A photograph of Hester and Kelly Grainger smiling into the camera
Episode 291 – Practical strategies that help at home if you are autistic or have ADHD with Kelly and Hester Grainger

In episode 286 we were delighted to welcome the lovely Hester and Kelly Grainger to talk about their experience of having ADHD or autism. And they're back! This time we’re going to delve into the practical aspects of neurodiversity and Hester and Kelly are going to share some fantastic tips that will help you if you have or suspect you have ADHD or are autistic.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
00:00
In Episode 286, we were delighted to welcome the lovely Hester and Kelly Grainger to talk about their experience of having ADHD and autism. And they're back. This time we're going to delve into the practical aspects of neurodiversity, and Hester and Kelly are going to share some fantastic tips that will help you if you have or suspect you have ADHD or are autistic.

00:31
You're listening to the declutter hub podcast, bringing you tried and tested no nonsense tips and advice from the leading experts in decluttering and organizing your home. Now here's your host, Lesley Spellman.

00:53
Hello, and welcome, listeners. I'm Lesley, we're delighted you're here to join us as part of your decluttering journey. So whether you're brand new today or have been listening for ages, we want to say thank you so much for being here. It means so much to Ingrid and now that you turn up every week to listen to and support us. While we talk all things decluttering and organizing. We'd love to help more people with their quest for a clutter free home and our podcast is a fantastic way for people to be inspired to take action. We have a favor to ask. If you like what you hear, be sure to hit the follow subscribe or like button on your podcast player. share us with your friends or share your thoughts on the podcast by leaving a review. Okay, welcome back. Hester and Kelly and I'm actually laughing here because before we started recording, I was like, am I getting the language right? Language is so important in the decluttering world we have people with hoarding behaviors, hoarding disorders, living with ADHD have ADHD are autistic suspect they are going through. So what do we say? So we had a big discussion about the language because for me, it's very important to get that right. I never want the language that I use, or other people use to hit hard to somebody who doesn't want to be recognized or labeled in that way. So we did have a conversation. And I think it's useful spend just a couple of minutes talking about your understanding of the language that we should use around people that are autistic, or have ADHD. Yeah, and I think

02:24
the first thing I should say is that if you're talking to somebody that's new or divergent, no matter what the condition is, diagnosed or self diagnosed, the best thing to do is just ask them, How do you refer to yourself? What language do you use? What do you prefer, that's the best thing. But as a community, I'm talking kind of from an autistic person's point of view, from a community, we tend to prefer an autistic person than a person that has autism or with autism. And the reason being is that has autism, gives this connotation that all this narrative that autism in autism isn't a part of the person. And it's something maybe you could catch like a virus and then you can cure. It's not you're born autistic, it's the way your brains wired. So I am an autistic person, rather than I have autism, it's not something that I bring along to a party with me and say, Look, I brought autism with me today, I am autistic. And that's the kind of difference in the language and I think, for many years, language has been created by clinicians and by people speaking on behalf of those that are autistic, so maybe parents, and they try to use language that maybe softens the conversation that they're having with other people. Because sometimes, right, it can be a really awkward conversation. Because if you're saying to somebody, you know, my son is autistic, you can see their face, and I'm really sorry about that. And then almost to soften the blow, I think people maybe change language at all that they have autism. And they use other language that we don't use as well, like, um, yeah, oh, but he's high functioning. So that's a good thing, or, but he's got superpowers. Autism is a superpower. So we don't kind of use that language. Because, again, it gives us narrative that isn't correct isn't right. So I think, particularly in the autism community, language is really important because we've been talking about autism for many more years than we have, for instance, than ADHD.

04:18
And I think there's a big community of adults now that are autistic and saying, Well, hold on, let us tell you what the language should be, rather than people that aren't autistic.

