Why Not? & What If?

S2E2 - ADHD, Microtraumas & Neuro-Inclusion at Work (with Chris Hood, Neurobridge)

• Siobhan & Andy • Season 2 • Episode 2

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In this episode of Why Not and What If, hosts Siobhan Godden and Andy Cracknell sit down with Chris Hood, Head of Coaching and Community at Neurobridge, for a refreshingly honest conversation about neurodiversity — what it really means, why it matters, and how understanding it can reshape how we see ourselves and others.

Chris opens up about his own ADHD diagnosis, sharing how it shaped his mental health, self-esteem, and identity. Together, they explore the misconceptions, microtraumas, and stigma that often accompany neurodivergence, particularly for women, who are frequently underdiagnosed or misunderstood.

This episode goes beyond discussing ADHD. It is a call to compassion, curiosity, and kindness. When we understand the different ways people think, we do not just create better workplaces; we create a better world.

Key takeaways:

  • ADHD and neurodiversity often intersect with mental health challenges
  • Early diagnosis and support can change lives
  • Self-esteem is a silent struggle for many neurodivergent individuals
  • Diversity of thought drives innovation and empathy

Tune in for a conversation that is both insightful and heartening, reminding us that everyone’s mind works differently, and that is exactly how it should be.

Got a story or a view? Email letstalk@whynotwhatif.com
— we might do a follow-up episode with your takes.

Andy:

We're back again. This is season two, episode something or other. I've got no idea where we're at now because we're recording them at a rate of knots, and it's it's getting really exciting. It's not going to be long. Actually, we're launching we've launched season two today, so the first episode's got out today.

Siobhan:

Has it? I didn't even know that.

Andy:

Uh no, we haven't shared it. But actually, we're almost at the point where we're wrapping up season two, and we're going to start recording season three at this rate. So it's it's getting good. Today's really exciting because we have a gentleman by the name of Chris Hood joining us from Neurobridge. And Chris will give us a bit more of a background as to what that is and who he is. But the reason it's exciting is because he is a fellow ADHDer. So I'm sitting on my hands today because I don't want to jump all over the ADHD stuff. So we're going to see how this goes. So, Chris, welcome. Thank you for joining us. Can you give us just a quick intro into who you are and who Neurobridge are and what it is you do?

Chris:

Absolutely. So, as you said, my name is Chris Hood, and I'm the head of coaching and community at Neurobridge. We're a workplace neurodiversity support company, and we've built the world's first neuroinclusion support system. So it's a it's an all-in-one platform that helps to align all the different elements of neurodiversity support and inclusion. So making sure neurodivergent individuals have got access to tools and guidance and strategies to help them manage their brain in a workplace, and also tools there for managers, for colleagues, recruitment, HR, just something that encompasses the entirety of the workplace so that people can learn to play to their strengths, find more effective ways of navigating the challenges, and ultimately just get the best out of each other.

Siobhan:

And we met, didn't we, Chris, at a conference, and obviously, you know, HR background. And I just happened to come across your stand and we had a good old chat with you and Josh, who's the who's the founder that kind of started this whole thing. And I don't know many other people that are doing, I don't know anyone that's doing what you're doing in the way you're doing it, and also the the umbrella of neurodiversity as well, because you get some specialists, which is great. But from a but I like the way from my perspective, how you help employers and managers and things like that, because that's one of the stuff I'm trying to do. So having having folks like you in the background that are helping for people that who aren't experts is very much needed, which is why you guys are booming, I imagine.

Chris:

Thank you very much. Thank you for stroking the ego a little bit there.

Siobhan:

Yeah, how did you then how did you end up with Neurobridge? What's your story?

Chris:

So I I had a later in life diagnosis of ADHD, and and it came about essentially because my mental health just fell apart when I ran out of the the the ability to actually manage myself. So I'd I'd done quite well in school, I was very bright as a kid, and the older I got, the more difficult things kept becoming, but I felt like I had to keep going with education because that was I suppose where I got some validation, it was where I felt I was making people proud, and that's that's where I got my sense of worth from. So even though I didn't really enjoy it or feel happy while doing it, I just kind of kept pushing and pushing. So I went to went to university and then to study physiotherapy, and it was probably through my second year into my third year, I was just really struggling with what looked like anxiety and depression and stress and overwhelm. And I went to the doctor, and because it seemed very situational, it was quite a demanding course. They said, Yeah, it seems like anxiety and depression, and I tried various medications for it. I tried therapy, and some stuff helped a little bit, some stuff just made me numb, some stuff made it worse, and yeah, I just kind of kept kept trucking on really and somehow got through university, started working in the NHS, and it just kept getting worse and worse. And I I ended up not being able to work for probably seven months, I think. So I had quite a quite a stint outside of work because I was just yeah, I I was pretty much checked out at that point, to be fair. But with the with the time off work, I started researching persistent anxiety and depression, trying to figure out why it wasn't getting better. And I started reading articles and journals about undiagnosed ADHD and how it can very much look like anxiety and depression, but it's more the overstimulation, it's the the burnout, it's just the nervous system really, really strongly reacting to overwhelming stress and dysregulation. So I started looking into that more and more, and all these light bulbs were going off. Like that just sounds like my life. And I must have taken a dozen of the online self-assessments, and they all said moderate to severe indications of. So, yeah, to cut the long story short, I ended up getting a combined ADHD diagnosis in May 2022. I started medication a few months later, and and things started picking up and yeah, I started moving forward in life again. And ending up at Neurobridge was the result of uh a social media platform that I built, so it's called Happiness in Movement. And originally that was me discussing mental health and just trying to raise awareness. And once I got my diagnosis, I started talking about ADHD and neurodiversity as well, and sharing what I was learning, things I was doing to manage myself differently, and how I had that knowledge. And that was how I ended up connecting with Josh, and uh he told me about Neurobridge and his own late diagnosis story, and yeah, he he said he said he'd love it love to have me with him. So I uh I bit his hand off and took a bit of a leap of faith and joined at the beginning of January last year, and the rest is history, as they say.

