Dyslexia, ADHD & Why Life Feels Harder Than It Should (Even When You’re Capable)

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Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.

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I'm Kate Moore Youssef and I'm a wellbeing and lifestyle coach, EFT practitioner, mum to four kids and passionate about helping more women to understand and accept their amazing ADHD brains.

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After speaking to many women just like me and probably you, I know there is a need for more health and lifestyle support for women newly diagnosed with adhd.

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In these conversations, you'll learn from insightful guests, hear new findings, and discover powerful perspectives and lifestyle tools to enable you to live your most fulfilled, calm and purposeful life wherever you are on your ADHD journey.

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Here's today's episode.

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Hi everyone.

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Welcome back to another episode of the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.

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I'm Kate Moore Youssef, your host here as always.

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And and today is no different because I have Dr. Jacob Sandhouse on the podcast today.

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And Jacob Sandhouse is a dyslexic counselor and coach who supports dyslexic individuals in developing self esteem, better understanding of their dyslexia and ADHD, and figuring out how to most effectively navigate their lives.

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He is based in Florida and outside of those things, Jacob spends a lot of time with his wife, he's got four kids, and soaking up every moment possible to appreciate the joy that life brings.

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And I really see that.

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I found you first online on Instagram and Tick Tock and I just loved your videos.

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I loved how much clarity you spoke, but so calmly and so sort of just.

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You just really spoke to so many parts of people and I can see by all the comments how much you relate and resonate with people.

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So it's like I have to get you on the podcast.

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And as a side note, I was a Sant house and so when I first saw Jaco Surname, I was like, oh, we're long lost cousins, but we really have delved into our family tree and sadly, we're not long last cousins.

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We have a lot in common.

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So, Jacob, welcome to the podcast.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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Thank you.

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Thank you so much for having me.

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And all of these things, like all the things that you talk about your book, I love it.

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Like these are the things that I love talking about too.

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And I'm so glad to be here.

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Thank you for that.

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And I know that you gave me a little book recommendation online and I really appreciated that.

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And I love it when actually men read the book as well because even though it's meant to be sort of women's focused, I always think it's so important that men Understand it from a female perspective and understand the different challenges.

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And I know from your client base that you were just telling me that your main client base are people in their 30s and 40s, you know, ranging from 20 to 50.

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Are a lot of them women who are coming to you perhaps, just trying to understand, to unpeel some layers and maybe seeing this neurodivergence there, but, you know, not quite understanding how it shows up, where it shows up, and that very complex layering of dyslexia and adhd.

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And I wondered if you could kind of unpeel that a little bit for us.

Speaker B: 00:04:29

Oh, yeah.

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That's a fantastic question.

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And as always, with almost every answer I ever give, the answer is, it depends.

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Because with dyslexia in particular, there's such a void of knowledge, because so often what you hear is.

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You hear people be like, oh, it's dyslexia.

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So that's just like flipping letters, or you're bad at spelling.

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Right.

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Or maybe you can't read.

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And those things can kind of be true, but there's so much more to it.

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And when you really kind of delve into what's at the root of how dyslexia impacts someone, the impact that it has across so many domains besides just reading and writing, all of that is huge.

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And so a lot of who I end up working with are people who usually see my content, and then they're like, I had no idea.

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I had no idea.

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This impacted me in so many different ways.

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And so it'll.

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It'll either be people who are like, I had no idea.

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I want to learn more, or people who saw it and were like, oh, that clicked so much.

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And now I'm realizing just how much that's impacted me.

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And I want to process through, like, the pain, the trauma, in my experience, or there's also a pretty decent handful of people who are like, I've known my whole life, but I've never really had space to share about it.

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I've never really had anyone who was like, let's talk about this.

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I know about this, and let's actually explore it together.

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And I think with dyslexia, that's a really big one because it is this thing that's so often dismissed.

Speaker A: 00:06:05

Yeah, I think you kind of, like you say it's the very surface level again.

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You know, with adhd, the surface level is.

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Or, you know, know, concentration and focus, maybe disorganization.

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But then we know there's so much that's going on below the surface.

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And I Think with dyslexia, we need to understand.

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And that's why I love your videos, because it's the nuances that you pick out, and there's been so many of them like that.

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I'm thinking, I actually think this is me as well, because I only got diagnosed or assessed for adhd, and I really relate to so much of my adhd, but so many things now I'm understanding.

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And I know we had Natalie Brooks on the.

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On the podcast, and she works with dyslexia and adults and everything, but I.

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It's still there for me.

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And I still wonder if, first of all, is it worth me getting a dyslexia diagnosis?

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And maybe the question is, what would bring, you know, an adult is listening to this now, what would a dyslexia diagnosis bring for them?

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Because I know my daughter's just been diagnosed with dyslexia, and she had a ADHD diagnosis before, and the dyslexia is the thing, actually, that is tripping her up the most at school at the moment.

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Whereas now I'm an adult, I'm kind of thinking I don't have to do the things that school expects of me.

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And I found workarounds.

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But, yeah, what is it?

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What's worth getting a dyslexia diagnosis as an adult?

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One of the.

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One of the things that I hear that really drives home why it can be so worth it is the idea that before I, before I had dyslexia, I had lazy, I had stupid, I had incapable, I had slow.

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And when you learn, oh, there's a reason, there is an explanation, there's a difference in how my brain functions that makes me the way that I am.

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And it's not that I'm any of those derogatory things.

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It's that I'm truly different.

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That, like, that is one of the biggest things.

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Outside of that, though, there's also the, like, the way that we as humans tend to adapt, the way we tend to figure out, like, okay, I have encountered a problem.

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I'm going to find a workaround.

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I'm going to find a way to solve it, which that is.

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So often that's particularly true with people who are neurodivergent, where it's like, life was not designed for me.

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I need to figure out a better way to do it.

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And when you have dyslexia so often, you.

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You go about that through ages, kind of like, I'm going to figure it out way.

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But when you actually know you have dyslexia, then you can you can be a lot more strategic about trying to figure out, okay, based on what I know is happening in my brain, what would actually help.

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And a lot of the time, I think what people end up doing when they don't know is they aim for, like, avoidance strategies, where it's like, I'm just not going to interact with that.

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I don't want to write it, I don't want to read it.

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I'm not going to raise my hand, yeah, 100%.

Speaker A: 00:09:03

That was my daughter.

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So my daughter's just been diagnosed with quite severe dyslexia at 14, and her ADHD diagnosis came at 9.