04:29
Now, thank you for clarifying. And ADHD, then Hester, this is the confusing bit because people say I have ADHD like you're bringing it along to a party but I think I think it's because ADHD you can take medication for it. So your ADHD can be inverted commas managed, whereas you can't take medication being autistic. So I think that's where it comes from is this I have ADHD, but also, it's worth remembering that only in 2008

05:00
I recognize the adults who have ADHD before 2008. It was considered something that children had. So I think it's really interesting. The language is huge, as Kelly said, I think it's just about asking the person that you're talking to what they feel most comfortable with, because you may well get some adults, you had it a while ago. So no, no, I have autism. And Kenny was like, okay, there we go. So you can't argue with someone. And some people like to say they have superpowers. But there's a whole narrative behind that. Yeah. But I just think it's really important to get it right to let him in, because you don't. And everyone, as you say, everyone is entitled to call it what they like themselves to, not to me, but other people need to be respectful of how that lands and how that feels, to the person that you're talking to, or communicating with. So let's get practical now. So we talked a lot about, you know, your journeys, the ones of your children, you know, how it's sort of affected your household. But I want to start to get practical and talk about things that you've implemented in your household, specifically, organization, daily chores, decluttering, if that's if that's a thing, what sort of things have you implemented in your household? To help you that question, how can we take them to the charity shop? When you come in, and I'm like, I'm just having to clear out like, Oh, my God, bombs gone off, because I'm constantly like, I love to shop, I love, love clothes a lot. And you then end up with lots of clothes, and then you're like, it's always gonna be like a one in one out. Now, I had a huge clear I didn't, I'm selling loads of stuff at the moment, I'm Vinted getting rid of just so much stuff. Because you then open the cupboard, we've got like a shoe cupboard downstairs, like a coat cupboard, and you open it and you're just like, what, it's overwhelming otherwise, isn't it it's I think it's just trying to keep on top of it by having a clear out. But I think a tip is really important is to then not there need to drive around with all the clothes and the everything you're getting rid of in the back of the boot to go to the charity shop, because that always happens or sits in the garage or wherever for ages. It's like if you know, you're going to have a clear out and I don't always do this, do it. If you know you're gonna have a clear out, try and take it to the charity shop at the same day. So that is then kind of just gone. Because otherwise you'd end up with a garage full of stuff. Just it's all out the cupboards it's just in a different place. But yeah, I think we're constantly trying to like edit our home, aren't we and just neat things that we really love that are great, but we do love things. And we love stuff. And the kids are the same. And some friends have sort of quite minimalist housing and I go around are so beautiful. It's just not asked, and I just think it's not realistic. And whiteboards, love a whiteboard. We don't date them. We have lots, right, okay, three on the fridge. We've got one in here that you can't see office. And it's just where we write our notes and things to do, what we've done what we haven't done and assess it. Some of them could go on updated for weeks, and we go oh, we really must update that board. Notes, we both write lots of notes, we use our phone a lot in the notes function, every time we think we need to do something, we'll go into the notes and write it down. So it's there, it's in our phone, it's on us all the time. And it's kind of we need to try and kind of be organized, don't we that's what we do. We know also, we kind of fully aware that any jobs that we start in the House have to be completed in one day. Right? If we do something to select, say it's a bit of decorating on a painter wall, the painter room has to be done today. Otherwise, you won't get finished. Because almost that kind of dopamine hit has gone. We've done it, it's done paint brush down the next days on four can't start that, again. It's done that's in the past. And we kind of move on. So we were fully aware of that now. And it's fine. Because we know how to manage that be it every kind of big project we have to do, it must be done in a 24 hour period. Otherwise, he won't get done for a number of weeks. I mean, you know, the example we did on on the previous podcast with you around the go kart?

08:47
You know, that's a really good example. We didn't get it fixed that day. It went on for years, six years, and then finally got it done. Yeah, so I think he's understanding the things, you know, triggers, understanding kind of your traits and characteristics, you know how to manage certain things. And also, you can then be a bit kinder to yourself. And you say, you know, that's okay, we didn't do that, or that's not perfect, or, you know, that room doesn't look how we wanted to, but that's fine. Don't worry about that. There's small things in kind of the grand scheme of things on that. Yeah. And I think object permanence has a huge part to play. And I didn't know this was a thing a couple of years ago, and I remember being little and my mom had like, bought me some new school shoes. And I remember like having them out on the shoebox like at the end of my bed. So when I woke up, I was like, Oh my God, they're my shoes. Because if they were in the box, or if they were in the cupboard, I just wouldn't remember that they were there. And now I know with ADHD, object permanence is where if something is not in front of you, you just forget it exists. And so that's why whiteboards are so impactful, because I literally have only notepads we've got here got 1234 but seven notepads genuinely sitting next to me here, but they're all closed.

