April 24, 2025 • 10 mins
Keeshia Pettit joined us to talk about her ADHD diagnosis and the challenges many adults, particularly women, experience with late diagnosis. Symptoms are often mistaken for anxiety or depression, leading to years without proper support or treatment.
Corey Oates has his own struggles with ADHD and he opens up about his decision to stop medication and how it affects his daily life.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We are joined by Keisha Pettitt, who is the host
of a Yeah, brand new podcast Cloud, a life Uncut
production all about ADHD and being diagnosed late which you were, Keisha,
diagnosed late in life.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, I was twenty nine when I officially got my diagnosis.
And it's the kind of thing where like, I've looked
back on a lot of my life and as a
part of the diagnosis, you have to go through things
like your school reports and talk, you know, talk about
your experiences as a kid. Diagnostically it's before the age
of twelve, and it's kind of become this thing where
(00:38):
I've realized like, oh, this has existed across you know,
my whole life, but we didn't really know that it
kind of had symptoms like this, We didn't really know
that that's what it was. And at the age of
twenty nine, kind of coming to that realization that like
light bulb moment of oh, the whole time like it
was ADHD. That makes so much sense now.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Obviously I've got it. I've known my whole life. My
attention span was very short.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
You know.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
That's actually like a pretty good giveaways. You know, straight away,
like you just zone out and you just don't listen.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
So the kids sitting around you in school also suffered, Yeah,
but from your distraction straight away.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Right, But then I went off this medication when I
was a bit older. I said a moment in mint
so Kisa why twenty nine.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah, Yeah, I think like what Corey was just saying,
in the sense of for a lot of little boys,
like they predominantly have the hyperactive type of ADHD, so
that you know, inability to sit still, that kind of restlessness,
and it sounds Corey like you found a really good
way to kind of channel that into sport. You know,
you made it work to you. But for a lot
(01:46):
of women, particularly in little girls, we have more of
the inattentive side of ADHD, So that would be more
of the like off with the fairies, you know, inability
to kind of have that hyperactivity come out. It's more
hyperactivity internally, and so a lot of us were diagnosed
with anxiety conditions, and that is exactly what happened to
(02:06):
me in twenty nineteen. I was diagnosed with anxiety and
I think, you know, coming to the diagnosis of ADHD
and unpacking the difference between the way that it can
look in little boys and little girls. Like, our understandings
of what ADHD is and the way that it will
show up in different people has really evolved.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Right, So tell me what was happening in your head. Like,
if you're saying there's this anxiety, you're saying it's more internal.
Like as a little girl, it threw puberty into becoming
a woman. How were you dealing with this for yourself?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
So some of the symptoms that I displayed, the main
one that I didn't know was associated with ADHD is
the inability to regulate your emotions. So I had this
really like heightened response to rejection or criticism and kind
of this inability to regulate the way that I was feeling.
You know, the current understandings of what causes ADHD you
mostly have to do with the way that we process dopamine.
(03:02):
And so that's kind of like your motivation chemical and
going back and looking at my previous experiences and things
like masking behavior, things like just trying to fit in
in the group and do what everyone wanted from me
because my behavior was criticized a lot as a kid.
They're the types of symptoms that I exhibited a lot of.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
I mean, Corey mentioned medication as a kid. What happens
when you're twenty nine and you're diagnosed, do they put
you straight on a pill or what happens?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
For me? Medication was an incredibly amazing experience. I think
I got quite lucky and I got you know, the
right type, right dose pretty quickly, and it really alleviated
a lot of the burden that I felt like I
was experiencing from ADHD. And it has been a particularly
positive situation for me. And that's not the case for everybody,
(03:52):
like you know, obviously that will differ depending on the person.
But yeah, I got really lucky in that sense, and
I'm still medicated to this day. I am also trying
to work on, like the other things that I can
be doing to help.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Why did you stop, Corey, Why did you stop medicating?
Speaker 3 (04:07):
The boarding school? Yeah, and mum, and that just didn't
really like what you used to do to me, so
like it just dule me down, Like, yeah, completely a
different person. So yeah, when I went to boarding school,
they you know, I didn't want to do it and
they didn't and they were happy for me not to
do it. And then it was Yeah, honestly, it would
(04:27):
have been five years ago that I obviously I just
couldn't get out of this low, and you know, I
went and see any guy and yeah, that was it was.