Siobhan:

Oh, oh, I was just reflecting on what you were saying. And he's gonna sit on his hands, he's yeah, he's he's he's gonna go boom in a minute. Um, but one of the things that really strikes me is so I'm neuro uh neurotypical, although I have had conversations with you because going, Oh, what's this all about? Like it's just it's just where your priorities are doesn't mean you're neurodiveral. My husband and son are dyslexic, and my husband 99% sure he's he's undiagnosed ADHD. And in fact, we were uh he he's quite senior and in his company, which I won't name just in case. And we went now, he invited me, a lot of his team were over in London. So there was this big meal, and he invited me there to meet some of them, which was really nice. And one of one of the guys came up to me afterwards going, so clearly Simon's other guy knows ADHD, right? And I was like, Yeah, blatantly, he goes, but and it it's a strength in his workplace, in his level now, isn't it's an absolute strength, and because they're all like, How does he do what he's doing? And and it's a power. But the bit I'm really resonating with is the mental health element of it because he's also suffered, and it's something that's not really spoken about that much, because you're right, it's it's it's literally chemicals in the brain and overstimulation and things like that, and there just doesn't seem to be that many people talking about it. They talk about the effect of masking and the and how that can impact mental health understandably, but the actual kind of neuroscience behind it, not many people are talking about this, are they?

Chris:

No, no, not very much. And and it's something we're very keen on at NeuroBridge is the connection and the distinction between the two, you know, like everyone has mental health, but not everyone aligns with neurodivergence, not everyone is ADHD or autistic or OCD. And while we can experience the traits as part of the human experience, they're they're not as frequent or severe or impactful, and people can generally manage them fairly well when they happen occasionally. But it's it's when these things are so persistently causing issues for you, and you don't have the support in place or the the knowledge within yourself or the capacity to be able to handle it in a different way. It ultimately does just totally zap your reserves, and and that's when you start to see the mental health really declining because you've got people that they can't sleep, they really struggle with eating regularly, they they really struggle sticking to routines around their self-care. And and as you say, there's the masking element as well, which is where you're you're hiding your authentic self, and there's such a deep-seated shame that accompanies that, and and it really does just eat away at your self-image, and and it's no wonder so many people end up in that kind of place where they don't really see a way forward, and and that's why we do what we do to to help people who are in a similar position to where we found ourselves, and and making sure that isn't the route that people start to go down. And yeah, it's the most fulfilling thing I've ever done. Never gonna leave, so it does get better.

Andy:

The point that you just made about eating away at self-esteem, that that that's such a critical thing in this piece because I think we were talking before we started recording, and I kind of explained my uh journey with this, which I'm not gonna go into in huge depth because the journey's quite uh long. But um when the idea was originally floated that I might be neurodivergent, so ADHD, there was a conflict between two psychologists. One said you're blatantly ADHD, and that was the language they use, which was probably not the best bedside manner. And the second uh view was that I wasn't ADHD, I was going through burnout because there was no indicator to them that there were any early life characteristics of ADHD. I hate the word symptoms because it implies it's an illness and it bloody well isn't. Now the point that you just made around self-esteem is that I found myself in a matrix moment of taking a pill and I was sat watching my behaviour after the initial diagnosis, which said that I was ADHD, albeit that it wasn't a formal diagnosis. I was like, yeah, 100% that's ADHD, that's ADHD, that's ADHD. And you mentioned just now ability around uh routine things like personal hygiene and stuff. That's why I'm sat here with a full-faced beard because I just can't get to shade. It's just it's bloody irritating, it really is, because it itches like man, I just want to get rid of it. Um but it it's this is the thing that scares me in the world we're in at the moment is that there are so we don't know enough about ADHD for there to be a very quick, clear, easy, accurate diagnosis. I I like you, Chris, have done endless numbers of online assessment tools, and every single one of them has said strong indication of ADHD, and they are the questions they ask. And I went through looking at some of these questions, I was thinking, yeah, but that's burnout. That could be burnout, that could be burnout. The psychologist that said that I wasn't ADHD said that I was experiencing burnout because I've been through probably more than my fair share of life trauma. So what they were saying was that my brain is neurotypical. The reason that I'm displaying the symptoms, and I'm doing air quotes because people can't see me is because it's my neurotypical brain reacting to over stimulation because of all of the traumas and therefore burning out and then the the symptoms again, air quotes of being presented as ADHD characteristic. And it left me feeling completely lost. And I was in that state for six months and ultimately ended up in a position where my mental health completely crashed because at least I had a because I didn't have a framework in which to live. In other words, I didn't know am I NT, am I MD, am I this, am I that, am I burnt out, am I having a breakdown? Is it like what's going on? But they there's been some research where they put these caps on NT and MDs and it shows the difference in the brain waves. Like, get rid of all the online profiling, get rid of all the tests, get rid of all the questionnaires. If people come to the point where they want a diagnosis, stick them in a chair, put a cap on, and bang, there's your answer. Because it's consistent. ND versus NT, you see far more brain waves and different patterns in the brain waves when the eyes are shut and all this stuff is out there, have a look for it. So that was the first point. The second point, and I suspect this is because of organizations like Neurobridge, but employers are becoming more aware of and more facilitating of neurodiverse characteristics. Now we're a long way from being in a utopia where you know ND can exist equally as alongside NT. But the thing that got me jumping up and down that made me really excited, and this was eight months ago, is this was what right when I was in the thick of this hellhole that was am I ND or not? Anne Keister Butler, who's the director at GCHQ, put a post up on LinkedIn and it reads Neurodiversity and dyslexic thinking are highly valued at GCHQ. In fact, they're mission critical. We need the right mix of minds to keep the country safe, and our neurodivergent staff can think creative spot patterns and solve problems that other employees might miss. That I I mean, Chris, you may be able to relate to this. I I had a dopamine release when I read it, and I could feel it pour down the side of my head and down into my body. Because I used to work alongside GCHQ. I worked as a telecoms interception specialist. I was forever seeing patterns that people weren't seeing. And I so actually, for her to come out and make that statement was massive. You would, you know, there was always that typical response, oh yeah, but now you're saying that ND is better than NT. No, that's not what she's saying at all. It's saying that everybody is equal and we need to work together and in and harness everybody's skills. And then the final point, sorry, because I made a list. Look, I was right.

