The One With Beth Thomas

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:00:32]:
Hey. Hey. Hello. Welcome back. Glad to have you with us for another episode. I’ve got a fantastic guest today. My guest today guest today is Beth Thomas. Beth is a certified ADHD life coach with additional training to support autistic clients.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:00:49]:
As well as that, She’s a workplace trainer specializing in neuroinclusion. Beth is neurodivergent herself, and she knows exactly what it’s life like To walk through life feeling like a square peg in a round hole. When she’s not hyper focusing on all things neuro inclusive, She otherwise enjoys being outdoors in forests, learning new interesting things. And learning new interesting things, I think, is It’s something I hope we’re gonna do today as we speak with Beth. Beth, hello. Welcome. Great to have you with us.

Beth Thomas [00:01:22]:
Thank you so so much for having me. I’m So excited. I’m definitely a bit nervous, but I’m so grateful to be here. Thank you so much.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:01:30]:
Great to have you. Just chill, relax, just just enjoy. It’s just You and me having a chat. So we’ve heard your bio we’ve heard your bio, but who is Beth? Who is the lady behind the bio?

Beth Thomas [00:01:43]:
What a great question. Actually, something I’ve been asking myself for a very long time. So, Hi. Where do we start? I I’m neurodivergent. I I I find myself often saying this as as a sort of first thing. I’m not sure why Quite yet. I’m still working that one out, but, yeah, I I have a differently thinking brain. I am a huge lover Being outdoors, so interesting because, of course, a lot of my work is online.

Beth Thomas [00:02:13]:
So for me, a lot of my my sort of non work time, let’s So, it’s about really really enjoying being out in the spaces around me, trying new things. I would say I’m a permanently curious person, so I am always so interested to learn new things about People I’m with, all the places I’m in, I love poetry and reading, I can get so lost In the marvel of other people’s imagination and, yeah, I would just say I’m quite a kooky, colorful person Some really that took a long time trying to figure out who I actually am, and I’m now finally really okay with saying I am the person that really enjoys wearing kooky Colors and, yeah, being okay with that and being who I am.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:03:04]:
Love it. Love it. Yes. So many of us go through life and Still never working out who we are, so good for you. I’m working that out. Oh, he’s cool. Oh, he’s really cool. As we heard in your, in your, excuse me, in your bio, you are neurodivergent, and I thought this would make for a great chat for us just to explore a little bit.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:03:29]:
I think from the point of view of People who are completely neurotypical and just wondering, what what is it like being neurodivergent? What what what’s it all about? Also, I’m suspecting there are gonna be some people who are listening who assume they are neurotypical. But as they listen to this, they are going, Hang on. That rings some bells. Maybe that explains a few things. So I thought we’d have a a chat just to just to see what it’s all about. And I’m I’m delighted that you’ve you’ve agreed to to to come on and and and do this. So I guess my my first question is, how long have you How long have you known that you’re neurodivergent?

Beth Thomas [00:04:11]:
That’s such a good question, and I’ll start with saying I’ve always felt different. And that never really made sense to me. It was something I couldn’t quite put a finger on, as the as the saying goes. So growing up, I always had this kind of, oh, I don’t quite fit in. I I seem to be able to mask and belong in lots of different places but never quite finding that real, this is this is me, this is where I belong. All this is known that there’s a bit of a difference, but it actually wasn’t until a lot later on in life that that penny dropped and I went, oh, Okay. That makes so much sense. So, so much sense.

Beth Thomas [00:04:54]:
So that actually, only about 4 or 5 years ago for me now, I started working with a psychiatrist who actually specialised in assessing and supporting people with ADHD And that was, gosh, the beginning of September 2019 now, which feels like it was yesterday because I haven’t been in the time, but actually it was quite a while ago.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:05:18]:
Yes. I

Beth Thomas [00:05:19]:
don’t know. So, wow. Yes. To reflect on that, it has been quite a while, but yeah. And it wasn’t until I actually started working with him and Supporting his clients and patients through their diagnostic journeys, I thought, ‘Gosh, isn’t it really funny that I relate to so much

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:05:33]:
of this?’