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But we'd also gone through lots of different assessments, and actually she'd had two different dyslexia assessments over the years and it came back inconclusive.

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And then she had one recently where maybe she was maybe able to articulate and understand where her difficulties were better and really sort of understand where it shows up and it's come back, you know, severe dyslexia.

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And I.

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My heart is like, oh, I wish, you know, wish she'd known that.

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But I'm kind of glad that we've got it now.

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Before, in England, in the UK, we have things called GCSEs, which are very difficult exams spanning sort of like 8, 9, 10 different subjects.

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And you've got to retain a lot of information, you've got to process it, you've got to memorize, and it's horrendous.

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And I really wanted to make sure that she had that set up for her, even though now she's got it and I'm like, yes, now, this is amazing.

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She's a bit.

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There's still a bit of, oh, don't talk about it.

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Like, no one ever.

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People don't need to know about it.

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She went to the optician and the optician has given her like a blue or a green overlay.

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Interesting.

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And I don't know, and I'm thinking, is she going to use it?

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Is she not what I mean, I guess.

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What are your thoughts on these overlays?

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I mean, you can already tell I had a reaction.

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I want to get into, like, the whole history of how we got here, but that will become tangential.

Speaker B: 00:10:37

So the shortest answer to that is that colored overlays technically don't actually have anything to do with dyslexia itself.

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They are very, like, popular culture says that they do.

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But in reality, what colored overlays are actually good for is if you have visual stress, which.

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Another name that.

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That kind of goes by, but it's more controversial is Irlen syndrome.

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And that is something that kind of like dyslexia, where dyslexia is not an issue with the eyes, it's an issue with how your brain processes language.

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Visual stress is also not an issue with the eyes.

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It's a.

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It's basically something that impacts how your brain processes what you see.

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And the primary, like, treatment for that is colored overlays.

Speaker A: 00:11:21

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:11:21

Now, the reason that it often gets so associated with dyslexia is because there are a lot of dyslexic individuals.

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I think it's like 40 or 50% have visual stress.

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And so it's kind of become one of those things where it's just kind of assumed like, oh, you have this, so you might have that here, this should help.

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But in reality, when it comes to dyslexia specifically, there's been quite a bit of research on it and none of it has ever conclusively found.

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Like, this is actually helpful.

Speaker A: 00:11:48

Interesting.

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I will say with visual stress it is helpful and there is evidence around that.

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And because of that, there are a lot of dyslexic individuals who also have that, who are like, yeah, these help me.

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But also, sorry, so much information.

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The actual color that's helpful varies by person.

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And it's one of those things where so often you hear the, here, just take this one, use this one, it'll be great.

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And there's not the, hey, here are a whole bunch of different options.

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Try them, see what helps, see what makes a difference.

Speaker A: 00:12:20

We got those options with two of my kids, actually, because they both have the same test and one got the green and one got the blue.

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It's so interesting to hear this because as parents, you know, we are battling against definitely here in the uk, like systems, lack of funding, maybe lack of up to date knowledge and understanding.

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And that's why I wanted to talk to you because it seems that you have a really kind of like up to date, nuanced way of looking at dyslexia that isn't just based on reading and writing.

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And, you know, you talk about proprioception, interoception, the emotional side of dyslexia as well.

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And that is why I want to get into the juicy bits.

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Because when we get an ADHD diagnosis, lots of things make sense, but I think there's still things left that aren't explained to us.

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And I know that ADHD doesn't travel alone, and I know that dyslexia doesn't travel alone, and I know that ADHD and dyslexia together are quite nice.

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Traveling company companions, annoying traveling companions.

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And I guess how we can understand when it's our ADHD tripping us up and when it's our dyslexia and how we can help ourselves.

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I guess that's, you know, the premise of this podcast is about empowerment.

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It's about trying to find ways that we can empower ourselves with this.

Speaker A: 00:13:37

With this knowledge.

Speaker B: 00:13:39

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker B: 00:13:40

Differentiating between the two sometimes can feel so easy.

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Like, if you're sitting there and you read a page and you're like, I have no idea what I just read.

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Let me read that again.

Speaker B: 00:13:52

And then you read it again and you're like, still same thing.

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And the process of reading it is very conscious.

Speaker B: 00:13:58

That's dyslexia.

Speaker A: 00:13:59

Okay.

Speaker B: 00:14:00

If you're reading a page and you're like, huh, that's interesting.

Speaker B: 00:14:04

Your brain just won't focus on it.

Speaker B: 00:14:07

That's potentially more adhd.

Speaker B: 00:14:09

But the reality is that that can kind of happen with both.

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And if we're really trying to differentiate which is which, it gets really complicated because when you have.

Speaker B: 00:14:21

So when you have adhd, like, we all know the classic, like your working memory and your executive functioning tend to struggle, and you experience a lot of challenges rooted in that when you have dyslexia.

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The reason that dyslexia impacts people the way that it does is because there are certain parts of our brains that don't.

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Either they aren't activated as much while we're doing tasks that involve language, or they're over activated, which there's so much variation in what is actually over activated while it's happening, and even some in what's under activated.

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And so there's.

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There are so many theories about, like, what's happening there.

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And if you really try and get into the neuroscience of it all, it gets really confusing really quickly because there's so much variation.

Speaker A: 00:15:07

I mean, and that's what's.

Speaker A: 00:15:08

That's what's really hard because, you know, I.

Speaker A: 00:15:10

My community is late diagnosed women, typically similar to you, between, you know, 30 and 50.

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And so many of them are chronically exhausted and burnt out.

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Nervous system totally, you know, dysregulated, and they're just exhausted.

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I just did an event last night, and, you know, I was speaking to the women afterwards, and they're just exhausted and drained.

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Trying to push, trying to have careers, trying to do all the executive functioning of life and being parents and children and helping their own neurodivergent children.

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And when we have undiagnosed maybe dyslexia on top of that.

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So much of this, these tasks and organization and life admin can really get on top of you.

Speaker A: 00:15:58

Do you see that a lot in your, I guess, your work?

Speaker A: 00:16:01

Like how the life admin is the bit that really kind of makes us crumble a bit?

Speaker B: 00:16:07

Yes, with.

Speaker B: 00:16:09

Okay, okay, so I have to explain this part of dyslexia that's fascinating.

Speaker B: 00:16:14

Do you know what automaticity is?

Speaker A: 00:16:15

No, I've never heard of that word in my life.