Siobhan:

I kept you quiet too long. This was the problem.

Andy:

Sat on my hands and zipped my mouth shut. Um Shabon, you made an interesting point when you were talking about your own experience and of your conversations with Chris, where Chris was saying, No, you're not neurodiverse, this is just whatever it is your workload to do this that you're in at the time. What's that about?

Siobhan:

He didn't say that. It was more like I it was more of a suspect it could be your neurotypical brain reacting in this way. So to be fair, yeah.

Andy:

Now it was really interesting what you said because you said, Oh damn, I'm not MD. Now, there's half of me that loves that because it's like, okay, so for somebody to say that, that means they have a respect for or a recognition of what neurodiversity means and the value it brings. Okay. But the other side of me thinks, hang on a minute, if you're NT, it's not right to try and play in that space because it devalues what it means to be ND, and and actually that's part of the argument that we have in society around all these people saying, it's right, we're all a little bit ADHD. So Chris, after my long waffle there, the point I want you to go on first is that point around the not the conflict, but the the miscommunication or misunderstanding where people are saying, Oh, we're all a bit ADHD, or I'd love to be ADHD, and those kinds of things, because it would be great to kind of dig into it and get your view on it. Yeah.

Chris:

You've both been to the toilet today, haven't you?

Siobhan:

Yes. Have you got a time?

Chris:

So have I. And we all do that every single day, right? But if a person is going to the toilet 50, 60, 70 times a day, they know that there's something that needs looking into there because that's outside of what you would typically expect. So an easy parallel is that we can all be a little bit forgetful at times. Like people that aren't ADHD, they can have a stressful day and forget they were supposed to pick something up and then have a bit of a falling out with their partner because now they've got to go back out, whatever it may be. That that doesn't equate to the less efficient working memory that ADHD people have, where it's a consistent issue. You're always forgetting why you've walked into a room, you're finding your wallet in the fridge, you're losing your keys every single day. It's it's not the same thing. We we can all have days where we feel less sociable and we don't really feel like talking to people, but that doesn't translate or reflect to the social communication challenges that autistic people face. We can all get a little bit muddled up when we read something and have to go back and check over it again. That's not the same as the processing differences of dyslexia. And and the difference between them and the important distinction is that while the things that neurodivergent people experience and the traits that they're navigating can be seen as a normal human experience. I'm also doing aircraft now, it's the frequency of them, it's the severity of them, it's the the impact that it has on a person's life. That is the difference between these things. All humans can experience all things, they're their human experiences, but it's when they're persistently running up against something that's having a really negative impact upon their life when it's not understood. That is the defining difference between these things. So you can't be a little bit ADHD or kind of autistic. You you either are or you aren't. And just because you might relate to some experiences from time to time, or you sometimes engage in a similar behaviour, it doesn't mean that you'd necessarily meet the diagnostic threshold for something like that.

Siobhan:

No, and as a woman, it's even more complex because you get to a certain age and your estrogen levels start dropping, and crazy things happen with the brain, and that's just being a woman.

Chris:

That's why a lot of women don't get diagnosed until later, because they are able to mask in a different way. They may present in a less external, obviously observable way, and then when you do start getting two perimenopause and menopause and that hormonal shift starts to occur, that in itself heightens the dysregulation, and it means that those traits are all but impossible to actually manage. And that's why a lot of people then start to recognize, like, oh, so I was just hiding this really, really well before, but it wasn't quote unquote normal, it wasn't something that I necessarily had to be struggling with as much, and it just becomes highlighted a lot later in life, and and there's so little research into the female specific side of these things as well, that there is there is a big gap there, but there's loads of amazing women that that are really speaking for that, raising the awareness around it, and and there is a very a very obvious shift starting to occur, I think, when when we talk about the lost generations that are getting the diagnoses now. A big bulk of that is women that that were missed when they were younger because they just didn't have the the typical presentation, I suppose you could say, even though this is all very atypical, it wasn't what we knew of those presentations. So yeah, there is a big gap there that needs needs more attention, but we're on the way.

Siobhan:

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, there's some really amazing work going on, and I think that's where my own journey has come a little bit when I reflect, because as I say, my my my son's gone through a diagnosis, as does my husband, daughter's a bit questionable at the moment. She's she's self-diagnosed as ADHD. I don't know because her personality is very similar to mine, and I don't think I am. But there are certain ways that we behave that make it that's one of the presentations of it, but it is just one. So but talking about the the hormonal impact, that like even if you're neurotypical and you have the forgetfulness and the you know losing track of time and all of those things, they start to come out anyway. So it's a it's a mindfill, but anyway, I'll put me in that because uh we don't know enough about it yet.

