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1:08

Hello friends and welcome to Series 5,

1:11

Episode 3 of John Richardson

1:13

and the Future Noughts. It's myself, John Richardson,

1:16

and the Future Noughts, Ed Gillespie. Hello!

1:19

And Mark Stevenson. Hello. Ooh,

1:22

that was gruff, I liked that.

1:23

Oh, thank you. Ed's done enough Googling

1:26

of hello in foreign languages, clearly, Series 5. He

1:28

said, let's focus on the native speakers,

1:31

and I appreciate that. How have you both

1:33

been? How have you been, Ed?

1:35

I've been very good. I actually took your advice,

1:38

John. Oh, shit. I know, I know.

1:40

Reckless. I can't remember what the advice was,

1:42

that's always worrying. I took your advice

1:44

and I texted everyone in my address book and told them to

1:47

fuck off and leave me alone. Yeah.

1:49

No, I was doing the school run on the bike

1:51

the other day, and as we were discussing, you know,

1:53

there was a... Ah! Cars parked

1:55

outside the school, idling. I pulled up right behind

1:58

one, so, you know, essentially I'm on the bike with my daughter.

1:59

basically with my face very

2:02

close to the exhaust. So I very

2:04

cheerfully got Claire Fay off the bike, wandered

2:06

around and just knocked on the window. The woman

2:09

sort of whammed it down and I said, you

2:11

know, excuse me, you wouldn't mind turning the engine

2:13

off, would you? Why are you just out the front here? And

2:16

she looked at me and she went, why? This is

2:20

an opportunity. Salespeak tells us

2:22

that any question is a desire to learn

2:24

more. Well, exactly. Exactly. So

2:26

I just, I politely explained and

2:29

she did comply. But I would, I think it's

2:31

fair to say, at

2:34

my intervention. And then I was talking to a friend

2:36

who has a similar thing at their school up

2:38

in Yorkshire, where she said it's like

2:40

parking is crazy and everyone

2:42

stops on the road and you know, and it's really haphazard

2:45

as well as everyone chugging away.

2:48

And she complained to the school and the school basically

2:50

sort of washed their hands of it and said, Look,

2:53

we've tried it. We've had teachers on

2:55

the gate, you know, asking parents not

2:57

to do that. And the school said apparently on

2:59

one occasion, a parent got out of the car with a chainsaw

3:02

to threaten. A

3:05

chainsaw. I mean, this is obviously

3:07

ridiculous overkill. But maybe this is what

3:11

Richie Sunak is trying to tap into

3:13

as a nation of drivers. By

3:15

any means necessary, we will park

3:18

haphazardly outside the school with the

3:20

engines running with a chainsaw in reserve

3:22

just in case. Petrol power chainsaw

3:25

or battery? I

3:27

don't know. I don't know. What does he fucking

3:30

mean? A nation of drivers? Of course

3:32

a nation of drivers. Also a nation of people

3:34

who eat breakfast. Yeah, exactly. A nation of

3:36

humans, a nation of people who live

3:38

in dwellings. But yeah, you

3:41

kind of define people as saying, Oh, we're a nation of drivers.

3:44

Like saying, you know, we're a nation of people who walk

3:46

under the sky. Idiot.

3:50

My wife would be very keen to

3:52

be part of the group that are not drivers.

3:55

We have frequent discussions in our house

3:57

about how I choose to drive

3:59

an operator car and I am therefore responsible

4:02

for those emissions, where she as a passenger

4:04

is not a driver and therefore

4:07

has a lower carbon footprint than me, even

4:09

though she sat next to me in the car and

4:11

the reason for a great many of the journeys that happen

4:13

in that car. And we have,

4:16

as you would say Ed, a lovely chat

4:18

about it. I take her interventions as a

4:20

chance to have a full and frank conversation. I

4:23

enjoyed your use of she complied, that

4:25

was very Robocop. I

4:29

see a 20 second to go blind.

4:33

I see your chainsaw and I raise you a futuristic

4:35

death robot. I'm excited.

4:37

If we start with Ed confronting someone,

4:40

Mark, you are very much

4:43

gear number five in terms of what you

4:45

deem insult and say, have you had any beef

4:48

with anyone this week? No, no.

4:50

It's scorted for many premises

4:53

of power or. No, that's true. Yeah,

4:55

yeah. No, I

4:57

haven't. But I am off later

5:00

this week to go and sit in a

5:02

room with what I've been

5:04

told is the people who manage the money for 50 of the

5:07

ultra wealthiest families in the entire world

5:09

to give them a hard time about climate and social action. So

5:12

so that will be an interesting gig. How

5:14

much if they all got together and said,

5:16

look, how much for you to

5:18

just leave us alone and join

5:21

us? What's what's your price?

5:24

I am unbuyable. 50 million.

5:28

Couldn't touch me. No, 100 million. No,

5:31

this is back to like the Saudi question,

5:34

isn't it? After I mentioned

5:36

that on the podcast last week, they

5:38

then kicked off a whole discussion on one

5:40

of the sustainability WhatsApp groups I was on

5:43

about, you know, whether you would take the Saudi

5:45

dollar. And incidentally, it's almost five

5:47

years to the day since poor Jamal

5:49

Khashoggi got a bone sword

5:51

to pieces in Turkey. And

5:54

it was really interesting the responses. I mean,

5:56

you know, there's a lot of self justification

5:59

and defensiveness going on. going on, I think, from people

6:01

who have taken those big dollars.

6:04

You know, it's like the Middle East is changing and we

6:06

need progressive voices out there and this

6:08

is a life changing amount of money for people.

6:11

So they should accept it. Or, you know,

6:14

almost the rationale of taking money off

6:16

the bad guys to go and do good things with it. So,

6:18

yeah, I felt a bit isolated actually in my sort

6:20

of principal position because lots of people were

6:22

saying I'd do it. I mean, I

6:25

think it depends who you are, right? You know,

6:27

there are there is a validity

6:30

to some of those arguments. And indeed, sometimes, you know,

6:33

you have to take money from places

6:35

where it's not particularly nice

6:39

and put it to put it to good use. But

6:42

it depends whether you're actually doing

6:44

that or whether you're saying you're doing that as your justification.

6:47

So I think it would it would it would be

6:49

a case by case basis. Let's

6:51

think for instance, say James

6:53

Thornton, CXC of

6:56

client earth

6:57

was asked to go out there and speak about

6:59

climate law and whatever and was paid for.

7:01

Would we would we criticize him for doing that? Or

7:04

would we think

7:05

that's a good thing? Similarly, if Russell

7:07

Brand did it, would we think it's a good thing?

7:11

You could do it and not take the money. Where

7:13

would you stand on that? If you said I'm going to come and talk

7:15

to you because I believe you need to hear what I'm going to say,

7:17

but I don't want your money because I don't want you thinking that you've bought

7:20

my opinion. Yeah. Or you're going to donate the money. I

7:22

mean, let's be clear, it's really big money.

7:25

I mean, someone then told me confidentially

7:27

that they'd been offered a sustainability

7:30

director role that was 400 grand a year. It

7:33

was like it's serious money

7:35

that is being thrown around for this. I

7:38

do believe it's a bit like the sports watch,

7:40

it's a bit of an ethics watch going on. Yeah,

7:43

I do. I mean, obviously we're

7:46

all mad football fans on this podcast. You

7:49

two do a better job of not talking about it on

7:51

the podcast, but I know you're both very passionate

7:54

Millwall fans down

7:56

the den every week. No one likes us.

7:58

We don't care. That's exactly

8:00

right, the motto for your insultencies.

8:05

But I do wish, I wish

8:08

some footballers had gone first. I do think

8:11

it does make it easier for those

8:13

whose jobs are relevant

8:16

to the future to say, well, do you know what,

8:19

if Jordan Henderson isn't going to Saudi

8:21

Arabia, if footballers had just

8:23

made a stand and said, look, we're

8:25

not doing it, so you definitely shouldn't, you

8:28

know, but sadly, that doesn't

8:30

seem to have happened anywhere. No,

8:32

I mean, you know,

8:35

it was the isolation

8:37

of South Africa that helped to

8:39

a small degree to end apartheid.

8:41

Well, not this ended,

8:44

but you know, to end the policy of it,

8:46

the difference there is that South Africa was quite

8:48

poor in relation to Saudi Arabia,

8:50

so they can kind of front it out

8:53

with an awful lot of cash. So it's a very,

8:55

it's a different proposition. Next

8:57

week, we will have Mohammed bin Salam on

8:59

the show. Do

9:05

you have any concern? You know, when you said

9:08

I'm going to meet the 50, I'm going

9:10

to be in a room with the 50 wealthiest families in the world,

9:12

I sound a little bit like James Bond saying, they'd

9:15

to meet 50 supervillains and

9:18

they've invited me over to have a full

9:20

and frank discussion about how they can be

9:22

less megalomaniacal. Are

9:25

you worried that they're going to kidnap you and?

9:27

Yeah, he's not coming back, is he? Yeah, I'm coming

9:30

back. No, I think I

9:32

think this is, you know, Ed denies rather

9:34

privileged position with insultency.

9:37

What I've tended to find with the

9:39

very wealthy and the very powerful is if you talk to them straight,

9:42

and you don't care that much about their wealth

9:45

and their power, because you're on the side of the

9:47

science and the ethics, and

9:50

you actually get

9:51

a lot more traction. And

9:54

the thing is, out of those 50, I only need

9:56

one or two. You know, so I'm in

9:58

a room, I think Kate Ray will. I've told her something,

10:01

when we interviewed her, and it's something I've taken to heart, never push it

10:03

a closed door. So I'll go and see which

10:05

doors are ajar, and then I'll walk through those, and

10:07

then the others will follow. So that's my

10:10

policy, but no, I don't get, I mean, I've

10:12

often thought this, I mean, you must think this is having done stand-up,

10:14

John, but when I'm sat with somebody very

10:16

powerful or wealthy, I think,

10:18

well, I've tried to explain quantum

10:21

theory via stand-up to a bunch of drunk plumbers in

10:23

a comedy club in Lacer, on a Tuesday night. You

10:25

know, nothing's against me, really. Well,

10:30

you bring us beautifully onto this week's

10:32

topic. We're having a special look at a topic

10:34

this week, and having beautifully

10:37

described how comfortable you

10:39

are, speaking frankly to people, and

10:41

expressing ideas that people might find

10:43

uncomfortable, but that happens to be a skillset

10:46

that you excel in. We're

10:48

here to talk this week about ADHD, aren't

10:50

we? We have some emails,

10:53

and I think we have some messages that have been

10:55

sent in on last week's podcast as well,

10:58

so we'll get to those at the end, but we have a special guest with

11:00

us. She's not quite here yet. Mark,

11:03

would you like to introduce this week's

11:05

topic? Well, yes, it is

11:07

the world's worst-named condition.

