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Episode 6 - Schools Out For ADHD
68 Plays2 years ago
Paul and Martin (co-Mayors of ADHDville) talk about what school life was like back in the 70s with ADHD. Martin brags he was a C+ student, and Paul shocks the studio with a homework revelation!
Email us at : ADHDville@gmail.com
Please remember:
This is an entertainment podcast about ADHD and does not substitute for individualized advice from qualified health professionals.
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Transcript
School Memories & Introduction to ADHD
00:00:00
Speaker
three two one zero there we go back in the room we're off we're off i i mean i remember one of the earliest things about ADHD that i remember from school was um when i i must have been i don't know about 11 maybe did at school did you have a building called
00:00:28
Speaker
which stood for rising of school leaving age. No, okay, I did, I did. Anyway, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. When you got into that,
00:00:42
Speaker
building. We knew it was the last year of middle school, I think it was. And that was the year where you kind of felt like a big kid and you were growing up and they gave us homework for the first time that you had to do at home. Because all the lessons and up till that point had been like you go to school at
00:01:07
Speaker
738 or whatever. He had strict lessons and then you went home at like 330. All right. And then that was it. Whereas they gave me homework for the first time and I completely failed. Like I couldn't do it. Like I had homework and I went home and I couldn't do it and I didn't do it. And I went in and they were really pissed at me. Like there was me and one, one other kid who hadn't done their homework.
00:01:36
Speaker
Right, so hang on, how old are you when, you know, put me in that place? I don't know, about 12, 11 or 12. Okay, so you just started, right, yeah, yeah, got you. Oh, I've got a similar thing. Well, get this, I don't remember ever, ever doing homework.
00:02:03
Speaker
I have no visual recollection, no memory of ever doing homework quite possibly because I didn't actually ever do homework. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's ever that's.
00:02:23
Speaker
Okay. Well, on that bombshell. So that's the end of episode five. Come back next week for episode six. Let's welcome you all to Old Geezer's talk about ADHD.
00:02:50
Speaker
A, D, H, D, A, O, D, P, S, O, D, A, D
00:03:04
Speaker
Lovely, lovely. All right, let's go. Okay.
Podcast Introduction & Purpose
00:03:14
Speaker
Hello, I'm Paul Thompson and I was diagnosed with ADHD after 56 years of WTF and OMG. And I'm Martin West and I was diagnosed with ADHD, ooh, seven years ago. Okay.
00:03:29
Speaker
So we're just two old geezers who, by coincidence or not, after 39 years of friendship, discovered that we're co-ADHDers. Now, it's really important to say that this is an entertainment podcast about ADHD and does not substitute for individualized advice from qualified health professionals.
00:03:50
Speaker
So don't take any advice from us. No, no, no. We're just here as a kind of all-inclusive ADHD pizza with a loaded crust. Wow. Still here? Then grab your tartan decorated thermos flask and let us take you to ADHDville, an imaginary town that we've created in our minds where we like to explore different parts of ADHD.
00:04:17
Speaker
Well done, Paul. That was the best so far. It's almost slick and I don't do slick. Almost. I know. Both of us don't do slick. We start off here. Yeah.
00:04:36
Speaker
We start off here in the mayor's office where we as the joint mayors of ADHD will take care of business. So let's get to the minutes of the meeting.
Challenges with ADHD Medication
00:04:47
Speaker
How was your week, Paul? Was it good? Was it bad? Was it ugly? Yeah, well, it's a bit crazy, bit crazy. I had some trouble collecting my meds this week.
00:05:01
Speaker
All right. Yeah. Um, and, um, I had to go to like 12, 13, 14 different pharmacies to get my meds and it was chaos and I was losing it. I was losing it.
00:05:15
Speaker
And, uh, but anyway, in the end I got it, but it, it was, you know, it was pretty, it was hard work. There was like bureaucracy. And, um, at some point they said, Oh, your prescription isn't written out properly. You can have to go back to the hospital, which for me is like losing half a day of work, whatever, and get the psychiatrist to write it out properly. What you're kidding me.