Andy:

I don't think we know enough about ADHD at this point to be able to categorically state somebody is neurodiverse or neurotypical just based on asking them questions. And the reason for that is that when I went through that period of time where I had one psychologist saying one thing and another psychologist saying another, their methodology and what they were saying completely made sense, even though they were contrasting, they were both completely logical and completely accurate as a potential. The danger that that presents, not just to the individual, but also to the people around them, to their employer, to you know, relationships, friendships, circles, and probably most importantly, the individual's mental health journey is massive. So I think you know, those research pieces are so important. But the one I want to reference is one that's just come out recently, where they took somebody, either of you may know the answer to this, but they took a brain scan. There was conclusive evidence in that that one uh ADHD is not a myth, it's not a fad, it's not a nice to have, it's not, oh, it's an excuse for poor behavior, it's not uh he's just a bit weird and he's just looking for a reason to justify it. It actually proves that one ADHD exists and two the differences between neurotypical and neurodiverse brain waves. It doesn't take long, it would take 15 minutes to sit someone in a chair, put a cap on them, and measure their brain waves. I think ultimately that's where we need to move to because until we get to a point where the diagnostics are safe, we're creating so much confusion, upset, concern. And my final point on this is that one of the challenges through therapy that I've gone through around all of this is the question the psychologist asked me is why do you need a label? i.e., why do I need to know whether I'm ADHD or not? And the answer is not that I need the label, it's that I need to understand the framework in which I live and I need to know whether I can trust my instincts, trust my interpretation of the world and how I manage the some of the fundamental stuff, Chris, like you were saying, like being forgetful and all this kind of stuff. Because if you put a book in front of me and go, look, there's a load of coping strategies for you to deal with ADHD. If you think I'm gonna read two sentences in that book, you can just jog on because it's not gonna happen. But having that label is not about having the label, it's about understanding the framework that's behind it.

Chris:

Yeah, shut up now. There's some real negative connotations that come with that label word. Yeah, and I think people automatically associate that with why do you want something that you can use as an excuse? Which is another thing that we hear quite a lot. But the the fact of the matter is it's not about the label, it's not about being able to make an excuse, it's about being able to explain your experience of the world and and and have this objective rationale for why you struggle with certain things. And and I haven't met people that are pursuing a diagnosis because they don't want to try, it's because they've been trying so hard for so long and it isn't working. They need to know what the better option is for them, and and having that diagnosis and having that explanation, it provides the foundation to actually start building a different path and carving something new that does actually align with how you work, and it means you can better identify what it is that you actually need so that your barriers are reduced and you can actually start to feel fulfilled, start to feel more capable and competent in your daily life, and it is a really transformative thing for people, and and it does set the stage for people to bloom into something that they never would have believed they could be. Like I was a high-achieving perfectionistic people pleaser and never felt proud of myself. I would get a hundred percent on an exam and just be glad it was over. It never registered that I'd done well. I was just glad it was done. And I'm now getting to a point, and I'll admit I don't get this perfect all the time, but I'm getting to a point now where the efforts I'm putting in, the things I'm learning along the way, the contributions I'm making and the influence that I've got, the involvement I have with people, that is the thing that matters more than the outcome now, because it's about the growth and the journey for me, not trying to meet some expectation that's been enforced by someone else. That that dictated my life for 25 years, and it isn't the case now. And that is all off the back of allowing myself to say there is something different about me, and that's okay, and I need that confirmation so I can actually figure out where to go from here, and and it is a really life-changing thing for a lot of people. And so the the other point about the the online assessments and such, they're they're always described as not being a diagnostic tool. It's it is just to give a bit of an indication of is this something that needs looking into. And I I went privately for my assessment because I hadn't heard from the NHS in two years. I didn't know about right to choose at that point, so I I went down the private room. There was several different forms to fill out before to get an indication of what my life was like, the day-to-day experiences I had. There was observational forms to be filled in by other people, and it was it was three hours in total, I think. Going going right from childhood all the way up until that very day. It is a really rigorous process to make sure that they're ruling out other things that could be presenting the same way. And on the note that you made, Andy, about well, it's not ADHD, it's burnout. ADHD makes people more prone to burnout where we're also more likely to have experienced certain traumas throughout our life because there is these differences that people didn't know about back then, so it gets perceived as a character flaw or a personal feeling or laziness or lack of discipline, no willpower, not trying hard enough. And we we accumulate micro-traumas or even significant traumas throughout our life because we didn't have that answer. And that's why having that assessment process being done in such a rigorous way is important because it needs to have that clarity of the outcome, which is yes, these things all contributed, but this is the underlying thing, this is the overarching factor, and then you start to actually get a bit of a footing as to how you go about managing it moving forward because it's not just as simple as, yep, your ADHD, here's the meds. There's loads of things that factor into that and influence how you're actually going to cope. So it is it is really important to not take those self-assessments as the be all and end all. It's it's it's a step in the right direction if it gives you that indication, but you know, it's definitely not something to be to be taken as gospel because it is a lot more complex than that.

Andy:

It was interesting what you were saying about micro traumas. There are certain little triggers, little things where I'll get really emotional. Shabon, you might remember this. We did a podcast with Yasmin Wills during that conversation. She was talking about her 12-year-old Alex and who's diagnosed autism ADHD. And he got up to year three, fine, no problems at school, no behavioural issues, anything else. And then he was told to sit and face the wall in class. When we were recording the podcast, I broke, I fell to pieces to get affected by these lip these, as you refer to them, Chris, as micro traumas. I experience these weekly, if not more often, and they build up and build up and build up. Up and my mental health drops because you're so emotionally connected to something that it affects you in such a big way. And it doesn't need to be what mainstream people see as trauma. But I see these smaller things in some ways affect me more than losing my son or getting divorced or whatever it might be. And that's the challenge is people don't get the mental health impact of the micro traumas, but they don't even understand the micro traumas. It's, I think they really need that information out there around actually, this is how ADHD affects people's mental health. This is what it does to them. It's not all you know swans and roses of you know they're amazing people because they can see round corners and come up with shit that other people don't come up with. It comes at a cost and it's a huge cost. Yeah, it really is.