10:00
So you don't then actually remember with your ADHD brain to open it and look at what's in it. So that's why you can end up with deep situations that need to be decluttered. Because you end up with lots of things out, and staff. Because if it's put away in a drawer, if I bought a new bag, or a dress, or whatever it is, if it's a way, I genuinely forget, it exists, which is like, sounds silly when you say it. But it's so true. And I think it also, it's the same with people. So we have that same situation, people, the two of us, if we don't see somebody here some long time, we almost forget about them that they exist. They're not there until they pop up again, oh, God, I didn't Yeah, I haven't spoken to you for months. Because there's been no connection, no contact, and so out of sight out of mind. They're kind of they're not around, and you've completely forget that they exist. And so the next time that you interact, which is often and if you speak to other ADHD, if they're like, Oh my God, every now and again, I'll go through my whatsapp, it's terrible. If my friends want to go through, I was asked Do we like Oh, my God really must connect with this person. So you find these strategies and tools to do these things. But yeah, object permanence will go hand in hand, together with the clutter, because you have things out like vitamins, we've got all our vitamins out on the side in the kitchen, because they're in a cupboard, no one's gonna be taking them at all.

11:15
There's a few things that I want to return to from, from a sort of decluttering perspective on those and they're all get everything that you're talking about. So one of the things that we we have something called a cycle of success, right. And so basically, if you, you're talking about a couple of things, you were talking about the charity shop runs and get into the endpoint. And we're also talking about finishing things within 24 hours. So what we're big advocates of is that you need to know what you're heading into. So then we have a cycle that you go around, you do what's step by step. And that can be we don't necessarily go all out and do a kitchen in one day, we need to break it down into something that we know we can achieve within that timescale, right. And so it's really important to plan and go what's realistic, rather than just, you know, going in, and you know, the impulsivity perhaps, of ADHD will go, let's just get it all done, let's just, I just want to want to do that. That's what I'm going to do today, rather than really going, you know what I've done that many times fails, and it still sits there. And it's something. And so it's really important to plan and to take things one step at a time. But also to have a real feel for getting to that end point, which is our exit plan, which is where we take it to the charity shop round, absolutely. Like you were like, if you can get there to the charity shop on the day, then that's a job complete, and then it gives you that, you know, it gives you that adrenaline rush of having completed that which is going to motivate you want to do another little mini test tomorrow or whatever.

12:33
And the other thing that you talked about, which is quite useful is about or you're talking about object permanence, right? Which is kind of almost we call it the value of visibility. And so it's an it's finding that balance, right? Because when people have got cluttered homes, it's like, is it really useful for something to be out on display if you have 100 things the same. And so that works really well in a house that's not that cluttered, if that makes sense. It's those things come to the fore and pop up and you see them when your eyes open that morning when you sort your shoes or whatever. But it's finding that balance, because you can't leave everything out to remind you that you need to do things because then by its virtue, it's just going to disappear into the ether with everything else and you're not going to see it.

13:17
So I think it's important to less is more when it comes to those kinds of strategies, and recognizing where those kinds of strategies are not working. So sometimes they won't work because there's too many of those visual reminders hanging around. And the other thing that I want to talk about is just so many, so many interesting six, we're just going to add my little bit in here. And I also wanted to talk to you about the notebook whiteboard, visual kind of reminder scenario, it's something I know, my son really struggles. Can the Kanban method, right, which is a kind of moving along. Are you familiar with the Kanban method of it's kind of pending? And I thought this will go wrong?

13:57
Oh, yeah, we know, it worked. Now, there's a kind of way and it's out there quite a bit in the ADHD community, which is kind of process of moving, you'd be familiar with it right? Moving, because it's different versions of it. Having a lot of post it notes with three things that you want to do priority, urgent, whatever, and you can move them around and you can move them forward. But because they're all on, kind of post it notes, call it post it notes, it's really visible and obvious. And you would have like one whiteboard and sort of come band situation on that. But suddenly, even though my son understands the principles that would really work, he operates in a digital world, right? And there are digital Kanban boards. And so, yes, it is better to have the kind of visibility on these things if you have ADHD. And so but is it going to work if you operate in the digital world because you're never going to black or white boards here. And I've never looked at it since the day I put it Oh, that'd be amazing to have a whiteboard and it's literally got my son's scribblings on it and that had been there for two years never used it because I just operate in my in my digital world. Well, I mean Trello boards are made

