ADHD and Bipolar

0:00Evening, buyers remorse. Buy a new car? I'll be moving in. Let's get started. Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana. You what? Yeah, great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it. So there's no... No, no buyers remorse. More like buyers rejoice. Ugh, I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it. Buyers rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply. See you at 7-day return policy at Carvana.com. During manic episodes, I've started whole businesses. I've committed loads of money to buying lots of things for projects. I'm going to do things. That is almost definitely a bipolar thing. The ADHD side of me, in many ways, this has been as much a difficult thing in my life as the bipolar. Hello, Katie. How are you? I'm really well, Sam. How are you? Yeah, I'm good. I've had one of those. I've had an ADHD breakfast. I think it's fair to say. I've had quite a long time to get myself sorted before we were starting to record today.

1:02But about three minutes before I was due to speak to you, I thought, oh, I'm going to put my breakfast on now. I was going to put some toast in. But then, of course, I didn't have time to wait for the toaster because I need to get this done quickly. So I stopped the toaster halfway. So now I've basically got warm bread instead of toast because I left my breakfast on the last minute. The limp toast. It's basically a bit damp from the heat. It's like someone's left the bread out in the garden and it's warm room. That's what it's like. That was my breakfast. Yum. Sounds delicious. Are we going to talk about trying more important things today? Well, I don't know. No. There's nothing more important than breakfast as we keep being told. True. And yet, we still keep skipping. Anyway, yeah, we are. We're talking about something really important today, aren't we? Yeah, it's a topic that has come up, I think, for both of us in exploring ADHD and exploring what that means and what it means for us. How many times do people sort of use the phrase, oh, I'm a bit ADHD or I think I'm a bit autistic or I'm really OCD today or I think I'm bipolar?

2:07Now, it's one of those things that people use. They throw away. People talk about it. But actually, I don't think we necessarily, I certainly don't understand too much about it. I looked into it a bit when I was diagnosed because a lot of my ADHD diagnosis was about living in extremes of emotion. And I understand that that is part of what happens for bipolar, but they are very different conditions. And so it's something I want to explore more, I think. Yeah, when you say that people just kind of use it as a throw away word, it is so similar to ADHD, or at least that's how I see it. With very little knowledge. And those two phrases by polar and ADHD, when they use characters like that, feel really interchangeable, don't they? Because the sort of general assumption is that they're really, really similar conditions. Yeah, and yeah, I think we know that they're not, that there are some sort of key differences. And that people experience very different things. I think for me, one of the big things is how, you know,

3:08if you're someone who is trying to get diagnosed like we were, or perhaps someone who has both bipolar and ADHD, how to tell the difference, how to pull them apart. And I think, you know, we can be honest about this. I think you can probably tell from the conversation we're having. We don't know very much about bipolar. We're not experts. We've got two episodes this week, a special week looking into bipolar and understanding more about it. And we're going to start today by talking to the journalist David Harper, who works for LBC. You may see in here him on the BBC and ITV2. He has bipolar and ADHD. And he's going to tell us a bit about what that's like and how you tell the difference. Hey, man, you hungry? Let's order delivery. Yeah, I was thinking Italian burgers. Why can't we have food without the power with wonder?

4:10You can combine 20 restaurants in one delivery. So no one has to settle. Use code MealTime for 50% off your first wonder order. Terms apply CWunder.com slash new customer. Hello, David. Thanks for joining us. Hello, great to be here. Now, you very kindly have come to talk to us about your own personal story with bipolar and ADHD. Could we start by getting you to explain what you would say bipolar is and how it affects your life? Well, bipolar is what people used to many years ago refer to as manic depression. And that's not really a term we use anymore, but it is quite descriptive because it revolves around that that change of mood. You have periods of mania, you have periods of depression, of really low mood, and your life sort of revolves around those two extremes. And this manifests itself in different ways with different people. It's for some people, it's a very extreme thing that has a really restrictive effect on their lives.