Siobhan:

So at home at the moment, it my son's going through his GTS E mox. Now he's not ADHD, he's he's dyslexic, but it it's it's been a really interesting journey because he had his diagnosis when he was in year one at school, and one of the things somebody said to me was, I mean, we had to fight for it. I ended up ended up a chair of governors in the school as a result of it because I was then you know shouting to the local council education psychologist and all this stuff. Anyway, it was it's a privilege because he was in a tiny little village school and they picked up really, really early. And with with me and the head teacher, we fought his case, got his diagnosis, and then got a load of other kids diagnosed. And that comes from a place of privilege because he's in a little he's in a little village school, we live in an area where they have this lovely school. I've got the education and the career and the and the mindset to fight for him. And it at that point it became really astute that we are privileged. But I'm seeing his journey now, I find it fascinating because he he struggled in primary school because it was all about spelling and reading. That's all they really care and handwriting, that's all they cared about. And then I was genuinely worried about secondary school, but he's thriving in secondary school because I actually don't care about the spelling and the handwriting so much anymore. But he's doing his GTSE mocks and he's revising, he's he started revising months ago. Now, for me, that's crazy because I was a as a I was a last-minute, you know, let's cram everything in the night before the exam, do the exam and get an A, and it's all good. Whereas, so I've said to him, Are you doing this too early? Are you going to forget it all in time for the exam? And he's like, No, mum, because his short-term memory is terrible. And he knows it's about him. So he knows he's got to he's got to put it in his long-term memory bank, and that takes time. So he has to start loads earlier than anyone else starts. And so that was really interesting that he knew his brain so well. And the second thing that was really sad is he said, and I want to prove everyone wrong. It's really disappointing how low they think of me. I was like, What do you mean? He goes, Oh, my because his predicted grades are quite low, because from the moment of primary school up, he's always been below. And he wants to prove everyone wrong because he's a bright kid. And I just thought it was the way he said, It's sad that everyone thinks so lowly of me. And by everyone he means school. And I was like, that's heartbreaking, isn't it? Now, if we didn't know, if he didn't know himself so well and he didn't have the privilege of having that diagnosis so early, he would have a very different mindset. It would be everyone thinks really low of me. I've got what you know, he it's going to affect his self-esteem, he's gonna not be so successful, and all those impact in his later life without that diagnosis. It's it really brings it home how important it is.

Andy:

I think that's the misconception is that a lot of people think that people that are neurodiverse are not. I was the same as your son. I ended up only taking six GCSEs. I wasn't allowed to take more than six. They one example I'll use is they put me in for the lowest set for GCSE maths, and the highest grade I could get was a B, and I got the B. They went back to the examining board, I got 100%. Wow. So it proved the point, but by that point, I just got to the point of complete despair, and my school life was horrific. And Chris, I'm interested because you've said, you know, as we said, you're academic, you were fine going through school. What was going on in the background for you? Because was that a performance thing? Was it a case if you felt you had to do that and therefore you did it, or was it a case that you just could and you did it naturally? Were you one of these bloody annoying people who never needed to revise for an exam and we just smash it 100%?

Chris:

Earlier earlier on, definitely. I think so. I've I've got two older brothers, they're five and four years older than me, so there's quite a gap between us. Yeah, and I was very different to them, like in quite obvious ways from the get-go, like a lot more sensitive. And I know that we were talking about introvert, extrovert, like I was I was a lot more reserved, a lot more kind of preferred my own space and time kind of thing. Like when I was when I was in nursery, I'd often be playing by myself. I was the one that was like arranging my toys in a specific way. So, you know, earlier on it was definitely more autism than it took over. I'd I'd like scream if teachers touched me and stuff like that. So I was very different to them. And I don't think we give kids enough credit for how much they see and know and pick up on because I knew from pretty much as soon as I could perceive myself as being a person in the world and an individual, I knew I was different. I didn't know exactly what it was, it wasn't something I'd have been able to describe at the time, but there's just this looming sense of otherness and picking up on the frustrations of my parents when I wasn't being as easy as maybe my brothers were with certain things. But then I always felt that the time I was most accepted when they felt the most proud of me was when I was doing well in school, that that was the thing that would get raved about, and it it was effortless in primary school, like it wasn't ever anything that caused me any stress. So then that kind of started becoming my personality, you know. My my oldest brother used to mock me and call me smart boy and like a nerd and a geek and stuff because I was academic and don't need to talk about where that relationship is nowadays, but that that really shaped how I saw myself, which was oh yeah, I am smart, but that's not a good thing. But then that's when that's when my parents are the most proud of me. That's when I seem to be the the smallest problem in their life. So I I need to make sure I keep that up. I need to do well in school and cause as few problems as possible. But then, you know, primary school fairly easy, high school, there's there's more more lessons that you're doing, there's more homework and exams and coursework, there's different social demands, there's puberty, and it's this milestone that you cross over where the tools that helped in primary school or the way I did it didn't work anymore when you move forward. So then it's like I don't have the capacity for this. So the the stress started building, but then I still felt driven by that need to do well in school, make them proud of me, cause a few problems. And the same thing happened going to sixth form, and massively so when I went to the university, and it's suddenly every responsibility is mine to manage. I'm working alongside this really intensive course, and it just kept getting me harder and harder. But I my internal world was so different to what people would have seen. Like, as I say, it was always doing well, I was always getting good grades, I was always seeming in control of stuff, but internally I just I wasn't, you know, I was I was falling apart.

Andy:

Do you think there's the autism element of your AUDH ADHD that created that? I don't want to use the word ability because I'm not sure that's the right word, but that academic ability because you've just you've just jogged something in my memory around the the perception your brothers had of you as being the geek and the boffin and the academic and all the other bits and pieces. And and stamp on me, because you're the professional here, you know far better than I do, but that's not an ADHD thing.