Beth Thomas [00:05:34]:
And we had this conversation that very much ended up with having that moment of going, ‘Ah, the reason I relate so much to this is because these stories are patch works of my own and I see so much of myself in all of these different experiences and that’s when it made so much sense The I had a differently thinking brain, differently wired system, and that was the moment that Finally recontextualized my entire life. So finally an answer for why I felt too much or not enough, or I was Too energetic, or not energetic enough at all, all of these sort of huge Variations that never seemed to quite make sense all fitted into place with Your brain and body is wired differently, and that’s okay because 1 in 5 of us are. So that It’s a very long winded way that I hope answered the question. It absolutely did. Absolutely did. Yeah. No. I I love that.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:06:39]:
I love that. Thank you. So it’s really only in the past few years that you’ve, formally realized, ah, that’s Why? But pretty much your whole life, you should have thought, why am I different? I don’t seem to be Interesting. Now, I know neurodivergence covers a huge range of, of different, I can’t think of the word that I’m looking for. But there’s lots of different different symptoms, different types of neurodivergence. From, We can probably think of the extreme neurodivergent, people who, maybe non, nonverbal, unable to communicate, It’s a in a world of their own the whole time, through to people who, unless you got to know them really well, and they allowed you to get know them really well, you wouldn’t even realize. I know there’s lots of different symptoms and so on, but what’s, Which which does make it trickier, but what what’s kind of the rabbit? What is neurodivergence? What what what is it? How how does it look? Having said that it looks in a 1000000 different ways, what does it what does it look?

Beth Thomas [00:07:51]:
Absolutely. And Perhaps unhelpfully, I will say it looks different for everyone, because you’ve really articulated it so beautifully that there’s such a huge variation. So this looks and feels entirely different for every single person who is that whether they are neurodivergent themselves or of course if they’re supporting someone who is neurodivergent. So Perhaps one of the simplest ways that I often explain it is that your brain and body are wired differently to how a sort of neurotypical’s Brain and system would otherwise be set up. So that covers Every element of life as we know it, so that impacts the way that you perceive the world. It affects the way that You experience things. Often we can have a heightened sensory system, so we feel and See and smell and touch things much more intensely or indeed less intensely, perhaps other people might seem to And if you aren’t aware of it, one of the analogies I often find myself saying because this is what it almost felt like for me, It’s like growing up with a brain that only understands a language that you can’t currently speak or understand. And so you’ve got this huge barrier because of, you know, of course, we often say language can be a barrier sometimes.

Beth Thomas [00:09:25]:
And If you don’t understand that your systems are wired differently, we can see it similarly as a language barrier that We don’t quite understand that yet and that can feel really unsettling, it can feel confusing, it can feel really challenging And it can cause us lots and lots of challenges with actually understanding ourselves, understanding others, understanding how the world works. And that often is one of the things that actually leads people to get a bit more curious about their own journeys. If their experiences are different, oh actually what’s what’s going on there?’. Maybe it’s not because I’m a bad person. I’m not, You know, broken, but actually there could be something here at play. So for me, before I realized I was neurodivergent, It was very much passed off as anxiety, depression, more specifically things like Performance anxiety and social anxiety because I’ve been sort of penned as a gifted and talented kiddo, which meant an enormous amount of expectation and Not really any support or structure to to actually do that. So, of course, that ended up with severe performance anxiety. And then

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:10:34]:
Probably that.

