ADHD Chatter PodcastWorlds No.1 ADHD Mentor Shares New Coping Strategy | Matt Gupwell
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
65 min read · 12,977 words- 0:00 – 3:10
Trailer
- MGMatt Gupwell
We have to stop explaining ADHD by symptoms or traits. We have to say, "What does time blindness mean to you? Executive function challenges mean to you? How does that impact someone else, and what's the support you might need that could help you?" As we get more focus on women, rightly so, I think it's really important that conversation is there. For me, it's equally as important that we can give men as well a space to say, "This isn't about whether you think you did ADHD right. It's about what did it mean to you and what does it mean now? What do you need now and going forward?" Matt Gupwell is a globally recognized ADHD mentor whose work has helped millions of people understand their neurodivergent brains. He's the most powerful voice in the ADHD and autism space and an expert in all things AuDHD helping you optimize your ADHD in all sectors. I also know young people who have found out later in life, actually, their parents did get them diagnosed with autism or ADHD when they were very young. The parents never told them, and then their autism was picked up when they were at university, and they were falling apart. That's painful.
- APAlex Partridge
Do you think there's confusion sometimes between what someone might describe as someone having a midlife crisis, how that might be confused with actually undiagnosed ADHD?
- MGMatt Gupwell
But I'm gonna preface this very carefully. I want people to be very clear. This is my opinion.
- APAlex Partridge
Loyal listeners and viewers, I can't thank you enough for tuning in to ADHD Chatter, where we ask world-leading ADHD experts the hard questions to give you access to the most cutting-edge information on the topic. If you've ever felt broken or different, I hope this helps in your search for information, answers, and community. And do you know what would really help me in return? By clicking the follow or subscribe button wherever you're listening. It might not seem like much, but at ADHD Chatter, it means a huge deal, and with this, I can book more incredible guests and keep the self-discovery fire alive for all of us, including myself. Just one click of a button goes a lot further than you think. We'll promise to listen to your feedback and book the guests you want on topics that matter to you. And remember, you're not broken, just different, and you have always been enough. [upbeat music] Matt, welcome back to the ADHD Chatter studio.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Again. Thank you.
- APAlex Partridge
Again. Is it-
- MGMatt Gupwell
I know
- APAlex Partridge
... is, is it fourth, fifth time?
- MGMatt Gupwell
Oh, fifth.
- APAlex Partridge
Fifth time.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yes. Yeah.
- APAlex Partridge
How do you feel being back? Again, it's such a privilege to have you here.
- MGMatt Gupwell
I, I, j- I'm still as confused as I was last time that you invited me back, if I'm honest, Alex. You know, I've, I've been saying this to people before I came. But, but no, it's re- it's really nice, and it's, it's, it, it's nice to be back and nice to see you again, but it's, it's nice to be sort of included and to have a platform and to hopefully have a really good discussion about, you know, what ADHD means. So yeah, I'm, yeah, really grateful, but-
- APAlex Partridge
Exciting. Thanks. Um, last time we had a brilliant conversation on rejection sensitive dysphoria-
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yes
- APAlex Partridge
... uh, which was brilliant and very well-received, and I think today we're hoping to explore a little bit more about ADHD and autism. Um, so I suppose if any of the ADHD Chatter listeners don't recognize you, which I suspect will be very few people, um,
- 3:10 – 10:04
What are your specialties within the ADHD or Autism space?
- APAlex Partridge
what would you say are your specialties and your strengths within the ADHD or the autism space?
- MGMatt Gupwell
So it's interesting. I think that, for me, challenges something in me because I'm not a specialist. So I'm not a psychologist or a psychiatrist or a doctor or a researcher or an anything. So for me to say I have a speciality would be overstating who I am. Um, I am just somebody who's 10 years down the road of my own understanding of ADHD, who is incredibly passionate about evidence-based research being combined with lived experience and, and helping people understand there's a space for them both. But I don't think I have a speciality. I have what I define as I, I have a passion for the way I do things and approach things and say things. And so I define myself professionally as an ADHD educator or a, an educator in the neurodiversity space, which again, it feels very lofty to say. You know, I have no qualifications other than my lived experience in this, but I only say things that I'm confident can be backed up by what people have experienced and also what's seen in the evidence and the research. So I think that's how I would define myself. Um, others may say different things.
- APAlex Partridge
We... You may not have any qualifications, but having been an observer of the landscape myself for, for only two years, I would say you are the most passionate voice in the space on various platforms online, and you've got your own lived experience. Where does that passion come from? What are you hoping to achieve in the, in the space?
- MGMatt Gupwell
It, it, it comes from exactly the same place it did originally, which is if I can help make the world a more welcoming, understanding, empathetic, knowledgeable even place so that my sons, who are now 19 and 20, have a far better life than I had up until very recent years, then that's why I do what I do. It always has been. It always was. They were diagnosed autistic when they were both four, t- 2009, 2010 respectively.And from that day until today, and every day going forwards, everything I do is for them. They're at the front of my mind now. They'll be at the front of my mind whenever I do my work. If by doing that and being that passionate, it also helps other people make sense of themselves and what all these things mean, then that's just an incredibly humbling added bonus, I think.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm-hmm.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Um, and yeah, you're right, I am passionate and vociferous-
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- MGMatt Gupwell
... and argumentative, and, um, I think that comes from a place of having struggled, known I've struggled, and not had the tools and the language and the understanding and the knowledge to advocate for myself. Having seen my sons struggle when they were at school because I didn't know what I needed to know to support them back then, that passion is about, I, I don't want anyone else to have to experience that level of challenge-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm-hmm
- MGMatt Gupwell
... not them or anyone else.
- APAlex Partridge
And I suppose taking all of that into account, is there a subsection of ADHD and autism that you're most passionate about?
- MGMatt Gupwell
No, and again, I think this is interesting. I've been giving this a lot of thought. I'm not, I'm not comfortable with this idea, I think, of subsections a- when we have conversations like that. And, and what I mean is, over the past few years particularly, I've seen more division of people who share the same conditions or labels that I have coming together. So I have focuses and things that are my, my interest, if you like, my, my special interest, but I am passionate about the understanding being better of ADHD and autism and particularly what they mean to people. Not what they are, but what they mean and what that can do to help people. So that's really my focus, if that makes sense.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm-hmm.
