticized.
- KBKat Brown
Yeah. There's a lot of therapy speak doing the rounds on Instagram at the moment, and TikTok. I do not allow myself to go near TikTok, because that way, being awake at 5:00 in the morning lies. Um, but this idea about almost sending off these quite cold, analytical responses to things, um, whereas you're literally just a person, please don't be a dick about your interactions.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
And I think there's a really fine line to be had between, you know, monitoring our own energy and making sure that we will be able to go to X, Y, and Z party, because it will be important for us to show up for our friends, and being quite scattergun about it. And certainly, I've had to really sort of reappraise the things that I say yes to, which in the moment, I might be like, "Oh my God, yes, I'd love to go to the launch of an Earl Grey-themed ice cream theme park, please. That would be absolutely wonderful."
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
Nobody has invited me to that, but please, if you have one, invite me. I will come. Um, but, but then also thinking that actually what I need to do is make sure that this week I have nights at home so that I can recharge, because on Friday there is a Christmas party with people who I really care about, and I know that being at a big party is going to be a little bit of a unknown quantity. So I just want to make sure that I can really give that my all. And to be honest, actually, if I go there and I've got enough energy and I'm prepped for it, I'll probably stay there for way longer than I anticipated-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- KBKat Brown
... and have an absolutely lovely time.
- APAlex Partridge
I wonder if the ... 'Cause for me, I think that the metrics that I felt judged on was some kind of level of success as a man. So I feel like the steps that I was taught to take to achieve that success, to achieve the approval of society, was to work hard in school, go to university, and that's what I did. And looking back, I think the whole process for me of going to university was a mask. Because deep down, I wanted to stay in my bedroom at home and grow social media brands, and, and, you know, I was totally obsessed with social media, and I got kicked out of university after a year because I just couldn't find the motivation to maintain that mask. I tried. I tried going to some lectures. But ultimately, the, the mask fell because my intuition, my knee-jerk reaction, was to go back to my university bedroom and grow these social media brands. I think trying to follow the conventional route, and this isn't necessarily unique to men, but trying to follow the, the, the conventional route to success and what society deems as high performing, for me, was like a total mask. And I think that probably cost me about 5 to 10 years of, of development, trying to be something that society de- deemed to be successful rather than what I actually wanted to do.
- KBKat Brown
And also, that it's a safe backstop to have this, you know, luxury of a, a university degree, but also because it's safe and people understand that.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- KBKat Brown
I also think, I've, I've certainly found in my experience in speaking to lots of other people with ADHD, this is obviously by not means, by no means everybody, but it's almost for a lot of us as though there is a compass with a true north. Um, and that true north will direct us to something that we find purposeful, that we're passionate about, that we deem to be important, and, uh, and also something that we want to do now, which is fab. Unfortunately, that compass will also just go around in circles whenever we're confronted with something that basically we deem to be bullshit, that is unnecessary, that isPresenteeism, for example, I think s- it, that's a huge one for me. If I've done my work and I haven't got anything else to do, why am I still dicking around sitting in a chair-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... for the next two hours? Can't bear it. So I think that's also somewhere where, mm, some elements of masking can be useful, but also, you know, realistically, just, we just need to be able to go and do the things that are useful to us. I always find it incredible, Alex, that you experienced this level of people-pleasing and feeling like you needed to follow what other people needed, considering the insane and brilliant amount of success that you had with your company. It's, uh, actually quite depressing.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
'Cause I'd always sort of ... I mean, uh, it's never been something that I thought that I could do. My brain just does not work in that way at all, sadly. Um, but I always just assumed that if one was entrepreneurial and had a brilliant idea and it was executed really well, that everything would be totally fine for the rest of your life. So it's both reassuring and, um, and yeah, a bit gutting actually [laughs] to learn-
- 45:09 – 49:22
Why women have been let down
- APAlex Partridge
Why do you think women have been missed for so long in the conversation of ADHD?