11:10

There may not even be a condition, and we'll get onto that. Attention,

11:13

deficit, hyperactivity disorder.

11:15

I could argue with every single one of those worst,

11:18

but we'll get into that, but it is the condition du

11:20

jour. Is it not? Pretty pretty, everybody

11:22

seems to have it at the moment, or is announcing it.

11:24

You can't move for some celebrity, or they're talking about Adrian

11:26

Charles, Rory Bremner, Rod Gilbert,

11:29

it's name's three, and some people have even written

11:31

celebrity memoirs about having ADHD,

11:34

including our wonderful guest, Sharparick

11:36

Corsandi, who has just published Scatterbrain,

11:39

how I finally got off the ADHD roller

11:41

coaster and became the owner of a very

11:44

tidy sock drawer, which I found very entertaining.

11:47

Reardon, I know you boys have both read it as well, haven't you?

11:49

Yeah, and I've seen your sock drawer. Have you seen

11:51

his sock drawer? No,

11:54

I've never seen his sock drawer. What that makes

11:56

me feel is that when you come and stay with me and I go

11:58

out, you go into my... room and started

12:00

looking through my drawers. But the only way you

12:02

could have seen my sock drawers. I'm going to tweet a photo

12:05

of Mark's sock drawers for the benefit

12:07

of listeners.

12:09

I think that would be an interesting thing to do on

12:11

our social media accounts. I think people would

12:13

be surprised to see the state that my sock drawer

12:15

is in. It's not even a drawer, it's a shelf. And

12:18

I tell you what, it's a fucking nightmare at

12:20

the minute. It's an absolute mess. All unpaired.

12:24

Absolutely all unpaired. But what I do, I buy very

12:26

distinct socks so that when I am pairing them, it's

12:28

easier. Someone once said, oh, you should

12:30

get just black socks. And then when

12:33

you pair them, but it's not doesn't work

12:35

like that, because every black sock is slightly

12:37

different. And if you have a certain kind

12:39

of mind, I can't wear two different

12:42

black socks, they might be a different length, it might be

12:44

a different material. They even if

12:46

you buy the same set of socks, they

12:49

deteriorate at different rate. And

12:51

some might have shrunk a little bit more than others.

12:53

And you know, they still have to be paired properly.

12:56

In the big tent of neurodiversity, John OCD

12:59

is also welcome. Well, yeah,

13:02

Chaperac mentions it quite a few times in

13:04

her book. And if I have an interjection, it

13:06

will be on because I think

13:08

OCD perhaps had its moment around

13:10

the time I made my documentary about it. And there

13:13

are there are certainly some similarities in

13:15

my documentary called A Little Bit OCD.

13:17

And I dare say we're sort of getting to the point

13:19

where you'll start hearing people say, I'm a little

13:21

bit ADD. Do you

13:24

think that's fair? Well, I mean, you know, one of the

13:26

things we'll get on to is how mod society

13:29

and kind of is designed to make us all a little

13:31

bit that way. And why that's, you know, a

13:34

problem for various reasons. But I mean,

13:36

when I first met you, Mark, you'd have dismissed ADHD,

13:39

wouldn't you? You'd have you'd have said that it didn't exist.

13:42

Well, let's put it this way. When

13:45

my lovely therapist, the wonderful Sophie

13:47

suggested, I think about three or four sessions in,

13:50

I might have ADHD. So do you think you

13:52

might have ADHD? I said something online of

13:55

no, isn't that the thing annoying people use

13:57

to medicalise the fact that they're basically twats? So

14:02

that tells you the journey I've been on, which

14:06

we'll get onto with Chaparric. Yes,

14:09

well it leaves the rest of us with

14:11

no explanation for why we're talking. That

14:14

was exactly. We've got no defence.

14:17

Absolutely. Well, let's get to Chaparac

14:19

now. So I'm delighted

14:21

to say that with us now is

14:24

the esteemed author, friend,

14:26

colleague, someone I've toured with.

14:29

It's Shappy Korsandi. Welcome to the Future

14:31

Norts

14:31

podcast. Thank you for having me.

14:34

I'm very excited to be here because

14:36

I listened to this podcast

14:38

and it's very informative. Well,

14:40

you are now part of the information

14:43

overload. So I don't

14:45

know what facts you've got standing by.

14:48

Qualifications you want to talk about?

14:50

Well, I did start my psychotherapy

14:53

masters this weekend. Wow.

14:56

And how many other masters did you start this weekend?

15:00

I'm doing carpentry, I'm doing

15:03

window glazing and I'm doing

15:06

further math. Wow. What's

15:08

module one on psychotherapy? It's

15:11

sitting around in a room and tearing

15:14

each other. Oh,

15:17

I'll do that. That sounds great. So

15:20

it's like a roast. Yeah,

15:22

you sort of get it was a little

15:24

bit like

15:25

I'm a celebrity getting out of jail. Less

15:29

money, but you pay them. Yeah,

15:32

it was really interesting. That's interesting

15:34

because in your book,

15:36

Scatterbrain, you describe being on I'm a celebrity

15:38

getting out of here as one of literally the worst experiences

15:40

of your entire life. Yeah.

15:43

And now I've gone back into a similar

15:45

situation without lots of people

15:47

watching. No, it was. It

15:50

was quite a head trip,

15:52

I have to say. I wonder what

15:53

it would be if it would have been a very different

15:56

experience had I

15:58

known I have ADHD and if I'd had my ADHD. PhD

16:00

pill every day in there,

16:02

because I would have dealt with my anxiety

16:04

and very different these days than I was

16:06

in those days.

16:08

Was it a supportive environment in the sense

16:11

that do you think had you had this conversation,

16:13

they would have been invested in wanting

16:15

you to do better and be well?

16:17

Or was there a sense that the struggle

16:20

was part of what made

16:22

you an appealing guest?

16:24

No, I don't think, I

16:26

think what made them me an appealing

16:28

guest initially to them was they thought I'd

16:30

be quite argumentative.

16:33

And a bit the slave queen, as

16:35

my daughter might say, but I'm actually

16:37

really quiet around loud people.

16:39

I

16:40

sort of just go, I don't

16:43

fight for airtime.

16:45

Hmm.

16:46

Yes, it's tricky, isn't it? When I think

16:48

people really struggle to get their heads around.

16:51

And I think it's one of the really interesting bits of your

16:53

book is the idea that

16:55

you can be a shy comedian, and that

16:57

you can be very comfortable

17:00

on stage. And you talk a lot in the book, the book is

17:02

scatterbrained by the way, the reviews are phenomenal.

17:04

And you know, when you click on the

17:06

review, the top one is five star, it

17:08

just says thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,

17:11

which

17:11

I don't know, I haven't read anything

17:14

about it. I stay away from things like that. But

17:16

that's really lovely to hear.

17:17

Well, it's worth a look because

17:20

the book is obviously about adult diagnosis

17:23

of ADHD, and the effect that has on

17:25

you know, looking back over your life and

17:27

wondering, you know, what

17:29

is as a result of that and what is as a result of growing

17:31

up in a world that you never understood you or

17:34

told you what you were capable of. But you talk

17:36

about stand up as a skill that actually,

17:38

you are supremely comfortable

17:40

in an environment that changes the

17:42

world, and you are not capable of going to the

17:45

world without the drop of a pin. You tell

17:47

an incredible story about dying at Belfast

17:50

Empire, which I think every comic will certainly

17:53

resonate with. But I don't think many people die at the

17:56

Belfast Empire and then walk into the

17:58

bar in the interval and drink with the audience. preem but

18:00

are you meeting people who are saying

18:03

to you I've read your book and it meant a

18:05

lot because as Mark discussed in our

18:07

sort of introduction ADHD

18:09

to use a not very comfortable phrase but

18:11

it's sort of having its moments and there's a lot

18:13

of people talking about it are people coming up

18:15

to you and talking about the book?

18:17

Absolutely so it's the

18:19

reason I wrote the book was because it was so

18:22

strange to

18:23

say out loud that I have ADHD

18:25

and to get some answers and

18:28

so when I said it out loud I think

18:30

I went on Twitter or something that I was diagnosed

18:33

and I expected

18:35

a few people to be like oh

18:37

everyone's got something but that didn't happen

18:40

at all I was absolutely inundated

18:43

with people

18:43

wanting to ask me questions and

18:46

telling me stuff about ADHD

18:47

and it was

18:49

mind-blowing and the most

18:52

unlikely people I met a man

18:54

on the Isle of Wight who came

18:56

up to me and he said I just want

18:58

to tell you that my daughter says

19:01

that you've changed her life she read your book

19:03

I always thought she would like that because I'm like

19:06

that but she's got ADHD and

19:08

I just wanted to let you know and I was like that is

19:10

so amazing I said how old are you and he said

19:13

she's 35 and she's

19:15

read your book and it resonated with her and she

19:17

doesn't feel like she's a weirdo

19:20

on her own and I thought how brilliant how

19:23

willing to get that at 35 you know I think the younger

19:25

you know obviously

19:26

or you can support yourself.

19:28

Oh fuck.

19:30

So

19:33

let me introduce Mark who

19:35

is on his own journey and

19:38

when were you diagnosed formally

19:41

Mark? April so I'm 52

19:43

so there you

19:45

go yeah and yes there's a like oh

19:48

if I know I'd known this 20-30

19:51

years earlier how much better

19:54

and my my things have been.

19:56

I imagine perhaps

19:58

that is a

19:59

period that you'll go through. Do

20:02

you mind if I ask a really personal

20:04

question and you don't have to answer it, but

20:06

are you getting therapy around dealing with

20:09

your late diagnosis? Yes, yes.

20:12

And but also, you know, I've

20:14

got ADHD, so I've done a whole bunch of study,

20:17

which will inform the notes of this podcast, which I noticed that

20:19

neither of my co presenters, even after

20:21

I've provided them with copious notes and questions to ask, I've paid

20:24

any attention to so far in this recording.

20:27

I have read like you're

20:29

trolling me around my ad, I've done

20:32

all the work. And now you're just like, we're not gonna pay any attention to that.

20:34

It's like meta ADHD, this podcast.

20:37

So I get therapy here as well, because people

20:39

just generally sort of rude to me, which

20:41

I like. The Shafi, I was going to

20:44

ask you, did you always believe that

20:46

ADHD existed? Because Mark can

20:48

sort of confess earlier that, you know,

20:50

when he was first diagnosed, he pretty

20:52

much said to his therapist, isn't that the thing annoying

20:54

people use to medicalise the fact that they're basically

20:57

twats. And he's obviously been

20:59

forced or compelled or inspired

21:02

now to own that diagnosis

21:05

and as you say, go into therapy. But were

21:07

you always respectful of it? Or do you historically

21:10

disrespectful?