5:14I'm fortunate in some ways. I'm not quite to that level of it, but it has been something that I've had. If I'm being honest, certainly I was aware of it in back when I was in school. And there was always an idea that there was something not quite right that I, you know, went through periods where I was I was thinking a little bit differently and the world around me didn't seem right. And also, you know, if you speak to anyone who's known me for any length of time, they'll know that there were periods of time where I was, you know, my behavior seemed a little bit different. And I would do silly things. And there are all manner of stories connected with that, that some of which people like to hear, some of which people should absolutely never hear at all. But that's the condition. Yeah, without, without digging too deep, obviously. I mean, we, Sam and I have talked about some of the crisis points that led to us pursuing a diagnosis for ADHD. Did you, did you reach the point where it was important to identify what was going on? I mean, it was something that was affecting your life very badly.

6:16In reference to bipolar disorder, I mean, yes, it has on many occasions and under been numerous periods where I'd really struggled with life. I mean, you can, in the, the throws of depression, you can struggle with the most simple of things around you, you know, literally getting out of bed, keeping your, you know, your house a nice place to be holding down a job. And I'd struggled with it for a long, long time, but I'm the sort of person who doesn't, doesn't really want to go and seek help. I have to be kind of coaxed into it quite a lot at the time. And it came about because a person I was living with at the time, basically pretty much marched me to the doctors. And I'm still tremendously grateful for that. I, I become aware and I'd, and I'd had suspicions about bipolar for some time. There was a landmark documentary by Stephen Frye who is a famous person with bipolar, who's talked about it at length. And there was a, I think it was called the Secret Life of the Manic Depressive that was, that was on, on the BBC some years ago. I remember watching it thinking, oh, crumbs, that sounds awfully familiar.

7:18So the seeds have been sewn, but I hadn't quite got to the stage where I wanted to go and speak to somebody about it because same with ADHD and lots of mental health conditions or neurodiversities. People have a lot of apprehension, you know, you can go and see somebody and look to getting a diagnosis. But then you think, what, what comes after that? What will they do? Is this, is this going to, are people going to judge me differently? And this story about me being public with it, and he really came out a couple of years ago when I decided that I was going to suddenly open up about it. And that was heavily connected with my work because I'd been in various production meetings for programs where we'd covered mental health topics. And, you know, as you will know, you all sort of sit around discussing what you're going to do on a program and somebody in the team will say, oh, it's really important to talk about these mental health conditions. We should be open about it. And I was sitting there and they're going, oh, yeah, that's really important. And then eventually I was starting to think, I really, you know, it's not that I feel anybody should be obliged to be open about it if they don't want to be.

8:19But I started to feel a bit hypocritical thinking, here I am smiling and nodding saying, yes, this is very important. But all the time I'm hiding this from my colleagues and everybody else. So on a bit of a win late one night, I went into a studio and just took my phone out and recorded a little video and stuck it on social media, confessing almost that I had this and have been hiding it for so long. And almost as soon as I hit send on the thing, I immediately regretted it and thought, oh, crums, this is because it's like any one of these things. It's something you can't put back in the box again. Once people know about it, you can't undo that. And you sort of think, well, are people going to speak to me a bit differently now is life going to be slightly different. But, you know, broadly, it's been quite positive. So how did, how did where you were and perhaps coming to terms with getting some answers for things that have happened in your life with a bipolar diagnosis? How did that then lead to you finding out you had ADHD? It was a kind of series of events. And I started doing more and more stuff with bipolar UK. And they must have been a year or two ago, published an article on their website as they do every now and again to get the messages out there. And it was about the links between bipolar and ADHD and the percentage of people with bipolar disorder that also have ADHD. And this sort of happened at a time when ADHD was becoming a lot more talked about.

9:43And I was starting to see more and more content online. So there were all manner of videos of people saying, oh, crumbs, this is what I'm like, you know, because of ADHD, I do this, I do that. And the more and more I saw, I thought, oh, crumbs, here we go again. It was like watching that documentary for bipolar disorder. And I realized actually that an awful lot of the problems that I had in my life were probably related to ADHD. That's really interesting, David, if you're sort of you will look it because when we spoke to somebody from bipolar association the other day and they were telling us talking to us about the differences between bipolar and ADHD. And when he described bipolar to me, you do sit there going, I mean, that's ADHD, isn't it? What, because there are so many similarities, there's so much overlap, it's like a massive, it's like it's a then diagram that sits on itself, isn't it? How do you know what the difference is between the two? You've been diagnosed with both. So how do you know when one is your ADHD, when one is your bipolar?