It was a part of obviously.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Adie h.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
When you get low, you usually can't get out, and
they were a depression. Yeah. Yeah, it's just you just
feel like just helpless, like you just don't feel good
and you've got no motivation. Whereas every day I normally
would get up like sweet, I'm just going to go
do twenty things out pointless. But yeah, I'm want to
go doing a huge list. I'd just be over. I'll
(05:05):
just be NonStop until I hit the bed, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And that was you too, Keisha, kind kind of you know,
I think that what Corey is referring to it often
has to do with this like the way that we
processed dopamine differently, and there are some studies that say
that we have naturally less dopamine and certain parts of
our brain and or it's processed differently, whatever it is.
(05:28):
But that, like that lull of being enable to actually
get motivation to do anything is really really really common,
and it's definitely something I experienced. And again, I thought
that I had depression for a really long time I
was diagnosed with depression and anxiety.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
When I went.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Obviously and see my psychiatrist and all that, it was
easy for me, but I still had to jump through
a lot of hoops. It was easy for me because
I got diagnosed a kid. They did say for people
that are actually over a certain age, it's it's it's
a lot harder because we won't diagnosed as a kid.
So some people just go to use it to obviously
try and help them function better and all that sort
(06:07):
of stuff. But I just wanted to was it a
pretty hard process or long process for you with the
diagnosis sort of thing?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah, I mean quite ironically. So the first step was
that you get a referral from your GP and at
the time, the weightlist I live in Sydney now the
weight list was so long that my referral expired before
I was able to get into see a psychiatrist and
they were.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
So it can be really really challenging. It's also quite expensive,
Like this is all private psychiatry. There are ways to
go through the public system, and it does vary based
on the state that you're in, but it is a
particularly expensive process. And I think that you know, you
have to acknowledge the privilege in that I could have
forward private care. But a lot of people are not
(06:52):
in that position. They have priorities that are much greater
than you know working out whether they do or don't
have ADHD.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
It's not always as easy as you think to get
the diagnosis.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
It sounds like it's a spectrum too, like there's lots
of different levels.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Peace. Yeah. Yeah, there's three different types. So there's your hyperactive,
you're inattentive, and then the combined, which is the first
two put together and as a part of the diagnosive. Corey,
you wouldn't have had to do this on your second
one because you were diagnosed as a kid. But like
I said, you have to prove that you have had
the condition from before you were twelve. So for a
lot of people. For me, I got my mum to
(07:29):
fill out quite a lot of paperwork, and I mean
like it took her a couple of hours to fill out,
and I was lucky enough to have some old school
reports at her house, so I use those in my
diagnostic process. But not everyone has that, like you know,
whether they don't have a relationship with their parents, especially
with something like ADHD. You know a lot of people
are quite dismissive of it being a real thing. You know,
(07:51):
they all kind of say, like, well, we live in
a world now where everyone's distracted, you know, everyone thinks
they've got ADHD, but it's just normal, you know, and
a lot of you know, our parents' generation can.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Be like that.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
So, Keisha, what is your advice then, because there would
be people listening to this going, I think my child might,
I might. I mean, is there a hereditary component if
you or your partner has been diagnosed, are you're more
likely for your children to be diagnosed?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:18):
So I had a psychiatrist on the podcast, doctor Kieran Kennedy,
and he said that if you have a first degree relative,
you are nine times more likely to get ADHD. So
there is about a sixty percent genetic component to it.
And there was another bit of research from twenty ten
and it estimated that children with undiagnosed ADHD will experience
twenty thousand more criticisms about their behater by the age
(08:41):
of ten.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
So awful, twenty thousand.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, by ten. So my advice to people if they
think that their kid might have ADHD, or even if
they themselves are like looking into a diagnosis process. It
has a lot to do with unpacking this narrative that
we have created about ourselves. You know, you think about
that amount of criticism and how much that would extend
into your sense of who you are. Yeah, exactly. So
(09:11):
whenever I kind of have those conversations with people now,
especially when they're asking about the kids, I'm like, it's
just important for you to understand the different way that
their brain works, so that you can be more aware
of whether you're criticizing a naughty kid or whether you're
criticizing them for something that is just the way that
they're naturally wired. We all seem to be very forgetful.
(09:32):
We have this thing called time blindness, where you're not
really aware of how long you've been doing something for.
We can interrupt, we can elate the things.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
I can honestly, sorry, you are spot On'm like, my
out was bought. Yeahs, I don't say I hated moscool
as in like in class, I didn't want to be
I didn't want to go I just because of that reason,
Like I always got in trouble, got picked on for
being you know that kid. I just I didn't like it.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
I didn't.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
I had the worst experience in school, my only outward sport.
I tried hard to not be at school as much
as I possibly could because of how I felt about
going to every classroom. I just I didn't want to
be there. So that's why it's a great point, like
you'd rather find out.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
One of the great way to find out if you
want to just test the waters is to check out
this podcast cloud. It's a ten part mini series podcast
that that Keisha is hosting and it's available on the
iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks he
for joining us. Keisha, thank you guys, Thanks much.