Beth Thomas [00:10:36]:
Is that right? And as a result of all of that, you know, kind of building up and building up, and me trying to sort of Adjust and change bits of myself as I was observing the world around me in a bid to kind of fit in more. I lost a lot of the essence of exactly who I really was. So part of a neurodivergent journey to understanding yourself is about learning who you really are and how you can actually, you know, kind of align that To to be authentically yourself as well.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:11:06]:
Alright. Interesting. Interesting. And now one of the things that you you touched on, was about, processing of Of sensory information, and I know for many neurodivergent people, sensory Sensory interaction with the world, can be fraught with all sorts of, all sorts of issues. I know sensory overload can be A massive thing for for for many. Is that I mean, let’s let’s explore that just for a moment. I mean, all of us, that’s how we interact with the world is through through our senses, sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, all of these sorts of things. But with with with for people who don’t realize about sensory overload, I guess it can seem strange that somebody just almost seems like A switch flips perfectly normal to all of a sudden, in what whatever way it manifest for them, maybe Losing their temper or just getting deeply frustrated just because almost for for seemingly nothing, but It’s it’s the sensory overload we’re getting there, and that’s as I understand it, that’s just because there’s so much or we’re so, NDs are so overly sent or what’s the word I’m looking for? Stuff that comes in through our through through our sensors For neurotypical people, comes in and would and just handle it.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:12:29]:
For neurodivergent people, comes in, but it kind of overloads because it’s almost like too sensitive. It’s like, Things are too bright, too loud, too too rough on the skin or whatever, and that just overloads all of the processing power, Which then throws out all all ability to be logical or rational. Is is that Does that fit in with your experience? Or or have I got it totally wrong? Or how are we doing there?

Beth Thomas [00:12:58]:
I mean, it it certainly resonates, With my personal experience, and, again, I will always say that this will always be different for different people. So some people might really resonate with this and some people Might not at all. I work with lots of different clients across the board who will say, well, actually, you know, that’s not really fit with me at all. And other people will say, you’ve just read my mind. So one of the, I suppose, like, analogies, if if you will, that is quite helpful sometimes to explain this is that Because our sort of brains and and our sensory systems are wired slightly differently, it can sometimes be almost as if you’re holding a, a microphone or an amplifier, up to it. So the sense that’s coming in is being amplified and the experience is therefore a lot more intense.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:13:46]:
Yes. Yes.

Beth Thomas [00:13:47]:
Certain not excuse me. Certain noises, sounds, sights, smells, textures can be incredibly intense because we’ve got a heightened sensory system and so we’re therefore experiencing it much more intensely.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:14:03]:
Yeah. Yeah. It can

Beth Thomas [00:14:03]:
be really challenging, especially if you don’t have that awareness that impact on you. And as Said the outcome of that can sometimes look like what seems to be disproportionate reactions. So before the diagnosis, something that I really struggled with was emotional regulation and I had no idea that Sensory overload, for me, could lead to feeling dysregulated and therefore experiencing things like emotional dysregulation I’m rejection sensitivity and I would feel everything so intensely. I would sometimes say it’s like walking around without your skin. You don’t have a barrier, so you’re just feeling everything and experiencing it so intensely. And that’s really difficult for people to Sort of understand if that’s an experience that you’ve perhaps had yourself. So sensory overload can be a huge, huge challenge, Especially if you don’t have any, you know, strategies and and tools and supports in place to help you navigate that. Because it’s not as if we Switch it off.

Beth Thomas [00:15:15]:
You know what? I can totally handle a big city. All of those noises, I’m going to be fine. I wish we could. I wish we could switch on and off the things that we struggle with. But Of course, it’s not always that simple. And so that’s where we can begin to see neurodivergent experiences sometimes become really challenging to navigate through that Perhaps isn’t always as accommodating.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:15:39]:
Yeah. I mean, it it it brings to mind that old joke about how when you if if you’re out driving somewhere, you’re getting to A bit you don’t know. You turn the radio down so you can see better. But it’s that thing because it does make a difference For everyone, for neurotypicals as well, because you turn the radio down, you’ve got less noise coming in, less that you’re processing sound wise, you’ve got more You can process with your vision and more that you can think because we only got finite amount of processing. So I guess for people who are The sensory overload, you don’t have that luxury of being able to turn the radio down or or put your sunglasses on so you can see because it’s too What are some way you mentioned that there are strategies to help cope with, for somebody who’s experiencing that or things that Somebody who’s caring for someone or works with someone or lives with someone who has that can can help. So what what are some ways to to to help, manage, I guess, sensory overload?