Speaker B: 00:16:18

Automaticity is the ability to do something automatically or without thinking about it.

Speaker B: 00:16:24

And there's.

Speaker B: 00:16:27

There's a.

Speaker B: 00:16:27

There's kind of like an emerging theory that, like, somebody proposed it a long time ago, but it's.

Speaker B: 00:16:31

I think it's getting a little bit more attention now.

Speaker B: 00:16:33

That automaticity, or really struggling with it, is one of the things that's primarily at the root of dyslexia, because when you struggle with automaticity, then you have to use something called conscious compensation to do tasks.

Speaker B: 00:16:46

And one of those tasks for dyslexic individuals is reading.

Speaker B: 00:16:49

But also, like, it's not just reading.

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There are so many other things that.

Speaker B: 00:16:52

That this comes up with.

Speaker B: 00:16:54

But what happens is that you have to actively talk yourself through a lot of what you're doing.

Speaker B: 00:17:00

Or, like, if you're reading something, your brain is like, okay, we're on the next word.

Speaker B: 00:17:04

Let's decode that word.

Speaker B: 00:17:05

We're decoding the, like, the words, the sentences, the paragraphs.

Speaker B: 00:17:09

We are actively having to think about this instead of our brain just being like, there, picked it up.

Speaker B: 00:17:13

Got it.

Speaker A: 00:17:13

Okay.

Speaker B: 00:17:14

And what happens is that when you have to do that, that very quickly overloads your working memory.

Speaker B: 00:17:23

And one of the primary brain functions that really needs our working memory to be able to function is our executive functioning.

Speaker B: 00:17:31

And so we end up in this cycle where it's like, this took me more mental effort, which overloaded the system, and then everything kind of falls apart or gets disrupted.

Speaker B: 00:17:41

And so, yeah, then you end up in a place where all of those daily life admin tasks, all of the things that it's like, this should be easy, feel so incredibly hard.

Speaker B: 00:17:49

And then you avoid them or you forget them, or you like.

Speaker B: 00:17:52

Yes.

Speaker B: 00:17:53

So the.

Speaker B: 00:17:54

The short answer is yes.

Speaker B: 00:17:55

That was the longer answer.

Speaker A: 00:17:56

Yeah.

Speaker A: 00:17:57

So just say that word again so I can remember it.

Speaker B: 00:18:00

Automaticity.

Speaker A: 00:18:01

Automaticity.

Speaker A: 00:18:02

That is really validating.

Speaker A: 00:18:04

I mean, I have a huge, huge, huge aversion to forms.

Speaker A: 00:18:08

And I thought that was definitely an ADHD thing because I really struggle with a form.

Speaker A: 00:18:14

And my husband Bless him.

Speaker A: 00:18:15

Often takes that off me, but sometimes I think it's enabling.

Speaker A: 00:18:19

And part of me is like, no, you need to push through and do the form.

Speaker A: 00:18:23

And I don't know what's better to kind of flex the muscle of doing the forms or allow my husband to take that off me because I do so much anyway.

Speaker A: 00:18:32

It's not like, you know, I don't do anything, but he takes that off me and I feel guilty or bad that I should be doing the form.

Speaker A: 00:18:40

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:18:41

Okay, here's the thing.

Speaker B: 00:18:44

When you struggle with things like filling a form, all of those fun, like that fun category of life, it's not that you need to challenge yourself to do it every time, but I think what is really important is that you're kind of empowered to believe that I can if I need to.

Speaker B: 00:18:58

And therefore I think it's really valuable if sometimes you do just to be like, no, I can do this.

Speaker B: 00:19:04

Doesn't mean I like it, doesn't mean it's easy, but I can if I need to.

Speaker B: 00:19:08

This is something I can do.

Speaker B: 00:19:10

But it's also really, really nice to have other people in our lives who have.

Speaker B: 00:19:15

Have different strengths and weaknesses and they can complement us really well in that way.

Speaker B: 00:19:19

Because I will tell you right now, 98% of the forms in our, in our household that get filled out are not filled out by me.

Speaker B: 00:19:26

They're filled out by my.

Speaker A: 00:19:27

That's really good to hear.

Speaker B: 00:19:28

Amazing and happy to do that.

Speaker B: 00:19:30

Yeah.

Speaker A: 00:19:30

Okay, so it's not.

Speaker A: 00:19:32

I mean, I talk about that, I talk about that to people who are saying, like, don't be ashamed to ask for help and don't be ashamed to lean into your strengths and do the cool things that you enjoy doing.

Speaker A: 00:19:42

And then the things that really do take a huge amount of mental effort when you've already got so much going on and you've got someone else that's happy and willing to do that, let them do that.

Speaker A: 00:19:52

And we all play to each other's strengths.

Speaker A: 00:19:54

And I wonder if it's like a female conditioning.

Speaker A: 00:19:57

I do see this a lot working in this space now that we are conditioned as women to be the life admins, the children admins, the school admin.

Speaker A: 00:20:06

And when we can't do all of that in admin or things, you know, things fall and we drop balls, we forget things.

Speaker A: 00:20:14

We see that as a slight on us as a mum and as a woman, and it's terrible, it's awful.

Speaker A: 00:20:18

And I want to change that narrative because that's when it's an even playing field.

Speaker A: 00:20:23

When women shouldn't be expected to have to take on all those life admins that contribute to so much of this burnout.

Speaker B: 00:20:30

There's a piece to that that's actually really sad.

Speaker B: 00:20:35

I mean, there's a lot of it that's really sad.

Speaker B: 00:20:36

But what was standing out to me listening to you talk about that.

Speaker B: 00:20:40

Because yes, there's absolutely that, that societal pressure of like, this is your job, this is what we have for you to do.

Speaker B: 00:20:47

But also when it comes to dyslexia, dyslexia has been more diagnosed in males than females.

Speaker B: 00:20:54

And part of that is that we look at, we look at females and we're like, oh well, it doesn't matter.

Speaker B: 00:21:02

Like you're just going to be at home with the kids doing the life admin stuff anyways.

Speaker B: 00:21:05

So it's not a big deal.

Speaker B: 00:21:07

Right?

Speaker B: 00:21:08

But dyslexia makes so much of that life admin stuff way harder.

Speaker B: 00:21:11

So it's actually really sad that it's like we're going to have you do this task, but we're also like not going to give you support.

Speaker B: 00:21:18

It's not necessarily that that gets directly said, but also people are so much more dismissive of it because it's like, well, you don't, it's fine, you don't need to worry about it.