We are joined by Keisha Pettitt, who is the host
of a Yeah, brand new podcast Cloud, a life Uncut
production all about ADHD and being diagnosed late which you were, Keisha,
diagnosed late in life.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, I was twenty nine when I officially got my diagnosis.
And it's the kind of thing where like, I've looked
back on a lot of my life and as a
part of the diagnosis, you have to go through things
like your school reports and talk, you know, talk about
your experiences as a kid. Diagnostically it's before the age
of twelve, and it's kind of become this thing where
(00:38):
I've realized like, oh, this has existed across you know,
my whole life, but we didn't really know that it
kind of had symptoms like this, We didn't really know
that that's what it was. And at the age of
twenty nine, kind of coming to that realization that like
light bulb moment of oh, the whole time like it
was ADHD. That makes so much sense now.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Obviously I've got it. I've known my whole life. My
attention span was very short.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
You know.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
That's actually like a pretty good giveaways. You know, straight away,
like you just zone out and you just don't listen.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
So the kids sitting around you in school also suffered, Yeah,
but from your distraction straight away.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Right, But then I went off this medication when I
was a bit older. I said a moment in mint
so Kisa why twenty nine.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah, Yeah, I think like what Corey was just saying,
in the sense of for a lot of little boys,
like they predominantly have the hyperactive type of ADHD, so
that you know, inability to sit still, that kind of restlessness,
and it sounds Corey like you found a really good
way to kind of channel that into sport. You know,
you made it work to you. But for a lot
(01:46):
of women, particularly in little girls, we have more of
the inattentive side of ADHD, So that would be more
of the like off with the fairies, you know, inability
to kind of have that hyperactivity come out. It's more
hyperactivity internally, and so a lot of us were diagnosed
with anxiety conditions, and that is exactly what happened to
(02:06):
me in twenty nineteen. I was diagnosed with anxiety and
I think, you know, coming to the diagnosis of ADHD
and unpacking the difference between the way that it can
look in little boys and little girls. Like, our understandings
of what ADHD is and the way that it will
show up in different people has really evolved.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Right, So tell me what was happening in your head. Like,
if you're saying there's this anxiety, you're saying it's more internal.
Like as a little girl, it threw puberty into becoming
a woman. How were you dealing with this for yourself?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
So some of the symptoms that I displayed, the main
one that I didn't know was associated with ADHD is
the inability to regulate your emotions. So I had this
really like heightened response to rejection or criticism and kind
of this inability to regulate the way that I was feeling.
You know, the current understandings of what causes ADHD you
mostly have to do with the way that we process dopamine.
(03:02):
And so that's kind of like your motivation chemical and
going back and looking at my previous experiences and things
like masking behavior, things like just trying to fit in
in the group and do what everyone wanted from me
because my behavior was criticized a lot as a kid.
They're the types of symptoms that I exhibited a lot of.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
I mean, Corey mentioned medication as a kid. What happens
when you're twenty nine and you're diagnosed, do they put
you straight on a pill or what happens?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
For me? Medication was an incredibly amazing experience. I think
I got quite lucky and I got you know, the
right type, right dose pretty quickly, and it really alleviated
a lot of the burden that I felt like I
was experiencing from ADHD. And it has been a particularly
positive situation for me. And that's not the case for everybody,
(03:52):
like you know, obviously that will differ depending on the person.
But yeah, I got really lucky in that sense, and
I'm still medicated to this day. I am also trying
to work on, like the other things that I can
be doing to help.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Why did you stop, Corey, Why did you stop medicating?
Speaker 3 (04:07):
The boarding school? Yeah, and mum, and that just didn't
really like what you used to do to me, so
like it just dule me down, Like, yeah, completely a
different person. So yeah, when I went to boarding school,
they you know, I didn't want to do it and
they didn't and they were happy for me not to
do it. And then it was Yeah, honestly, it would
(04:27):
have been five years ago that I obviously I just
couldn't get out of this low, and you know, I
went and see any guy and yeah, that was it was.
It was a part of obviously.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Adie h.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
When you get low, you usually can't get out, and
they were a depression. Yeah. Yeah, it's just you just
feel like just helpless, like you just don't feel good
and you've got no motivation. Whereas every day I normally
would get up like sweet, I'm just going to go
do twenty things out pointless. But yeah, I'm want to
go doing a huge list. I'd just be over. I'll
(05:05):
just be NonStop until I hit the bed, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And that was you too, Keisha, kind kind of you know,
I think that what Corey is referring to it often
has to do with this like the way that we
processed dopamine differently, and there are some studies that say
that we have naturally less dopamine and certain parts of
our brain and or it's processed differently, whatever it is.