Beth Thomas [00:16:34]:
Such a great question. It’s one that I really love exploring in sessions when I’m working with clients. And again, as I said before, It will be different for different people. So anything that I say, I will always encourage people to explore with a curious mind Set with an expectation that this could work and this could not work. And either way, that’s okay because the process of learning what does and doesn’t work is almost a process of comparison and we have to sometimes know what doesn’t work because that’s equally as helpful because it will help us figure out what does work.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:17:12]:
Exactly, yes.

Beth Thomas [00:17:13]:
And I think that could be really helpful when we look at things like this because we’re often coming into it with that sense of I need this to be perfect or it needs to work, and if it doesn’t work, I must be the failure. And so it’s really important to take a pause and a moment to acknowledge that when we’re Drawing anything that we might want to amend or experiment with or change because the design of it isn’t that it’s going to work perfectly, And if not, you’re the fault, but rather, these are all options. Some of them will work really, really well, and we can layer those up and use it as a sort of, you know, Build into a toolbox and then you can carry that with you so that you’ve got options. So thinking about strategies is quite hard On in the moment when you haven’t got, let’s say, examples. So the purpose of things, I will use a couple of examples Mhmm. To sort of, like, help, You know, explore these things. So sensory overload for me significantly impacts me If I’m in particularly challenging situations, that I would find quite difficult to navigate. So as an example, I will use the supermarket as one because I find this a very personally challenging circumstance to be in.

Beth Thomas [00:18:25]:
And I know that having worked with, you know, lots of different clients and groups and things like that, I’m certainly not alone in that experience. So when we actually approach Challenge. It’s really helpful to figure out what actually is challenging in this. Like, what aspects are really, really hard for us to navigate right now? Is it that there’s lots of artificial overhead lights? And that for us is a really intense experience. Is it that we’ve got a lot of audio input with lots of different noises at different tones and pitches and Different levels of repetition that become really, really overwhelming for us. Is it that we are going through different temperatures and different Smells, and we’re finding that a bit sort of disjointing almost and a little bit, you know, putting off us off balance. It might be that we struggle with being around people. So for me, all of those things are really relevant when I’m using this example.

Beth Thomas [00:19:19]:
So I have over time explored different things that could work and I’ve been able to build Very gradually, a sort of process, if you will, that helps me manage that really successfully. So for me personally, I absolutely Cannot hack a super busy environment where there’s just absolute chaos around it. And that’s been difficult for me to navigate. So I now know that I work best or operate best at times that aren’t as busy. So for me, I will go and do, any shopping in a supermarket type environment either super early or super late. Because of doing things earlier, so that I can have more of a decompression time in the evening, I’ll go earlier. So by that process of elimination, I was able to experiment with different times of the day and go, ah, okay. Earliest time of the day worked well for me.

Beth Thomas [00:20:14]:
Now when it comes to audio input, I might find certain sounds really, really overwhelming. So I will now go to the supermarket early in the day with headphones and that is really, really helpful for me. If I’m not able to use headphones, I would at least try and use something like loop earplugs, which actually reduce the, the intensity of the audio inputs coming into you basically. So it’s Turning it down. So, you know, we had that switch analogy earlier?

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:20:41]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Beth Thomas [00:20:41]:
Kind of it, you know? And then Four is my sort of, you know, my distractibility and my sort of impulsive ADHD part that comes in, and we’re looking at all these new shiny things and I’m like, oh, this looks Great. I totally want all of these things that have no purpose in my life right now, but they’re new and shiny, so they’re interesting. I have a list. Melissa, I have to admit. And so I will go with my very specific list and I will say to myself, if it’s not on the list, it’s not going in the trolley or it’s not going in the bag, and I would see that as a challenge. So I would challenge myself and almost see it as like almost a game that can I make people stick to this list? I go through the shots and the aisles, getting exactly what I have set out to get. And if that is a success, I will treat myself to a win at the end of it. So having something to look forward to that I really, really enjoy to make that challenging experience something that is much more manageable and something I can look forward to at the end.

