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WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Journalist Kate Spicer Reassesses Her Life After Late ADHD Diagnosis
- Kate Spicer, who was diagnosed with ADHD two months before recording and has been medicated for under a month, says she is still uncomfortable with the label and is speaking publicly about it for the first time.
- She describes family and partner skepticism, including her father's view of ADHD as the pathologization of personality, her mother's offer to fill in the informant report for her, and her boyfriend's insistence that she doesn't have it.
- Spicer reinterprets decades of drug and alcohol use, spending, disordered eating and two-year relationship cycles as attempts to raise dopamine and manage emotional dysregulation, and she describes a relentless negative inner monologue.
- She says stimulant medication quiets the mental chatter and helps her get things done, while she feels uneasy taking prescribed stimulants after a lifetime of fighting stimulant use and is considering carefully chosen psychedelic treatment as an alternative.
- The conversation also covers procrastination, perfectionism and criticism sensitivity, school and deadline-driven work, and lighter moments such as the crisps she brought as her ADHD item and her most impulsive act.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasA diagnosis can reframe a whole life story
Spicer says she has spent two months re-reading decades of chaos, addiction and failed relationships through ADHD, and finds it heartbreaking to realize she blamed herself for so long.
Many behaviors may be dopamine seeking
She links drugs, alcohol, shopping, eating habits, arguments, deadlines and even crisps to a constant search for dopamine, and says that since medication she no longer craves crisps.
Internalized stigma persists even after diagnosis
Spicer says she still half-believes she is just a bad person who couldn't get her act together, comparing it to internalized prejudice, and describes her inner critic as a whole round table of voices.
Older generations and close partners can be resistant
Her father, mother, uncle and boyfriend variously dismiss ADHD as personality or a consumer choice, and she says the people who understand are mostly friends with ADHD.
Medication calms the mind but brings ambivalence
She says the stimulants make the chatter recede and help her focus, but she finds it a head-fuck to be prescribed stimulants after spending her adult life trying to stop them, and she feels she has lost some productive procrastination.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesIt's like the inner critic, but there's a whole round table of them. It's like the Algonquin Round Table of inner critics.
— Kate Spicer
I think to actually go- come out proudly and say you have ADHD, you have to have all your ducks lined up and be, you know, be... You, you've gotta kind of have your shit together.
— Kate Spicer
It's quite heartbreaking actually, to think that I've gone through decades of my life blaming myself and sort of beating myself up for not being better.
— Kate Spicer
The monkey mind, the monkey leaves your brain, and a kind of a tortoise takes up.
— Kate Spicer
So many of us weren't thriving, but we were surviving, and now, once you're post an ADHD diagnosis, it's like, "What the fuck do I do with this? What do I do with it?"
— Kate Spicer
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SPEAKERS
Kate Spicer
guestLifestyle journalist and Sunday Times journalist who was diagnosed with ADHD recently and writes about it on Substack and in national press.
Alex Partridge
hostHost of "ADHD Chatter" who interviews guests about their ADHD experiences and runs recurring show segments like the "ADHD item" and closing tradition.
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