21:11

What I thought about ADHD

21:13

was it applied to boys,

21:16

right? Because

21:17

I hear it around that. And I absolutely

21:20

diagnosed my brother with it for

21:23

years. I've been reading my ADHD, it's you,

21:26

it's you, it's you, you can't get eye contact,

21:28

all of that.

21:29

And I read, I say I read a book,

21:31

I bought a book called driven

21:33

to distraction, which one day

21:35

I shall read, but I've read bits and pieces

21:37

of it. And I used to always go on to him that

21:39

he's got ADHD.

21:41

But what I didn't know was how traits

21:43

that I have,

21:45

that

21:48

were

21:48

under the umbrella of ADHD, like

21:51

binge drinking, compulsive

21:54

overeating, not being able to regulate

21:57

my emotions, so emotionally behaving

21:59

inappropriately.

21:59

appropriately, crying inappropriately,

22:03

and being hypersensitive to

22:06

rejection.

22:06

No one likes rejection, but the

22:09

sort of rejection I'm talking about is

22:11

if someone that's normally friendly to me didn't

22:14

give me a warm hello in the coffee

22:16

shop, I might absolutely...

22:19

That would ruin my week. What have I done? And

22:21

then you go, because I'm paranoid. Oh, because I'm paranoid

22:24

because I've got low self-esteem.

22:25

And those ruminations,

22:29

I didn't know were my brain chemicals.

22:31

I didn't know that your brain

22:33

can't let any other thoughts in

22:35

right now.

22:37

I kept thinking that I could

22:40

fix this myself. It was a failing

22:43

on my part.

22:43

It was a personality defect. And

22:48

it's not ADHD itself that

22:51

damages your mental health. It's

22:54

not knowing you have it. So all of these

22:56

things, you start

22:58

to really...

22:59

They build up in you. I'd

23:01

hear people talk about anxiety, and

23:04

I'd never attribute it to myself. I

23:06

never understood that I carried anxiety

23:09

until I got my diagnosis, and I began

23:11

to become free of it through therapy.

23:15

And I always go to that expression, I didn't

23:18

know I had anxiety in the same way a

23:20

dog doesn't know it's

23:21

a dog. Have you

23:23

ever been with a dog when you're really anxious and

23:25

someone's got lots of anxiety? I'm like, oh, have they?

23:28

Your whole time, my insides

23:31

were just ripping themselves apart.

23:34

I can't remember your original question. And I

23:36

didn't take my ADHD part today.

23:39

Well, that's a good point. I'm going to use

23:41

these. I've got some incredibly well-researched

23:44

notes. It

23:46

feels like someone who's really intimately connected

23:49

with the issue has pulled them together.

23:51

So I'm going to draw on this brilliance

23:53

for my next question, which is, obviously, we've

23:56

now got loads of evidence, loads of proof that ADHD

23:59

exists. know, the ADHD brains

24:01

work differently, i.e. they use different

24:04

parts of the brain to solve problems, they have

24:06

a different chemical mix and you know, we'll probably

24:08

get on to talking about the role of dopamine

24:10

in all of this and also that they're physically

24:13

different, that people have brains that are slightly smaller.

24:15

But are you taking medication, Shapi?

24:17

Do you, as well as the therapy and

24:20

studying psychotherapy, are you doing the meds?

24:22

Yes, although I will say studying psychotherapy

24:26

isn't

24:26

necessarily one of the two, I'm

24:28

afraid, for ADHD. Above and beyond the call

24:32

of duty.

24:33

Yes, so I do take medication

24:35

for it but I'm very

24:38

careful to talk about medication because

24:40

first I'm not qualified and

24:42

secondly, I get so many people

24:45

writing to me asking

24:47

me who my psychotherapist

24:48

and my psychiatrist

24:51

was and telling me about how

24:53

long the waiting lists are and I completely understand

24:55

those things are frustrating

24:58

but I was diagnosed

25:01

for

25:02

eight months before I

25:04

even thought about going to psychiatrist

25:07

to get medication. I worked

25:09

with my psychotherapist and

25:11

together we decided, again, now's a

25:13

good time to go and explore that because there

25:16

are so many other ways you can help yourself

25:19

and support yourself. For me,

25:21

the medication, what it takes away

25:23

from me is the urge to

25:25

overeat

25:27

and booze

25:28

and it helps with my addictive

25:31

side and that is

25:34

such a massive change in my life

25:37

that

25:37

that made because

25:39

I was bulimic forever since

25:44

I was 15,

25:46

16 and now I don't have that compulsion but if

25:48

I don't take my tablet, I

25:50

do notice that I'm putting them just putting

25:53

stuff in my mouth all the time but

25:56

it wakes up just to get very

25:58

scientific. It wakes up. the sleepy part

26:00

of my

26:01

brain organizes the rest

26:03

of my brain. I don't need to put that in

26:05

too complicated. Yeah.

26:08

And did the drugs work for you, Mark?

26:10

Yes. I mean, and one of the reasons that we know

26:12

ADHD exists, besides the actual brain

26:15

scans now, is that the drugs to

26:17

disagree with the verb, the drugs do

26:19

indeed work. And that's been borne out by a

26:21

whole bunch of meta-analyses and systemic

26:24

reviews of the science. So if it

26:26

didn't exist, the drugs wouldn't work

26:28

any better than the placebo. So the fact

26:30

that they do and they work often very well

26:32

for lots of people proves that this is

26:34

a very real

26:36

physical condition in the brain as

26:38

well. So yeah, I do

26:40

take them but I've added to Shappie's point, I

26:43

think I won't be

26:45

at some point because there are many other things you

26:47

can do, including exercise

26:49

and eating better and sleeping better and all that kind of stuff. But we'll

26:52

we shall get on to that later. I think it

26:54

might be worth

26:55

because I think we're all talking about it. But for

26:58

a lot of people who don't have ADHD, they might go, well, what

27:00

does it mean?

27:01

How the mind works? And

27:04

diving into that. And I guess the way

27:07

I've had explained to me is that basically,

27:09

it's kind of an executive function problem.

27:11

And you might go, what are executive functions? What

27:15

are executive functions? Thank you.

27:18

I would say the basic basic skills you learn that

27:21

turn you from being a child into an adult,

27:23

essentially. So rather than sort of being stuck in the mercurial

27:26

emotions and attentions of a child, you

27:28

learn if you're a normal person, over the years to

27:30

do things like manage your time, regulate

27:32

your impulses so you don't insist on every suite in the

27:34

shop, you know, you can focus your attention, you need to

27:36

find something boring, you know, you can get your admin done, you

27:39

know, all things the children find hard, you know, you can remember instructions,

27:41

you can keep something in your head for more than four seconds, and

27:43

you can, Shappie says, regulate your emotions.

27:46

These are all the sort of executive skills

27:48

that as an adult, you would expect to have and you and

27:50

you learn that and indeed that as a parent, that's what you're trying to teach

27:53

your children as they grow up. But but

27:55

in the ADHD brain, that doesn't happen so well.

27:57

A lot of those executive functions are incredibly

27:59

hampered because because of the aneurology. Does

28:01

that chime with what you write a lot about the

28:04

motor, Shappy, in the book? Does

28:06

that chime with you? Mark's just describing

28:08

it. You've described it so

28:10

brilliantly and accurately. And

28:12

I really like the comparison with child

28:15

because when it really kicks

28:17

in, and for me and lots of people, it's

28:20

from the transition

28:20

from primary school to secondary school.

28:24

That's when myself and a lot of people with

28:26

undiagnosed ADHD noticed that they started

28:28

to unravel and that's also the time

28:30

where people attribute it to, you

28:33

know, puberty and, you know, a big change

28:35

in your school. So it's easy

28:38

to miss it. But the reason that

28:40

you are not able

28:42

to navigate that if

28:44

you have ADHD is exactly that because

28:46

of these executive functions. And

28:49

oh, it's really hard. It's

28:52

really hard to explain

28:55

to people who don't understand, but even

28:57

if people don't have ADHD, I think when they

28:59

hear these explanations, it

29:01

can make sense to them when they look

29:03

at other people in their

29:04

lives, people they work

29:06

with or family members and stuff.

29:08

You can go, okay, so you're not deliberately

29:11

being an annoying dickhead. It

29:14

might be, I had

29:16

a boyfriend years ago that he

29:18

would start getting ready to leave the

29:20

house at the time that we

29:22

were meant to leave the house. Like

29:24

he would start getting ready

29:26

like pyjamas, everything,

29:29

like

29:30

he would. And it

29:32

used to drive me crazy. And

29:35

now I look back on it and I feel bad that

29:37

I was so frustrated with him

29:39

because I just thought you don't care. You're not, you

29:42

know, you're just, you like to see me in

29:44

a flat because then I would then go the other way

29:46

and I'd go, hi, anxiety, tantrum,

29:49

I don't let go without you. And

29:51

now I think, you know, people, some

29:54

people can't do

29:56

what other people seem to find wrong.

29:59

really easy. And

30:02

it's more deliberately trying to

30:04

ruin your life with their lack of organization

30:06

or timekeeping.

30:10

I found that there's

30:12

a few analogies that I've landed

30:15

upon that I think help people

30:17

understand what's going on. I was going

30:19

to ask, are there some good analogies, Mark, that

30:21

you might be able to share with us in

30:24

order to help us understand? Well, actually,

30:26

strangely enough,

30:27

there's three. Very

30:31

neatly laid out in this document that I wrote at the

30:33

very last minute.

30:36

First,

30:38

to link, one analogy I use is like

30:40

a bandwidth problem. So if you imagine that your

30:43

cerebral cortex, that's the crinkly bit on

30:45

the top of your brain, that's where all your executive

30:47

functions reside. And imagine

30:49

between that bit, which is the thinking rational

30:51

bit, and the rest of your brain, there's this kind of data

30:54

highway. Now, in most people, that highway would

30:56

be like a well functioning dual carriage way. But in

30:58

ADHD, because of the dopamine

31:00

and neurotransmitment deficit, it's basically

31:02

a one track dirt road. And that's why

31:05

they give us stimulants, basically, the drugs,

31:07

because that tries to send more stuff up and down that

31:09

road to make up that lack of bandwidth. And that

31:12

leads on to the second analogy, which comes from a wonderful research

31:14

called Dr. Russell Barkley, he's kind of like the godfather

31:16

of ADHD research. And

31:18

he made this observation that really what's happening is

31:21

that the communication between the knowing bit of your brain,

31:23

the rational bit of your brain and the doing bit of your brain

31:25

isn't very strong. So you're things like, well,

31:27

I know I should do this thing over here, but

31:29

my impulse control is hampered, my

31:32

message simply isn't getting through. So, so I'm not

31:34

going to do it. I know that my train

31:36

is in 10 minutes, and it's an eight minute walk to the station.