Speaker A: 00:21:28

Especially in this day and age where the expectations on women are to do all of that at home.

Speaker A: 00:21:34

And I don't want to generalize because I know that men are definitely becoming much more visible in child caring and domesticity.

Speaker A: 00:21:43

And there's thankfully we're seeing a lot more equality or equanimity between all the work in the house, but it's still not quite there yet.

Speaker A: 00:21:53

But women are working now, so we still have those pressures, the societal pressures to keep house and to be that present mother and do all the things that we want to be, to be the best mum that we can for our children.

Speaker A: 00:22:06

But, but we also have the pressures of career that we've worked hard for.

Speaker A: 00:22:11

You know, we've gone to college for, we've gone to university for, we've climbed up the ranks or we've re qualified or done all the different things.

Speaker A: 00:22:18

And so many of the women I speak to are ambitious women, women that want to do good, make leave an impact in the world, want to do meaningful work as well.

Speaker A: 00:22:27

So it's not necessarily about prestige or money, it's about I want to do something meaningful to help, but that often depletes us as well.

Speaker A: 00:22:36

And I'm interested to know if someone's Listening to this now and they're thinking, yeah, I've definitely known about my adhd, but the dyslexia side is a bit more of an anomaly.

Speaker A: 00:22:44

And, like, I'm not quite sure how that could show up.

Speaker A: 00:22:48

Could you give me a few examples of the lesser known, more specifically in women?

Speaker A: 00:22:53

I don't know if I'm asking for too much, but if there's anything at the top of your head that you're thinking, I see this a lot in midlife women who are being late diagnosed with dyslexia.

Speaker B: 00:23:02

What's interesting is that there aren't a ton of really concrete examples coming to mind.

Speaker B: 00:23:08

Part of that is just because the theme of what I hear so much is just, oh, all of these things feel harder.

Speaker B: 00:23:14

Like the filling out the forms, or I just don't read books, or I avoid doing things that would put me in the spotlight.

Speaker B: 00:23:21

But then there are so many ways that people learn to mask this.

Speaker B: 00:23:27

There are so many ways that it's like, oh, I didn't even realize that that was something that I was doing.

Speaker B: 00:23:34

That's probably the most common thing that I hear.

Speaker B: 00:23:36

Like, as me and.

Speaker B: 00:23:37

Me and a client are having conversation, there will be kind of that realization of, oh, you mean this is why I do this.

Speaker B: 00:23:45

This is why I've spent so much time figuring out, how do I not.

Speaker B: 00:23:50

Not have to fill out the form?

Speaker B: 00:23:51

How do I not have to put myself in a position where somebody might see that I'm dyslexic.

Speaker A: 00:23:57

Yeah, that's it.

Speaker A: 00:23:59

I mean, I've just written down.

Speaker A: 00:24:00

It's like shrinking.

Speaker A: 00:24:02

And what you say is like the avoidant things like speaking in a meeting or either being able to sort of gather your thoughts, but then be able to articulate, to be able to come out and to be able to get the, I guess, the things in order that the way you want to say things.

Speaker A: 00:24:19

And then all of a sudden it just comes out in a whole jumbled.

Speaker A: 00:24:22

And then you think, well, what's the point?

Speaker A: 00:24:23

People are just going to think I'm stupid or I'm not in.

Speaker A: 00:24:26

No, not articulate.

Speaker A: 00:24:27

Do you see that a lot?

Speaker B: 00:24:29

Yes.

Speaker B: 00:24:30

And I don't think it's just because it's like, well, I don't feel like I'm good at this or I'm inarticulate.

Speaker B: 00:24:37

Really.

Speaker B: 00:24:37

One of the realities that comes with dyslexia is that the brain patterns that we.

Speaker B: 00:24:43

Brain patterns, like the resources in our brains that we end up using to think, come up with solutions, to kind of explore our Understanding our knowledge of things tend to be a little bit more dispersed.

Speaker B: 00:24:58

And the result often is that it might take us a little bit longer to give an answer, but the answer is coming out of way more information.

Speaker B: 00:25:09

And so it's not necessarily that it's like a slower processor.

Speaker B: 00:25:13

It's that there's just so much more information being processed.

Speaker B: 00:25:16

And when you're processing so much more information, if somebody says, well, tell me about A, it's like, well, okay, but I, I have to go A to Z in order to explain A.

Speaker B: 00:25:27

And so it, it, if, if you don't spend a lot of time practicing following what would classically be understood as like a linear line of storytelling, it's so easy for it all just to kind of jumbledly fall out.

Speaker B: 00:25:41

And I would argue that for women, there's a lot less acceptability in that.

Speaker B: 00:25:47

Like, if a guy sits in a boardroom and throws spaghetti at the wall, everybody's like, yeah, that's what you're supposed to do here.

Speaker B: 00:25:55

If a woman does that, it's like, just keep your mouth quiet.

Speaker B: 00:25:58

Like, just don't, don't do that.

Speaker B: 00:26:00

Don't say anything.

Speaker B: 00:26:01

Like you're just, you're just embarrassing yourself.

Speaker A: 00:26:02

Like the words wittering and chatterbox and all things like that.

Speaker A: 00:26:06

You don't hear men being described as that.

Speaker A: 00:26:09

You just don't.

Speaker A: 00:26:09

It's definitely female related.

Speaker A: 00:26:12

How do we, as people in their 40s and 50s kind of go, things are going to get better.

Speaker A: 00:26:18

I'm going to, I'm going to learn some new skills here.

Speaker B: 00:26:21

I think you have to, you have to kind of step back and look at growth versus fear.

Speaker B: 00:26:26

Because if I am functioning from a place of fear where I am afraid I'm going to make a fool of myself, I'm afraid that I'm going to lose a job.

Speaker B: 00:26:34

I'm afraid that, like, people are going to think less of me or look at me differently because I make a mistake, then I'm so much less likely to try.

Speaker B: 00:26:44

And with dyslexia, that happens so often because we, we kind of lean into this identity of like, well, my, my brain just can't.

Speaker B: 00:26:56

I'm defective.

Speaker B: 00:26:57

There's something wrong with it.

Speaker B: 00:26:58

It's not going to work.

Speaker B: 00:27:01

And when we, when we start to live there, we don't try.

Speaker B: 00:27:08

But when you start to understand, oh, okay, so this is what's happening there.

Speaker B: 00:27:13

This is why my brain is struggling.