Chris:

Not necessarily, not necessarily, no. And and and this is this is a really important distinction, you know, where we're talking about certain proclivities people have got and categories they might fit in. Being neurodivergent isn't a reflection of a person's intelligence or capability necessarily. You know, you can have neurodivergent people that would have lower IQs, you can have neurotypical people that have much higher ones. Like it isn't, it isn't quite as clear-cut. But for me, I think probably the autistic side of things, you often see that people maybe develop certain skills sooner. So they there can be sort of earlier development or later development. So a lot of artistic people might not start speaking until later in life. Whereas I could speak, read, and write at a very high level, much younger than you would have expected, like using words that my parents didn't even use in the right context and knowing how to apply them. Like I think it might sit within the category of hyperlexia. Um so that that was something that always came very naturally to me was language and written word and and anything school-wise in in early years, especially, it did just come very naturally. And I think it was it was maybe the combination of the two, to be fair, where there's always these new things, and ADHD loves novelty, but then there's also the the increased connectivity side of things and the memory aspect of autism, where maybe I was able to just store these things a lot easier than some other people might. But yeah, I don't I don't think it's necessarily an inherent side of either of them, but there may be certain aspects of both or either that that did contribute to me being more along those lines. But then as as I say, it got to the point where it couldn't carry me anymore. So any natural ability that I did have, it it wasn't enough to well, it it did carry me through, but not without a huge cost to my own well-being, my own inner world, and my own perception of myself as well. And and then it got to this point where it's like, right, I've completed education, I've I've finished university with a first, and I've got a job waiting for me despite all this stuff I'm feeling. So this thing I felt I had to do my whole life is now done, and I don't feel better. I feel the worst I've ever felt my entire life. I don't want to be here anymore. So it's like, what was that all for? So it just didn't matter at that point, you know.

Siobhan:

An element of what now? So I knew I was working towards all that and I've done it. So now what do I do?

Chris:

Yeah, yeah. And I I think it's it's definitely the the aspect of trauma that comes with these things is that I was just hoping for that that that maternal validation my whole life. You know, I just wanted to feel as though I'm good as I am, and if I can do the thing that I see makes you happy and proud, once I do that, then I will feel that there's that thing there that I've always been longing for. And then it didn't didn't fill the hole, you know, it wasn't it wasn't there, so it did feel as though it's like, what am I supposed to do in my life? Now my whole point was doing this, done it, and it's no better. So where do I go?

Andy:

The affirmation point's an interesting one because what you're describing is invoking a reaction in me, and as much as that I remember feeling like that the whole way through school, like I would achieve certain things, I would do certain things, and then I would never get I'll never forget it. There was, I can't remember which election it was, it was one of the Bushes in America. I think it was the younger, the son was elected. And we had a subject called general studies, and the head teacher was the teacher for that, and he set this exercise where we had to write about something that was going on in the world politically, and I chose the elections that were going on in America. My head teacher was one of the main, most vocal around writing me off how I was useless, I was never going to come to much, I was gonna end up working in in, I think he even said, Oh, you're gonna end up stacking shelves in Tesco's because you're just not gonna come to anything. It was brutal. And there was an element of me when I sat down with my dad, and I remember we were up all night when the elections were going on, and I was looking at his and I was writing this essay using that to print it off, and we were looking at C FAX to get the information about the election and how all the states were voting, and I did a complete full political analysis and breakdown of the American elections. This document was 20 pages long, it was massive. And I remember completing it for a moment when I handed it in. I actually remember I walked up to his desk and I threw it on his desk and walked away because I thought, you're just gonna think that's shit because it's me that's written it. And then the next week the lesson came around and he begrudgingly made a point of saying, Bracknall's done the best bit of work out of all of you. This is what it was about. I want him to come and talk us through it. So I went up, spoke through it. It was a very begrudging set of phrases. And I remember the rest of the class looking at me, and they all hated me because I was the class idiot, right? But they all kind of were sat there in some sort of awe of wow, that's incredible. Like, how's he done that? But the head, but it was the reaction from the head teacher that was important and it was a begrudging thing. And it features so many other places. I mean, as a consultant, it's a nightmare because you can't your clients never praise what you do because they're paying you money because you know what you're doing. So they don't go, oh, great piece of work, thanks, Andy. They just go, there's the pay. Now I don't want no hang on, let me be careful because I'm going to get all my clients emailing me after this. Yes, I want the paycheck, right? Let's be clear. I want the money, I want the invoices to be paid, but that's not why I do what I do. I do what I do because it makes a difference in people's lives. And the and the validation for me is not the paycheck, it's the pat on the back that goes, You did a cracking campaign there, and that's emotionally impacted all of these people, and their lives are better because of the products we're providing or services we're providing, whatever it might be. But like you, I never got that. And I would get to the end of a whether it was my school career or particular project where I just sit and think, Well, what's the point in that? What was the point? It's not I don't feel any better. I actually feel shit now because my head teachers just begrudgingly praise what I've done. Now, the the point of all that waffle is to ask the question is that part of the RSD where we're hypersensitive to that interaction and we can see things and read into people's tones. Because the thing I quite often get told is that somebody could stand up in front of a group of us and say something, I would be able to read the depth of intent behind the statements being given that nobody else would observe. I'm hyper-analytical and hypersensitive to people's tone of voice. So is that two questions? Is what you said about that you get to the end and you think, yeah, I've done everything that the world wanted me to do that I thought I needed to do, but now I feel worse than I ever have done. And also this thing of this hyper-analytical, hypersensitive thing. Is that a are they drivers? Because uh the end result is always that sense of rejection or failure.