- MGMatt Gupwell
It's, it's not to say it's only women or it's only men. Yes, I'm very invested in late life diagnosis or very late life diagnosis, but, I think that's 'cause that's me. I'm 51, you know, it makes sense that I would be. But it doesn't matter whether you're four years old and you've just got a diagnosis or 84 years old, for me, the most important thing is that people are able to find information and community and support that helps them make sense-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- MGMatt Gupwell
... of these things. So, you know, that's why I, I do so many different things. I'm involved in a charity, a CIC called Divergence Works, and we have a, we have a community that we've run for a couple of years now that's just moved off WhatsApp onto an app. And what's so nice about that is there's such a wide range of people who contribute to it, but what they've all got from it that they tell us is they've found that sense of community, of people who can help share their experience, that, that ma- helps them make sense of what it means to them.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm-hmm.
- MGMatt Gupwell
That's the most important thing, is making sense of it. It's like your book.
- APAlex Partridge
Yeah. Well, I think that's why most people listen to this podcast and your podcast and other podcasts, is they wanna make sense of-
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yeah
- APAlex Partridge
... so many years of, of the, of, of, of it not making sense. And you said you're 51, and looking at the back end of this podcast, the sort of... it's a whole spectrum of age groups, but the, the, the concentration is 40 to 60-year-olds, uh, many of whom don't have a diagnosis for various reasons, but they suspect they would if they went for assessment, or they've recently got a diagnosis, and 85% of those people are, are female.
- 10:04 – 19:47
Early life ADHD diagnosis VS late life ADHD diagnosis
- MGMatt Gupwell
Mm-hmm.
- APAlex Partridge
Do you think there's a different process someone goes through when they get a diagnosis of ADHD later in life compared to someone who knows that they have had ADHD from a very young age?
- MGMatt Gupwell
I do, and, and there's, there's a lot of nuance to this conversation. There's lots of different sort of sub-experiences. So I can, you know, I can talk about my sons. I mentioned they were, they were four, respectively, when they were diagnosed with autism, so they're now 19 and 20. They've known for a- most of their lives. Now, when they were diagnosed, Catherine, my wife, and I, made it our mission, knowing nothing at that point about autism, nothing at all, to learn as much as we could in order to help us understand it and to help them and their teachers understand it, and we always spoke to the boys about their autism. They have known they were autistic since they had their diagnosis. So they're very fortunate that they have a really deep and rich understanding about what autism means to them, and they have lots of friends who are autistic and, and so their experience is very different. Now, it doesn't mean that's not been difficult for them. They, they've been bullied. They were excluded from things. They were never invited to parties. We, we ended up home educating them for five years 'cause school was so bad. You know, life has not been easy for them, but at least they've got a framework for their autism of how that may have impacted. They are both also diagnosed with ADHD. My youngest was diagnosed at 14 during lockdown, and my oldest was only diagnosed last year. So it's been interesting seeing their process of, of now adding ADHD to themselves and how they manage that. And again, it's not to say that's not been challenging for them at, and going through titration and, and, and being on medication and college. It has.But they're lucky that we talk about it. They're very fortunate that we talk about it. I also know young people who have found out later in life-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- MGMatt Gupwell
... few in their mid-20s, that actually their parents did get them diagnosed with autism or ADHD when they were very young, sort of somewhere between four and eight years old, but the parents never told them. For whatever reason, typically because it's that, this frame of, "We don't want them to be labeled," they didn't tell their kids, and then their autism was picked up when they were at university, and they were falling apart. Now, that's inherently a different experience as well. That's painful because then there's a whole different layer of stuff to unpick, and how do they make sense of that? The other bit that I'm really interested in, and you just mentioned the demographic of the podcast, right? It absolutely is true for, for lots of reasons, that if you receive the understanding, and you're fortunate enough where you choose to get diagnosed with ADHD or autism or both, once you get past 40 years old, the process of making sense of what that means, means unpacking your entire life, right? You can't compare that to, say, somebody at 23 years old who receives the same diagnosis, and that's okay. It's okay that it's different, and it's not to say it's harder, but I think my, my passion lies in trying to help those people who are older make sense of how to unpick all of that information and make sense of how to do all that retrospective looking at their entire life, whether they've thrived or not, and, and then moving forwards. And I, and I think it's really important that they have really good, if you like, age-appropriate information from people who've lived it as well-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- MGMatt Gupwell
... that they can look to and go, "I understand how you can talk about the experience of having lots of jobs or being a parent or, or failed relationships or, or, or..." You know, I, I keep thinking of my wife here. She started an open university degree this, this January, studying psychology and counseling because all this stuff, right? This is attempt three at a degree. The, the shame and, and embarrassment she feels about not being able to do it twice and having to start again at 50 is completely incomparable to, to somebody who's younger because it hits harder, but it's helping her process it in her way and helping somebody else who's younger process it in their way. So it's about just making sure people have the information that they can connect to and feel speaks to them-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- MGMatt Gupwell
... rather than, you know... It's very hard when I see really, you know, young people talking about, oh, how to live your life with ADHD, and talking about the experience of people who are older or... How do you know? When I was 23, I was too busy flying round the world with British Airways, getting spectacularly drunk, smoking 40 to 60 cigarettes a day, not knowing I had problems with addiction, and I thought I knew everything. I thought I was the, the man. I, I, I thought I had life sorted, and what I thought about people who were 40 or 50 or 60 was, "Nothing like me. They don't understand me, and how could I understand them," right? And it's, it's, it's that narrative of we, we've gotta be careful of speaking for everyone. We've, we've gotta make sure that the information supports people to answer those questions.
- APAlex Partridge
Do you think there's a risk, Matt, of someone who is in the age group that you're specializing in, people over 40, experiencing stress, anxiety, maybe even depression, um, but because they don't know that they perhaps are living with undiagnosed ADHD or other neurodivergent conditions, that that could be the, the sort of key that unlocks their understanding and p- pa- paves that path for them to live a more understanding and self-compassionate life?
- MGMatt Gupwell
There is absolutely no doubt. You know, I, again, I can't speak from a clinical perspective here. I can speak from the, the, the information and the, the experience I've gained from the support group I run and from mentoring people, but I, I also have spoken to clinicians who confirm this. Absolutely. What's your comments light on?