31:38

But I can write a novel before I

31:40

say off shortly because I know why

31:42

not. I know I should stop hyper

31:44

focusing on this thing over here, because this boring

31:46

thing over here needs my attention. But I'm sorry, there's just no

31:48

room for that message to get through either. So, oh, did I tell you

31:51

about the thing I was concentrating on? I know I

31:53

should probably not let this emotion completely

31:55

overwhelm me. But it's got onto that dirt

31:57

track. There's no room for anything else. And so I'm going to cry

31:59

or laugh. lose my chisel, whether it's appropriate

32:02

or not. And in fact, Chappie, you start

32:04

your book with an example of your

32:07

brain sort of architecture

32:10

being overwhelmed by an emotion and totally

32:12

losing it with your kids, which is something I've

32:14

also done and reflected

32:16

on.

32:17

Yeah, I mean,

32:20

that part of it is so painful

32:23

to go back and look

32:25

at because you

32:27

really see

32:29

how much it affects those around

32:32

you and who, poor things

32:34

forced to love you. And also,

32:36

I don't know, I can't remember if I mentioned this in the

32:38

book, but when I was on tour with John

32:40

all those years ago, I was going

32:44

through a divorce, which of course is a really

32:46

horrible, difficult thing. But

32:50

on that tour, because I had no idea

32:52

how to manage my brain or that my brain

32:54

even needed managing, I didn't

32:57

write a show, really. And I

32:59

would just go out on the stage and do

33:01

something or other. And then afterwards,

33:04

John would always be writing

33:06

show notes, and I would look at him

33:08

exactly as I used to look at my

33:11

friends at school who did their homework

33:13

when it was meant to be done. I'd go,

33:16

I know that's what I should be doing. But

33:18

I can't do that because I'm a scribble.

33:21

I'm a ball

33:23

of scribble, just rolling

33:26

around with no direction and hoping

33:28

for the best. And if

33:30

I

33:31

had known I had ADHD, if

33:34

I knew that I needed the support of a therapist,

33:36

and perhaps, you know, all the tools I

33:38

have now to get my

33:40

dual courage rate working

33:43

efficiently, that whole period of my

33:45

life would have been a lot more

33:47

peaceful to navigate.

33:49

Well, peace is a thing, isn't it? If you can't relax,

33:52

that's the thing. You know, the

33:54

guy who wrote that book, he talked about dream to distraction, Dr. Ed

33:56

Halliwell says ADHD is like having a Ferrari

33:58

engine for a brain. you've got bicycles

34:01

breaks, which really resonates

34:03

me. The other thing it says though is if you strengthen

34:05

those breaks and you have a champion and I feel

34:07

that that Ferrari is real. In fact, when

34:10

you went through your assessment, as did I, one of

34:12

the questions they ask, there's a standard question there,

34:14

they say, how often do you feel overly active

34:17

and compelled to do things like you were driven by a motor?

34:20

And you cannot relax, you just can't, your mind is

34:22

never at rest. And that's one of the reasons

34:24

you're constantly chasing dopamine, then putting

34:26

yourself into those situations where you walk out on stage

34:28

without having to show in front of hundreds of people.

34:31

Because when you get enough of that dopamine or

34:33

that stimulus, I

34:34

think it's not really like it's not doesn't calm you

34:37

down, but

34:37

and it's not rest, but it is a satisfaction of some

34:40

sort that starts to sort of even you out. Because

34:43

for us boredom is like kryptonite.

34:45

Like,

34:45

you know, tolerable. It's truly

34:48

intolerable. And that's the thing sometimes it's

34:50

hard to explain to people because no one likes being

34:52

bored. It's not about not liking

34:54

it. Like if I'm stuck in a situation, I'm bored,

34:57

and I can't leave, I stick

35:00

my nails into my arm, I just

35:02

feel something to feel a sensation. And

35:05

yeah, you're absolutely right. Like, comedy,

35:08

for me now, after all

35:10

of these years has become a craft,

35:13

something that I really work on, I really think about,

35:15

because I'm able to. Whereas

35:19

my career up until, you know, four years

35:21

ago, it was, it was like

35:23

jumping out of an airplane each time.

35:26

Yeah, yeah, that kind of constantly seeking

35:29

the dopamine. Yeah, with no preparation.

35:32

Which is what has to be said is reckless, but

35:35

also hugely courageous. Well,

35:39

courageous is an interesting

35:41

word, because it's not consciously

35:44

being courageous. I actually think it's

35:46

been courageous to get support.

35:48

And the only way I ended up getting support

35:51

was for my kids. In lockdown,

35:53

I thought I'm shouting, that's

35:56

against my values. That's

35:58

not a personality trait. So I've

36:00

got to not be looked up in a house

36:03

with two children and shouting

36:06

at them because I'm the adult and I'm their caregiver

36:08

and I've got to not make them feel

36:10

unsafe. And

36:12

within about a month or two of

36:14

therapy, both of them individually said to

36:17

me, you never shout anymore.

36:19

I was like, I'm sorry,

36:21

I over did. Lockdown flushed this out

36:23

a lot, didn't it? I think because people were

36:26

forced into situations

36:28

where they didn't necessarily have their coping mechanisms

36:30

around them. And

36:31

they're army, like I had an army of people

36:33

helping me, like my mum, my dad, my brother, my sister,

36:36

my neighbours were always in and out

36:39

of my house. And so my children had,

36:42

you know, a nest of wonderful

36:45

carers. And when it was just me,

36:47

I thought, oh, I

36:49

am not a monkey. I have, I'm a human

36:52

being and I have the

36:54

intelligence to go and fix this. Now, that's

36:56

the other thing, you know, when you talk about that pathway

36:58

to the doing and the thinking,

37:02

one of the really frustrating things

37:04

about undiagnosed ADHD

37:06

is people misjudging or underestimating

37:09

your intelligence. Because

37:12

I never did myself,

37:13

but other people did.

37:16

Because the evidence was, you

37:18

haven't done well in school, you haven't

37:20

kept up with this conversation. You haven't.

37:23

And it's not a mark of someone's intelligence.

37:27

And that's the part where

37:29

I really struggled with. I felt such

37:32

a great sense of loss was

37:35

around my education. And

37:38

I did a whole chapter called, I think,

37:40

Geek Without Portfolios. And

37:43

it just feels really exciting

37:46

and fun that my inner

37:47

geek

37:49

can come out now.

37:50

And there's a big reason why I'm doing

37:52

a Masters, is sort

37:54

of just giving myself the education

37:56

that I feel I should have got

37:59

earlier.

38:00

Well, you say in the book, don't you, it's like

38:02

being taught in a foreign language.

38:05

I think you use the analogy around

38:07

Mandarin. The teacher

38:09

can repeat the education as much as

38:11

they like, but it feels like they're speaking

38:14

Mandarin because it just doesn't go in.

38:16

Yeah. And the confidence I

38:18

have now in telling people I

38:20

have ADHD, so if somebody gives me a verbal instruction,

38:24

I say to them,

38:26

please excuse me, but I don't

38:28

absorb verbal instruction immediately.

38:31

I might ask you this a few more times.

38:34

And people are brilliant. You

38:37

know, when you explain, they don't get

38:39

frustrated with

38:40

you. And part of my anxiety

38:42

was I thought I constantly lived with

38:44

other people being frustrated with me. Oh,

38:47

she can't read a map. Oh, she told us it's this

38:49

time, but it's not. It's that time. It's tough, Shappy,

38:51

to send us to the wrong address. Booking

38:54

holidays, like, you know, booking, I

38:57

once booked a hotel in the wrong city,

38:59

in a different city to the one we were in. Just

39:05

recently, I ended up

39:07

wandering around Rome at two o'clock

39:09

in the morning with my young

39:13

daughter in the rain and my

39:15

friend who is in her late six seasons.

39:18

Anyway.

39:19

I like the story where you went to a

39:21

gig where you had no you thought you had no audience

39:24

and then so decided to go out and have a drink

39:26

to celebrate. And then your agent

39:29

called you and said that you'd gone to the wrong place

39:31

and you had 300 people waiting for you.

39:33

Yeah, I didn't have a drink to celebrate. I thought

39:35

my career was over. I

39:37

it was and you actually had a sellout house waiting.

39:42

I had

39:42

a sellout house and I came to

39:44

the wrong theater and there

39:46

was no one there. And

39:49

then I called my brother sobbing and he

39:51

said, well, I'm in Soho, come and meet me for a drink.

39:54

And we just drank and we just like, you

39:56

know, they were just being really nice to me. He was friends

39:59

and the end. call saying where are

40:01

you and there is no one. Worth

40:03

pointing out as well that you did cancel the other gig

40:06

so somebody turned up to their show and

40:08

you'd cancelled it for them. Lean

40:11

Mac is never forgiving me. I

40:14

think there's so many people

40:15

in the world.

40:17

I think this happens to all of us when you've made

40:19

a mistake and you don't know

40:21

who that mistake has impacted and you don't

40:23

even know that you've made that mistake. And

40:25

so there are people that we don't know why they're

40:28

giving us death stares.

40:29

But there's something wonderful about this. There's a great

40:32

quote by the American activist Audrey

40:34

Lord who said, it's not our differences

40:36

that divide us, it's our inability to recognize,

40:40

accept and celebrate those differences.

40:42

And it's back to that point you were making, Shuppy, it's about

40:44

empathy. When people actually listen, when

40:47

you explain, don't trust

40:49

me to book the hotel or turn up to

40:51

the gig on time. And Mark will tell

40:53

you all about my behaviors and not turning

40:55

up to gigs on time. But I think

40:57

that is about an empathic point.

41:00

And again, referring to these excellent notes I have

41:02

here, Mark says if you have a friend or partner

41:04

with ADHD, this is a huge compliment because

41:07

there is no one that you can be boring as an

41:09

individual because you must be unequivocally

41:11

someone who is interesting and stimulating and

41:13

hopefully by definition empathetic.

41:16

And did you find that with your nearest and dearest

41:19

as well, Shuppy?

41:21

What the empathy?