00:05:43
Speaker
How, how's that possible? Like being to 14 different pharmacies. No one said anything. Hey, we can't accept this. Right. So then the next day I tried another town. I think I'd do a different town. I'd run out of pharmacies. Okay. First one. Yeah, you know what? No worries. You can come and pick it up two days time. Bye. Yeah. Wow. So like, so like, yeah, I was going to my mind cause I was queuing.
00:06:12
Speaker
12 times, getting frustrated, 12 times, getting anxious, 12 times. What the fuck? 12 times. Yeah. So yes. So you have like a prescription that you can just basically take into any pharmacist, right?
00:06:30
Speaker
Yeah, but here's the thing because it's got like a special color because it's a stupid Vicente in Italian. It's a, you know, it's hard. It's like a different category of drug substance, controlled substance. Like some people like looking
00:06:47
Speaker
like looking like, oh, you know, like, oh, some didn't have it. Some couldn't order it even to know our supplies don't have it. Some said I have to wait for a week. And others gave other excuses. But yeah, yeah. All right. So that was that was an experience in the States. I will
00:07:12
Speaker
I have to go online. I have to ask my doctor every month to fill out the prescription and then it gets sent to a particular pharmacist. I designate one and then I have to go there. Right. Now I have to go each month to the psychiatrist and lose half a day and pick it up physically. Yeah.
00:07:42
Speaker
Wow. All right. Did you ever have it had this
Brown Noise Experiences for ADHD
00:07:47
Speaker
happen? Like you go to maybe a new pharmacy, collect your meds and they're like, look at you, like, Oh, what are you ordering? You know, you're not a teenager. What are you doing this for? Right. So yeah. How was your week? How was your week? Then you just, uh, it was, uh, yeah, it was fine. It was okay.
00:08:08
Speaker
Uh, didn't go swimming, uh, which is a bit sad. Um, but yeah, other, other than that, it's been pretty good. Okay. Yeah. That transformed because we talked about your swimming thing. And you said to me, it was like, yeah, there's a thing with ADHD and transformation.
00:08:30
Speaker
Oh, it's transitions from one stream to another. So it's like, you know, getting off the couch and washing up or, you know, I haven't heard that one. So we'll pick that up another time. Curious as a cat. Yeah. Right. Okay. Oh, that's a cat. All right.
00:09:01
Speaker
I'm going to skip to the homework that I was supposed to do. Yes. A couple of episodes ago. Brown noise. Right. So you sent a link for ADHD intense relief with smoothed brown noise and isochronic tones. Yes. I got about a minute into it.
00:09:28
Speaker
So I was like doing some work and I had it on and then my brain was, you know, was re-rejecting it. Right, okay. And was going, nope, nope, don't like, don't like. And I think that's probably because I've already trained it with a certain kind of
00:09:53
Speaker
ambient music that it likes to have while I work. And then this was something else and it was having a little hissy fit.
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah, well it is. The brown noise is a hissy fit, I think. What I read was that the first 15 minutes are at a certain kind of like noise range. And after 50 minutes, it starts massaging between your lobes.
00:10:30
Speaker
And twin things, right? Yeah. I'm going to be saying so. Point being, I lost 16 minutes. Yeah. So this is what happens when you give when ADHD is give homework to each other.
Music as a Focus Tool
00:10:50
Speaker
Well, you know, I think that's the point of this is that there's so many hacks out there, right? You go to TikTok or whenever.
00:10:59
Speaker
And there's like, here's a hack for this. Here's a hack for that, but actually, you know, let's give it a go. Let's try it out. If it works great, if it doesn't work great, then we can just strike that off the list. Yeah. That was a, that was a, a mill for us then. But for me, it did make, make a point in my mind, because well, you're further down the road because you diagnosed seven years ago. I was,
00:11:29
Speaker
diagnosed, you know, a few weeks ago. But for me, it was like, oh, okay, yeah, kind of makes there's a logic to it, even though the brown noise didn't work for me either. The logic is there, though, that, okay, we're not if I'm working, it's better I listen to instrumental music. Because otherwise, I just just can't, you know, I can't focus properly, or my focus is compromised.