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Right? I... Literally, if you are listening to this now and you've just heard that question, just how many of you went through your lives living on stress and adrenaline and being told you were depressed or had anxiety, but always wondered if it was just that, and, and then have since realized that it is or could be ADHD, and that's added a completely different layer of understanding to it, right? 100% it does. I think what's really important, though, for me to, to say is whilst that may be the experience before we know, it's really, really, really important people realize the diagnosis doesn't make that go away. It helps you understand perhaps why you've experienced it the way you have. It maybe helps you understand why you experience it differently, but it doesn't necessarily mean it will stop. And, and, you know, this year I have had the worst period of depression I've had inProbably three years. I mean, debilitating depression, wanting to just give up everything. I c- couldn't see the point in life, and I've not felt like that in years, and yet I know a lot about my ADHD. I'm 10 years down the line, and I still get hit by anxiety, and I still get hit by depression, and I am still incredibly stressed, right? What I'm fortunate to have is now a better understanding of what my ADHD means and autism means in relation to those things, which means I can choose different tools to support me.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm-hmm.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Right? So I think that's really important because, yes, y- there are people that struggled before who may still be struggling, particularly when they're newly diagnosed, right? And it's helping them understand that's okay. You're not failing. It's part of the process. But, but it helps you make sense of the process now, and it helps you potentially understand how to support you and advocate for you.
- APAlex Partridge
Well, I suppose there's quite a lot of shame associated with this huge history of failed relationships, perhaps jobs that you've started and abandoned because you've sensed that your boss is annoyed with you, how you've reacted to criticisms and rejections at, at family events. That can compound over so many years to create this incredibly anxious person, I imagine, and, and you get a diagnosis in your 40s
- 19:47 – 22:34
Processing a diagnosis: men VS women
- APAlex Partridge
or later. Have, have you, Matt, experienced a difference in the sexes, how... sexes, how men and women go on and process that diagnosis?
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yeah, and it's changed more recently as well, I think. Um, so yes, I have. And, and the, the first thing to say, and I have to start with this, is what's really good and really important is that the conversation around women being recognized as having ADHD and, and autism as well is louder and, and more consistent than it's ever been, a- and that's phenomenal, right? It's, it's, it's so, so good. I think the difference that I see between men and women particularly is because there's still a stigma attached for all of us with ADHD, that ADHD, a lot of people still think it's the naughty little boy, or they perceive that if a man's diagnosed later in life, they were that naughty little boy, right? And they were always getting in trouble. Now, I meet so many men, and I'm one of them, who that isn't the, the experience of. I wasn't always in trouble. I didn't get detentions. I was never excluded. I, you know, I never had run-ins with the law. I was impulsive and stupid and made very bad decisions, but it wasn't that. So what I hear from men in the way they experience it is they feel that they can't talk about it as openly because they'll be judged that, "Oh, well, you must have been like that, and therefore, are you that now?" And, and so it, it makes it very hard for them to know, "How do I describe this to people? How do I explain what ADHD-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- MGMatt Gupwell
... was to me and is to me?" So that's the challenge, but it's one that I think was always going to happen for a while. As, as we get more focus on women, rightly so, and, and now with, with women going through perimenopause and menopause and that knowledge that we're, we're gaining now, I think it's really important that, that, that conversation is there. For me, it's equally as important that we can give men as well a space to say, "This isn't about whether you think you did ADHD right. It's about what did it mean to you and, and what does it mean now? What do you need now and going forward?" So y- ultimately, there is always going to be a difference. It's giving people the tools to explain what that means.
- APAlex Partridge
I think for the reasons you've just said, many men don't feel comfortable speaking openly about, let alone neurodivergent conditions, but mental
- 22:34 – 29:14
The truth about neurodiversity and loneliness
- APAlex Partridge
health in general. Do you think being neurodivergent goes hand in hand with loneliness?
- MGMatt Gupwell
There's no doubt, and, and I don't have to say that claiming any sort of clinical knowledge. That's just based on everything we see. You'll have seen it in the, the people that you speak to at events and in, you know, who reach out to you. Loneliness is something we hear all too often, and I think, I think it's really challenging because if you grow up not knowing why things have been difficult, why maybe you don't make friends or keep friends or you don't feel you fit in in anywhere, school, university, jobs, life even, it does make you feel lonely. It does make you feel like you don't fit in in your own skin, let alone with anyone else. I think the challenge is, and again, I, it, it sounds strange to say this, but a diagnosis, knowing it's ADHD, doesn't change that pain, if you like. It doesn't mean that that goes away. It just gives you a, a, maybe a part of a reason for it, and I think that's why we still see people, when they're newly diagnosed, who, who feel that so much. They f- still feel so isolated and so lonely, and they often will feel lonely in their own homes and their own relationships, which is a whole different thing. But that, that then is about they're still so invested in what this means, and sadly, very often...Their families aren't. Well, you've been diagnosed, done now. And now why aren't you so interested in it as I am? And, and that makes us feel lonely. So that's why community's so important. That's why finding people to connect with who can share that and validate that's so important. But yeah, I mean, it, it, they are for me, inextricably linked and really difficult to admit. You know, it's, it's, it, it can be really hard to feel like you've, you've never fitted in, and I, I think it takes a lot of mental strength to admit why that may have been, and to admit maybe just how much you've never fitted in. You know? It's, it's that phrase, you've never been so lonely in a crowd. I've, for most of my life, was always around lots of people. I was, you know, very social. I was seen as very outgoing, and yet I was perpetually feeling lonely, right? Perpetually lonely. And, and it's the same with friendships. You know, you hear people say they've got no friends, they've never had any friends. I've done that. I, I have sobbed with my wife saying that I've got no friends. Now, that's not true. I've got friends. There are people I know if, if things went wrong, I could pick up the phone and they would be there for me. But it's the feeling of being that lonely. There are times where it's just so complicated and confusing making sense of all of this, that you feel like you're a burden to anyone else, and you feel like nobody's calling or nobody's reaching out. So yeah, you, you feel lonely and isolated and different and, and it's just helping people find that connection. You know? Is, is that phrase, isn't it con- connection's the opposite of loneliness?
- APAlex Partridge
Mm-hmm.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Well, it is, but we have to find our tribe to do that.
- APAlex Partridge
Do you think a, a late night, a late diagnosis, say in your 40s or later, could a diagnosis of ADHD or other neurodivergent conditions trigger loneliness in, in the sense that you might have, up until that point in your life, been coping so well, um, that you've got a group of friends, uh, and there's a version of you that has been functioning and is social and does get by and does go to events, and then you get this diagnosis and you start questioning, "Is that a true representation of me?" And that your sort of, your sort of true self that you've come to realize post-diagnosis becomes a bit of an island, separates from this version of yourself that you've been presenting to the world for 40 years.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Mm-hmm.