Speaker B: 00:27:15

One of the things that's really common for dyslexic individuals to struggle with, not just with reading, but with Everything is procedural memory, which again, that gets into automaticity.

Speaker B: 00:27:25

Like they're, they're hand in hand, those are like siblings.

Speaker B: 00:27:28

But our procedural memory is, is where we store the processes that we do on a daily basis so that we can do them like from memory without having to actively do the conscious compensation piece.

Speaker B: 00:27:42

And when you know that you struggle with that, it's so much easier to see yourself trip up on something that you've done a hundred times and be like, oh, well, that happened because I struggle here, that's okay.

Speaker B: 00:27:55

Or to, to look at a process that you're trying to learn and be like, I just, I had this down yesterday, but today I showed up and it's like, I've never seen it before.

Speaker B: 00:28:05

When you know that that's because you're dyslexic, it's easier to have some self compassion and be like, yeah, this is going to take me a hundred tries instead of 10 tries to get this down.

Speaker B: 00:28:16

And you're more likely to actually be willing to give it that try, like that extra try, that extra 100 tries.

Speaker B: 00:28:24

Because you know why it's happening.

Speaker A: 00:28:25

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:28:26

The thing that I think really matters when you're later in life and you're trying to, like, you're trying to learn, you're trying to grow, is knowing that this might take you a bit longer because of how your brain works, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try.

Speaker A: 00:28:40

Yes, absolutely.

Speaker A: 00:28:42

And what I was going to say was, I think, you know, for women and girls, especially when we're navigating hormones, so when with our fluctuating hormones and the neuroreceptors and all the things that connect to the estrogen and the dopamine and sleep and just how we feel, you know, every month and every week with our cycle, our brains work differently so we can have a day where we, we're flying and everything is great and the things that we normally struggle with just feel a bit easier.

Speaker A: 00:29:12

But then two days later we're like, oh my God, why is that so hard?

Speaker A: 00:29:15

Why can't I remember this?

Speaker A: 00:29:17

Why can I not get my words out?

Speaker A: 00:29:19

And I think that's an added pressure.

Speaker A: 00:29:21

And we talk about this now in a, with adhd, but I can see it's so similar.

Speaker A: 00:29:26

You know, working memory, our executive functioning are just the brain to mouth to hand coordination.

Speaker A: 00:29:34

All of that I struggled with.

Speaker A: 00:29:36

Definitely when my hormones are different at different times of my cycle.

Speaker A: 00:29:41

And now with perimenopause, it feels even worse.

Speaker A: 00:29:45

So we don't talk so much about Midlife diagnoses of dyslexia in women.

Speaker A: 00:29:51

But I wonder if it is all connected, isn't it?

Speaker A: 00:29:53

It has to be, because it's to do with our brain.

Speaker B: 00:29:57

Oh, yeah, It's.

Speaker B: 00:29:58

It's all very, very connected.

Speaker B: 00:30:00

And yes, so often we don't talk about it with adults.

Speaker B: 00:30:06

And part of that is just because we're like, well, you know, you're not in school anymore.

Speaker B: 00:30:09

Why does it matter?

Speaker B: 00:30:11

But also part of that is just.

Speaker B: 00:30:14

I don't think it's.

Speaker B: 00:30:15

It.

Speaker B: 00:30:16

It's gotten enough attention to be studied to the point where we have a full understanding of it or people know about it.

Speaker B: 00:30:24

Yeah, like I, I am constantly talking about how people in the mental health field, because that is.

Speaker B: 00:30:31

That is my profession.

Speaker B: 00:30:32

That's where I live.

Speaker B: 00:30:34

Don't know about this.

Speaker B: 00:30:35

And I've had so many experiences going up to other professionals being like, hi, what do you know about this?

Speaker B: 00:30:39

And they're like, isn't that where you flip letters?

Speaker B: 00:30:43

And I'm like, not, not really.

Speaker B: 00:30:44

Actually, that that's a stereotype that like, some dyslexics do struggle with that forever.

Speaker B: 00:30:50

But that has nothing to do with being diagnosed with dyslexia.

Speaker A: 00:30:53

I mean, if I have to ask, I mean, I think people should go and watch your videos because your videos do really talk in the nuances.

Speaker A: 00:30:59

And I don't want to put you on the spot to think, but maybe what are the more, the lesser known ways that dyslexia can show up that like you say, you speak to, you know, these mental health professionals, where it's not just the reading and the writing difficulties?

Speaker A: 00:31:13

Is there anything sort of more.

Speaker A: 00:31:15

More nuanced and lesser known that people might be like, oh, okay, I do that.

Speaker B: 00:31:19

The procedural memory and the automaticity, that's huge.

Speaker B: 00:31:23

That can show up like, one of the ways you see that in kids is struggling with learning to tie shoes and little things like that, where it's like, we feel like you should have learned this already.

Speaker B: 00:31:31

So there's that piece.

Speaker B: 00:31:33

Another one is sleep.

Speaker B: 00:31:35

Dyslexic individuals very often struggle with sleep.

Speaker B: 00:31:39

There's still not a ton of research there, but in a few of the preliminary studies, roughly two thirds of dyslexic individuals experience clinically significant sleep issues, which is a decent percentage.

Speaker B: 00:31:51

But what's fascinating about, again, the preliminary research here is that in trying to figure out why that struggle is there or what's different, one of the things that there's just a little bit of a sign that might be happening is that there's a difference in, like, the spindle process.

Speaker B: 00:32:09

And I'm not a sleep scientist, so I'm.

Speaker B: 00:32:12

I don't want to, like, label anything that I'm like, I'm going to say the wrong thing here.

Speaker B: 00:32:15

But what I know about what they found is that the part of your brain that consolidates learning seems like it functions differently for dyslexic individuals while we're sleeping in a way that's maybe less efficient.

Speaker A: 00:32:30

Wow, that's really.

Speaker B: 00:32:31

And so that.

Speaker B: 00:32:31

That's where the I learned it yesterday and today I've totally forgotten comes up.

Speaker B: 00:32:37

So that, that's.

Speaker B: 00:32:37

That's another great one where if.

Speaker B: 00:32:39

If you take a bunch of time to learn something today and it feels like you've lost it tomorrow, that can be connected to dyslexia.

Speaker B: 00:32:46

And then there's also the, like, the, the flipping when you're writing and like, you.

Speaker B: 00:32:54

You put letters in the wrong places or when you're speaking and you switch, you switch, like, the beginnings of words or you're going to say one word.