(05:28):
But that, like that lull of being enable to actually
get motivation to do anything is really really really common,
and it's definitely something I experienced. And again, I thought
that I had depression for a really long time I
was diagnosed with depression and anxiety.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
When I went.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Obviously and see my psychiatrist and all that, it was
easy for me, but I still had to jump through
a lot of hoops. It was easy for me because
I got diagnosed a kid. They did say for people
that are actually over a certain age, it's it's it's
a lot harder because we won't diagnosed as a kid.
So some people just go to use it to obviously
try and help them function better and all that sort
(06:07):
of stuff. But I just wanted to was it a
pretty hard process or long process for you with the
diagnosis sort of thing?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah, I mean quite ironically. So the first step was
that you get a referral from your GP and at
the time, the weightlist I live in Sydney now the
weight list was so long that my referral expired before
I was able to get into see a psychiatrist and
they were.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
So it can be really really challenging. It's also quite expensive,
Like this is all private psychiatry. There are ways to
go through the public system, and it does vary based
on the state that you're in, but it is a
particularly expensive process. And I think that you know, you
have to acknowledge the privilege in that I could have
forward private care. But a lot of people are not
(06:52):
in that position. They have priorities that are much greater
than you know working out whether they do or don't
have ADHD.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
It's not always as easy as you think to get
the diagnosis.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
It sounds like it's a spectrum too, like there's lots
of different levels.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Peace. Yeah. Yeah, there's three different types. So there's your hyperactive,
you're inattentive, and then the combined, which is the first
two put together and as a part of the diagnosive. Corey,
you wouldn't have had to do this on your second
one because you were diagnosed as a kid. But like
I said, you have to prove that you have had
the condition from before you were twelve. So for a
lot of people. For me, I got my mum to
(07:29):
fill out quite a lot of paperwork, and I mean
like it took her a couple of hours to fill out,
and I was lucky enough to have some old school
reports at her house, so I use those in my
diagnostic process. But not everyone has that, like you know,
whether they don't have a relationship with their parents, especially
with something like ADHD. You know a lot of people
are quite dismissive of it being a real thing. You know,
(07:51):
they all kind of say, like, well, we live in
a world now where everyone's distracted, you know, everyone thinks
they've got ADHD, but it's just normal, you know, and
a lot of you know, our parents' generation can.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Be like that.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
So, Keisha, what is your advice then, because there would
be people listening to this going, I think my child might,
I might. I mean, is there a hereditary component if
you or your partner has been diagnosed, are you're more
likely for your children to be diagnosed?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:18):
So I had a psychiatrist on the podcast, doctor Kieran Kennedy,
and he said that if you have a first degree relative,
you are nine times more likely to get ADHD. So
there is about a sixty percent genetic component to it.
And there was another bit of research from twenty ten
and it estimated that children with undiagnosed ADHD will experience
twenty thousand more criticisms about their behater by the age
(08:41):
of ten.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
So awful, twenty thousand.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, by ten. So my advice to people if they
think that their kid might have ADHD, or even if
they themselves are like looking into a diagnosis process. It
has a lot to do with unpacking this narrative that
we have created about ourselves. You know, you think about
that amount of criticism and how much that would extend
into your sense of who you are. Yeah, exactly. So
(09:11):
whenever I kind of have those conversations with people now,
especially when they're asking about the kids, I'm like, it's
just important for you to understand the different way that
their brain works, so that you can be more aware
of whether you're criticizing a naughty kid or whether you're
criticizing them for something that is just the way that
they're naturally wired. We all seem to be very forgetful.
(09:32):
We have this thing called time blindness, where you're not
really aware of how long you've been doing something for.
We can interrupt, we can elate the things.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
I can honestly, sorry, you are spot On'm like, my
out was bought. Yeahs, I don't say I hated moscool
as in like in class, I didn't want to be
I didn't want to go I just because of that reason,
Like I always got in trouble, got picked on for
being you know that kid. I just I didn't like it.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
I didn't.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
I had the worst experience in school, my only outward sport.
I tried hard to not be at school as much
as I possibly could because of how I felt about
going to every classroom. I just I didn't want to
be there. So that's why it's a great point, like
you'd rather find out.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
One of the great way to find out if you
want to just test the waters is to check out
this podcast cloud. It's a ten part mini series podcast
that that Keisha is hosting and it's available on the
iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks he
for joining us. Keisha, thank you guys, Thanks much.
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