Chris:

Yeah, so they they are quite quite separate entities, and I'll try try to keep this as succinct as I can. So uh RSD isn't an innate aspect of ADHD, it is something that's very common in ADHD individuals, and and the reason being is that like the micro traumas we were discussing, ADHD people tend to experience a lot of rejection, criticism, correction, negative reinforcement throughout their life, especially the people that belong to this lost generation, like we do, that that didn't get the diagnoses that they needed. We were just repeatedly told that we were wrong, how we were, how we do things, how how we behaved and what we wanted, what we did, everything just was perceived as wrong, as though it was a thing we were failing at doing or a thing we were bad at. So we we internalize that, you know, especially when it's from such an early age and you're forming your sense of self and you're already receiving all of this negative correction and reinforcement. You learn that your natural way of doing things is a problem and people don't like it. And when we're young, if we're rejected by our parents, that means I'm going to die. So that triggers this fear response in you, and you start to become very hyper-vigilant for signs of rejection, signs of criticism. So that's when we can start to notice these subtle changes in tones of voice or body language or someone that might be a bit shorter, even in a text message, and and we go into overdrive analysing that. And the reason I think this is something that can be more prominent in ADHD is because it's not that we lack attention, it's that we're paying attention to so much. So where we're noticing those things that most people aren't really paying attention to or registering. So when you couple that a big attention span where you're noticing the fine details, and that is backed up with this history of being rejected, being criticized, feeling lesser, and not really having anyone to turn to about it, you internalize it and you start to turn it back on yourself and say, Well, they must be rejecting me because I've just seen that they've done this, and it was probably because I said this, and maybe I should have done it differently, and I'll make sure next time I do it like this. So we're constantly reflecting and planning to make sure we don't feel like that anymore moving forwards.

Andy:

Chris, we could talk to you all day about this stuff, so we might need to get you back for a second one. But the the point I want to wrap on that bit on is it's kind of tongue-in-cheek, but it reinforces what you're saying. One of the hardest things for somebody who has or suffers with RSD, and I'm specifically saying RSD rather than ADHD, in respect of what you've just said, because I now see that it's not actually inherent. When I got dumped by somebody once we've been seeing each other for about nine months, and it got to a point where I was all in and she just wasn't quite there. And she said to me one day, she said, Look, she said, I've tried to make this work, but it's not working for me. And the reason it's not working is because you're an orange and I'm looking for apples. Now that is and you know what? I I'm laughing because I remember inside in my head, my brain went into meltdown, and it wasn't about the fact we'd split up, it was about the fact that there was no rejection in that at all. Sorry, there was no criticism in that at all. There was nothing I could put my finger on to say, oh, you didn't do this or you didn't do that. What she was saying was, you're a really nice guy, you're just not for me. And that for me highlights the whole thing around RSD and the way we communicate with each other and the way that we handle people with RSD, because rejection is hard enough if you're if you don't have a psychological state that overanalyses over whatever, whether it's RSD, ADHD, NEND, whatever it might be, even personality disorders do that. It's about how we communicate with each other. And in that single moment, she gave me something so incredibly valuable, and that was a piece of self-esteem to say you're actually a really nice bloke. You're just not the right guy for me. And that's why in the world around us, whether you're and I know we probably shouldn't do this, but whether you're neurotypical dealing with somebody who has ADHD and RSD, or whether you're a person who's dealing with another person with RSD, you're not necessarily going to know they've got RSD. But actually, forget all of these labels and all of these boxes and everything that we're putting people into. Wouldn't it just be nice if people could just behave in a way where they said to somebody that they weren't connecting with properly, you're an apple, I'm looking for oranges, or you're an orange, I'm looking for apples. And I think in all of this, in all of the stuff that you do in the conversation she bought and I have, there's this underlying thing for me around I think we just need to be kinder to each other because Chris, your mental health journey you've touched on briefly. Mine, most it's out there, most people know what I've been through. A lot of that pain and suffering could have been reduced if the world around us had just been a little bit more human about what was going on in the world at the time and going on for all of this. And if we translate that onto this conversation around neurodivergence and being neurotypical or neurodivergent, ultimately, it doesn't matter if you're ND or NT, if you're man, woman, transgender, gay, straight, black, white, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, whatever it might be, if we just respect the fact that what we have stood in front of us is a human being and we handle them. I'm not saying Molycoddle or wrapping cotton wool, but what I'm saying is actually it's about respect, isn't it? If you if we just handle each other with respect, the pandemics of mental health problems and challenges and everything else would be so far reduced. I mean, if you look at what happened during the COVID lockdowns in the UK, mental health took a record dip. And we're now seeing a fallout from that in our children. You know, I said my daughter's been ill. The reason she's ill, I'm not going to go into, but the pandemic and the lockdowns compounded that because she was an only child at the time. She was isolated, she was caught up in her own thoughts, which compounded everything that she'd already thought thought and felt. The work that you're doing and this ability to give people a resource to use the I think you refer to it as a neuroinclusion support system, don't you? It's a NIST system which enables people to embed sustainable, measurable Euroinclusion into how an organization operates. That is, from my perspective, admirable and so desperately needed. So for me, you're a hero because you're doing shit that people needed to have done a long time ago, and you're doing it for what I see incredibly well. And I don't get the feeling it's about the commercials. And talking to you today, and for clarity, this is the first time you and I have ever spoken. Siobhan set up the podcast and everything. I'm just blown away by what you're doing, and I think it's really important the work you're doing, and I can't, I don't think we can underestimate it. So, people listening, I think if you go on to neurobridge.co.uk, just have a look at what Chris and his team are doing.

