Welcome to Healthy Ish. Yes you have tuned into the podcast from Body and Soul. I am your host of Felicity Harley. To celebrate summer, we're dropping our top Healthish episodes of the year. Now. This one we dropped earlier in the year. I think it was around April. It is with fitness Mogul and pt Emily Sky and she shared how for decades she felt broken and then she was diagnosed with ADHD and suddenly everything made well, somewhat sense.
She shares more about that in this episode today. Now make sure you're listening to Extra healthy Ish as well, where she shares more about her entire ADHD journey. You can catch that one where we get your podcasts. Emily is so nice to have you back on healthy She's been a few years since you were on here.
Actually it has, Felicity, it's been too long, so it's good.
To be better. Yeah, nice to have you back. And do we say congratulations or what do we say? I'm not sure what to say. I just want to say thank you, well, thank you. That's probably the best words, isn't it. It takes a lot of courage to come out and talk about a diagnosis of neurodiversity. How are you feeling?
I think it's the reason I decided to share is because I think it's so important that we do talk about these things and we don't feel shame around it, which I think a lot of people do. And I think the more you talk about it, the more people can get help and they become aware of themselves and they know what to do as well because they can see what other people do help themselves.
Are you feeling relieved? Are you feeling prior do you feeling less shame?
Yes, I have a sense of relief because now I know I've got answers right. All my life I've felt odd and now I know, hey, could this has been affecting me? And I know that there is something that I can actually do about it. So there's a sense of relief, but also a bit of grief because of
the life that I may have. I don't know if missed out on is the right word, because I have had an amazing life and I'm very blessed, but there's been a lot of situations where I felt like I could have dealt with them better had I have had the support and the knowledge.
Yeah. Yeah, Actually that's a really valid emotion, isn't it, Because I've never actually heard of someone talk about grief when they've been diagnosed with with whatever it may be, but grief of thinking Okay, I could have managed this better.
Yeah. Yeah, it was a lot. It was very confronting. And one of the things the psychiatrist said to me after I sat with him ninety minutes actually it took he said, I'm surprised that you didn't end up a drug addict on the street with the way that your brain is. Wow. And I was like, whoa, wow, Wow.
He was surprised that I don't do drug Wow. Maybe fitness is your is your other? Is your other drugs?
Exactly? And he kept saying, he kept saying, how do you deal with this? And then I told him, with fitness, I have to stay active otherwise I start just losing my mind a bit. Yeah.
Yeah, Now, I mean I feel like, well, there has been a long list of home profile women that you've now joined who have shared the ADHD journey. I mean Abby Chatfield and Riachiana. Actually we had her on the podcast discussing it as well. I mean, women have been too long ignored in this space. How does that make you feel.
We have definitely been ignored and the funny thing, it was not funny, definitely, the wrong turns were ironic. Thing. Yes, it's back back when I was a kid and a teenager. I was actually put on antidepressants around the age of twelve or thirteen, and I really struggled as a kid with my mental health, especially all through my teens, and I spoke to many psychologists and counselors, doctors trying to figure out what's wrong, and nobody mentioned ADHD because I
was shy, right, I wasn't the kid in class. I wasn't the boy that was playing out, which was the typical ADHD.
Person. I guess.
So I think that's why I got overlooked along with many other women. And it's only now that we're starting to get diagnosed more.
Yeah, more awareness around it, and you know, people like you coming out, so thank you. Now you did a recent shoot with Body and Soul. How was that, By the way, it was so good. It was really I mean, you're going to see the photos everyone to make sure you get a copy. But it's very different for me.