- KBKat Brown
Well, an exciting new thing that I learned recently, because, God, we love to pick up these little bits of information, um, is that, um, women and girls didn't actually feature in ADHD research at all until the year 2000. I mean, my God. Uh, I suppose it shouldn't be surprising, um, but it is one of those little nuggets of information that almost makes me feel quite cheery, 'cause it's like, well, of course, you know, people like Reform and so on are being awful about ADHD now. Because in the UK, it's, it's still a, a relatively recent understanding, not a discovery, obviously. So we're operating on that backwards. Um, and again, that, that idea that, you know, people have only been able to have dual autism/uh, ADHD diagnoses since 2013, that's another reason that has sort of blocked people out, particularly because not just women, but very often women, when going to their primary care provider or their GP to ask, um, "Hello, what's going on with my brain? Why do I feel like this?" will usually, uh, either be dismissed as having anxiety or depression, um, or perhaps be diagnosed with bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder. They may have any and all of these in, as a comorbidity with ADHD, but without that actually being diagnosed, it doesn't make anything any easier. It just means that you go away, take a load of medication that may not necessarily work, have CBT that sadly very often will not work, although obviously it can be incredibly helpful for lots of people. But when, when you're sort of skirting around the actual issue of what's going on, it's import- You, you can't treat it. You can't deal with it at all, and so it's no surprise that now there are so many women particularly whose children are going through assessment and are then in turn tipping them to going through this questionnaire and going, "Oh, this sounds a little bit horribly familiar. What's going on?" Um, but unfortunately, people with bad faith arguments can't have it both ways. They can't say, "Oh, no, everybody's being diagnosed," and, "Oh, no, everybody's self-diagnosing themselves through TikTok." If you don't want people to self-diagnose and leave it at that, people are going to seek assessment, and they are going to-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- KBKat Brown
... seek support, particularly for something like ADHD, which unfortunately left untreated is, it's just a, it's a minefield for substance misuse disorder, for accidents, for divorce, all of these things that sound completely, well, you know, these aren't illnesses. They're not, but they are all side effects. They're all consequences of something that costs, you know, globally a staggering amount of money every year. And so if by managing to actually assess people, triage them, help them get support, and at least get them on a pathway to understanding, because, you know, even after all that wait for assessment, there's still going to be a significant wait for treatment. But ADHD meds have been around for 80-plus years. They are the most tested in the world. Doesn't mean they're all going to be perfect, because everybody is a special little snowflake, and their body does-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... respond differently to it, and everybody needs a different kind of scaffolding in terms of what treatment they have, because it's, it's not a take a pill and all your problems are sorted, uh, condition. It's unfortunately very complex, and health systems don't necessarily deal very well with very complex, certainly without having their funding increased.
- APAlex Partridge
Thankfully-There's a whole generation of women coming through now and playing catch-up, getting answers over, a- after years and years and years of, of being neglected, being told that they're crazy, misdiagnosed with an anxiety disorder, like you said. I feel like that generation, for years, had a lack of self-identity because they weren't given the proper answers to their concerns.
- 49:22 – 51:34
Consequence of life without identity
- APAlex Partridge
What do you think are the consequences of someone coming through life without self-identity?
- KBKat Brown
Certainly without understanding why your brain operates the way that it does. I can only say that I spent a horrifying amount of time just thinking I was defective, um, that I was an alien in a meat suit, if you like. Um, it's so difficult to try and be a person in the world when you don't understand what game you're playing, if you like. Um, I do know that when people get assessed, uh, when they get a diagnosis, one, there is a huge amount of anxiety beforehand because almost without exception, people who have ADHD are terribly worried, I certainly was, that, um, they don't have ADHD and actually there isn't an explanation, and they're just gonna have to feel this way for the rest of their lives. Um, no, that's actually probably quite a big sign that you do have ADHD. Um, it's not about having a label, if you like, although we all use labels in supermarkets because otherwise the big shop would be a fricking nightmare. Um, but it is about understanding what manual you need to help yourself get through the world. Um, my identity is not ADHD first, so, um, for example, people with autism often say that they are autistic. Um, and Tony Lloyd has said, you know, "We don't say, 'I am ADHD-ic.'" So my identity is not necessarily that I have ADHD, but it's certainly a huge part of who I am and how I see the world, and consequently, how other people see me. And so just understanding that takes a huge weight off, because feeling that you're defective is really depressing and unhelpful, and it just means that you spend so much time trying to fix yourself when you have no idea what exactly you're trying to fix. You're just trying to squeeze your lovely square self into a round hole with no success.
- 51:34 – 53:45
Our eternal pursuit of love
- APAlex Partridge
What about our eternal pursuit of love and to be loved? How does a lack of self affect that?