Siobhan:

You're right, that it's not necessarily about the commercials, it's about the uh those individuals and have living their best lives. But I have that commercial lens because I'm in HR and I support organisations. And actually, there is an important fact here though, is that there's a massive pool of talent that needs to be accessed. And you're missing a trick if you miss them. One of the things we haven't touched on so much, but you did just a minute ago, Chris, to a certain degree, is the I do a lot of work around emotional intelligence and people with ADHD specifically, and also I've observed it with dyslexia, and it's just only my own observations on a day-to-day basis, and Chris, you're gonna have the science behind this, but I've found the very intuitive around body language, reading a room, the reading into things that actually usually are there. It's not like they're overanalysing, it's they're analyzing and they're seeing things that even I I pride myself on the fact that I've got quite high empathy and I I think I'm I've got relatively high emotional intelligence. But honestly, if I'm around ND people who would observe this stuff, and I'm like, why didn't I see that? And I just don't, that's so, so useful. And it's in the future because with AI, it's the human element we need more than ever. So, and and also the other bit that really resonated with me was with the children and the rejection and the and the literal life and death impact that has at that early age because I do a lot of stuff around you know the three-part brain and how that impacts how people behave. And I hadn't actually considered that. So that's blown my mind, and I'm gonna add that into my brain calling. But I think this is I think it's a really good point that it's not just for those individuals to make a big impact for them as individuals in their lives, absolutely, but as a society and economy and all of those things, it's so important.

Chris:

Yeah, diversity, and this is something Ludo, our neuroscientist, talks about a lot. Diversity is one of the core motors of evolution. If you go down to a bacterial level, yeah, if you put a bacterial cell into a harsh environment, it hypermutates and multiplies to make as many different versions of itself as possible so it will survive. And that's what we do is that we diversify, we specialize in different areas, and that's what allows us to cover all bases. We we always liken it to being in an escape room. You want as many different perspectives as possible so that you can find clues, solve challenges, and come up with solutions because you can't fail if you cover everything. That means recognizing that once we actually help people navigate some of the barriers or we remove them altogether, there is strengths that everyone has. Some of them are more unique that not everyone maybe has access to, but everyone has ways of being at their best, and and that's regardless of neurotype. But yeah, right now the reality is that there is a lot of systemic barriers that need addressing so that people can actually put them to best use, and and that's that's why we do what we do.

Andy:

Yeah, it's the solution. Yeah, yeah. Because these because that's precisely how I live day to day, it's it's a fight for survival. In in, and I think for me, this is definitely my final point, the exhaustion in my day-to-day, this is why I hit three o'clock and I can literally sit and fall asleep at my desk. It's because the amount of energy it takes me to get through the day to pre-plan, plan, say something, re-hear what I've just said, work out whether it was the right thing, go back to that person and reframe it, whatever it might be. There's all kinds of stuff going on there, is so exhausting. It's absolutely exhausting.

Siobhan:

Well, my husband has power naps, that's the only way he can cook that in-between meeting, so have a power nap, and then and then his brain is like, okay, I under I made sense of the meeting we had just had now, and I can move on to the next one to make Well, we we talked before, didn't we?

Andy:

Because back when I was in the thick of it, I used to I used to work on two-hour sprints. So I'd work for two hours and I'd stop and play Call of Duty for an hour on PlayStation because it just cleared my helps reset. Chris, there's there's two things I'd I want to ask of you to close up. The first one is is there anything that you've not said that you wanted to say? And the second thing is, can you give us a high level as to what Neurobridge and the Neuroinclusion support system do and the kinds of people that use it? Because I think it's really important we get that message out there.

Chris:

Yeah. So we'll we'll do the Neurobridge bit first. So as I was referencing at the start, it's the the world's first neuroinclusion support system. So it's a platform that aligns all of the fragmented parts of neurodiversity support and inclusion. Because you you see a lot of workplaces that'll hold one-off manager training, or they'll get coaching for a few people, they'll have a guest speaker in, or they'll join in with things like ADHD Awareness Month. And these things are all important for starting the conversation, raising awareness, but it doesn't help them take action to lead to any sort of meaningful change. So, what the NIS does is align all of those fragmented pieces in one place. So it means that neurodivergent individuals can learn about their operating system, why things can be more challenging, why they're stronger in certain areas, and how they can actually harness those strengths to overcome some of the challenges. But that's accessible to everybody so that managers can understand why their team members might struggle with certain things and a different approach that they can take. HR can be looking at things from a wider perspective as well, in terms of how do we actually optimize these processes so that diversity of thought. Is front of mind in everything that we're doing. So it's essentially about helping the entire workplace understand that neurodiversity isn't just about neurodivergent people. It's the essence of human diversity. We all think, feel, and behave in different ways. And we were never meant to be uniform in the way that our minds work. And when we actually start to come back to that and prioritize that, everybody starts to benefit from it because there's more synergy, there's less stress, less friction. And it means that we free up the mental energy that people have and the strength that they have to collectively put them to better use. And that only leads to positive outcomes for everyone involved and the organization as a whole.

Siobhan:

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Chris:

And in terms of yeah, to finish off on one, it's to come back to something you were saying earlier about meeting people with respect, regardless of any of these defining differences that people have. There's there's a concept that I really love to remind myself of, and it's Sonda. So Sonder is the profound realization that everyone you meet, even a complete stranger on the street, has a life that's as vivid and complex as your own, even though you've got no awareness of it. So it's really important to keep this in mind that everyone is dealing with something. Everyone has a history and a past and scars. And we all want the same things, which is to feel fulfilled and content in life. So we need to meet each other with curiosity, compassion, and and support each other as human beings. Not because people are different and oh let's mollycoddle. It's because that's how we all get better and move forward together in life.

Siobhan:

Yeah.

Chris:

That's beautiful.

Andy:

Well, that's it for this episode of Why Not and What If, where the conversations get messy, magical, and a little bit rebellious. If it made you think, laugh, or rage text your mate, job done. That's what we're here for. Got a topic you think we should dive into? Let's talk at why not at whatif.com. Here it's your idea, feel it. And don't forget to follow, subscribe, channel WhatsApp unlinked to it.com. See you next time.

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Andy Cracknell

Co-host
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Siobhan Godden

Co-host