Beth Thomas [00:21:40]:
So those are a few examples of things you can layer in that eat those challenges that make the whole experience much more bearable and commendable.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:21:48]:
I love that. And I love I love what you, prefaced it with that different things work for different people. If you try something and it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. It simply means that isn’t the one for you, there will be something else for you.

Beth Thomas [00:22:05]:
Absolutely. It’s so, so important to have that moment of awareness around that because When you have an neurodivergent brain, the likelihood is that you’ve experienced a lifetime of Often being either directly or indirectly told that you’re not quite right. So that looks, you know, different for different people. There was actually a study, quite a while back. I can’t remember the name of the, the the person that ran it, But he he proposed that neurodivergent brains, typically by the age of about 12, will experience up to 20,000 more negative comments in comparison to their neurotypical peers. So when we take that into account, all of those Moments we carry with us create a lot of those beliefs that will still hold with us today as adults. And if we’re going into any deeper mindset of I’m, you know, I’m not going to get this right or right and wrong, having that sort of binary view of it. It can actually come up with pressure and as I said, the outcome of it is that, ‘I didn’t get that right’ or ‘yeah, I must be the problem again’.

Beth Thomas [00:23:16]:
That’s not what these these areas of exploration are about, it’s about saying What does work for you?

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:23:21]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Beth Thomas [00:23:22]:
And let’s go on a journey.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:23:24]:
And of course, every time you find something that doesn’t work for you, you still learn something. You’ve learned, okay, that approach doesn’t work Which means, I can rule out all of those things and focus on these where the answer is gonna be.

Beth Thomas [00:23:35]:
Yes. Absolutely. Beautiful.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:23:39]:
There’s bound to be some bound to be at least 1 person who’s listening to this or or watching this, who’s going, This is making a lot of sense. I wonder. I wonder if I’m neurodivergent in some way. For anyone who is thinking that, what what we kind of like the first steps on exploring a bit more to find out whether whether you are or or or

Beth Thomas [00:24:02]:
or not Eurodivergent. Brilliant question. I’m so glad that you’ve raised it because it has become somewhat of a controversial sort of topic this Yeah. Particularly with lots and lots of differing views on this and differing opinions. A lot of people have Quite heavily criticized, I’m gonna say. People realising they could be neurodivergent through the use of things like TikTok videos and social media. So what I would say is that if any of this has resonated, if even one point of this has Sparked a moment of curiosity for you and you’re sitting there thinking, wow, okay actually there could be something here for me to explore. I would say get curious about it and that can look different.

Beth Thomas [00:24:52]:
So again, working in ways that you feel most comfortable with But having a moment to sit down and get curious about what parts of this did resonate and why was that and how could you go about developing that awareness? So there’s lots of information out on the internet. There are things like self report scales that you can complete and they’re quite readily available. Most, Sort of, you know, GPs, medical providers, things like that will have copies of these. So there are sort of symptom checklists, So to speak, if you want to sort of look down a bit of the the medical model route of as it as it were. But the other thing I would say is that it’s really interest It’s important, sorry, to bear in mind that those look from a very deficit based lens of sort of what is wrong. Maybe what is different. So it could be quite helpful to use those in conjunction with your own personal experiences Of saying okay, well what led you to feel or think differently in terms of situations? And Are there any safe people in your life that perhaps you could open up this discussion with to see if your experiences of something differed from someone else’s experiences of something and that might help guide you in deciding how to take things further. So the diagnostic route is actually only 1 route you can take because having a diagnosis isn’t absolutely mandatory, has its uses and its reasons and its purpose.