10:50What are the specific differences between the two things? I suppose in some way, I mean, I don't always, you know, I just, the way I am, I behave the way I do. And some of that can be attributed to certain things. I know that bipolar stuff is very much cyclical, that you'll, you know, you'll be through a period where things are very difficult. And then you'll be through a period where things are difficult for a completely different reason. And I've done really mad things in the past, I use the word mad very carefully, but, you know, during manic episodes, I've, you know, started hold businesses, I've committed loads of money to buying lots of things for projects I'm going to do and things. And that is almost definitely a bipolar thing. The ADHD side of me, which is, which is fairly constant is, is when I have difficulty with deadlines, I have difficulty getting things done. And, and actually this, in, in many ways, this has been as much a difficult thing in my life as the bipolar has. I look back and, and I think even back in childhood, I think people thought I was a little bit lazy, that there were all these things I had to do.

11:58And I would just sit around doing something completely irrelevant to them that, that didn't need doing. And again, once, and I suddenly thought, oh, I'm not the only person who does this. And it, and it was really, I've spoken before about how the bipolar diagnosis whilst for a lot of people, it's a really, a really worrying thing to be told. I thought it was a relief because my, my biggest fear going in to see that psychiatrist would be that I'd go in and they say, no, you're completely normal, there's nothing wrong with you, no medical problem. And then I'd have to come to terms with the fact that anything that I'd done that had been a little bit of rye in my life was just my own fault. I was just a bad person. So I was kind of relieved that there was an explanation for it. And, and the ADHD thing was, was very similar. And the number of people I've spoken to in the same industry as me, who have either been diagnosed or have strong suspicions. And I think there's something about the broadcast industry that, that, that brings in people from these kind of ideas. I know, I'm speaking, I'm preaching to the converted here, but, um,

12:58particularly in terms of live news, you turn up, you do it, you don't have enough time to kind of ponder as to whether you do it or not, because pretty much as soon as you're into it, it's happening. And then you finish what you're doing and you go home and you forget about it. And now I look back, you know, the things that I struggled with was when somebody said, oh, can you make this report or make this film or do this and, and edit it carefully and bring it to me in two weeks time, because my head just goes, well, I can do that in a week and half. And, yeah, I'll leave that till the night before then, in that case. I do wonder what I'd be doing if it hadn't been for this. I mean, I could have been, I don't know, earning a fortune as the boss of some company, but that was never going to happen. So many of the things that you said, David, resonated with me, not least that going in for a diagnosis and thinking, if this is a no, then what on earth is going on for me? What is the reason that I am so extreme and I'm having these depressive episodes and I'm up and down all over the place? Now, one of the things for me that I really struggled with that led me to get diagnosed with ADHD was that I was living in these extremes.

14:08I had these extreme sort of emotional outbursts. And I've, I've learnt through therapy just to kind of be able to be a bit more present and to try and check the facts of actually what's going on. And I've learnt to regulate myself, not all the time, but I'm certainly much better than I was. It strikes me that that is something very similar to what you've described with bipolar, but I wonder the extent to which when you are in manic phases or you've got severe depression, how much are you aware of what's happening to you? How much are you aware that this is perhaps your irrational or that perhaps your depression is taking over your mood? And how much are you then able to do anything about it? It is strange and it is actually really difficult and awareness of the condition has been a really big part of the way I manage it and knowing what's going on. And also having people around who are a bit impartial, I think the main reason it became apparent when I was living with someone some years ago who pushed me in the direction of the doctor.

15:14The best analogy I've been able to come up with it like this is it's like being on a train and you see another train going past the other way. And you've got no way really of knowing how fast that train is going. You can't judge that because you're on a moving train yourself so your perspective is skewed a bit. You need somebody who's standing still at the edge of the track to work this out. It's not the best analogy in the world but it's the best way I've talked to explain it. And that's it really and I think whilst I was in the periods where I was living on my own and dashing around the country doing all sorts of things, I think there was no constant person who would sit and go hang on a minute. You weren't like this two days ago or a week ago what's going on here. And that was a really big part in working it out. And now I'm more aware of it. It's not always because, I mean, and again this is the problem because it's that moving train thing because it changes your whole perspective on things and it changes the way you view everything. In the middle of a depressive period, you're absolutely utterly convinced that the reason something isn't work is because you've made an absolute mess of it in your horrible person and that it's all your fault.