00:11:56
Speaker
Uh, you know, so at least that, that came out of it. Oh yeah. No, for sure. And you, you had to see, you told me a similar thing, right? For you, you've got a, like a playlist. Yeah. Yeah. I've got, I've got, I've got music for that for, for doing work too. Okay. All right. So let's crack on and, uh, and this is something else that you want to say before we
00:12:27
Speaker
no no uh yeah and we're gonna take a stroll to the library actually you know what we're gonna get in our car yeah i'm gonna take to the non-fiction section of the uh of the library all right well let's jump in our mayor's car and uh let's let's go
00:13:04
Speaker
We're at the library. We're at the library. We're going to keep our voices down a bit. We do. I know a good joke about libraries. Okay. There's a guy, the guy goes, goes into the library and says, can I have two fish and chips, please? And the lady says, so this is libraries. Oh, can I have two fish and chips, please? That joke.
00:13:29
Speaker
That joke, that joke. Anyway, so we're going to talk about school and, you know, learning. I think it's not just school, but, you know, like adult learning and those kind of shenanigans. OK. And I'm just going to butt in slightly just to point out that if you're watching this on the YouTube is our clothes are completely different to the the front end of this whole thing. And that's because we had a bit of a technical issue.
00:14:00
Speaker
Yeah. And we sacked our continuation department. Mm hmm. Yeah. Well, they are underfunded, as we know, because someone keeps spending the budget on guests anyway. Right. Yeah. So we're just rerecording this whole section. Yeah.
00:14:19
Speaker
So take us back to school. Back, back, back. Yes, take us back to school. Back, back,
Academic Motivation & Creative Outlets
00:14:25
Speaker
back. So I'm going to just like take you kind of like to kind of where I, when I think of myself, it was like pull when it was like 13, 14, 15, 16. This is kind of like how I thought of myself at that time. I just thought like, well, I'm just as dumb as hell. You know, what's the point? So I was just like, gazed out the window. Okay.
00:14:50
Speaker
other thing was like, why can't I just fit in, you know? And then other things like I just lost cause I wasn't even trying. I was not even trying. I think we talked about this last week. I don't remember taking I don't remember doing homework.
00:15:12
Speaker
I have zero memory of doing homework. That's nuts. Zero. It is nuts. And to the point where I'd like, I would, I've never done this, but I'd like to have like a hypnotized, like, yeah, it's a ton of stuff in there. Just like just buried it and forgot it, you know, buried it in a corner. And who knows? Right. That's weird though.
00:15:38
Speaker
Right. It's so weird. It used to be that, you know, I would have to go home. And the hardest thing was to get out my exercise books, you know, after I've had some dinner or before dinner and try and force my brain into doing homework.
00:15:54
Speaker
I mean, that was almost every night for years. Right. No, nothing. It's like tumbleweed. It's like rolling through that. How have you managed to become the international success that you are? Pure talent. Pure talent. Just running on the pure raw awesomeness. And I don't remember. Here's the other thing. I don't remember taking any exams. Not a single one.
00:16:24
Speaker
Not one. You just blocked it out? I mean, because you got... You did art, right? You did art at least. So you got what? An O level in art or something? O level, yeah. Just so you remember what grade you got.
00:16:43
Speaker
No, I was always like 10, like top. I'd never, it was, it was not, it wasn't difficult for me. It wasn't difficult at all. Yeah. Well, in terms of, well, in terms of like homework, it was always graded out of 10.
00:16:59
Speaker
I always got 10. Oh, so you always got, oh, you always, a straight, a student when you came to art. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Easy as. It was just a no-brainer for me. Quite literally, at sport as well, like maximum point, always like really, really good. And point being that
00:17:22
Speaker
I think I pointed towards sport and art because they were the only things where I, okay, if you want to measure me on something, measure on my terms, you know, it all depends on me. I put in the effort and don't have to ask anyone of their interpretation, you know, so always like shined in those.
00:17:42
Speaker
Also, I think the ADHD brain just really likes doing whatever it is that it likes doing. So I know for me, art was the thing that made my brain happy. So I was happy to do that.