41:23

I think

41:25

because I'm not 100% sure

41:27

if I'm answering this correctly. I mean,

41:29

I'm going to disagree with you here. What

41:31

I'm saying is that if you've got ADHD, because

41:33

boredom is kryptonite. In fact, my friend Anne,

41:36

who has ADHD, she said, boring people don't just want to kill

41:38

them. And I was

41:40

like, yes. If you're friends with someone with ADHD, then

41:42

you're definitely somebody who's stimulating

41:45

and interesting and not boring. Right.

41:48

Empathy, though, is different. I still

41:50

have some very interesting people. I'm not sure they

41:52

empathize with ADHD, but I don't think

41:54

it's their job to. I see like my ADHD is my responsibility.

41:57

It's not yours. It's my job to manage myself.

41:59

and fit into this world. But the interesting

42:02

thing I think why this is important is because

42:04

ADHD isn't really a disorder,

42:06

it's just a different cognitive style

42:08

and it affects 5%, they buy

42:10

brain scans, they have a sense of that, 5% of people,

42:13

so that's what, one in 20 people

42:16

that have a brain structure this way. But

42:18

the world is not really designed to

42:22

accommodate that. There's some evolution

42:24

theory that suggests actually the

42:27

ADHD brain was developed so that when you were

42:29

having to deal with constant novelty, when

42:31

you're having to deal with threats, when you were kind of nomadic

42:34

hunter-gatherer cultures, those are the people

42:36

that were leading stuff and it's actually a very

42:38

developed neurology that's designed

42:40

for a specific environment, but it's not designed for today's

42:43

environment, we were sitting down a lot and sat at computers

42:45

and have to deal with admin and all that kind of stuff.

42:47

So ADHD isn't really a disorder, it's in fact just the reason

42:49

that all the rest of you fuckers are alive because we saved you back

42:52

on

42:52

this planet. We

42:54

were hunting vices for you guys

42:56

so you could eat. And when did you last

42:58

bring me a bison? Oh, there's one

43:01

in the post. It's risk-taking

43:04

is what we are good at

43:06

and that is a skill. And stand-up

43:09

comedy is risk. And

43:11

that's no surprise that so many people

43:13

who are ADHD end up being self-employed

43:16

in some way. But I do wanna

43:18

go back to a couple of things you said.

43:20

One is it is our own responsibility.

43:23

That said, the more we talk

43:25

about it, the more our workplaces and our education

43:27

places can be mindful

43:31

of the difficulties that people have. So

43:33

noise-counseling headphones are really

43:35

important in my life to block out noise

43:38

when I need to do something. Or... I

43:40

put those on when I'm speaking to John and Ed. That

43:43

sounds like a monologue. And

43:45

then the empathy I find

43:48

is

43:48

I'm learning

43:51

to make friends

43:54

with people who aren't necessarily entertaining.

43:57

Because I...

43:59

look back on my life and I would be naturally

44:02

drawn to entertainers, people

44:03

who took risks socially

44:05

with jokes, people who performed their stories.

44:09

I mistook that sometimes for

44:12

deeper friendship,

44:13

which is harmful because it's

44:16

not a satisfying friendship.

44:18

Those aren't things, components

44:20

of someone who understands what friendship means.

44:23

As I understand my ADHD

44:25

and the people that I was attracted to, I'm now

44:29

far less bored by people because

44:32

I can now

44:33

eat more still and give them

44:36

space and realise that those quiet

44:38

people that I used to write off,

44:39

some of them are still boring as

44:42

fuck, let's not be nearly mad. A

44:45

lot of people just came to explore

44:48

and that's a really

44:49

nourishing way to connect.

44:51

Also, they're fascinated because they have some of those

44:53

executive functions you find hard. I

44:56

didn't realise I had extreme emotional

44:58

dysregulation, which caused huge problems in my relationship

45:01

because my dear partner had to walk on eggshells all

45:03

the time because he didn't know how it's going to react. Now

45:05

I know that, I look at other people and go like, oh

45:08

my God, that person's emotionally regulating. How

45:10

do you do that? What teach me? That's

45:13

amazing. How did you not get on the I'm

45:15

going to lose my chisel bus? Because

45:18

there's a great line in your book where you say something like, there's

45:20

a line in Pretty Woman where Richard Gere says

45:23

it took me $10,000 and five years in therapy

45:25

to say I'm angry with my dad. And you say

45:27

it took me loads of money in therapy

45:29

in five years to say, yeah, I'll think

45:31

about that.

45:35

And it is fascinating

45:38

seeing other people emotionally regulate. In fact, I

45:40

don't understand why you're not hurling your shoes

45:42

out the

45:42

door. I'm not like,

45:45

I'm not chucking things around. And now I never

45:47

chuck things around anymore.

45:48

I used to throw things. It's

45:51

a terrible way to behave, isn't it? I can't believe

45:54

I was missing it. And then the effect

45:56

that had on me outside

45:58

of the home. was I was so

46:01

terrified

46:03

of

46:04

not being able to regulate my emotions

46:06

that I would become an utter people pleaser

46:09

and so compliant.

46:10

And that sort of

46:12

gave me someone that's quite

46:14

vulnerable to being bullied because

46:17

I couldn't stand up for myself. And that wasn't

46:19

because I

46:20

was a wuss. I was always scared.

46:23

But if I verbalize

46:25

how you're

46:26

making me feel and

46:29

tell you off for it or try and lay a boundary, I don't

46:31

trust myself not to call you a cunt.

46:34

So, sorry, am

46:37

I allowed to say that?

46:38

It's actually

46:40

come quite late. But usually Mark would have got

46:42

a few in by now. Yeah, don't worry about that.

46:44

Yeah, so I think I am

46:46

now able to have difficult

46:48

conversations with people without

46:51

crying and without, you know,

46:53

shouting. Yeah, I think

46:55

that's so important because it also allows people

46:57

near and close to you to have difficult

46:59

conversations with you. Certainly, if I look at my

47:02

relationship, which is one of the reasons

47:04

I ended up going to therapy is because things were

47:06

not going well after lockdown when all my coping

47:09

mechanisms were having ADHD, which I didn't

47:11

know I had. It all disappeared

47:14

and things got very bad. And one of the things

47:16

my beloved partner said like, you know,

47:18

it was impossible to say anything to you because who knew

47:20

how you were going to react because I didn't know. And so

47:22

now that I can regulate my emotions,

47:25

she is now able to have those, you know, difficult conversations.

47:27

You have to have no relationship, for instance, which

47:30

then makes it easier, which draws us closer together, not

47:32

further apart. So not only can you see other people doing

47:34

it, but it allows them in to say,

47:36

OK, it's safe to go and talk to Shappy or Mark

47:39

now because they're not going to suddenly explode

47:41

on me. And I don't have to withdraw and I don't have

47:43

to walk on eggshells all the time. And, you know, it

47:47

when my family have said that to

47:49

me and verbalize that and I've noticed the conversations

47:51

that we're having, they're so much more

47:54

meaningful. And I've

47:57

had to forgive myself for times

47:59

when I haven't.

47:59

had that door open for people

48:02

to tell me how they're feeling or how

48:05

my behavior is affecting them. And

48:08

it's,

48:10

it

48:11

makes such a seismic difference in my

48:13

relationship with my dad as well, because, you

48:15

know, I'm not qualified to diagnose him, but

48:18

he is riddled with ADHD. And

48:22

I've learned

48:23

how to talk to him, because

48:25

we were always terrified of saying certain things, because,

48:28

you know, he didn't know how he was going to react. And in a much

48:30

more smaller way, my

48:32

children, I nearly said my parents, which is very

48:34

Freudian, my children felt

48:37

that with me. And

48:38

my son was really pissed off with me a little

48:41

while ago, just so I could say, and he came downstairs

48:44

to talk to me about it. And we talked about

48:46

it. And it was brilliant. And we hugged.

48:49

And I thought,

48:50

that's really good. Because if

48:53

I normalize this kind of communication,

48:55

then when they're out in the big wide world and choosing

48:58

people to fall in love with, because we do choose, that's

49:01

the biggest lie we're ever told, Cinderella

49:03

nonsense, because that's just all chemicals.

49:06

It's not love. They will choose people

49:08

that they can communicate with

49:10

and they can communicate their feelings with

49:12

without that person getting defenses.

49:17

I wanted to talk to you

49:19

about your, not just your

49:21

dad, but your the sort of the slightly

49:24

hereditary nature of when you mentioned

49:26

the guy on the Isle of Wight, who said, I always thought she

49:28

was just like that, because I was like that, were

49:30

you not tempted to say, do

49:32

you want to read it?

49:34

You like me?

49:35

Yeah, I did say to him,

49:38

have you ever thought that you might be and he goes, Well,

49:40

you know, I probably think I probably am

49:42

or possibly am I said to him, are you

49:44

self employed? And he went,

49:46

Yes, I'm a gardener. And I was like, Oh,

49:49

what

49:49

a beautiful someone with

49:52

ADHD, you're out in nature. Nature

49:54

is medicine

49:54

for everyone, but especially

49:57

if you have ADHD like I am.

50:00

Honestly, I have been known to hug trees

50:03

and I don't

50:03

care about these. You're in safe company

50:05

here. Very, very soothing and

50:08

that whole walking, therefore, on grass, spending

50:11

time with dogs, animals,

50:14

it's really important.

50:15

But I was always,

50:17

right, we can't leave this

50:21

discussion without also mentioning trauma.

50:24

The symptoms of ADHD

50:26

are massively tied in with the symptoms

50:28

of trauma. ADHD

50:30

is a massive umbrella. And

50:33

have you read that book, Your Body Keeps the Score?

50:36

No.

50:37

Okay, I really recommend it. It's on audio

50:40

as well, which has been a game changer for me because

50:42

I

50:42

find reading non-fiction very difficult.

50:45

And the audience

50:46

is in line. I do if it's written by Edgar Lesby.

50:50

Your Body Keeps the Score. I'm just googling it now so

50:52

we can properly reference the book and

50:54

the author because I'm going

50:57

to download it. It's Bessel

50:59

van der Kolk. That's it. Brain, Mind

51:01

and Body in the Healing of Trauma.

51:04

That's such a brilliant book to

51:06

read if you have trauma

51:08

or just want to learn about it. And also if you have ADHD,

51:11

because I have no doubt that there's a lot

51:13

of inherited trauma.

51:15

You know, it's proven to

51:17

be carried in our DNA. And

51:20

you could see that if you've ever read blogs. I

51:23

don't know why I said that in that voice.

51:24

Well, exactly. I

51:28

think we've joked previously on the podcast. If you were

51:30

an alien coming down to the planet

51:32

Earth and you wanted to get an insight into

51:35

humanity, you'd look at the horrendous

51:37

things we've done to dogs through chronic

51:39

inbreeding and go, what did you do to

51:41

the dogs, people? Yeah,

51:42

you know, all dogs have ADHD. I

51:45

think that's why I love dogs so much.