- KBKat Brown
Seeking how to be loved is one of the ultimate human stories. We want people to see who we are, whether we're neurotypical, neurodivergent, anything. Um, that concept of a happy ending in terms of a love story applies just as much to platonic love, to fam- to familial love, to just being accepted in wider society. And God bless him, I think RuPaul really was onto a winner when he came up with one of his many, many, many excellent catchphrases, "But if you're not going to love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love somebody else?" And that again ties into self-identity. I was a serial monogamist all the way through my, uh, 20s and early 30s, um, mostly because I was incapable of being on my own, because when I was on my own, I just thought awful, panicky thoughts about what a terrible person I was, which is a, you know, what a lovely girlfriend for somebody else to have. But it also meant that I wasn't aware enough of people who may not necessarily have my best interests at heart. Um, it's like Tina Fey said in her wonderful memoir, Bossy Pants, you know, "The creepy sports coach is not looking for the beautiful child, he's looking for the damaged one, because that's your way in." And so the more understanding that we have of ourselves and the more self-knowledge that we have, the more that we can build ourselves up, the more that we can sit with ourselves and enjoy our own company, and know how we work and know how we're going to work with a partner. And yeah, I'm hugely grateful to my incredibly tolerant husband-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... for all of that. But, um, I'm also doubly lucky that we've both spent the last 10, 12-plus years thinking that the other one has made a horrible mistake.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs] You've clearly come on an incredible journey, to use that word [laughs] . Kat, truly inspiring.
- 53:45 – 56:09
What would you say to the bullies
- APAlex Partridge
What would you say to some of the bullies if you could go back and see them, the ones that gave you such a hard time now that you've grown into such a strong and successful woman?
- KBKat Brown
Am I a strong and successful woman, Alex? Please send this clip to my mother-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... I will be delighted. Um, I dream about school a lot. I think that's reasonably common for lots of people, and what is odd though, is I'm not necessarily dreaming about it in a stressful way. I mean, yes, occasionally I will have to do my GCSEs or my degree again, and that would be, just be horrendous, but every now and then I'm just around school, and people that I was there with are just there. And I think that's partly because I feel quite wistful about the fact that perhaps if I hadn't skipped a year at school, but who knows? If I'd been diagnosed with ADHD or depression or anxiety or whatever, but who knows, that I might have been able to engage with all of these people on a more even keel, if you like, because children can smell difference like a shark can smell blood, and anybody is keen to move the attention onto somebody else. Um, what I do know, though, is that just who you are as a child or a teenager, that's not who you are for the rest of your life. And hopefully, you know, anybody that, you know, said anythingA bit crap or really crap to me through those years, is now very much having a happy life with their families and just is a reasonably well-adjusted human being. Because thank goodness nobody is who we are when we were seven, 13, 15, and so on. The one person who really was needlessly awful to me, I'm delighted to say, um, really got his comeuppance, to my mind. And I, I try not to be too gloating about it now because, for God's sake, I'm 43, move on. But somebody in his life became one of the most famous people in the world, and that really made me very happy for a very long time [laughs]
- APAlex Partridge
Can you say who the famous person was? [laughs]
- KBKat Brown
Yeah, afterwards, when I've-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... made you sign a disclaimer.
- APAlex Partridge
Yeah. [laughs]
- KBKat Brown
[laughs]
- APAlex Partridge
Truly inspiring, Kat. Thank you so much for sharing your story and for coming back. Um, as I said at the beginning, it was, it ... I was looking forward to this, and you've, uh, yeah, uh, exceeded expectations.
- KBKat Brown
Oh, I'll put that on my report card too.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
Thank
- 56:09 – 58:51
Kat’s ADHD item
- KBKat Brown
you, Alex.
- APAlex Partridge
I wanna move on to my favorite part of the show, which is the ADHD item section. Your ADHD item, your new ADHD item, has been patiently waiting underneath that cloth, and I'm going to reveal it now.
- KBKat Brown
I'd completely forgotten it was there-
- APAlex Partridge
It's a-
- KBKat Brown
So thank you
- APAlex Partridge
... small one. Dun, dun, dun. Right, that looks like a pack of Top Trumps, specifically, Who's the Most Lovable Dogs?