Beth Thomas [00:26:34]:
There’s no less value or worth To you going on this journey yourself and figuring out if some of this does make sense and if this does fit with your experiences of life. So other things that might actually make that really hard for us to think about is whether There were not a lot of these things were normalized. So for me, my whole family is full of neurodivergence. We’re all very, very unique, different people, But actually, that then created a lot of normalization in my upbringing. A lot of the things that I went through, I was like, yeah, but doesn’t everyone do that? Doesn’t everyone struggle mentally to manipulate their emotions? Doesn’t everyone struggle to remember where they’ve put their things 4, 5, 6 times in a day? Doesn’t everyone struggle with their organizational capacities and their focus, isn’t that what everyone does, and yes to a certain extent, everyone does struggle with these things, but not to the extent that perhaps a neurodivergent brain will.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:27:39]:
Got it, got it, yeah.

Beth Thomas [00:27:41]:
And it’s about also thinking about how much these things impact you. Are these experiences or these challenges impacting you on a, you know, daily, weekly basis or do you find that actually it’s just on occasion? And the last thing I would also say is whether or not some of these experiences are perhaps not as intense as they are because you’re masking. So masking is something a lot of neurodivergent people will find themselves doing, either consciously or subconsciously. A lot of us don’t even realize we’re doing it, But we will mask so that we can fit in, so that we are more excited, so that we feel safer because it’s not always a super safe environment in which to unmask and potentially can be authentic selves. So if any of what I have just said is resonating, get Curious? With yourself? Have a look and see whether or not those symptom checklists could be useful for you. If you would like to explore a diagnosis, you can start with the GP and you can bring those checklists and your thoughts and feelings, if you’ve written them down Or, you know, voice noted them, for example, to your GP, who will signpost you on. They’re not the specialist who will be able to assess you, but they can certainly

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:29:00]:
They can point you in the direction. Yeah.

Beth Thomas [00:29:03]:
So they can give you your options and otherwise you can also explore private diagnosis, but that is of course Quite expensive,

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:29:11]:
but it’s

Beth Thomas [00:29:11]:
not always an option that’s feasible to everyone and that’s okay.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:29:15]:
Love it. Beth, Time as always is is, is marching marching on. I’ve learned a lot from this. I’m sure everybody watching or listening will have learned a lot. If you have learned from this, give us a comment, drop a comment what with what what what you’ve got from us. Remember to subscribe, give us a share, A review. And above all, if anybody wants to find out more, maybe get in touch with you, Beth, find out a bit more about what you do, what’s the best place to get in touch?

Beth Thomas [00:29:44]:
I would definitely say my website because it’s got all of my contact details on it. So whatever works best for you, please let me know and I will meet you where you’re at. So let me know if you prefer calls, texts, emails, and I’m happy to work with whatever works best for you. Okay. I’ll leave it there.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:30:05]:
Brilliant. Good. And, that web site is www.unboundmindadhdlifecoaching.com. The link that link, plus a few other links are all in the show notes for this episode as well. Go to the usual place, keithplakemorenoble.com/show. Look for the Keith Blakemore Noble Radio Show. Look for the episode, The One with Beth Thomas. You’ll find links to, all those links, ways to get in touch with that, and so much more.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:30:36]:
Beth, thank you So much for taking taking time out of your your busy day to to, help us start to explore the journey of, finding out more about neurodivergence.

Beth Thomas [00:30:47]:
Thank you so much for having me. I’m honestly so, so grateful to have been here. I can’t wait to go away and ruminate on everything. All of the things I could have said as well. Yeah. Sincerely, thank you so, so much for having me here. It’s absolutely been amazing.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:31:03]:
Thank you so much, Beth, and thank you dear viewer, dear listener for catching us. Remember, give us a like, comment, subscribe, reviews, always helpful. And I will leave you with Beth’s favorite quote. It’s from Granny Brown. That’s a beautiful quote. A lovely quote. Let go of who you think you’re Supposed to be an embrace who you are.