51:46

Yeah, I love that talk in the book.

51:49

I think it's a wonderful one.

51:50

And the book and the publisher said, you've talked about dogs

51:52

quite a lot. Leave it in.

51:54

Well, I don't want

51:56

to keep going back to the OCD documentary I made,

51:58

but a very similar thing. in that the

52:01

importance of animals, if you have

52:03

any kind of desire to have your

52:05

brain work in a more natural

52:07

way, is that everyone

52:10

I met who had the worst cases of OCD,

52:12

they all had pets because there's nothing like

52:14

an animal around to say, I don't

52:17

give a shit about all that. I want my tea

52:19

at this time. And that's when we go for a walk.

52:21

And that's when we have a nap and then I'll love you forever.

52:23

Yeah, that's

52:25

before I had my dogs, because

52:27

some people think I'm mad having dogs because I'm

52:29

so busy and I'm traveling and all this, but my dogs

52:32

keep me from sinking and going

52:34

into a fog.

52:37

They really help. They don't keep me from it. They

52:39

really bring me out of that sort of fog

52:41

that you can go into with

52:43

ADHD.

52:44

If I don't go for my run, sometimes

52:46

I can feel myself sinking. But even if

52:48

I don't go for my run, I have to walk

52:50

the dog. So I'm out in fresh air.

52:53

That's why the trauma thing is also

52:55

another reason why I just feel

52:57

that therapy is critical.

53:00

When you're diagnosed,

53:02

you know, the drugs thing, I talked about this in

53:04

my book, when I was at university, the only

53:06

time I ever experimented with drugs

53:08

was when someone found pharmaceutical

53:10

feed,

53:11

blueies, we used to call them. Bluey

53:14

is something very different to parents now. Yeah.

53:17

Equally important. Essential. Because

53:20

you know that chemical

53:23

part, people find

53:25

it quite strange that my medication for ADHD is

53:28

amphetamine. But amphetamine only makes you massively

53:31

hyper if you have a typical brain.

53:34

But those blueies I took at university, I remember

53:35

going to

53:36

a party and I had a lovely time.

53:39

I talked to people, I didn't feel shy, I didn't feel anxiety. I didn't

53:41

get hammered I

53:45

felt normal. Yeah. Yeah.

53:48

One of my

53:48

oldest friends was always

53:50

like quite manic as a teenager and obviously has

53:53

also been diagnosed with ADHD now. But

54:00

I mean, and he used to love bass speed,

54:03

you know, and I would be I would be

54:05

sort of horrified because of the effect it had on me. But

54:07

obviously it was having a completely different effect

54:09

on him because and also when he was in the classroom

54:11

at school, you know, it was like the

54:14

treatment of his behaviour wasn't empathetic. It

54:16

was like a clip round the ear and no orange

54:18

squash. Yeah, I mean, it's basically

54:20

making up for that that dopamine deficit

54:22

that we talked about, you know, and, you know,

54:24

I just want to say I felt very

54:26

profoundly sad when you talked about

54:28

your dad. Shappy, because

54:32

my dad obviously had undiated ADHD

54:34

and was misdiagnosed with depression and anxiety and all

54:36

those sorts of things. And actually, he had a

54:38

pretty miserable time of it. And our

54:40

relationship was not good. And I unfortunately,

54:43

he died before my diagnosis. So

54:45

I don't have the ability to go back and have that conversation

54:47

with him. And I find that

54:49

that is one of the biggest griefs and traumas

54:51

in my life for sure.

54:54

Sorry, that was a bit depressing, wasn't it? Sorry,

54:57

that's

54:57

really important. I think that's

54:59

a really, really

55:02

beautiful thing to share with me. Thank you.

55:04

But I think staying with that,

55:07

sadness is important.

55:09

And

55:11

finding ways to acknowledge

55:15

that even though your dad's not

55:17

around now that you

55:20

are diagnosed, so you can't have those conversations.

55:23

He was your dad and I

55:26

very rarely as a mother, but as

55:28

a parent, I will tell you that your

55:30

dad would have known you and would

55:33

have known that

55:35

you

55:36

would have felt loved by you. And

55:39

I don't know if you're a parent, but the one thing

55:42

I

55:43

really feel is that

55:47

I know everything will be

55:49

OK with me and my kids, because underneath

55:52

all the, and me and my dad, underneath

55:54

all the shit,

55:56

there is that unbreakable

55:59

sort of...

55:59

equator of love and

56:02

that he will have known.

56:04

The unbreakable equator of love sounds like

56:06

a progressive rock album. Can

56:09

I ask both of you because the one thing I really,

56:12

really felt reading the book and especially knowing you, Shappen,

56:14

especially having done that tour together and thinking,

56:17

there was so much going on, I had no idea about

56:20

someone who saw you sporadically during that time.

56:22

It feels a bit like getting the diagnosis

56:25

and then getting the medication and living

56:27

in a world that is coming to understand it. It feels

56:29

a bit like having

56:31

lived all your life in a sort of plaster cast

56:33

and then it comes off and you're able to move

56:36

freely and start to look forward and say, right

56:38

now I understand myself. Now I know

56:40

what I can do and I'm capable of. There's

56:43

a freedom to that and a happiness to

56:45

that. But coupled with that is

56:48

an essential need to then look back

56:50

over all the other years and

56:53

almost against your will have to say, well, do

56:55

you know what? Actually in that situation, was

56:58

that because of that or or had I been

57:00

treated differently? Would I have done

57:02

that thing? And and coupled with the desire

57:04

to move forward is especially around

57:06

your education. How hard

57:09

is it not to just be angry and just say, fuck

57:12

me, if if if I had grown up

57:14

in a world where someone at school was able to say, would you

57:16

know what? If you let them do it like this, they're

57:19

going to be OK rather than be told that you're

57:21

scatty or not bright enough or lazy

57:23

or not trying hard enough.

57:26

There's

57:26

a lust for life

57:30

that takes over for

57:31

me that makes

57:34

me

57:35

want want

57:36

to move away from the anger because

57:38

it was there. It is there

57:40

sometimes if I allow myself,

57:43

but I have

57:45

worked really hard with my

57:47

therapist to understand

57:51

that this is my allotted

57:53

time on Earth, but I don't

57:55

know when it's going to end. Right. And

57:58

this is my journey. Right. This is my journey.

57:59

the way my script

58:02

turned out and Acceptance

58:06

is everything and when we talk

58:08

about empathy and compassion

58:10

We need to give that to ourselves first.

58:12

So if we really work hard on strengthening

58:15

our own

58:17

feelings of compassion towards ourselves

58:19

then we can deploy it to

58:22

All the bust

58:22

of the wrongness in the past

58:25

right and that's

58:26

been

58:28

That's a practice

58:29

That's a practice to be as as

58:32

treat yourself as beautifully as

58:34

you can

58:36

because

58:37

When you're able to really strengthen

58:40

your your self-esteem in that way and strengthen

58:42

your ego in that way and heal what?

58:45

I've learned is called narcissistic wounds.

58:47

That doesn't mean you're a narcissist It means that you've been

58:49

wounded somewhere in the past and

58:52

people's actions Still hurt that wound

58:55

and work on those and then you look

58:57

back

58:57

and you just think Rob Schune little

59:00

specs of carbon trying to

59:03

you know

59:04

Get on with our lives and it's the

59:07

nuts and bolts of what happened become less

59:09

significant that the here and

59:11

now

59:11

and today

59:13

Becomes the only important thing

59:16

That feels like a sort of impossible point not to

59:18

end on most beautiful That

59:21

was because it's so applicable. We haven't

59:23

done no, I know There's

59:26

more to move on but I'm just saying that

59:28

I think in terms of every episode we've ever done

59:30

on this podcast You sort of apply that Very

59:33

healthily to to you know, whatever

59:36

else you want to talk about So I mean

59:38

like returning to podcast tradition

59:41

here, you know, we usually are

59:43

three questions exactly And

59:46

you know according again to the wonderful

59:48

document underneath my nose. I am gonna

59:50

ask you mark How fucked

59:52

are we when it comes to ADHD? Well,

59:55

here's the thing. So remember this that ADHD affects

59:58

five percent of people And

1:00:01

therefore, that's somebody you know and

1:00:03

love.

1:00:04

Now, here's a really interesting quote from Dr

1:00:06

Russell Barkley. He says,

1:00:09

compared to other killers from a public health standpoint,

1:00:11

ADHD is bad. So

1:00:13

smoking, for example, reduces your life expectancy

1:00:15

by 2.4 years. If you smoke more than 20 cigarettes

1:00:17

a day, you're down six and a half years. Diabetes

1:00:19

and obesity, that's another couple of years. Elevated

1:00:22

blood cholesterol, that's nine months off your life. ADHD

1:00:25

is worth all of those put together. On

1:00:28

average, undiagnosed ADHD

1:00:30

will cost a person nearly 13 years of their life. And

1:00:33

that's on top of all the other findings that show a greater risk of accidental

1:00:35

injury and suicide. About 2.3 of

1:00:38

people with undiagnosed ADHD will have a

1:00:40

life expectancy reduced by up to 21 years.

1:00:43

So if that doesn't tell

1:00:45

you that it's important, then I don't know what will.

1:00:48

Also, because of the

1:00:50

emotional dysregulation and, you know, an undiagnosed

1:00:53

ADHD couple are twice as likely

1:00:55

to divorce as ones that

1:00:57

know about what is going on. The crappy parenting

1:00:59

that comes from the emotional regulation

1:01:02

challenges, which can affect your children. And the

1:01:04

other thing that's really problematic is

1:01:07

there's lots of misdiagnosis. The anxiety

1:01:09

often that people feel is depression and what people feel is actually

1:01:12

a function of this brain chemistry. It's not itself

1:01:14

a thing. So if you misdiagnose somebody with

1:01:16

depression, they can spend all their life like my dad did believing

1:01:19

he had depression when he actually had ADHD. So

1:01:21

that is an absolute right-roll fucking

1:01:23

of 5% of people directly and

1:01:26

everybody around them. And

1:01:28

the pressure of masking that comes with

1:01:30

that as well, I guess, trying to sort of cover

1:01:33

over some of the cracks. Yeah,

1:01:36

undiagnosed, you've basically gone this dopamine hunt. And

1:01:38

that can be good or bad. It can be bad. You

1:01:40

can do drugs, gambling, you know, seeking conflict. Risky

1:01:43

sexual behaviours, it turns out, are more prolific. If

1:01:46

you've got ADHD, you're much more likely to have a kink, it

1:01:48

turns out. Would you say you're more kinky? Well,

1:01:50

no, I've got a friend called

1:01:53

Dr. Alex Connor, who's an expert in ADHD,

1:01:56

and he has ADHD. And

1:01:58

he was going on a kink podcast. Yeah, no, you're more like

1:02:00

to have a kink podcast. A kink if you've

1:02:02

got any. I was like, oh, damn, I

1:02:07

missed out on that. He said, Yeah, me too. But then he said, having

1:02:09

a kink does seem like an awful lot bad mean, and that's not

1:02:11

good for ADHD.