00:18:03
Speaker
Um, and I know that because, because we talked about exercise before, I think, you know, the, the, uh, the ADHD brain likes exercise and it likes kind of, yeah, that whole thing.
00:18:18
Speaker
Yeah, and we could have we spoken every way about how how we kind of like seemed lucky to find art in our case of creativity, you know, that naturally, you know, kind of like coincides with ADHD brain, you know, kind of like loads of stimulus. But creatively, well, in our in our world, it was like, you know, like,
00:18:48
Speaker
you know, deadlines and stuff like that, you know, clients changing and projects changing every day almost. Oh, yeah. I think, yeah, when I'm going to think back at school,
00:19:04
Speaker
It's really good if there is at least something that your brain is happy doing that you can then kind of, uh, squirrel down on, that you can then turn into a job, into a career. Um, so I wonder what it does a careers, wonder what happens if you're just like, you know, doing, uh, um,
00:19:30
Speaker
a job that is not ADHD compatible.
ADHD and Job Satisfaction
00:19:36
Speaker
If it's like no stimulus at all, like stacking shelves, what happens then?
00:19:44
Speaker
So for more than I understand, it's a thing of you'll be excited about a new job and you'll do really well at the new job and then you get bored by it and then you see novelty, you seek something else and then you either sabotage that job or you...
00:20:05
Speaker
or you just leave or you find something else and then you start that cycle again. I guess you have to get lucky to some point. I got lucky with like I had a great art teacher, Mr Lacey, no longer with us unfortunately. He was great. He gave me like, you know, that thing at school that, you know, it's not always a given. It's not always, you know,
00:20:29
Speaker
Not everyone has it, I suppose. He gave me just like a couple of words of encouragement. I was away, you know. It's not all I needed, which is great, you know. I read this the other day, Martin. Robin Williams, my hero.
00:20:52
Speaker
Four day, by the way, Robin Maclaurin, where it Williams, described himself as a quiet child who did not overcome his shyness until it became involved with his high school drama department. There you go. You know, just like he got his, he found his niche. Yeah. And God, did he find it.
Learning Styles & Adult Education
00:21:18
Speaker
Right. No one found a niche like Robin Williams found a niche. No. I think my school, because of my ADHD, I found that
00:21:32
Speaker
the more structured the school, my school day was, the better it was for me. So during those early years, you would arrive at 7.30, right? And then there'd be a series of lessons until you leave at 3.30.
00:21:50
Speaker
And that was fine and I could do okay there. I was a straight C plus student really just kind of did enough to pass and then
00:22:04
Speaker
when you kind of get into further education and you're required to do a lot more work. I know that you didn't do homework, but I had to. I winged it. I was winging it as ever. Wing it, Thompson. And the more you had to rely on yourself to motivate yourself to actually do stuff the harder it was. And that's when the problems... I can remember
00:22:35
Speaker
I mean, my ADHD thing never really, I don't remember anything particularly until I got into like art college. And there was an amount of work you had to do on your own. There was a deadline and I wouldn't really get motivated until that deadline started to loom. And then I'd go into panic mode and I'd get the work done and I'd go, why am I like this? It's crazy. Like I would get so annoyed with myself that I would just leave it till the last minute.
00:23:05
Speaker
right yeah pretty much yeah i don't think obviously even later in realizing i think i didn't get that until i was working i think but yeah um there's there was one exception though going back to go back to school so stepping back let's go back another five years back to back to back back to that 13 14 year old pole
00:23:30
Speaker
I got at some point, it's like, okay, you can give up a couple of sciences. But you had to keep one, I kept biology. And I kind of ditched physics and chemistry, right? But in that interview period between like giving it up and the end of the school year, they gave us a new teacher for physics.
00:23:56
Speaker
And this physics guy blew my mind away. Okay. Not with an experiment in the lab. It wasn't like a chemical explosion with some potassium permanganate. Oh, you know, I just, I am, I am, I'm going to interrupt your, your, your story. I've just had a flashback, you know, magnesium, magnesium, a ribbon.