- APAlex Partridge
Is it possible for that person, that, that sort of your true self post-diagnosis, to suddenly feel lonely-
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yeah
- APAlex Partridge
... when they didn't before?
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yeah, absolutely, and I think, I think y- y- you've explained that really well. It's... We can develop systems of coping and we can, we can go through life doing things that feel right and, and we feel are expected, but then when we get the permission to look at our life and understand that, well, there's ADHD or there's autism or something else connected, it can make us question, did I ever actually really enjoy that? Do I really wanna do that? And that can be really difficult. You know, I, I, I know of people and, and, and me as well, I- post-diagnosis, I lost or stopped interacting with c- complete groups of people 'cause I just felt that it wasn't right.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- MGMatt Gupwell
It wa- I, I couldn't do it anymore, and I felt more uncomfortable trying to than not. And, and it still makes me sad to not have those groups and to not be invited to things, but there's a point where I have to accept, I now do the things that make me feel comfortable in my own skin, and, and there are-- I now have people who accept me for that. But that's taken time, right? So yeah, I, I think post-diagnosis, again, it's the, it... I, I'll keep coming back to this. Diagnosis is the beginning, it's not the end, and, and it, it doesn't make everything better. And in a lot of ways, loneliness included, it can actually feel like it makes it worse, which I think is why you see s- a lot of people then start to reject their diagnosis or question their diagnosis. Is this right? Oh, may- may- maybe I'm not that ADHD 'cause I like going to the pub or I like doing this. Actually, what they're saying is, "I miss that, and I, and, and I'm not comfortable with maybe acknowledging that I... that doesn't feel right." But it, it is part of the process.
- 29:14 – 37:19
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- APAlex Partridge
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- MGMatt Gupwell
I do, but I'm gonna preface this very carefully 'cause I'm aware that I want people to be very clear. This is my opinion, right? This is my opinion based on things that have rattled around my head and, and I've asked questions about, about this to people I, I really sort of rate in the research and the clinical world. But yeah, and, and, and where this comes from for me is, you know, I'm, I, I was a sort of 10, 11-year-old of the '80s, right? Now, if, if we think of what particularly a male midlife crisis, what the stereotype of that was back then, it was the guy who maybe reached his 40s, mid-40s, and out of nowhere seemed to reject his life up to that point. So we, we, we quit the job or we start dressing really, really in, you know, these clothes that are way too youthful, whatever that means, or, you know, leaving longtime marriages or relationships and taking off with a, a new younger partner or buying the sports car out of nowhere, right? Now, all of those things back then were the stereotypes. "Oh, he's having a midlife crisis, that one."
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- MGMatt Gupwell
"Oh, he's falling apart. Oh, he's not right," right? And, and for the longest time I've questioned, I wonder how many of those men were actually going through fundamental changes in their sense of self and, and you know, you could question testosterone maybe coming into it in the same way we talk about hormones with women. How many of those men were actually so confused that what they were doing was a demonstration of actually all of a sudden none of this feels right? Go, go back to that framework of loneliness. All of a sudden, that isn't me, but because they don't know what me is, they go to another extreme and they try and do something vastly different. That, could that have been undiagnosed ADHD? Could that have been presentations of impulsivity, right? Or, or of, of sort of hyperactive brains never resting and not helping them? Maybe. I don't know. I'm not a clinician. I can't say. What I know is the research that's out there on testosterone hasn't looked at it from that point of view yet, but I believe it's starting to happen about, well, hold on, what, what happens when a man's testosterone changes, but at, at the best it's correlation, certainly not a cause. I don't think ADHD could be ever defined as a cause for a midlife crisis. But I, I do wonder about it, and I do wonder when we see people get to this midlife, I wonder how many of those people have got that sense of impending, "Is this it? I'm getting old now. It, it, does it, does it never get any different to this?" And it all starts to feel mundane and it all starts to feel, dare I say, boring and, and I, I can really understand how some people with, with poor impulse control-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- MGMatt Gupwell
... might suddenly start doing things that just seems out of character. Now, at that point, would it be useful if the people around them maybe felt confident enough to say, "Do, do you think we might need to explore some different avenues for why you feel this way?" Rather than reacting to the behaviors. Now, I know that's hard, right? I know it's hard not to react, but would that help and maybe save marriages, careers, relationships, et cetera? Maybe. So y- yeah, I, I, I can't help but wonder about that, but it's very hard to quantify, I think.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Because there's also an element of who's really gonna admit that? Who's really gonna admit that actually they, they didn't want that sports car, or they didn't want to do that thing, but it was a reaction to something else, or, oh God, it was ADHD? So yeah, I think possibly. How we ever know? I don't know. But I think if there are people out there now who are struggling with this sense of, "Ah, who am I, where am I?" That's where starting to look at what else could be contributing to that is important. Doesn't mean it is, but asking yourself questions and, and, and asking professionals, yeah, I think that's a really smart move.
- APAlex Partridge
One of my favorite lines, Matt, it, it is in a song from a band called Plus 44, and it's, "The past is only the future, but with the lights turned on." And you can get to an age where you've accumulated enough life experience, enough evidence to be able to accurately predict how the future's gonna go unless you make significant changes. So is it easy to label someone in their 40s who has that evidence making significant changes, i.e., buying the sports car, moving country, changing their appearance, as having a midlife crisis? Or are they actually taking action to divert an otherwise inevitable path that will replicate their past?
- MGMatt Gupwell
Is it easy to say it's a midlife crisis? For anyone else on the outside, yes, 'cause that's what we, we look at. It goes back to the s- the frameworks and the stigma. Yeah, from anyone else outside, yeah, I'm sure it is easy. If you're the person going through that-It's about having the ability to ask yourself some really hard questions. Why do I feel like this? What am I running from, or towards even, right? And, and particularly, why now? Why wasn't I doing that in my 30s? Why didn't I wanna do that in my 20? R- does that make sense?
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- MGMatt Gupwell
I think it's, it's how we, we ask ourself the questions that may lead us to where we need to look for the answers.
- 37:19 – 55:38
The ADHD coping strategy called ‘Cages’
- APAlex Partridge
I've heard you describe ADHD coping strategies in the past as cages. Could you describe what you mean by cages, and how this could manifest negatively?