15:00
input that that would that absolutely love is almost like the visual posting, click and drag them along and have to do less. But I think sometimes having ADHD, you don't know where to start with it. And remember when I first discovered Trello, quite a few years ago working for a PR agency, I was like, but I don't have set it up because you have this blank template. And it's just like this whole. So I think having ADHD sometimes, that seems a great idea, the Trello board, what did it look like? What should it be? So then if someone else says, Oh, here's a really great template, you can copy? You're like, Okay, that's great, because I remember I was doing one and we tried it, didn't we together as perpetually autistic for our business. And we were like, right, let's see how it works. And it just didn't really work. Because it was like something else. Remember to look at. If you're digital, and you love that. I think Trello is amazing result. I'm the opposite. I like something tactile tangible that I can see. Rather than have to open

15:50
up and go into it. If I can move stuff around or seeds there. But then you've got different generations now you know, you've got younger generations that all they do is digital, and then we'll think about having something on the wall. Why would you do that? That's ridiculous, there's a system for that you can do that. So it really does depend on on the individual. And a system is only ever as good as the information that you put into it, which is why a lot of people will fall at the first hurdle because it's too complicated to set up in the first place. And so it's like, oh, that doesn't work that's gone. Do not I mean, but give it time, if you can, you know, commit to that project, try and make it work. And then it may it may be revolutionary to you. And so I think that's it. So it's a tricky one. But ya know, really interesting points. I wanted to talk, Kelly, about your the employment situation. So you've worked for big corporate, and you got diagnosed with autism at 43 to December?

16:48
And so how did did you share that with your employers? Employers? Did that make a difference? I know you now go out and talk to other corporates about how to deal with neuro diverse diversity in the workplace. So how, what was your experience of that if you don't mind sharing? Yeah, of course. And I think you know, what we do today is kind of born out of the reaction I got from my company at the time, right?

17:12
You know, I was diagnosed at the back end of 2019, as autistic and I, you know, we went through kind of the process, and then I thought, Well, should I? Who do I tell? And should I tell anybody? Because I think the problem is anything to do with any kind of mental health or hidden disability, particularly with men and kind of my experience in business anyway, if it's particularly men, it's seen as a real weakness. You know, it's not physical. So it's not taking seriously people say, Oh, don't be ridiculous, take the day off, and you'll be fine tomorrow, you just need a rest. So I was a bit worried, is that going to be the same with autism? So I thought, well, actually, I will tell my work for me, because I almost wanted to let them know that some of the things maybe the challenges I had, or maybe they've made comments in the past that you're a bit blunt, or you're a bit too honest, or, you know, you didn't react in social situations, the way that I expected you to, I almost wanted to know that there was a reason for that. And also, I wanted to show to Hudson India didn't, you know, want you to okay to be autistic, we shouldn't be hiding it. And if I hadn't disclosed it to my work, what message would I be sending to them? So I kind of I thought it through. And we talked on the previous podcasts we did with you that I think through numbers of different scenarios. So I'd come up with scenarios about what my boss would say how he would say it, what my answer would be all these concerns about five different scenarios of how this conversation would go. And at the time, I was the Sales Director for the London business in a big global company I worked for, he was a sales director for the UK and Ireland and I picked up the phone, I said to him, Look, this is the process we've been through with our children. It's resonated with me a lot. And I've gone through a similar process, and I've actually received a formal diagnosis, and I am autistic.

18:57
And the first thing he did was he laughed out loud at me. And he said, Well, you don't look autistic. And that was kind of his reaction.

19:05
And it wasn't one of the reactions I've prepared in my head.

19:09
And he kind of went, I thought, Okay, that wasn't what I was expecting. That was a bit, you know, a bit of a negative reaction. So I thought, well, if I explained to him a bit more about what I'd already learned about myself in terms of, you know, maybe being blunt, or social situations, he might understand. And he just turned around and said, I just thought you had to stick up your ass. And that's almost kind of where the conversation went. And then, you know, he spoke to kind of HR that day, and they said, What did you say? And, you know, he kind of went from there. And that's where I decided that, you know, this company isn't right for me. Now that I know what I know. And maybe this career isn't right for me because I've been in sales right for 23 years in different guises through different companies. And that's where I kind of looked and I kind of reached out to lots of other new divergent people main kind of autistic to find out what their experience of disclosing to

20:00
At workplace has been. And you know, unfortunately, it was quite a common reaction. And I think it's because workplaces have no awareness or no understanding at all about what autism is or what your diversity is. So they either say the wrong thing, or they don't say anything at all, because they're scared of saying the wrong thing. And that's kind of when we make a decision. Look, this isn't right, this happening to me and all these other people I spoke to, with our background in the corporate world, where they're understanding now of kind of autism and ADHD, maybe we can do some good, maybe we can kind of,

20:35
I don't know, raise that awareness within companies.