1:02:14

I mean, but you know, so there's bad ways

1:02:16

of looking for dopamine that can be problematic.

1:02:18

There are ways that kind of good

1:02:20

or bad depending on the outcome. So becoming a stand up, you know, if you

1:02:23

do it very badly, you destroy your self esteem.

1:02:25

That's not good skydiving, for instance, if you're bad at it,

1:02:28

you know, it can be a bad outcome. But if you're

1:02:30

good at it, it can become like the, you know,

1:02:33

a brilliant thing. And then there are really good ways of stimulating,

1:02:35

you know, the dopamine

1:02:37

like finding a career like stand up comedy or a lot

1:02:40

of creative professions, which give you all that novelty, the

1:02:42

sort of and I do, you know, is there a link

1:02:44

between ADHD and prog rock? Well, yes,

1:02:46

I mean, prog rock is needlessly complex music

1:02:49

that's playing very high. And

1:02:51

that and that's what I did. To

1:02:53

tell you a story, actually, when

1:02:56

my band did its tour, back in the last year, we

1:02:58

were supporting a much bigger

1:03:01

band, much well respected, I had to walk out on stage

1:03:03

in front of thousands of people who had

1:03:05

all paid to see the band after me to hear music

1:03:07

they never heard before. And you know, I

1:03:11

walked on stage and I pulled on all my old stand up skills.

1:03:14

And I fronted this band for 40 minutes in

1:03:16

front of these people in a situation that

1:03:18

most people would consider absolutely nightmarish.

1:03:21

And my beloved, she

1:03:23

said, when I came off stage, he said,

1:03:26

you looked so comfortable in the home

1:03:28

up there, which was kind of like, yes,

1:03:30

I did. Because I was getting so much dopamine

1:03:32

at that point. And then when it went

1:03:34

well, you're getting the love from the crowd. And it was like, okay,

1:03:37

and now I feel like a normal person. That would be

1:03:39

a nightmare. So that's

1:03:41

it. But that's a good use of that

1:03:43

drive, right? Because I wouldn't have had the same types of

1:03:45

people either great time and I was driven to

1:03:48

do this stuff. What Mark's not telling us

1:03:50

is that he also went to the wrong venue beforehand

1:03:53

and cancelled someone else's gig. Just

1:03:56

put with the wrong band. What

1:03:58

you've just described.

1:03:59

It's really interesting if you consider

1:04:01

that without the

1:04:04

parental scaffolding that you've had, the

1:04:06

privileges that

1:04:08

you have had, that

1:04:10

dopamine hit might have been got

1:04:13

from a burglary. Yeah, exactly.

1:04:15

Because there's an awful lot

1:04:17

of people in our prisons who have ADHD. Yeah.

1:04:21

Yeah. And high-fortunate alcoholics

1:04:23

have it as well, because, you know, alcohol is a

1:04:26

great calm-tube-down and speed you up at the same

1:04:28

time.

1:04:28

What I have enjoyed, though, kind of

1:04:32

finding peace in myself, it hasn't

1:04:34

made me

1:04:37

less interested in doing stand-up, but

1:04:39

it has made me work much

1:04:41

harder at it and find so

1:04:44

much more joy in writing

1:04:46

it. Whereas before it was

1:04:48

that, it was just, throw me into

1:04:51

a lake of fire, please, that

1:04:53

it's become a different thing for me now. And,

1:04:55

yeah, of course, I have my moments

1:04:58

of, oh, for fuck's sake, I wish I

1:05:01

had this 20 years ago, you know,

1:05:03

but I have to,

1:05:05

you know, just move on from that. Because

1:05:08

I made a little speech about it earlier, and I should probably

1:05:10

stick to it.

1:05:11

Yeah. You

1:05:13

can share your mind. Yeah, no,

1:05:15

because it is. It's

1:05:17

hard. Like, I would like to, oh,

1:05:19

I didn't, you know, I have so many incredible

1:05:22

career opportunities that

1:05:24

my brain couldn't handle. I was on 8 out

1:05:26

of 10 cats, and I

1:05:29

lost the thread of what we were talking

1:05:31

about. I didn't know what anyone was talking about. I checked

1:05:33

out.

1:05:35

I didn't know what I was on

1:05:37

a TV show.

1:05:38

I checked

1:05:41

out, I started daydreaming about

1:05:43

something else on a fucking

1:05:45

TV show. And Jimmy Carr

1:05:48

came to me, so, Shabby, what do you think? And I

1:05:50

wasn't, I didn't know what was going on. I wasn't

1:05:53

in the room. And, yeah,

1:05:55

I can't help but look back on

1:05:57

stuff like that sometimes and go, oh,

1:06:00

tool, but

1:06:01

yeah, compassion for oneself. But

1:06:04

this is the thing, isn't it? This celebration

1:06:07

of neurodiversity, because basically,

1:06:09

you know, it is an overarching idea

1:06:11

that it's just the full human spectrum

1:06:14

of experience that we all go

1:06:16

through, isn't it? And that all of those differences are

1:06:19

wonderful tools in the collective box,

1:06:22

if we can harness them and be mindful

1:06:24

of them in the right ways. Absolutely. This comes back

1:06:26

to, you know, so if we get onto the hat, how did we get

1:06:28

so fucked in dealing with this? And I had

1:06:31

this particular B in my bonnet, which I think I

1:06:33

mentioned when we're talking about this on the last podcast, which is this

1:06:36

term, neurodiverse, okay,

1:06:38

which I like, because actually, that was coined by Judy

1:06:40

Singer, who is a sociologist. And actually,

1:06:43

in her dissertation for a degree, she kind of came

1:06:46

up with this term neurodiverse, she was asking

1:06:48

her, where did you get that from? She said, Well, I kind of took it from biodiversity,

1:06:51

you know, everything is, you know, the ecology

1:06:53

out there of minds and these things. And then

1:06:55

some twat, absolute

1:06:58

wanker went to the term neurotypical,

1:07:01

which certainly meant that if you were had ADHD or OCD,

1:07:03

or whatever, you were not normal.

1:07:05

So neurodiverse came to mean out

1:07:07

of the ordinary rather than part of an ecology. And

1:07:10

I think what we're learning now is

1:07:12

that, you know, there are 5% of people

1:07:14

who fit into this particular niche,

1:07:17

you know, in the ecology of minds. And if we

1:07:19

understood that, then we might, you know,

1:07:22

think of 5% of people, how many millions of millions

1:07:24

of people as that, you know, it's a huge

1:07:27

market, it's a huge community

1:07:29

that we've kind of decided, oh, is, you

1:07:32

know, a bit odd, they're not

1:07:34

a bit odd, because they're one in 20 people

1:07:36

that you know. So yeah, so I think, you

1:07:38

know, getting rid of the term neurotypical

1:07:40

would be the way that we unfuck ourselves. And if I ever

1:07:42

anybody using it, I may

1:07:45

have to do it is

1:07:46

for me, it's like having an I

1:07:48

hope we get to a place where it's like saying, Have

1:07:50

you got an in your an outie? When you talk

1:07:54

to become that ordinary. I'm

1:07:57

not a fan of it being called a superpower.

1:08:00

superpower. I'm just like, I

1:08:03

don't know, I find all that for

1:08:05

me a bit unhelpful, because it certainly

1:08:07

hasn't fucking felt like a superpower. Yeah,

1:08:09

I mean, I think there's a great quote, actually, as we come

1:08:11

towards the end, which has been about how do we un-fuck

1:08:13

ourselves. It's one, getting rid of the term neurotypical,

1:08:15

but Ed Halliwell, who's one of

1:08:17

the great research research, he said, look, it's neither a disorder

1:08:20

or nor is it entirely an asset. It

1:08:22

is an array of traits specific to

1:08:24

a unique kind of mind and it can

1:08:26

become a distinct advantage or a dividing

1:08:28

curse depending on how you manage it.

1:08:31

So you're just different and like with all people, if you

1:08:33

can take your various talents

1:08:36

and histories and whatever and play those cards

1:08:38

well, you'll be a success. And if you can play them badly, you

1:08:40

can be a complete fuck up. And it's the same with ADHD. But

1:08:43

the one thing that I think really

1:08:46

excites me is, again,

1:08:48

Ed Halliwell saying that you have a Ferrari

1:08:51

brain, but bicycle brakes, but

1:08:53

if you train at the brakes, you do have a champion and he says if

1:08:55

you've mastered your ADHD, it can bring out talents that

1:08:57

you can neither teach nor buy. So

1:08:59

there are things that I know that I can do that just

1:09:01

naturally the way my brain works. And

1:09:04

there's no way you could teach people into

1:09:06

the hyper-focus I can have or the ability to

1:09:08

come up with creative ideas in a way that other people

1:09:11

go, how did that happen? Because this serendipity engine in

1:09:13

my brain is running at 4000 miles an hour. You can teach

1:09:15

that. So if you have a

1:09:17

diagnosis, you can see it is like, yeah,

1:09:20

I need to manage the brakes and train

1:09:22

up all the emotional, regulation, things I'm bad at. But

1:09:25

I've got these other things I can use, which allow

1:09:27

me to, for instance, chat me walk out onto

1:09:29

a national tour without a

1:09:31

show and entertain people every

1:09:33

night, which I think is absolutely fucking

1:09:36

amazing.

1:09:36

Well, I don't think it did my career any

1:09:38

good in the long run. But we're not going to dwell on that because

1:09:41

we've had too much therapy.

1:09:43

I mean, the other thing, they

1:09:45

call it the good news diagnosis, because once

1:09:48

you know it, there's so much you can do with that medication

1:09:50

or other stuff we've talked about. It's not like,

1:09:52

Oh, God, you've got pancreatic cancer

1:09:55

stage four, it's like,

1:09:56

you've got a slightly different brain. And

1:09:59

what you've got to the...