- MGMatt Gupwell
So what I mean by th- this metaphor of cages is this: when we are undiagnosed, lots of us, and lots of people watching and listening, I'm sure, will have leaned into things that they would say were helping them, right? They would've done things that they said they needed to do. So, you know, you can start with maybe the negatives, so the person that is always first to the bar after work, and, you know, always the, the social butterfly. But I need to do that to decompress. I need to, I need to do that for me. Or the person that is out every weekend or, or, or, you know, the person that is the loudest in the group or the most, the most sort of gregarious. The person who maybe knows that when they're drinking on their own at home, having a couple of beers might be seen as socially acceptable, but when you've done your own carton of Corona to yourself, that maybe that's not right. But, but it's okay, I don't have a prob- it's all right. It's not a problem, right? And, and so we can look at the negative, right? We can also look at the positive, those people who are... They throw themselves like into work. They throw themselves into exercise. They throw themselves into, you know, they become obsessed with the mindfulness or the breathwork or the, the whatever. I think very often if you ask those people, "Why do you do that?" They say, "Well, it helps me. I just... I, you know, I, it makes me feel something." What I've started to notice more and more with people I've mentored and with people I've spoken to is if you then ask them, "Okay, what doesn't doing that do for you? I mean, when you really sit with it, are you really, really happy and comfortable with that?" A lot of the time people will start to open up and say, "No, but I don't know how to be if I don't. I don't know how not to do that." And that's when they become cages, because when we don't feel confident enough, goes back to what you said about maybe saying, "Actually, I don't wanna go out and be social every night." That fear of, what if I don't? Will I be lonely? For a lot of people, keeps us going back even when we don't want to. It's a cage. It's a cage that's very hard to shake because we're not sure who we are, what we need, what, what is good for us. So yeah, I see a lot where they become cages. I, I, I mean, look, yes, it's a very loosely connected sort of metaphor to the addiction pattern as well. And, and yeah, you, you... We see examples of people who, again, due to maybe a lack of impulse control, would say, "It's okay. It's just that. It's just that." And then other people have now started to notice that actually this is not right. This is, this is too much. But it's the recognition of it that's hard. And, and, and where I first realized this, where I first started to connect this as a problem, was y- years ago now with a previous job, I had a, I had a sort of transit van, right, for work. Now, as soon as I got that van, literally every weekend, several nights a week, I was out helping somebody. "Can, can you come round? Can I borrow the van? Can we, can you move this? Can you shift this?" And I could not say no. And I couldn't say no because I felt that that was me being nice and being a good friend and being helpful and, and it was a good thing to do, right? And, and, and I would say to my wife, who was struggling with the kids and doing things on her own, "Yeah, but I just need to do this 'cause, you know, 'cause it's, it's good to do, isn't it?" Right? I wasn't able to recognize that for them at home it wasn't good that she was left on her own struggling, and I wasn't able to recognize that what it meant was I wasn't resting. I was perpetually tired, and I wasn't doing it for me, and I wasn't getting really anything from it. But I was scared not to. That was my cage. That's, that's when I first realized how negative that was for me. And, and it's things like that that I think can seem so innocuous, but actually if we really sit down and face them, they are a problem, and they're not serving us. But it goes back to those high levels of anxiety and stress and fear of rejection and not fitting in, that we keep these things as cages that we do, 'cause what happens if I don't anymore? And it's that fear of what if that I think keeps that happening.
- APAlex Partridge
I think for most of my life pre-diagnosis, the cage I was stuck in was always dealing with negative hyperfocuses with, I guess-Three Ds. Like, I would either drown the negative thoughts out with alcohol-
- MGMatt Gupwell
Mm-hmm
- APAlex Partridge
... which I can't do anymore-
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yeah
- APAlex Partridge
... because I, like yourself, I believe, if I-
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yeah
- APAlex Partridge
... I'm an alcoholic, so drinking's very dangerous for me. Um, or I would distract myself or at least try to. Um, and if I couldn't do those two, then I would dwell on the-
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yeah
- APAlex Partridge
... the, the thought, and that was often horrific.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yeah.
- APAlex Partridge
Um, I guess breaking out of that cage post-diagnosis is realizing that there's a C there, which is communicate. Like, find someone, um, to talk to about it.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yeah.
- APAlex Partridge
And you realize it, and it's so obvious, but Ned Halliwell famously said, "Never worry alone." And I think it's so important with all of these things, when you get that spiral, when you get that ruminating a- and the, the mind that so many of us have that make it so easy to, to f- to hyper-focus on something terrible-
- MGMatt Gupwell
Mm-hmm
- APAlex Partridge
... when you're in that, uh, pick up the phone.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yeah. I mean, go, yes, it's fundamental principle of recovery, isn't it? You know, if you think you're at risk, call someone, right?
- APAlex Partridge
Mm-hmm.
- MGMatt Gupwell
But there is a little nuance to that as well. So if you were in that dwelling phase and somebody said to you, "Alex, I think you're, you know, you're talking about this too much, or you, you're gonna..." Right? Because we might be a bit more prone to rejection, because we might be a bit more prone to RSD, the likelihood if they say that is you don't go, "Oh, thank you for saying that. That's just what I needed to hear." It's that you then react negatively to them, "No, no, I'm not. No, you're wrong." And guess what? Then you're back in the spiral again, right? So it's, it's really hard because you're right, it takes us having the ability to pick up the phone. It takes us having the ability to recognize, "I don't think this is a pattern I should be in." But, but it... That's difficult to come to because it can fundamentally change your opinion of who you are.
- APAlex Partridge
It can be a really bumpy escape out of that cage, 'cause like you said, if you pick up the phone and you just sense that that person doesn't have the time for you-
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yeah
- APAlex Partridge
... or they're giving you, like, half-hearted advice, then like you said, RSD triggers.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yeah.
- APAlex Partridge
And suddenly the drowning out of the problem, almost the compulsion to go towards that D, the really dangerous D that winds up a lot of people like you and me in hospital-
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yeah
- APAlex Partridge
... uh, is really hard to, to not do it. So it's almost a very dangerous learning curve to get out of that cage-
- MGMatt Gupwell
It-
- APAlex Partridge
... for so many of us.