00:24:21
Speaker
yes in kemsti it was that stuff that if you set it alight it would like
00:24:28
Speaker
glow with the intensity of a small sun. And my mate, Michael, in the chemistry class, he made a little roll-up cigarette and put a magnesium strip in it. And then he had some safety glasses on. This was in the lesson. And he had this on a little pair of tongs.
00:24:58
Speaker
And he had it in his mouth and he was just moving his magnesium-laced roll-up towards the Bunsen burner until it caught a light.
00:25:12
Speaker
Oh, is he still alive? Did he, did he, did he, did he die? He was alive. Yeah. He, he, he lived to tell, tell, tell the tale. Okay. That was a funny lesson. Oh my God. Right. So, um, so anyway, this, this, um, this teacher's like, it was just so stimulated. Like I just thought about physics in a whole different way. Right.
00:25:40
Speaker
And if I could go back now, like tap myself in the shoulder and say, see mate, you're not so dumb. You just didn't know what stimulation looked like until now, you know. And maybe probably to give you like a specific example, he was probably really good at
00:26:00
Speaker
Visualizing what physics was about rather than just like telling it, which I just can't do. You could tell me, you could like talk to me for like hours and hours and try to make me understand something, but you actually either draw it or in your mind, give me a visual to help me memorize it. I'm fine. I'm absolutely fine.
00:26:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Isn't it funny that we all learn in different ways? I know that some people are quite happy with a dry textbook and just working their way through it. Whereas people like you and me, I like stories. I like concepts that I can visualize. That's what draws me. And you're right.
00:26:54
Speaker
ADHD people are not stupid. That's what you find out later on in life. I wasn't particularly interested in physics or chemistry, but as an adult,
00:27:14
Speaker
I am fascinated by physics and chemistry and all the subjects that I hate, I didn't particularly like at school. I am happy to go down to the bookstore, buy a book about it, read it.
00:27:30
Speaker
Yeah, me too. What about, you probably know, oh God, I can't remember his name. Of course I don't. Dr. Brian Cox. There you go. Professor Brian Cox. He'd be a phenomenal guy. You know, if everyone had a teacher like Professor Brian Cox, I mean, it'd be like a nation of geniuses.
00:27:51
Speaker
I know, right? Oh my God. It's like off the scale, stimulating and enthusiasm is like, it draws you in and it's like, it's like, it's like storytelling for him. It's like, you know, talking to a storyteller at middle school, I had a teacher called Mr. Gill who introduced me to roll dial books. That was phenomenal. Mind blown, super stimulating, you know,
00:28:19
Speaker
He can't get more stimulating visually than, what's his name? Blake. Quentin Blake. Quite different from William Blake. Quentin Blake. I've got a tattoo of Quentin Blake.
00:28:34
Speaker
in one of his drawings anyway. So here's the thing, though, I, as you say, Marty, yeah, when I left school, I was just eating up books, because it's on my terms. I remember reading stuff like Blink, the book Blink by... Is that Malcolm Gladwell? Malcolm Gladwell, yeah. Mind blown, loved it. I mean, I eat that stuff up. I love it.
00:29:05
Speaker
I'm literally pulling names out of my ass right now. Unbelievable. I am giving myself a pat on the back for thinking of Quentin Blake and Malcolm Gladwell.
00:29:23
Speaker
Yeah. I am drinking a Duncan's coffee. Duncan's or Duncan? Duncan donuts. Duncan. Duncan. Duncan gonads. Right. I'm having a latte in the morning, which I don't normally do, but somehow I think it seems to have just
00:29:46
Speaker
helped that memory part of my brain that remembers people's names. Right, give you a little push. Yeah. All right. Shout out to Duncan's. So, yeah. And to kind of like a kind of... I don't know what I was going to say there. Anyway, just a little anecdote. I remember...
00:30:15
Speaker
about 30 years ago, I was walking through the streets of Oxford. Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of Oxford. And I was like, outside the gates, whatever, of a Magdalene college, it's like, it's like oozing tradition and, you know, scholarship and everything. I remember being, I remember being overwhelmed, no, not overwhelmed, intimidated by it.