20:39
But also, more importantly, is acceptance, that actually, neurodiversity is a thing. Because I think if you tell some people, they're still looking and go really, really thin, you know, I can't see any issues, what's the problem.

20:52
And so I think that's where we started didn't wait, we started to talk to companies about it. And from a selfish point of view, we, you know, India, and Hudson at 12 and 14 now. And so in the next kind of five to 10 years, they're going to make that transition from education into the workplace. So our thinking is, if we can talk to as many companies and people as possible, that maybe when they go through that transition, it's going to be a much more positive environment for them, when they go into that kind of workplace. I think it's definitely a more understanding world now than it was several years ago. And it seems to be going very quickly, in my opinion, in terms of people are having the right departments having people that will look at that kind of thing, in their HR departments and stuff like that. Am I Am I right? I mean, you're, you're at the cutting edge of it. Kelly, is that right? Or do you think it's still slow? I'm sure it's slower than you would like it to be. But is it better than it was and improving? Yeah, I mean, it's always gonna be better than it was because I say awareness has increased understanding. I think it's though finding companies that want to do it for the right reasons. Yeah, yeah, most organizations are still at the very beginning of their journey. You know, some of them still don't even know what neurodiversity is, when I speak to them. And you have to kind of go through the process of understanding the different kinds of conditions. So I think lots of companies are getting on board. Now. I think what I want to do is get to a point where companies are getting on board with it, and want to understand because they, they want to make it a better environment for their people. They want to support all of that people, no matter what their way of thinking or working is, but also because they genuinely see the benefit of, well, if we make this a more neurodivergent friendly place. It's not just going to benefit the people that neurodivergent it's actually gonna help everybody because it's around communication. It's around process. It's about how do you recruit people into your company, it's about the environment, you know, the sensitivities, we talked about previously, light, noise, sound and smell. And so I'd love us to get to that point where companies generally on board and go, this is a benefit for us. I think where we are at the moment, companies are starting to talk about it, which is fantastic. But I think we've still got a lot of companies that are doing it because they they need to be seem to be doing it. So they'll do it for one day, a year, or one week, a year when it's you know, neurodiversity celebration week or autism acceptance day, and they'll have a big oh, we're doing a speaker on that day, and then they don't do anything else. So what I'd like them to do is go actually, it's a long term thing. We're not going to fix it overnight. But let's start talking about it. So are people feel a bit more comfortable? I think that's happening, though, isn't it now a little bit more like we've been going perfect, which is we've got about three and a half years now, haven't we? And we've really seen that originally it was can you come and talk to us about diversity? One off talk this and now it's projects? Now it's, I manage the training as workshops. It's so I think, yeah, you're right, people are starting to understand the value and why they should be doing it. And we just need that to, you know, it's never going to be fast enough for us. If that's just the way it is. But yeah, it is it is starting to pick up pace. And I think also the younger generation

23:59
are a lot better at discussing these sorts of things. Oh, yeah, absolutely. We're coming into these managerial roles before, where and then it will be a completely different place. Absolutely. No, it's important. So thank you for for explaining that a little bit more how it is from your perspective. So no pop to a break again. And then we're going to come back and as a couple of things that I want to talk about, one of which is body doubling, and then I want to talk about alcohol freedom. So see you in a moment. Welcome back. Now, there's a couple of things that you do that you offer, then as your cause have an ADHD coach then Hester, yes, yes. Okay. And so as part of your ADHD coaching work, you do something called body doubling, which is something that gets thrown around in the declutter community, and people are probably a little bit like, why even is that? And is that going to be useful? Can you explain the principle of body doubling because it's something that a lot of people do in the decluttering world as well. So what is body doubling and do people need it in their lives? So yes, they do. 100% and they'll probably be doing it without realized