- MGMatt Gupwell
It, it is, but I, I, I think it's... If you can understand what your Ds are, right? I mean, re- and admit them, which is the hard bit, you know. You're talking recovery about hitting rock bottom, and that's the point where people admit, "Okay, I'm not coping and I'm not in control. Fine." If you can do that, you have more chance more, more frequently of feeling like you can pick up the phone and, and, and not go into the drown particularly. But by heck, that's hard because, as you will know and other people watching this will know, the drowning is really effective. We learn that leaning into the stuff that drowns out the noise and drowns out the difficult and stops us having to face the hard, we learn that that works really well. What we don't know is that there's anything else that will work as well, if not better, and we're terrified to try it. So it's that community of support and, and education that says, "Try it. Pick up the phone once." But yeah, it is very difficult, but those cages exist-
- 55:38 – 1:02:05
The truth about ADHD and grieving
- APAlex Partridge
how does the ADHD brain process grieving? Do you think it is different, um, either in death, end of a relationship? And I guess we can extend this to the loss of anything.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yeah. I m- again, so not a clinician, so I can't, I can't talk clinically about grief. But what I can say is this, although my wife will challenge me on this. That's fine. T- there's the sort of the gold standard model for grief for a long time was known as the Kübler-Ross model, and it said that when people experience any kind of grief, they go through certain stages, and I'm gonna misquote these. Um, so there is, uh, anger, bargaining, denial and acceptance, right? Now what the Kübler and Ross- Kübler-Ross model s- said was those stages can occur at any time, in any order, and more than once until the process of grieving has become one that we are are able to make sense of. We never get over grief, I think is something you hear a lot. If you then take everything we s- hear about ADHD, particularly in terms of our emotional dysregulation and things like rejection sensitivity, and you put that next to a very traumatic process of grief, does it make sense that we might react differently to, to, to grief? Yes, it does. It, it, it makes sense that we may react in ways that seem to people over the top or sort of unrealistic to the situation. In some sa- ways, we, we hear of people, particularly, you know, when we talk autism, who are very cold, you know? It pains me to say this, I know that I've attended funerals and seen people crying and felt nothing. Not that I wasn't sad. I wouldn't cry, right? You know, didn't... Be- because to... My brain is processing all of that emotion differently. So, yes, I think we do. I, I think where it really is important is this. When you get that diagnosis, you get an answer. You get an answer that we've asked for, right? We wanted. But when that answer then opens the door to having to look at a history that may include difficulty and challenge and sadness and discomfort and trauma and everything else, as well as happiness and joy and excitement, yes, our brain has to find a way to process that. Now, in almost everyone I've ever seen, including me, who's newly diagnosed, I've seen anger, bargaining, denial and acceptance. What's fascinating is the order. It tends to, for most people that I've worked with and I've seen, follow the same order initially, and surprisingly, the first thing that people will very loudly, vociferously say is that they accept it. "Oh, such a relief. Oh, I've got the diagnosis. Oh, that's great. Yeah, 100%. I always knew. It's wonderful," right? That, nine times out of 10, is more front than Brighton, right? And we do it because if we don't do that, we've got to actually face very early on that, "Oh, my God. That's a lot," right? That's why we see lots of very newly diagnosed people who suddenly wanna tell everyone about their ADHD and, and talk to the world about it, uh, right? It's part of that, "Yeah, I accept this and I'm gonna share it with you," because actually if I do that, I don't have to stop and feel the discomfort, right? But then we always see people after that initial phase who will go through what looks very much like denial. Maybe they're wrong. "Well, I'm not like that person who's got ADHD. I'm not like them, so I don't, I don't think it was right. Maybe, maybe the clinician wasn't right." May- may- you know. W- we see the bargaining, right? And that comes up a lot in people's decisions or not to take medication. That's where I see that bargaining phase come up a lot. "Oh, well, my, my ADHD is not so bad that I need medication. I, you don't, I, I, I don't need that." Now, that typically is about they don't understand what medication is, what it does. They haven't had it explained, but they're trying to bargain for themselves about their... How ADHD impacts them, right? And it go- goes over and over, and we repeat the cycles and these phases until we stop trying to hear what other people tell us our ADHD should mean, and we understand what it means to ourselves. When we can sit in peace for the first time and say, "I think I get it"I, I actually think now I'm comfortable with who I am with this information, and I think I know what it means going forwards. That's when we s- stop seeing so much of that. And, and again, to put that in context, I have known that ADHD was a piece of me for a decade. I was told July 2015, right? It has taken me until this year to be able to say, "I can sit down, I can look myself in the mirror, be comfortable with who I am, be comfortable with what my ADHD and my autism means, not fight it, not deny it, and have some sense of what it means to me and what I do with it and how I communicate it." 10 years. I'm not saying it'll take a decade for everyone. Maybe I'm just slow. But what I'm saying is people are often in such a rush to seem like they've got it, that actually they extend the process of making sense of it rather than shorten it.
- 1:02:05 – 1:08:26
Medication
- APAlex Partridge
You mentioned medication.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yeah.
- APAlex Partridge
What are your views on medication and the efficacy of it? Or do you think the solution to ADHD management's deeper than meds?