Speaker B: 00:33:03

Like, if I'm going to.

Speaker B: 00:33:04

I do this thing, I. I do this one constantly where, like, I'm going to say dishwasher and I say washing machine, where you're doing that.

Speaker B: 00:33:10

That, like semantic substitution.

Speaker B: 00:33:12

And there.

Speaker B: 00:33:14

There are so many more, which, incidentally, so many of them are not coming to mind right now.

Speaker B: 00:33:18

But there.

Speaker B: 00:33:18

There are so many more little ways where it's like, oh, yeah, that.

Speaker B: 00:33:21

That right there, that.

Speaker B: 00:33:22

That was a sign that.

Speaker A: 00:33:23

I mean, you've just described me like, tick, tick, tick.

Speaker A: 00:33:27

My family have got this running joke, and it happened last night as well, that if ever I have to write something, like a card, like a birthday, someone will have to read.

Speaker A: 00:33:38

That's not just my notes.

Speaker A: 00:33:40

My notes I can kind of do because I just, like, scribble.

Speaker A: 00:33:43

And it's all in terrible.

Speaker A: 00:33:44

In terrible ways.

Speaker A: 00:33:45

And I can.

Speaker A: 00:33:45

It's only for me, but if I'm under pressure, I always, always put a letter the wrong way or write the letter wrong or my handwriting is abysmal.

Speaker A: 00:33:54

And I was at a book signing last night and I had to spell people's names and write my name, and then I had to sign it.

Speaker A: 00:34:03

And, like, I'm not a celebrity, so I don't have, like a special, you know, signature.

Speaker A: 00:34:07

It's sort of just a whatever.

Speaker A: 00:34:08

But sometimes it comes out in one way or another way.

Speaker A: 00:34:10

And I put lots of these poor people's books and there was, like, crossings out.

Speaker A: 00:34:15

There was me moving.

Speaker A: 00:34:16

I had to put, like, an arrow because I'd missed a word.

Speaker A: 00:34:19

And I thought, this is the most unprofessional book signing that I've ever seen.

Speaker A: 00:34:24

I was.

Speaker A: 00:34:24

I had.

Speaker A: 00:34:25

I kind of made a joke.

Speaker A: 00:34:26

I kind of.

Speaker A: 00:34:26

I actually made the joke of.

Speaker A: 00:34:28

I think I'm in.

Speaker A: 00:34:28

Diagnosed dyslexic because of the state of some of the signings of the books.

Speaker A: 00:34:33

And I always, always do what you say.

Speaker A: 00:34:35

Like, I'll say to my kids, go and put your shoes in the car.

Speaker A: 00:34:39

But instead of saying the car, I'll say the garage or something.

Speaker A: 00:34:44

And I sometimes think I've got dementia.

Speaker A: 00:34:46

Like, genuinely, I think, is this, like, scary?

Speaker A: 00:34:48

Like, I can't get my words out properly?

Speaker A: 00:34:51

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:34:52

Okay.

Speaker B: 00:34:52

So one of.

Speaker B: 00:34:53

One of the reasons that happens is because, like, let's say you're dyslexic.

Speaker B: 00:35:00

Part of how your brain recalls words or part of how a typical brain that's not dyslexic recalls words, is it.

Speaker B: 00:35:07

It uses the.

Speaker B: 00:35:08

I think it's the temporal parietal lobe in the left hemisphere of the brain to be able to rapidly and efficiently recall, like, okay, this is.

Speaker B: 00:35:16

This is the standard or, like, most commonly used word I'm looking for.

Speaker B: 00:35:21

There it is.

Speaker A: 00:35:22

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:35:23

And when you're dyslexic, that part of your brain doesn't come in line as much.

Speaker B: 00:35:27

There's less activity there.

Speaker B: 00:35:29

And so you end up using alternative workaround paths.

Speaker B: 00:35:34

And those are harder, more time consuming, and therefore more likely to be shortcutted or passed or just, like, not actually fully utilized.

Speaker B: 00:35:44

Which is why your brain will throw out a different word, because it's looking for the word it's trying to find, but finding it is a little bit too hard.

Speaker B: 00:35:51

And so it's like, ah, this one's close enough.

Speaker B: 00:35:53

It either sounds the same or categorically is the same, or like, it's fine.

Speaker B: 00:36:00

And it does feel like you're crazy because it's like, I know.

Speaker B: 00:36:03

I know.

Speaker B: 00:36:04

That's not it.

Speaker A: 00:36:05

It is incredible.

Speaker A: 00:36:06

So, I mean, it's like a new question I like to ask my guests.

Speaker A: 00:36:09

If you could wave a magic wand and you were the head of how things could look to make a change in society with dyslexia in mind.

Speaker A: 00:36:20

You know, if you could.

Speaker A: 00:36:21

If you were the ruler of all schools across the world, for all children, and we're now understanding neurodiversity is so part of our life and of our world and everything, is there anything that you think this is so archaic?

Speaker A: 00:36:34

Like, why in God's name are we still doing this?

Speaker A: 00:36:37

If I was in charge I'd scrap that.

Speaker A: 00:36:39

Is there anything that comes to mind that you just think that should just be abolished?

Speaker B: 00:36:43

You know, it's funny because when you ask that, my mind immediately goes to not really abolishing something, but creating a system of education that like, you have the fundamentals of.

Speaker B: 00:36:59

You do have to learn how to read, how to write, how to do a lot of these basic things that are required in order to get access to information.

Speaker B: 00:37:08

But I wish that there was more emphasis put on creating, creating environments for learning that are, that are, that are fundamentally about being curious, about exploring, about actually trying to engage you in a way where it's like, yeah, you're going to learn so much information, not because we're sitting here with a textbook and I'm telling you the information, but because you're going to encounter problems in like, in what you're curious about that will require you to go find more information.

Speaker B: 00:37:40

And you're going to find that and you're going to learn it and then bring it back and in making it.

Speaker B: 00:37:45

And I know that classrooms like this do exist, but they are not the norm at all.

Speaker B: 00:37:50

But making it so that everybody kind of does get their own individualized education based on what really tickles their interest.

Speaker B: 00:38:01

I think that would be amazing.

Speaker A: 00:38:02

Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Speaker B: 00:38:04

People, especially neurodivergent people, would thrive so much more in that because so much of learning does end up having to be interest based in order to get it down.

Speaker A: 00:38:14

Yeah, 100%.

Speaker A: 00:38:15

And you know, we always think with ADHD it's a lack of focus or interest or concentration, but when we are interested in something, my goodness, we go full in.