16:25And so it's really, really difficult. It's the one thing that I think if you had bipolar and you're able to be objective and just go come on this is just a depressive episode and a few weeks time you'll be fine. Don't worry. But you can't see out of the hole always in that way. You just think this is going to last like this forever. I'm getting better at dealing with that and I'm getting better at trying to manage it through various different means. But yeah, awareness is under the same with ADHD awareness of it. Just knowing that I haven't failed to do all of these very important things because I'm lazy or I'm incompetent. It's because there is something stopping me from doing this. And getting treatment for it has been, you know, I'm not haven't completed that task yet. I'm still working out how to manage the ADHD, but already it's just improved things tremendously. Well, let's talk about that. Let's talk about management. We'll get on to the management of the ADHD in a moment. How do you manage your bipolar? You said there were various ways. Obviously it starts with awareness, just like it does for ADHD. Starts with awareness.

17:28But what are the ways in which you personally manage your bipolar? I've had medication in the past and it's really difficult because it's, you know, I wish it were same as true of other conditions. I wish it were like a headache where you just pick up a paracetamol off the shelf and take it and it's gone. But actually there is a whole range of different treatments of different medications. I tried several in the early days after my diagnosis and I never really found something that worked well. I've had medication at various points. I'm kind of trying to manage it in other ways, being more aware of it. And, you know, I'm fortunate because I know there are plenty of people out there who can't do that and absolutely have to have some medication because it is to the extreme where they would not be able to live their life without it. I'm trying to get by without it at the moment. I'm aware that might not always be the case. I might not be always able to do that.

18:31ADHD is different really. I think, you know, it's all very well saying, oh yeah, I haven't done all those things because I have ADHD but it doesn't actually get them done. And I've started on medication and we tried that. We're looking to try something else. I've already noticed that the difference that taking it has made, we need to kind of fine tune that and see where we go. I've come to realise just the amount of effort I've had to put in to making it look like I don't have anything wrong with me. That has been the thing that's been really tiring and I don't think this gets talked about anywhere near enough. I mean, this is quite a wide ranging thing. I speak to a lot of people who experience the same thing, you know, the concept of masking or whatever you want to call it. You know, that when my brain is in a situation thinking, what's the thing I'm supposed to say here? What's the acceptable thing to do here? Don't do the thing that you immediately want to do that's quite dramatic and is going to annoy everybody, you know, engage the filter. What's the least, what's the way that's going to least annoy people at this point? It's quite tiring when you have to do that all the time.

19:35It's exhausting. I was going to ask you about that because I was really struck by what you said about how difficult it is to be aware when you're entering either a down phase or an up phase with bipolar, if that's the right terminology. Because with my ADHD, it wears me out and when I get worn out, that's when I'm susceptible to extremes of emotion. I will be completely irrational about something with my family or, you know, I can get to the place where I just think everything's awful, everything's terrible or I can be really hyper. But, but I've had therapy to get to the place where I can see that I can be that person on the platform to use your analogy who can see my train and say, hang on a minute. This isn't real. You're really tired or you're dysregulated and you can probably ride this one out. Now, what you're describing is a situation where it's a lot harder to be able to have that objective view and to have that awareness with bipolar.

20:35I mean, that must be tremendously exhausting. So I think it's really important that you've said that and that people have heard that. Can you get to a place you think where you're able to say, and that this is a big question, I don't think I'm in this place, but are you able to say, this is me? Actually, you know, you use the phrase something wrong with you. Actually, is this you? Is this your personality, the one that your friends like and your family are close to? Does it have to be something to be fixed? And I, you know, and I say that as an outsider who hasn't experienced what you have, but, but do you feel it as something that needs to be fixed? Or can you get to a place where you go, this is really hard. It's really exhausting, but this is me. I mean, there is a big debate about that, isn't there? And I hear it talked about in all sorts of neurodivergency areas where people are saying, well, look, we shouldn't think of this as a disease, but we shouldn't see this as a different way of being a different way of thinking. And I really do understand that point of view. You know, we don't kind of want to fix other characteristics about people. Should we want to fix the way people think and the way their personalities are?