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yep. All the research, all the clinicians, I went to the World Congress for World Federation of ADHD in Prague, spoke to the most prolific sort of researchers and scientists and pharmacologists and clinicians about, uh, about this. What do we know in terms of efficacy? Stimulant medication, when suitable, when, when right for a person, titrated in the right way, managed properly, is the single most effective treatment that we have, particularly that we have a conclusive evidence base for, in managing the majority of symptoms of ADHD for children and adults. That, that, there is no argument to that, that I can find. There was, um, a paper, I can't remember when this came out, I wanna say November last year, that was published by, uh... Or, or in, in contribution with a lady called Susan Young, who's a phenomenal, um, sort of clinician and, and expert in this field. But she was part of the research and, and what that paper did was it looked at all of the available, if you like, treatments, approaches for ADHD and, and, and what was most effective. And again, what, what was at the top of the list? Medication.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Every time, medication. The problem that I see in the conversation about, about medication is that what people don't get at the point of being told that medication might be an option is the right information. There isn't time, right? When we're in these clin- in clinic appointments, very often, dependent on who your provider is, there just isn't time because of the pressures on the clinicians to go into detail about what medication is, what it does, what it means, and why. There, there, there just isn't, right? It's why on the, the podcast that, you know, I started, we did it with a clinician, our most viewed episode, nowhere near your numbers, obviously, but the most viewed episode we've got still is the first one we did. It is an hour and 56 sort of long, deep dive into medication. Every medication. What do they do? How do they do it? Why do they do it? What's going on, right? It's been recommended to physicians in training. It's been recommended to clinicians in training, say, "You need to watch this to help you explain it," right? And the reason it's the most viewed that we hear time and time again is because that information on that podcast is the information people didn't get at the point they were told-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- MGMatt Gupwell
... "I think you might, you know, you, you might want to consider medication." So because people don't understand it well enough, they're fearful of it, right? And, "Oh, it's gonna have side effects, and what if it does this, and what if it does that?" All the research is out there to tell you exactly what the side effects are and, and what the risks are and what they're not, for children and adults. It's all out there. I think what's important to say is medication is a, is an tool, right? It's the most effective tool we've got, but it's a tool, right? And it does a very specific job, right? It, it literally interacts with our brain, with our neurotransmitters, and helps us focus and concentrate, and by consequence then can help with things like executive function and emotional dysregulation. It does do that, and it does it really well if we're on the right dose. It's not for life. It's not daily. It's as and when. It's out your system every day, right? So my views on it passionately are I wish the information out there was better. But I am also very open to the fact that there are other things we can do that support us, that can help. Now, for people who can't take medication, there are other things we can do. We know that certain psychological therapies, we know that certain sort of counseling approaches can really help us make sense of this thing called ADHD. We know that exercise-has a really interesting impact on ADHD and that different types of exercise improve different parts of ADHD as well, right? That's interesting for people, I think, to know. Um, we know things like, yes, h- being able to eat the healthiest diet that you can reasonably afford and have access to, well, it's healthy, it's good. Of course, it will... can help, but it, it's not going to do the same thing. So it's, it... For me, medication is gold standard 'cause there's evidence to it. Um, but the NICE guidelines talk about multimodal approach. The, the way that's often referred to is pills and skills.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Now, if other things help us develop skills, that's great, but there are more people that will need the pills in order to develop the skills than will be able to develop the skills without the pills, right? So we have to be smart. We have to be saying, "What am I fearful? When I hear that word medication, what am I, what am I worried about?" Right? But the skills are important 'cause they're, they're very often the questions are, "Why aren't I organized?" Or, "Why can't I keep a diary or manage my time?" We can, we can learn skills for those.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- MGMatt Gupwell
But yeah, that's my point all
- 1:08:26 – 1:16:59
New ADHD research
- MGMatt Gupwell
the time.
- APAlex Partridge
And speaking of evidence-based, Matt, something you're pretty synonymous with, um, is there any new ADHD research that has caught your eye that might not be accessible right now to the public?
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yeah, there is. I mean, the one thing I wanna say is this. Again, I'm not a clinician, so everything I find, anyone else can go and find. Anything, right? You can find it on PubMed or Google Scholar or... It, it, it's all out there. It's knowing what to search for. However, at, at the, the World Congress in Prague, there were a couple of seminars that I attended that I thought were really important for people to, to know the research was happening. So the first one was on, specifically on sleep disorders and, and all different types of sleep disorders and how having ADHD impacted those sleep disorders. That was really interesting 'cause it's the first time that that research has not just said, "We'll look at sleep," which we know is vital. We know good quality sleep is really important. We've got lots of evidence that says that. This looked at people with diagnosed sleep disorders and their experience of ADHD as well, and it is different dependent on the sleep disorder, unsurprisingly. The difference in the way that people can manage it does vary, so that was interesting. It was interesting that at the end of that, I got to ask a question about did that include people with autism as well, to which the answer was no. The participants were all people who would... had a diagnosis of ADHD. That was the focus. They didn't know for sure whether those people may be autistic or not. But what the researcher said to me was, "It is an interesting and important question because yes, again, having autism plus ADHD plus a sleep disorder may well present, again, different challenges." So that I thought was fascinating. Um, the other research that was... It's more global, less U- UK-based, but I think it has a place. The other research that I found really interesting was there are lots of studies that have been done now about, um, different regions, countries particularly, looking at why there are different rates of diagnosis in children in different geographic areas in the same country. So all children that would meet the clinical standard of ADHD, but in different areas, there were very different rates of diagnosis. And what the research seemed to be pointing to, and again, Steve Ferrone sort of really explained this well, was it's not to say that the children living in... You know, if we said it was in the UK, it's not to say that there are more children in London with ADHD than there are in Chester. What actually it might point to more is that there are more clinicians in London that understand that if a child gets a diagnosis there, there is also the support that follows from that diagnosis, educational or whatever it may be. And that in certain regions, isolated regions, for example, that support's not there.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm-hmm.
- MGMatt Gupwell
So what does the diagnosis then give that child, if not medication? I think that was interesting 'cause it does point to a way that we look at what, what a diagnosis means to people and, and what's going on. But whilst not presented at the conference, the one thing-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- MGMatt Gupwell
... I wanted to share that I found fascinating was this. Steve Ferrone said something while we were interviewing him, and it, and it sort of really helped me reframe what it means about ADHD. And he said there, there have been lots of population studies now done to look at where the line, if you like, the cutoff for has ADHD, doesn't have ADHD, is. What he said was, for example, if you did... If you, if you wrote up a, a, a description of ADHD symptoms and you gave that to 1,000 people in Birmingham, in London, in Edinburgh, in Cornwall, and you asked them to score themselves on how they think they fitted in, what you would find is not that there were more people who did or more people who didn't. You would find a very, what they call, natural graded distribution. Right? A gentle curve towards the ends. More people that had some presentation, some of the symptoms. He said you could then take that and do that differently using, um-Do you know, sequencing, right? So we can now take a blood sample, we can look at your DNA, and he said, "If we did it using DNA samples," right, "you'd find exactly the same thing." Thousand people all have their unique gene go sampled, you would find exactly the same thing. There's not more people with at one end and more people without at the other. There's a graded distribution, and that's important 'cause it feeds into the interim report for the task force as well, 'cause it was mentioned there. For me, that's important because what it says is, there are people who, if they went for an assessment, would not meet the criteria, but that might mean that instead of ticking eight symptoms, they only tick six. Does that mean they're not struggling? Does that mean that then we don't support them? No, it shouldn't. What it means is we need to look at what's the support they need, because they could be struggling just as much and just as hard as someone that meets the criteria, right? So what do we do? That's where social education comes in. That's where community education comes in. That's where helping people understand how to support themselves is really important, and I think that's the most important thing because that's everything I'm trying to do. It goes back to the principle of if we can help more people learn how to understand what their ADHD means to them, and then give them tools to know how to explain that to other people in a way that they can understand, people are going to start to be able to get better support and better understanding, and to actually then thrive more in life. But to do that, we have to stop explaining ADHD in almost pseudo-clinical terms by symptoms or traits.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- MGMatt Gupwell
We have to say, "What does time blindness mean to you? What does executive function challenges mean to you? W- what does it mean to you, and how does that impact someone else, and what's the support you might need that could help you?" It's how I deliver every session I deliver with my corporate clients now. I, I don't talk about any symptoms. I don't tell them how to spot ADHD or autism. It's of no relevance. I tell them what they'll see that people might be struggling with, and I give them a framework of questions that they can then ask that isn't threatening, that doesn't spike fear, but that leads to a mutual understanding of, "Oh, so if we do that, does that help you?"