25:00
Isn't it we've been body doubling for years and having no idea what it is. All it is, is having someone with you. So if we take the scenario of decluttering by someone is with you, whether it's a friend or family member or decluttering expert like yourself, having that person with you whilst you are decluttering. So they're not necessarily doing it, they're not helping, they are just either in the room, they're either helping keep you on task. We do it quite a lot when we're doing emails together. And I don't need Kenny to help me with my emails, I just need him to be there and be present. And then maybe just go, do you want to get on with those emails, because there's like a check in. So body doubling is something that's hugely impactful, especially when it comes to ADHD, because it almost is like just that bit of a support network. And quite often, with my ADHD coaching clients, I suggest that they have someone else that they could do. And obviously, it's so many people work from home now. But I know some of my clients just have someone else that they're on zoom with the whole day, they might not even be a colleague in their company. And it's just someone to go hey, get on with that just a quick check in and it just keeps you more accountable than otherwise, if you're meant to be sorting out your kitchen and decluttering the worktop, it's very easy to go down that rabbit hole of getting everything out the drawers and not actually keeping on track with it. So that body doubling just enables someone it's literally having a body double have you there, just to sort of keep you on track. Yeah, we have. In our membership, we do something called Success sessions. And so twice a week, our members come in, we put a timer on we introduce things people say this is what I'm gonna do. timer goes on for 15 minutes, every works together, but separately on zoom a bit you can see and then we come back for the last five minutes and say, did we achieve it? Did we not it might be just doing the washing up for that day or doing some chores, it might be doing a decluttering project, it might be answering an email, it might could be anything. So there's no you don't have to do decluttering per se, you just have to do something that's going to move your life on and it works an absolute treat. And people who need that level of accountability find it fantastic. So body double, and it's fantastic. If you've if you feel that you are in attentive if you struggle to retain focus, if you find yourself you know, looking at photographs, when you're supposed to be decluttering, your knicker drawer, all of those kinds of things are fantastic for body doubling. And it's a massive, massive, massively impactful thing. And it's obviously working with your clients as well.

27:19
Now, one of the things that you've spoken about that I've picked up is that you as it both of you, but are you both alcohol free? We are absolutely a little bit about the acne typhi Yeah, we are we we did it a few years ago, didn't we? And it was only nine months and I wasn't pregnant, but it would just happen to be nine months. And then I just think we didn't really have realized the impact it was having did we I think we've been alcohol free now since makes it sound like an alcoholic who weren't alcoholic, but since 24th of December, not just gone the year before. So it's going to

27:54
Yeah, I'm really bad the date,

27:57
though, a little bit over a year. Yeah. And it's just been hugely impactful, isn't it, we both just we'd had a big Christmas Eve party. And we woke up the next day and both went, and we're done. And it was just one of those where I said to you quite often like our son's autistic, he still wakes up in the night. And I said that is almost the time and I appreciate being alcohol free the most because we would drink a cup, a normal amount, whatever normal is, you know, we would have a glass of wine to celebrate something doing you know, something greater, perfect artistic, or would have a glass of wine if we'd had a bit of a rubbish day. Or we'd have a glass of wine to watch a film with you just make excuses, don't you really, for having a glass of wine or having a

28:38
bad day and a glass of wine? It's kind of it's almost the the thing that fixes everything. Yeah. So I think we just decided after his very big Christmas eve party that actually we were just done. And it's been over a year. So we've now obviously done all the birthdays or holidays, everything. And actually it's amazing, we sleep better you get on it morning, you're not kind of a bit hazy from the night before or even even a glass or two. And and it's interesting because it doesn't matter how much you drink, it might not be a lot. But it still affects even if just one glass or two glasses, you can feel it through the night or you're thirsty or you wake up or you know, the next morning. So I think it's been a real game changer for us. I mean, I think on the flip side, I think I'd probably use to use alcohol and not not a huge amount I wasn't an alcoholic growth, but I probably used to use alcohol to make social situations that much easier.

29:29
You know, to kind of get me through that kind of socially interaction whether it's a party or seeing friends or a work event, having a drink there was quite handy, you know, and kind of the alcohol kind of relaxed a bit inhibitions and allow me to kind of have more conversations. But I don't I don't miss it at all do when we thought we might, but not so in the context of autism and ADHD. Do you think it has an impact specifically on some of their we want to call them symptoms of that you

30:00
Yeah.