21:43But I think to me, it's about productivity. You know, I work in an industry where I've got to get things done. I've got to come up with the ideas. I've got to make them happen. When a thing is booked, whether it's a live thing or a recording for something, I've got to have my brain in gear to do that. And for me, it's just about making sure that it's a level of consistency. It's making sure that you can do what you want to do when you want to do it. And that's where I sort of do see it as a disability, because I think, you know, and again, I know that you know, far more about this than I do. But you know, the people that do downplay ADHD, the people that do say, oh, well, everyone's got it now. It's very fashionable and everything. And I do hear some of that back. And I say, would you like to try it for a week? Would you like to try knowing that you've got all this stuff to do that you actually want to do? And you can't, you know, bring yourself around to do it. You can't think straight. You know, the number of times I've sat on the train in a fairly peaceful environment with a book. I've read a paragraph five times, but none of it has gone into my head that the eyes are scanning it. But I just, my eyes have gone down.

22:49And my brain is thinking about, you know, the dog at the other end of the carriage or the thing that I'm going to do at the weekend or something. And sometimes it's something that I really need to read and understand for work. And I just can't get it into my head. And you think, well, this doesn't seem very fashionable to me. Yeah. A quite agreed. Absolutely. It's it's it's understanding how great the challenges are because I think people. People are persuaded that anyone can get an ADHD diagnosis these days, aren't they? But they don't realize the level of challenge that you need to be experiencing in order to get that diagnosis. It doesn't just come to anybody. There will be people listening to this conversation who haven't considered a bipolar diagnosis or it's not. And I think that's a very good diagnosis or exploring that. And we'll have heard some of the things you've said and felt that prickle that I know I did just like you described when people talked about ADHD. What are the red flags to look out for? Do you think what what are the things about being bipolar that someone listening to this conversation should maybe think about exploring or might recognize.

23:57I mean, there is bipolar UK have had a big campaign called maybe it's bipolar looking at exactly this. And actually there's a there's a huge amount of information out there. But I think if you can look back at your you know, your time at your life and think, oh, well, you know, for that, you always feel like a different person. And it's an overused thing. But people talk about the jekyll and hide personality. But if you look back and you think I really it really felt like somebody else did that. At a period where you were either in a manic phase where you did some, you know, crazy things or or where you were in a very low phase where you felt you couldn't do anything at all. And if if you can see that there is that that flip side, you know, and you know, I say this with the caveat that I'm not a medical professional. I can speak only on behalf of you know on my own experience. You can look back at times where my the things that I plan to do the things that I want to do are almost completely different at some periods of life than than others. You know, I've been dead set that I want to.

25:01I don't know, go and move to a particular place or buy a particular car or take a particular hobby. And then a few weeks later, I'm not interested at all. And there's something else that I, you know, I'm fixated on. If it genuinely feels like there's a, you know, a complete two sided aspect to your life, find some reputable sources. People like bipolar UK, the NHS, you know, where you know you can get reliable information, same as you would for ADHD. And just kind of research it and see. David, it's been absolute privilege to talk to you today. Thank you so much for coming in. We know, Sam and I know it is not easy to talk about these things in such an open way. And we know that it will make an enormous difference to some people listening. So thank you so much for doing what you're doing and coming on and talking to your wrong about ADHD. And thank you to both of you. It's great to get the chance to share the message, to talk about those links. And, you know, anyone who is this, I know podcasts like this do an amazing job of spreading the message and making people aware of it. So I'm hugely grateful to everything you do as well.

26:12Oh, what a brilliant conversation. And once again, an example of how important it is to hear from somebody who knows what they're talking about rather than relying on you make down the pub for the facts. And to hear his vulnerability and learn so much about what the difference is between bipolar and ADHD. Yeah, thank you to David for sharing his story. And I thought really fascinating that he could see clearly things in his life, which were bipolar and clearly things that were ADHD. So I think just to get that insight of someone's personal experience was fascinating. We've got another episode with you on Wednesday. We're going to be speaking to Dr. Sameer Johar consultant psychiatrist at Imperial College London. He also works alongside bipolar UK. We're going to talk to him about what bipolar is just explaining a bit more about the condition in detail. It's a really fascinating conversation. Do listen to that. Find it when it drops on Wednesday.

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