00:30:42
Speaker
I thought now I wouldn't be intimidated. I'd walk in there, sign me up for, you know, um, you know, whatever. And I'll like, I would love to have that opportunity. We, and we, we talk cause you're doing right. You're doing, uh, you're studying in a moment, right?
Modern Education Flexibility
00:31:01
Speaker
Uh, not really. I am, uh, kind of on and on and off, um,
00:31:08
Speaker
I just I just like to do. A degree coursework, right? So just ahead of it. Kind of want to get a hat that you can throw in the air afterwards. So the thing about getting a degree in this country is that you can get a degree by amassing points or credits. You get you get credits for doing courses.
00:31:35
Speaker
And you can either go to a university and cram them all in over a couple of years, or you can actually just take them over. You can do the courses over 10 or 15, 20 years and get a degree. So I've just been doing some. Is it like open university kind of thing? Kind of, but you know, it's, yeah. Yes.
00:32:01
Speaker
Right. But well, no, because you still pay. It isn't it isn't like so open university was a was a British education thing that went that was on the TV for free. But this is more like a university that you sign up to do their courses.
00:32:23
Speaker
Yeah. No, it's the same as university. Open university do that. That's exactly what I do. You can study them online. Yeah, yeah. Expensive, but yeah. Oh, okay. Cool. But yeah, so I was doing English 101 and English 202. Okay. Wow.
00:32:42
Speaker
which I really enjoyed doing. So, I mean, for my little ADHD brain going back to education, even though it wasn't a huge amount of fun when I was a kid, but as an adult,
00:32:58
Speaker
it's a very different thing. I would basically encourage anyone who is thinking about doing further education as an adult to get stuck in. Yeah, that's something I want to do too. I want to, whether I do a degree, I don't know, but I want to study something.
Desire for Historical Knowledge
00:33:21
Speaker
Um, uh, probably, probably history of some description history of art could be, could be a history of anything. I think that's my thing. That's my go-to history. I love it. Just set it up. Love me some history. Yeah. Interesting. So have you got like an objective for what you want to do with your, you know, you'd like, you want to write, you know, your like three volume autobiography.
00:33:48
Speaker
with a, with a degree in your back pocket. Uh, like Stephen Fry did, you know, he had to like, not like Stephen Fry thinks he thinks I'm going to draw an autobiography. Oh no. I'm going to do it in three volumes. No.
00:34:12
Speaker
I'm just literally just trying to get my mouse to work again. Because at some point soon, we have to play the outro in music. Yeah, or not the outro, it's the trip back to town hall, I suppose. All right. All right.
00:34:37
Speaker
All right. Well, uh, have you got any thing else that you want to touch on? I don't think so, mate. I think that's, I think I've, um, I think, uh, I think that's my, that's my, that's my lot. All right. Well, let's, uh, let's jump into our mayor's car and head over to the post office.
00:35:09
Speaker
Isn't that finely tuned engine? That's beautiful. It's beautiful. It's probably a two-stroke engine. That sounds a bit loose at the seams. No, that was back push. Sorry. I think this is your bit, right? Oh, we need to do this bit, do we? I thought you had it. I thought you had the end bit. No, I just have a...
00:35:41
Speaker
Okay, so hang on, I bet you can feel free to chop this bit out, Marty. So yeah, so we're in the post office, aren't we? We are in the post office. We
Listener Interaction & Feedback
00:35:54
Speaker
are. At this point, we should say, your feedback is vital to us. That's what it says here.
00:36:01
Speaker
We'll be reading almost all of your comments and we'll include a regular featurette on our future podcasts with a picky mix of our faves. Our discretion, though, is almost as important as our office biscuit tin and we'll always be careful to ask you before sharing your comments.
00:36:19
Speaker
All right. Well, that just remains for us to say. Thanks for being here. Check out the show notes for any links. Visit us on our socials. I know that we've got stuff going up on TikTok. This entire podcast is also on the YouTubers. But in the meantime,
00:36:48
Speaker
Ciao for now. Peace and love. I said ciao. Ciao for now and a Twiglets family pack.