- KBKat Brown
Oh, yeah.
- APAlex Partridge
I'll pass that to you.
- KBKat Brown
Thank you. Um, uh, my beloved husband gave this to me as a bonus Christmas present a couple of years ago. Um, but this, this really stood out to me, if I can actually get into the packet. Childproof, obviously.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
Um, this essentially, Who's the Most Lovable Dog, um, was how I sort of went through, I would say, all of my 20s. Um, who can be the most hardworking? Who can do what you want or need? Who can, who can fill a gap? Size, rarity, good temper, cuteness. I don't think I would've rated myself at all well for cuteness-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... or good temper. Um, although I did try and have all my nervous breakdowns in the middle of the night where it wouldn't inconvenience people. This did not work. Um, size and rarity, I would, yeah, say score pretty highly, but I just think this absolutely ... [sighs] It- it's just so hugely relatable to the amount of selves that we try to be to try and find what the right self is for a given situation, until we know that actually we have ADHD, and yes, there are probably all this many facets to who we are, but actually it's not a load of different dogs, it's all just one, and all of them are the most-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- KBKat Brown
... lovable.
- APAlex Partridge
Amazing. I, I heard a study that is connecting, and is in its infant stage, don't know how credible it is yet, ADHD in dogs. Have you heard about that? [laughs]
- KBKat Brown
Um, I actually, I bought myself a book. Um, it, it's very sweet. I think it's self-published, but basically I think it's aimed at very small children. Uh, it's basically just pictures of dogs with character traits that ADHD children and dogs have in common, and, um, I read it several times and found it incredibly comforting. Um, when I had my hip replacement, my dog, Sybil, who's a golden retriever, had just had her elbows done, and, um, and so I was joking to my husband about the poor man having to look after two golden retrievers-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... both with joint problems. But I think there are a lot of traits, um, that dogs and adults of any kind, uh, can have that crossover. Um, but I don't think I could ever eat food as quickly as Sybil.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs] Yeah. My, my French bulldog is very much the same. He inhales his dinner. [laughs] Um, your item will grace the shelves with all of the other ADHD items, Kat.
- 58:51 – 1:03:58
Audience questions (washing machine of woes)
- APAlex Partridge
I'm gonna move on to the ADHD agony aunt section, which is questions from the audience, and it's in a washing machine, and it's called the washing machine of woes. And it's a washing machine because my ADHD item is a washing machine, because for me it represents memory loss.
- KBKat Brown
Mm.
- APAlex Partridge
Always forgetting my clothes in the machine after the cycle's finished. And I do ask everyone, do you relate to that?
- KBKat Brown
Uh, no, but only because I have-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... such an incredibly exacting series of systems, um, that means that I do actually take and hang out washing. Unfortunately, should the system break or I become tired or ill, then it absolutely falls apart. But I think i- if anybody with ADHD doesn't necessarily identify with something like that, you will find a structure of scaffolding keeping them together.
- APAlex Partridge
My scaffolding is the Tiimo app, which has helped. What's your scaffolding to remember to empty the machine?
- KBKat Brown
Um, I only do laundry on Thursday to Sunday. There's no laundry the rest of the time. And the dopamine that I get from doing it in different loads, from, uh, from basically it going in and coming out clean or something, and then being hung up, is actually enough to sort of ensure that I get to do it. However, I should say I'm doing laundry for me and my husband, who cooks everything, so he gets ... He doesn't-
- APAlex Partridge
Lovely
- KBKat Brown
... he gets a pass on laundry. We don't have kids. I would enjoy laundry so significantly less if I was having to do it for multiple people. And for anything like that, I hugely recommend a woman called the Lazy Genius, who has got an amazing amount of very ADHD-friendly structures and scaffolds for exactly this sort of thing.
- APAlex Partridge
Amazing, Kat. Not only a brilliant story, but brilliant hacks as well-
- KBKat Brown
[laughs]
- APAlex Partridge
... on the show today. Um, this week, Kat, someone has written in and asked, "I have ADHD and I'm premenopausal, which is becoming a struggle. I think I'm going insane. Do you have any experience with this, and if so, what was it like?"
- KBKat Brown
Oh, not at all. I've never been insane in my life.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
Alex, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to school you on this. It's called perimenopausal. Um-
- APAlex Partridge
What did I say?