1:09:59

so many wonderful things you can do with it. It

1:10:02

is fun when you know

1:10:03

that the whole journey

1:10:05

to understand yourself, it's fun and you give yourself

1:10:08

a break and

1:10:10

you really indulge in your passions and then

1:10:12

your passions become hopefully your job and

1:10:15

that's something that is a gift. I

1:10:19

have to say that one of the things that is

1:10:21

a massive change for

1:10:23

my generation and this new generation is the amount

1:10:25

of younger parents who come up to me and

1:10:27

say, oh, they want to

1:10:30

talk about ADHD because

1:10:32

their eight-year-old has ADHD. They're

1:10:35

always worried and I always

1:10:37

say the fact that you, the parents, know

1:10:40

and understand and

1:10:42

accept and are doing

1:10:44

everything you can to support your kid rather

1:10:47

than say, well, how come you're good at

1:10:49

English and you don't pay attention in chemistry?

1:10:53

If you just, that really can crush

1:10:55

a child with ADHD

1:10:57

and I get so emotional

1:11:00

with joy when parents know

1:11:02

and are supportive to their kids and

1:11:05

aren't worried about, I don't want

1:11:07

my child to have a label. Well, you know, if your

1:11:09

child is short-sighted, you'd want them

1:11:11

to have that label so they can

1:11:13

get glasses that fit, right? So same

1:11:17

thing.

1:11:17

I think I've done all right considering

1:11:19

I didn't take my medication

1:11:20

this morning. It's

1:11:23

been a joy. Yeah.

1:11:25

If I may give myself a moment

1:11:27

to go, I think some of my sentences

1:11:30

were in the correct

1:11:31

syntax order. Is that

1:11:34

a thing? I don't know.

1:11:35

It is now. Thank you. You

1:11:38

said it so clearly no one's going to question you anyway.

1:11:41

It's been fantastic. Thank you, Shappi.

1:11:43

Thank you, guys.

1:11:44

This has really been a pleasure. Thank you for asking me. Well,

1:11:48

thank you very much to Shappi. Shappi's book

1:11:50

is called Scatterbrain and is available

1:11:52

now and is fantastic. Mark

1:11:55

your book

1:11:56

as yet unwritten on this topic.

1:11:59

I feel there's been enough written

1:12:04

on ADHD by people. You know,

1:12:06

there's a rash of it. So I think

1:12:08

perhaps, don't think the world needs my ADHD,

1:12:11

but I know that Adrian Charles is writing one with

1:12:13

my publisher. So I think there's enough out

1:12:15

there. I don't think I'm- I could write

1:12:18

a poem about ADHD. Go on then. Well,

1:12:20

not now. Not now. I've got to go

1:12:22

work on it. If you had ADHD, you'd

1:12:24

even have to do that, but you can't. It's

1:12:27

a neuro-normal- Chappica,

1:12:31

isn't it? Chappica could have written our book by the end of the show.

1:12:34

Yeah, she could. Shall we get her back? Yeah,

1:12:36

I'm mildly gutted we didn't get to

1:12:39

her trampoline story, but I guess

1:12:41

we can point listeners in the

1:12:43

direction of her book for that particular

1:12:45

gem. Indeed. I

1:12:48

think that's the big thing I took

1:12:50

from the book, and I did ask her at the time, is

1:12:53

the amount of reflection across

1:12:55

your life, the amount of events she seems

1:12:57

to be looking back on and questioning,

1:13:02

and coming to understand why she reacted

1:13:05

a certain way. And also, for the

1:13:07

people around you, begin to kind of understand

1:13:10

and reflect in a similar way. Ed,

1:13:12

does my diagnosis

1:13:14

make sense of our relationship? Oh, it does.

1:13:17

Of course it does, darling. I mean, we

1:13:19

had our sneaking suspicions for a long

1:13:21

time, but no, I think you're definitely

1:13:24

a lot more self-aware than

1:13:27

you were, and perhaps

1:13:29

less self-critical because you

1:13:31

understand better what some of those quirks

1:13:33

and foibles might be. So yeah,

1:13:36

I think you're a much kinder man, actually.

1:13:39

Much kinder? Yeah, not necessarily to

1:13:41

people you're doing consultancy to. Or us. Or

1:13:44

us, you know. I mean, I know what

1:13:46

you're like for quote attribution,

1:13:49

and there is one which is supposedly attributed

1:13:51

to Einstein, which basically says everybody is a

1:13:53

genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability

1:13:56

to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing

1:13:58

that it is stupid. Yeah. think

1:14:00

that's the sort of the the

1:14:03

liberation that actually diagnosis

1:14:06

of some kind of strain of neurodiversity

1:14:09

that enables you to get a better handle on

1:14:11

who you are and how you interact with

1:14:13

the world has got to be a good and positive

1:14:16

thing. Yeah I mean it certainly seemed to me that Chappy

1:14:20

seems a lot happier now than the person she describes

1:14:22

being in that book for a huge amount

1:14:24

of life. Yes and she

1:14:27

was at pains to say and I heard you agreeing

1:14:29

with her Mark that my ADHD is my

1:14:31

own thing to deal with but I do think

1:14:33

societally there is work to

1:14:35

be done and it's where Chappy's book comes in and it's where

1:14:38

we mentioned him in the interview Gabor Matei's

1:14:41

book Scattered Minds is

1:14:43

a I don't want to say essential read because I'm

1:14:45

not fucking Melvin Bragg but it's

1:14:48

a it's a really educational

1:14:51

book wherever you stand whether

1:14:54

you're completely new to this topic whether

1:14:56

there's someone in your life you think it might refer to

1:14:58

or whether it's yourself because

1:15:00

understanding how different

1:15:02

brains work is the only way we're going

1:15:04

to find ways to get along and as we

1:15:07

keep saying on this podcast allow

1:15:09

people to thrive and excel and get the best

1:15:11

out of everyone and that's the world we want to live in

1:15:13

where everybody's full

1:15:16

range of skills is allowed to be brought

1:15:18

to the table exactly and it's immensely

1:15:21

empowering to read those books and

1:15:24

I would hope as much as you

1:15:26

know she and you both said we

1:15:28

have to understand our own ADHD we have to

1:15:31

as a society understand each other better and

1:15:33

be compassionate. I think we should

1:15:35

leave the last word on

1:15:37

neurodiversity to the comedian Rhea

1:15:40

Lena who said isn't

1:15:43

ass burgers a terrible term for a bunch

1:15:45

of people who take words literally. I'm

1:15:49

not sure I get that. Ass burgers.

1:15:52

I wish I think it's Dan Altopolsky's

1:15:54

gag because someone else has a gag saying I don't know

1:15:56

a lot about ass burgers but if they taste as

1:15:58

bad as they sound.

1:15:59

Is that really? Yeah. Knock

1:16:02

knock, who's there? It's the

1:16:04

sands of time, we have to leave. Oh

1:16:07

my god, this is great! I feel like this is...

1:16:10

I'm sorry, I haven't a clue. I feel like I'm

1:16:12

not a clue.

1:16:14

One of my ambitions in life is to

1:16:16

be on that show and I just had a little hint of what it would

1:16:18

be like. We can get it sorted.

1:16:20

I hope it's, I hope it lived up to your expectations.

1:16:23

I mean, I have ADHD so I really am

1:16:25

sorry, I don't know. Exactly,

1:16:28

you just wandered off halfway through the show.

1:16:31

That's a good name for your podcast.

1:16:33

No, no, I'm really sorry. I'm gonna

1:16:36

fucking clue what was going on there. Yeah,

1:16:38

the podcast, I don't think that

1:16:40

was in the, between recording, but

1:16:43

there is a rumour that Shappi and I might

1:16:45

collaborate on an ADHD

1:16:48

podcast, so yeah, that's what we should call it. Yeah, so

1:16:50

if it relies on both of you to get your shit together, it's never

1:16:53

going to happen. Hmm, wow,

1:16:55

you just went insane. If that

1:16:57

has provoked any questions for you

1:17:00

or there's anything you'd like to say

1:17:02

in response to that, you can of course get in touch

1:17:04

with us and as I always say, here's how

1:17:06

you do that. You

1:17:09

can reach us by email at hello

1:17:12

at john and thefuturenaughts.com.

1:17:15

That's hello at john, J-O-N

1:17:18

and thefuturenaughts, all one word,

1:17:20

dot com. We have our own show

1:17:23

Twitter account, which is at J and

1:17:25

the F and of course you can reach us individually

1:17:28

on Twitter too. I am at Ron Richardson,

1:17:30

John Richardson with the first letter swapped

1:17:33

around. That's what I've done there and you can

1:17:35

reach Ed and Mark at the following. I'm

1:17:37

Ed Gillespie at FruCool, which is at

1:17:40

F-R-U-C-O-O-L and

1:17:42

I'm Mark Stephenson and you can find me at Optimist

1:17:45

on Tour. And

1:17:48

if this podcast has made you want to step

1:17:51

out of the internet realm and meet like-minded

1:17:53

souls like Mark, Ed and myself,

1:17:56

then I invite you to google People

1:17:58

Planet Pine Art. official partners

1:18:01

on the podcast. If you go to their website,

1:18:03

if you Google People Planet Pine, or Icosia

1:18:06

People Planet Pine, or whatever your preferred

1:18:08

search provider is, you will be

1:18:10

directed to meetups where you can join

1:18:13

people like us who will get together, make

1:18:15

the world a better place, and have a pint.

1:18:18

So we will be back in just over a week

1:18:21

when I think, provided

1:18:23

Mark hasn't been lowered into a swimming

1:18:26

pool full of sharks by the world's

1:18:28

richest families. Ed,

1:18:30

you're going to Bristol, which I think is safer

1:18:32

ground. Well, and then Romania.

1:18:35

OK. I'm not going to go

1:18:38

hang out with Andrew Tate.

1:18:39

No, we will be in Bristol

1:18:41

together. We're doing a future nonce live show

1:18:44

without you, John. Just the future nonce. So

1:18:46

we're doing a show. Oh, the proper stuff, is it? Yeah.

1:18:48

What have we taken seriously all of a sudden, do you? That's

1:18:50

right, yeah. When's that? It's the

1:18:52

Blue Earth Summit, isn't it? It's whatever the date

1:18:54

is, and we'll be there. Can

1:18:57

I do another Clang? Yes. Guess

1:18:59

who my first email from this morning was introducing

1:19:01

me to? I think it

1:19:03

was Trevor McDonald.

1:19:06

It was not. It was Lars Ulrich, the

1:19:08

drummer from Metallica. I've just been introduced to him.

1:19:13

I love that. What

1:19:15

does he want to know? What he should be making

1:19:17

his drums out of? Well, I think it's

1:19:20

about carbon-removed touring,

1:19:22

is probably what we're going to talk about. But I don't

1:19:25

know. Like, as I said, I've got to go and pick up my daughter

1:19:27

from school.

1:19:28

Hey, man. All right, see

1:19:30

you later. See you next week. Bye.

1:19:32

Bye.