I'm not going to give away too much, but I've never done anything like it, and I was really excited to do that. Yeah, well you also there was a line in the story that kind of jumped out at me, and you told body and soul, no one deserves to go through life feeling like a broken human. I mean my heart just went, oh oh, that's hard to read. How did you feel broken before this diagnosis? I've always felt different, like I don't fit in with anyone, and
a sense of not belonging. That's something I've struggled with, and it sort of sits with self worth as well as obviously many different things that contribute to how someone feels right. It's not just ADHD, but I think not knowing I always had an inkling I was, but I wasn't sure. And yeah, I just didn't feel like I fit in anywhere, and I felt very odd and I felt like people didn't understand me. I almost feel like even now taking someone and going, don't you understand this
is how I feel. It's difficult for me, and I felt I did feel ashamed to feel that way because I am very blessed. I have a great life, I have a great career, I have a beautiful family, have my health, and I felt like it was I wasn't being grateful, And it's not that. It's that I struggled to do normal things. Even just waking up in the morning and doing a normal day would stress me out and I have terribly anxiety over it.
What advice would you give to women who are feeling similar things that you are? I mean, I yeah, I mean. It's an interesting conundrum, isn't it. Because you were saying that you feel, you know, you have to be grateful and you should be happy, and people are saying, but you've you know, you've got this great life, You've got a beautiful family, you had a great career, you're fit, and you're healthy. But it's on my don't You're not You're not allowed to give your self permission to feel well.
Brod entitled exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I kept and I still do it now, but I'm learning to go easier with myself. But that was the voice in my head that i'd hear and from other people. Stop being ungrateful, that you know you're blessed, and it's not that, because it's actually a structural issue with your brain. It's I don't know what else. I'm not a neuroscientist, but you know, there's a lot of things that are actually there that
are different to your normal, normal person. It's what's normal. I don't know, but we'll just call it normal in the situation. Yeah, and I've gotten lost now, Adhd, thank you.
No, No, let me ask you another question. What advice would you give to other women who are perhaps identifying with you, who feel like they're not so called normal. I'm saying that in their quotes.
Yeah, yeah, well number one, seek help, So don't just stay the way you are. There's always something you can do. So for me, I decided to seek out a psychiatrist. I've got a referral from my doctor. I got on many different lists because it's a long wait list, up to eighteen months or even longer.
Oh wow, and I was very lucky.
I got a cancelation pretty much the next day. It was like the most amazing thing happened. I couldn't believe it. And yeah, I took the appointment, obviously, and sat with a psychiatrist for the ninety minutes and did an evaluation, went back to my history. I had my partner declan,
who's my fance? Now I've got to get used to say, sitting with me, which is also another important thing that the people around you actually understand and then speak to someone, speak to a psychiatrist preferably or a psychologist, and do that regularly. So you've got to find out what things that you can do to help yourself and make sure you stay on top of it. So I like to use analogy. It's like fitness. If you want to be fit,
you've got to be consistent with your training. If you want healthy mental health, then you've got to be consistent with whatever it is that helps you.
Do you feel like now that you've had these diagnosis that you kind of belong do you feel like that's given you a sense that I do have more Yeah, yeah.
Yes, more of a sense of belonging and understanding myself cutting myself from slack. I've been doing a lot of research. It's my hyper fixation I've been using and the obsessiveness. But as soon as I got the diagnosis, I was just on YouTube, like binge, watching different things about ADHD and other people's experience with it as well, and I was like, Yes, this person understands me even though I've
never met them. Yeah, it's a good I think it's really important for anyone to have that sense of belonging and finding your people.
Yeah, finding you people. Were well done, And thank you for being so bold and courageous and coming out well across you know, in the fabulous shoot and on the podcast. And yeah, thanks for joing so much.
Thanks for having me Felicity and I look forward to seeing the magazine come out. Thank you for listening to this interview as part of our twenty twenty four summer series. Are plenty more awesome epps for your ears, both from Healthy Ish and our big sister podcast, Extra healthy Ish. If you did like this interview, please take a quick minute to share it with a friend. If you do want any other info, head to bodyansoul dot com, dot you.
Follows on socials. Any feedback please dm me at Felicity Harley and until tomorrow, enjoy the sun and stay healthy is