- KBKat Brown
So it's basically something that I only found out about-What felt like about two minutes after my IVF had failed, when I was reading an amazing book-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... by a woman called Heather Corinna called What Fresh Hell Is This? Um, perimenopause is basically up to around 10 years before actual menopause, which is actually a year to the day since your last period. So people talk about menopause, but that actually is one thing, and perimenopause tends to be when all your hormones start going, basically vibrating in a not particularly delightful way. Um, so you, you might have just come out of motherhood when your-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- KBKat Brown
... hormones are all over the place anyway due to pregnancy. Um, and then it's just another thing, literally just another thing. Um, a lot of women with ADHD also have something called PMDD, which is basically a boss-level version of PMT or premenstrual tension. It's called, um, premenopau- premenopausal dysphoric disorder, I hope. I also have the washing machine memory. Um, and it just basically means that PMT is even worse. Lots of women will find that their meds just don't work through certain times of their cycle. Um, if you're perimenopausal, you may start hormone replacement therapy, um, which also has other different names, and lots of people are trying to reclaim it, um, from being a replacement. Um, uh, and actually, if you have PMDD, you will need a significantly larger amount of estrogen than somebody who doesn't. So I discovered recently that the NICE guidelines say that if you have PMDD, um, that you should have as a baseline, uh, 100, um, I think it's milligrams, God, I'm so useful, of estrogen instead of 50, which is often a starting point. Um, so there's all these fun things-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- KBKat Brown
... to discover. But what is brilliant is there is some wonderful literature and books, uh, by women who are specialists in ADHD and hormones. Uh, Lotte Borg Scot- Scotland, who I interviewed for the book, um, is a amazing researcher who's got a fabulous book, ADHD in Women and Girls, um, which is all about hormones and is just a really lovely read. And then that Heather Corinna one as well I would absolutely recommend. There are also some perimenopausal-specific Facebook groups, which, to be honest, is a reason enough to still have a Facebook account in [laughs] 2025.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
Um, but just, I would say with anything like this, just make sure that you pick your experts carefully, and that make sure that your expert isn't just somebody else who's panicking. Um, because it can be very easy for us to just start taking received wisdom from other people going through what we're doing, and then it's just a case of the blind leading the blind. And another one that I would really recommend is the ADHD Experts podcast. Not to recommend another podcast, sorry, Alex.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
But it's because it's literally lectures by scientists and researchers in the field. It's organized by Attitude, and it's just reassuringly, it's reassuringly expert. They've got some fantastic stuff for women and hormones specifically.
- APAlex Partridge
Very helpful, Kat. Thank you very much on behalf of the, uh, anonymous user listener who's
- 1:03:58 – 1:05:16
A letter to my younger self
- APAlex Partridge
written in. Just finally, one more thing, I wanna deliver you a letter that was written by the previous guest, and-
- KBKat Brown
Oh, how lovely
- APAlex Partridge
... they wrote a letter to their younger self, and they posted it in this post office, and I'm going to deliver it to you, the next guest. If you could kindly read.
- KBKat Brown
Oh, how lovely. Post in 2025-
- APAlex Partridge
Yeah [laughs]
- KBKat Brown
... and it's not a Christmas card.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
"To my younger self." Oh, I'm gonna cry. This is gorgeous. I will actually share it with you now rather than just saying how lovely it is.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- KBKat Brown
"To my younger self, you are so loved, not in spite of who you are, but because of who you are. You're not too much. You are enough. Keep shining your bright light. Don't dim it to fit in, because you will find a space to belong." Was that Donna Ashworth? It's like a lovely poem.
- APAlex Partridge
It's very nice. That al- it's almost a, a summary of the conversation we've had today.
- KBKat Brown
Yeah.
- APAlex Partridge
Really special.
- KBKat Brown
"Keep shining your bright light. Don't dim it to fit in. But do occasionally, like, just average it out if you're at the office." [laughs]
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs] Kat, really, really so grateful for you to come back. Thank you so much.
- KBKat Brown
Oh, thank you so much for having me, Alex. It's just lovely. Merry Christmas.
- APAlex Partridge
Yeah, yeah. Merry Christmas.
- KBKat Brown
[laughs] [outro music]
Episode duration: 1:05:17
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Transcript of episode 0V5XbmfHZFQ