Speaker A: 00:38:24

And that's why you see such amazing specialists in different subjects, you know, neurodivergent specialists.

Speaker A: 00:38:29

So I do wholeheartedly agree.

Speaker A: 00:38:32

I think we're very, very far away from that.

Speaker A: 00:38:34

Sadly, if someone's listening right now and they are thinking, this is really interesting because maybe they've got the ADHD awareness.

Speaker A: 00:38:42

But now what, like, what do I do?

Speaker A: 00:38:44

Because there's a part of me that thinks, you know, maybe their child's been diagnosed with dyslexia, but that's never really been explored for.

Speaker A: 00:38:52

Would you encourage a diagnosis now in later life?

Speaker A: 00:38:56

And do you see an element of this kind of like, ah, the shoulders dropping of like, okay, now I understand.

Speaker A: 00:39:04

And people are able to have slightly different lives now that they understand their brains better?

Speaker B: 00:39:11

It depends on the person and it depends on what's available or accessible to them.

Speaker B: 00:39:17

And the answer, as always, is very nuanced.

Speaker B: 00:39:20

But I think knowing makes a huge difference.

Speaker B: 00:39:23

But I think that knowing can mean very different things for different people.

Speaker B: 00:39:28

Like, for someone, knowing can simply mean, I learned about this and it fits me and therefore I'm going to self identify as dyslexic.

Speaker B: 00:39:36

And I think that is completely valid and totally okay.

Speaker B: 00:39:40

Especially because when you look at learning about dyslexia, you have the basic screening tools online where it's like, oh, yeah, I took the 15 question assessment and it said, I was sure, pretty probably dyslexic.

Speaker B: 00:39:51

Those are free.

Speaker B: 00:39:53

And then you have the screening where it's like you pay somebody a few hundred dollars and they spend half an hour with you, they ask you some questions, and then they tell you you're very likely dyslexic.

Speaker B: 00:40:04

But then when you move beyond that into official or formal diagnosis, it very quickly becomes often pretty cost prohibitive.

Speaker B: 00:40:14

The cheapest you can get is like 6 or $700, but you can get anywhere up to like 3, 4, 5, 6,000.

Speaker B: 00:40:21

And so I think if you look at yourself, you look in the mirror and you're like, I have always.

Speaker B: 00:40:28

I've always felt terrible about myself because of these struggles that I've had.

Speaker B: 00:40:32

Exploring it and getting the explanation can make such a big difference.

Speaker B: 00:40:37

And I would say it's absolutely worth it.

Speaker B: 00:40:39

The level of that that you actually pursue, that depends on you.

Speaker A: 00:40:42

Yeah.

Speaker A: 00:40:43

And I think now we're understanding neurodivergence better.

Speaker A: 00:40:46

We're understanding the Venn diagram, that is neurodiversity as a whole and how everything cross over.

Speaker A: 00:40:53

And, you know, I wonder what you think, but, you know, we've got dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalcula, dyspraxia, adhd, autism, all the different sort of learning challenges and processing and all of that, that sort of all mold into each other.

Speaker A: 00:41:11

Do you see dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia all going into like one area with slightly stronger traits.

Speaker A: 00:41:20

I wonder what this landscape is going to look like in 15 years time.

Speaker A: 00:41:24

And we're going to think, how did we pull everything apart so much?

Speaker A: 00:41:28

And part of me thinks it's good to have all the very individualized understandings.

Speaker A: 00:41:33

But then the other part of me thinks there's so much crossover.

Speaker A: 00:41:37

Yeah, I'm interested in your professional, you know, perspective on that.

Speaker B: 00:41:42

I heard, I heard something the other day.

Speaker B: 00:41:45

It was actually like a clip of a TED Talk.

Speaker B: 00:41:47

It was on TikTok.

Speaker B: 00:41:48

Do you know what aphantasia is?

Speaker A: 00:41:49

Yes.

Speaker B: 00:41:50

Okay.

Speaker B: 00:41:50

And so then know what?

Speaker B: 00:41:51

Hyper Fantasia is so hyper Fantasia is basically the opposite end of the spectrum.

Speaker B: 00:41:57

Where Aphantasia is the.

Speaker B: 00:41:58

There's, there's nothing in your brain.

Speaker B: 00:41:59

Like, there's no visual in your brain.

Speaker B: 00:42:01

So when you're thinking, you're not seeing this whole reality, Hyper fantasia is the.

Speaker B: 00:42:06

There is that three dimensional, vivid, colorful imagery in my head and I can, I can hold, see, interact with all of that.

Speaker B: 00:42:15

And everybody exists somewhere on that spectrum.

Speaker B: 00:42:19

And that is true with almost all these things in the reality of our understanding of humans is that at this point it's very limited.

Speaker B: 00:42:29

And so we have these buckets that we put people into, like dyslexia, adhd, autism.

Speaker B: 00:42:34

Like, we, we have the buckets and we're like, you seem like you fit there.

Speaker B: 00:42:38

We're going to put you there.

Speaker B: 00:42:40

Even though it's like, maybe not totally perfect.

Speaker B: 00:42:43

Arguably, as we learn more, we'll get better understandings of like, okay, categorically, could we subdivide these even more?

Speaker B: 00:42:52

And I think there's a little bit of value in that.

Speaker B: 00:42:54

In terms of what if we find out that if your brain works this way, let's say you're a dyslexic who has hyperphantasia, then you might benefit more from this strategy of teaching?

Speaker B: 00:43:08

I think there's some of that.

Speaker B: 00:43:09

But also when we learn more about how people work, then we can give a little bit more encouragement of like, hey, based on how you seem to function, what if you tried this?

Speaker B: 00:43:22

Maybe explore doing this and see how that goes for you.

Speaker B: 00:43:24

And I think there's a lot of potential for encouraging people to basically lean into their strengths.

Speaker B: 00:43:31

Do I also think we have to be really careful to avoid getting prescriptive and being like, hey, well, because you're good at this, you should never do anything else?

Speaker B: 00:43:39

Yes, I think we have to be really careful there because, because there's also so much value in challenging ourselves to step out of what's normal, what's comfortable, and actually to experience other things, to try other things, and to really get uncomfortable with being bad at things sometimes.

Speaker B: 00:43:56

So I see both sides.

Speaker A: 00:43:58

Wouldn't it be lovely to be able to do an intake form for your child and explain exactly what they enjoy and how they learn best?