30:01
So obviously the autism did it let you drop your guard a little bit on the perfectionism is that what you're sort of saying if you, you know, it alleviated some of that anxiety associated with trying to xiety, there were a couple of things anxiety kind of went away a bit and helped me relax a little bit more without trying to be perfect, but also enabled me to kind of use that kind of have a drink in between the conversations or the questioning, where, you know, I wasn't sure what to say, next, I can have a drink. And that was a good break in a conversation. So a number of different things. But you know, I think for me having ADHD, and having a drink. I mean, I can't steal, I love alcohol free. And I would go and I would always like, I would have what and then it's like, if you've seen the Mickey Flanagan stand up routine, where he's like, I've got the flavor. And I'd always be like, then two, and then two might not be enough. And then you'd have three glasses. And then it's like, what point does it stop? And it's a quiet Friday night in you know, we don't go out massively now, do we? But even when we go out, or if I was going out with friends, or whatever, I think, Oh, I won't drink too much. And they're always the nights that you end up on some, you know, out to whatever silly hour and stuff. And you just sort of think there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, by the way, if anyone's doing it. And she lived like 45 years. Did it for a long time. But I just think for us, it has been really interesting that change other than it. And I think it's really interesting to people go oh my god, you lose loads of weight and your skin. That's great. And all this. I have to say, I don't think I had that. I craved sugar for like two months. And I just broke out in two spots. And I thought, Oh, no one, no one talks about this for dry January do their you know, it was really quite impactful.

31:38
But obviously all that's calmed down and things but yeah, I mean, it's been life changing. And the more people you speak to you the more people like yeah, no, I've been doing this for a while now or? Yeah, so be curious. I think they call it don't they? Yeah, I think it's well, well, we're trying to find strategies, you know, and when we recognize that we've got that we're not neurotypical then. And we're trying to find strategies to make our lives better, easier, more organized, whatever that looks like. That's just another thing that we've got that we can call upon and something that is it simple. I don't know. It's whether it's simple or not. But yeah, down the line, you found it. Okay. I'm sure it's been, you know, difficult at times. And you think, Oh, that would be nice as it No, no, not in a smart way. Even when we were in holiday. We there's so many alcohol free options now. Yeah. Loving alcohol free beer loving alcohol free Chandi, great. Alcohol, you know, so it some people who are alcohol free, don't then want anything that almost reminded them of alcohol. And whereas I like a really nice drink, and I'll have it in a wine glass. But do you think it tastes nicer? And so actually, I genuinely think there's what we're saying is we thought it'd be really difficult. And even on nights out and things with friends, I don't need it as a crutch to like, be able to chat to people. Surprise, surprise. So for me, it's not hugely impacted me that way. But also you save so much money, you don't have to get taxis and so yeah, to be honest, it we thought it'd be challenging and it hasn't been, which is quite nice. Fantastic. And that'd be a job for 2024 for me.

33:06
Another note, self. And thank you so much for sharing everything today. It's been absolutely incredible to get insight from people who really know what this is about, and going out there and spreading awareness in the wider world. I love that. Tell us a little bit more about perfectly autistic and what you do where people can find you if they want to know more and things like that. Yeah. Yeah, cool. So firstly, autistic, we are a neurodiversity consultancy, working with workplaces, organizations, etc. To help them understand the benefits of having a neurodivergent workforce. We offer like we said sort of workshops, training, webinars, talks, etc. I'm also a certified ADHD coach. So I do a lot of coaching. We do have to be diagnosed with ADHD. A lot of access to work, which is something worth looking into. You can get free coaching and support through that. We're on Instagram perfectly dot autistic, I'm on Instagram as HESTA ADHD. We've got two Facebook communities which are really important and got perfectly autistic and perfectly ADHD and they are for people, partners and parents who are autistic or have ADHD and they're free communities. Amazing, really kind collaborative places, and also got a website, firstly, autistic.co.uk. And of course, we'll put everything in the show notes so that you can find historically. So how of the things that we've talked about in today's episode resonated with you. Tell us your story. You can find us in our Facebook group, pop the comments on there, on our website, and of course, carry on listening to the declutter hook podcast. Thank you so much, Hester and Kelly. It's been an absolute honor to have you on both podcasts. Obviously, if you've not listened to the first one, do go back and listen. And we'll see you all next week. Thank you. Thank you for having us.

34:56
Thanks so much for listening to the declutter hop podcast.

35:00
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Episode 291 – Practical strategies that help at home if you are autistic or have ADHD with Kelly and Hester Grainger

Episode 342 – Lesley takes her wardrobe to the next level with Luisa Giannini

Episode 341 – 10 things to consider when selling your house

Episode 340 – Tackling cardboard boxes – both empty and full

Episode 339 – A developing ADHD Journey with Lesley’s son, Luke

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