- APAlex Partridge
Mm-hmm.
- MGMatt Gupwell
And guess what? Nine times out of 10, that support is either low cost or free. It just is understanding. So that's where I think the research and the lived experience piece is important. If everyone watching you, watching this now, takes one message away, it's this. The research that's been done isn't behind the curve. It's well ahead of the curve. It's just not published yet 'cause it's slow. That's research, right? There is as much value in the research as there is in the lived experience. What we need is a coming together of the two more, right? So that we don't think that it's pathologizing on this side and, and a really holistic social model on this side. What we think is, look at all this amazing information we've got that can help us understand what ADHD is and how we can better support people to understand what it means to them. If we can get there, I think we start to see a very different conversation.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm. Truly fascinating, Matt. Thank you so much.
- MGMatt Gupwell
My
- 1:16:59 – 1:20:21
The ADHD agony aunt section
- MGMatt Gupwell
pleasure.
- APAlex Partridge
I want to finish with the ADHD agony aunt section, which I think you're familiar with.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yes.
- APAlex Partridge
We did it last time, which is the washing machine of woes, because, uh, my ADHD item is a washing machine because I always leave my laundry in the machine. Uh, I... Did I ask you that before? [laughs] If you-
- MGMatt Gupwell
Whe- whe- whether I do?
- APAlex Partridge
Whether you leave your laundry in the machine.
- MGMatt Gupwell
I, I've gotta be honest. I rarely do the laundry 'cause I don't remember. I have to be reminded to do it.
- APAlex Partridge
[laughs]
- MGMatt Gupwell
So no, I don't. Um, we all do, if I'm honest.
- APAlex Partridge
We all do.
- MGMatt Gupwell
The, the washing stays in there for days, and it goes on a new cycle so often it's frightening.
- APAlex Partridge
Well, everyone should be using the Tiimo app, which is the sponsor, and since I've been using them, Matt, I'm actually getting pretty, pretty good at remembering.
- MGMatt Gupwell
There you go then, see.
- APAlex Partridge
This week, Matt, in the washing machine, someone's asked, "As someone with ADHD and anxiety, every time I tell someone about it, my partners or work, I magically lose touch with them somehow, and gradually they fizzle me out of their lives. Do you think the two things are connected?"
- MGMatt Gupwell
Connected, yes. Th- what's actually, I think, at the heart of this is, I would ask that person, when you say every time you talk to someone about your ADHD, are you trying to help them understand what it means? Or are you talking to them about traits and symptoms with an understanding of ADHD that is almost more clinical and expecting them to know what that means and therefore to be able to support you? 'Cause that's the narrative out there really, is we're, we're taught to talk about the symptoms and inattention and impulsivity, and I'll go back to this phrase, "No one else is as interested in what that means as you are." Literally-
- APAlex Partridge
Mm
- MGMatt Gupwell
... they don't care. They don't. So rather than talking about my ADHD means, it's about how can you say, when I leave the washing machine, the washing in the washing machine, for example, I do that because I'm not very good at keeping track of time or, or I'm not very good at remembering processes. That makes me feel really embarrassed, and when you then say, "Why have you done that again?" It makes me feel like you're judging me, right? What would help me is-If rather than saying that, you could say, "Hey, I noticed you left the washing machine, the washing in the machine. I've hung it out. H- it, how can w- what could we do that might help you?" Now, it could be a reminder app, it could be a post, you know, it could be anything. But don't talk about my ADHD means, talk about when I do this, it means this, it feels like this, I know it impacts you, and I really don't wanna be that person. If we start doing that, we lose less people.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- MGMatt Gupwell
'Cause they know how to have a conversation with people. They don't know how to have a conversation with a diagnosis 'cause, um, who was ever taught that? That, that's what I would say.
- APAlex Partridge
And I know the podcast as well helps people, 'cause I see it in the comments section.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Oh, it does?
- APAlex Partridge
When I do the washing machine awareness, I see comments saying, "You've just reminded me to empty my washing machine, so thank you very much." [laughs]
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yeah, it's always timely, but yeah.
- APAlex Partridge
Yeah.
- MGMatt Gupwell
But, but, but goes back to that is the community thing. If somebody listens and comments and somebody else sees it, that's how we help.
- APAlex Partridge
Mm.
- MGMatt Gupwell
So yeah, that's what I would say.
- APAlex Partridge
Matt, thank you so much.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Matt, absolute pleasure.
- APAlex Partridge
Just before we finish,
- 1:20:21 – 1:21:19
A letter from the previous guest
- APAlex Partridge
every guest writes their three rules to live by, and they post it in this post office, and I'm gonna deliver to you the previous guest's letter. And if you could kindly read it for us, Matt.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Uh, three rules to live by. Number one, treat your own physical comfort with respect.
- APAlex Partridge
That's why we got these chairs.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Your sensory experience matters. Yeah, I like that. Number two, be kind to yourself so that you're able to be kind to others. And three, never feel bad about enjoying or investing in your hobbies and interests.
- APAlex Partridge
Very good.
- MGMatt Gupwell
There we go.
- APAlex Partridge
Well, don't spend a fortune un- until 24 hours has passed. [laughs]
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yeah, I mean, set a reminder to return.
- APAlex Partridge
The old, the old classic hack. Yeah. [laughs]
- MGMatt Gupwell
Yeah. [laughs]
- APAlex Partridge
Um, Matt, once again, thank you so much for all your wisdom.
- MGMatt Gupwell
My, my absolute pleasure.
- APAlex Partridge
On behalf of all the listeners and viewers, uh, huge thank you so much.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Thank you for having me back, and I, I, I genuinely hope I haven't challenged t- too many people, and I hope it helps.
- APAlex Partridge
You've been perfect.
- MGMatt Gupwell
[laughs]
- APAlex Partridge
Thank you, Matt.
- MGMatt Gupwell
Cheers. [upbeat music]
Episode duration: 1:21:21
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