Speaker A: 00:44:07

And as you grow, grow older, you're able to explain and understand yourself better and say, I actually am an auditory learner or I really enjoy learning when I'm outside and schools can adapt and can be flexible and, you know, that would be, that would be lovely.

Speaker A: 00:44:21

But I do believe that we, academia is, is Becoming more fluid, but just not at the rate that we need it to be.

Speaker A: 00:44:29

But it's been fascinating, Jacob, really fascinating.

Speaker B: 00:44:33

Well, sorry, I have one more thing to say based on what you just said.

Speaker B: 00:44:36

One of the, the book that I'm listening to right now, it's called On Common Sense Teaching.

Speaker B: 00:44:41

And then the subtitle is Practical Insights in Brain Science to Help Students Learn.

Speaker A: 00:44:46

Interesting.

Speaker B: 00:44:47

It's fascinating so far, but one of the things that it's talked about is how one of the strategies that people can employ to best learn is actually not really rooted in like being an auditory visual.

Speaker B: 00:45:00

Like it's not as much in the style of learning as it is in actively trying to recall what you learned.

Speaker B: 00:45:10

And what's fascinating about this, and I'm realizing that this might be a little too tangential and too much of an interruption, but what's fascinating is that all humans have working memory and depending on your brain you might have more or less, but all of our working memory is limited.

Speaker B: 00:45:29

And that matters a ton for learning because when we're learning things, we're using our working memory to basically interact with it, to try and crystallize it and get it into our long term memory.

Speaker B: 00:45:39

But what's so interesting, and this really gets into why some things are easier to learn and some things are harder, is that how our working memory can be supported is when we have other context around what we're learning in our long term memory.

Speaker B: 00:45:54

And what's so interesting is that when you have more context for what you're learning in your long term memory already, basically your long term memory will give context to what your working memory is doing or holding, which helps you then remember it better and can actually enable you to hold more in there while you're learning.

Speaker B: 00:46:15

And that gives you a really unique way of being able to explore.

Speaker B: 00:46:20

How do we help people learn best?

Speaker B: 00:46:23

How do we practice giving people the context for what they're trying to learn so that they can more effectively learn what they're trying to learn?

Speaker A: 00:46:30

Yeah, I mean we see that in some great teachers.

Speaker A: 00:46:32

You know, many of us will have a one teacher that just totally gets how to get the information into the kids brains and they use stories or visual things or fun or you know, laughter or whatever that might be.

Speaker A: 00:46:46

And you know, some, you know, parents, sorry, teachers go a bit rogue and they, they teach in the way they want to teach because they, they get that the kids need to learn that way.

Speaker A: 00:46:55

And that's, that's the beauty of teaching is that you can be.

Speaker A: 00:46:59

I met an amazing teacher yesterday for that exact reason.

Speaker A: 00:47:01

She's just like, I love my job.

Speaker A: 00:47:03

I love teaching kids because I love seeing the penny drop.

Speaker A: 00:47:06

I love seeing that moment when they get it.

Speaker A: 00:47:09

And that's what keeps it going.

Speaker A: 00:47:10

You know, she's been teaching in the same school for 18 years and she just said, I'll never get bored because I love teaching children.

Speaker A: 00:47:15

I love teaching children to enjoy learning.

Speaker A: 00:47:18

That makes me happy.

Speaker A: 00:47:20

Jacob, thank you so, so much for your, for your time.

Speaker A: 00:47:23

I'm wondering, people might want to learn more about you.

Speaker A: 00:47:26

I know you have an exciting project coming up you can't quite talk about yet, but in the meantime, how can people learn from you or maybe work with you?

Speaker A: 00:47:35

What's the best place to go to?

Speaker B: 00:47:38

Yeah, the best place is on all the social medias.

Speaker B: 00:47:41

I am at Dr. Jacobsanthaus and that if you go there anywhere, you will find links to everything else.

Speaker B: 00:47:49

Yeah, that's simplest.

Speaker B: 00:47:51

Quick.

Speaker A: 00:47:51

Do you see people online outside of.

Speaker B: 00:47:53

The U.S. i do, yeah.

Speaker B: 00:47:56

So all of my practices, I run a coaching practice and a counseling practice and both of them are entirely virtual.

Speaker B: 00:48:03

And so, yeah, I work with people all over the world, which is, which is awesome and not something I thought I would ever do 10 years ago, but it's amazing and I love it.

Speaker A: 00:48:12

Fantastic.

Speaker A: 00:48:13

Okay, well, I'll make sure that all the details are in the show notes and people can get in touch with you.

Speaker A: 00:48:18

Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

Speaker A: 00:48:21

I'm sorry if I put you on the spot with lots of random questions, but you answered them brilliantly.

Speaker A: 00:48:26

And yeah, it's so good to connect and hopefully we'll speak again very soon.

Speaker B: 00:48:30

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Speaker B: 00:48:31

Thank you for having me.

Speaker A: 00:48:35

Thank you for being here and listening to today's episode.

Speaker A: 00:48:38

I just want to remind you that if you are looking for more support on your ADHD journey, there are so many resources waiting for you over at ADHD.

Speaker A: 00:48:46

Womenswellbeing.co.uk so inside the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Workshop library, you'll find practical and compassionate guidance on topics such as nervous system regulation, rejection, sensitive dysphoria, perfectionism and emotional regulation, hormones, parenting, and so much more.

Speaker A: 00:49:06

All designed specifically for late diagnosed neurodivergent women.

Speaker A: 00:49:11

You can also explore my new book, the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit, which was published by dk, which is also available in ebook and audiobook, which is packed full of tools to help you feel calmer, more regulated and more like yourself.

Speaker A: 00:49:25

And if you do crave a bit more deeper connection and ongoing support, come and join us inside the More Yourself community.

Speaker A: 00:49:32

It's a gentle space for learning, reflection and connection with other neurodivergent women.

Speaker A: 00:49:37

And you'll also find the recordings from our first ever ADHD Women's Wellbeing Live event, which brought together incredible speakers and a room full of inspiring women for a truly special day.

Speaker A: 00:49:49

We have recorded it all for you, and it's there to buy.

Speaker A: 00:49:52

So whether you're.

Speaker A: 00:49:53

You're just starting your journey or looking to go deeper, there's something there for every stage.

Speaker A: 00:49:58

Just head to ADHD womenswellbeing.co.uk to explore everything.

Speaker A: 00:50:04

And as always, thank you so much for being here and for being part of this community.