LATE BLOOMERS - ADHD VS ADULTING: Why so many of us feel like bad adults and what to do about it

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

Why does everything feel so hard? In this painfully honest episode, Rox and Rich unpack the everyday struggles of “being a grown-up” with ADHD—from brushing your teeth to answering emails to keeping your house from turning into chaos. They talk about the crushing shame of falling behind on life admin, the emotional toll of forgetting simple things, and the silent pressure of pretending you’ve got it all together. Rox shares what it’s like to feel like a bad adult almost every day, and Rich opens up about how he’s learned to support her without judgment. Together, they explore what’s really behind the meltdown over laundry, the panic over unopened letters, and the guilt that follows every unfinished task. This episode is for anyone who’s ever felt broken by the basics. You’re not lazy, you’re not alone—and there is a way through. Let this be your permission slip to drop the shame and find your own version of functioning.

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improved joint function, all due to the live nutrients that you've added to their diet. And at 90 days better digestion, reduced inflammation, improved heart health, and you may even have reduced their cancer risk. Fetch your dog a free Jumpstart trial bag today. Go to TryRuffGreens.com. Use promo code TRYRUFF their cancer risk. Adalting vs ADHD, who wins? I feel like this could be a really short episode. Adulting won, ADHD zero. However, we are going to dig into why ADHD adults often feel like bad adults. The problem with setting us up to fail with the expectation of what adulting is, what is the definition of a successful ADHD adult and what to do when we need to adult and we actually need support.

This is Late Bloomers where we are getting our lives together and adulting. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da eventually. Right, that was lovely. Thanks. Serenading me before the start of the year. Okay, so what is adulting? In my mind, it's organizing your life, doing DIY, paying bills on time, cleaning teeth, bathing, being organized, doctors, booking holidays. Like just living your life the adult way.

Yeah. Just live in your life the adult way. Yeah. I agree actually, so broadly. Just existing in this world with no real trouble? Maybe? Yeah, maybe trouble, you know, we can never stop. Incidents and accidents that may come and mess up our day, but generally speaking, getting through every day pretty well, holding down a job, holding down your home life and just kind of succeeding most

days. So what is ADHD then in that context? So we know what adulting is. Absolutely failing at that on every possible single scale. Like I'm not joking. If I was to sum up my ADHD experience, it would be, I feel like a bad adult. You do say that sometimes, don't you? That's a phrase that comes out of your mouth. Yeah, I'm just like failing at adulting and often feel so much like just a kid trapped in an adult body, unable to do the things that I should be able to do at the grand old

age of 40. Yeah. I think we've got a bit of a different experience of adulting. Like if we go back to when we met, I would, or I did see you as someone who was killing it on adulting. And then there was me, not necessarily. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I had, I was renting a flat.

I've been divorced twice. That's what, that's a proper adult thing to do, isn't it? Divorcing, God, that's like up-level adulting. Yeah, I had a company car, good job, two kids. All my bills and stuff were paid by direct debit, just organized. Yeah. Driving license.

Yeah. Car, you got around, you sort of organized stuff. Like, and then when we met, I was in debt, living in a spare room, couldn't pay 300 pound a month rent, couldn't organize a doctor's appointment, trying and failing to make yet another creative venture work. You had no fixed abode. I feel like that's adding to adulting, isn't it? A fixed abode. I never had a fixed abode.

Like my whole life I've just been like renting for six months a year, a spare room, back to my dad's. Like, yeah, I've never felt like I've had a real actual working home until me and you. So thanks very much for. No problem. You, you felt like that actually quite quickly. I mean, you obviously moved in after like five seconds. That's not very adult thing that we, either of us did, was it? Just steam into it. that's quite like teenager vibes.

That's a bit teenager. But when you know, you know, it is cheesy, but it is true, isn't it? Apparently, yeah. So I think, you know, at that point, I didn't know I had ADHD. So now I get to laugh at it and sort of say, ADHD makes me feel like a bad adult. Ha ha ha. At that time, there was no ADHD. All I had was I'm failing at life. I'm forever behind. I'll never meet the standard. I'm useless and lazy. So this is a really interesting episode, I think, because we could well easily sit here, and I'm sure we will, and talk about why it's so difficult potentially when you've got ADHD to be a good adult. But it's sort of a necessity as well. You have to find ground

somewhere, right? Because you have to exist in this world. You have to figure out how to feed yourself. You have to figure out how to feed yourself. You have to figure out how to pay bills so you don't end up like me in court and with CCJs. You have to figure out how to have a phone and even further than that, if you think about the listeners that have kids. When you have kids, you don't get to be a bad adult because someone's relying on you. So it's really difficult because we're taking something that feels impossible and we kind of have to make it work.

But like going back to you and me when we first met, me just seeing myself as terrible adult, you seeing yourself as, or maybe not me just seeing you as amazing adult. What was something you thought, like, that I did well? Because I don't want it all to just be like, ADHD is terrible. Like, is there anything I did well? Yeah, absolutely. So like, if you look at adulting in the sense of paying bills, organizing, having a car, all that sort of stuff, you know, you struggled hugely with that, as we said. The one thing that you were far better than me at was like, emotional closeness and vulnerability. And that's adult, isn't it? Like if you think about like what a kid would rely on from their parents would be emotionally available, securely attached.

And you did that really well. So you had the emotional bit down. I was terrible at it. And I had the bills down and you were terrible at it. So like we each had our strengths, I think. It's crazy though, because I don't feel like in the scale of adulting, it's emotional maturity and knowing what a kid needs or what an adult needs and being sort of emotionally attuned, able to have tough combos and lead with kind

of love and kindness, blah, blah, blah. That isn't, when I say adulting, I mean paying bills, having a driving license, going to the doctors. And I think so many ADHDs feel bad in that area and they maybe miss the chunk where they might actually be ahead of some others, which is in that because yeah, I look back on us meeting with a bit of embarrassment and look how far ahead you were in life and how behind I was, but actually I did help you get closer with Sia and Lily and help kind of with Seir moving in and help us moving closer to Lily. So like helped us make some huge decisions that has probably really impacted the kids' future lives.

Yeah, definitely. So that is adulting. Yeah, 100%. And you know, even less deep than that, being good with connection, being good with vulnerability, emotional connection, that's going to spread into your relationships and connection with others, either romantic or business or colleagues or whatever. And that's hugely important. So when we're looking at adulting, there's like physical and then there's emotional. And actually, I think often it is the physical adulting that ADHD is struggling with. And so many ADHDs identify as being kind of high on the empathy scale.

And we often just forget to see that as a good thing. So let's keep that in mind as we delve into- Keep that in mind when you've got the bailiffs knocking on the door. It's no-one else's. Would you like a cup of tea? How high? You joke, but I have had that. Okay. So adulting is having a nine to five job, keeping your house clean, booking appointments, admin, driving license, all that jazz. Why is it that ADHD people find that so difficult to achieve? I mean, I feel like you're probably best placed to answer that question. I'm interested to know, like I'd love to know from your point of view, why do you think

that is so difficult for me? And you've seen me kind of flailing around in those areas. So there's loads. This is like a layered answer. There's executive dysfunction. There's problems with routine. So, you know, to keep a house tidy, it has to be part of a routine. It can't be a big thing once a week. It just needs to, you need to sort of do, be able to do things on autopilot, like do the kitchen

when you're there making a coffee and stuff. Sorry. You need to do it on autopilot. Yeah. What does that mean? Cause that, I don't understand. Do it without consciously thinking about it, which you, that's not a skill that you have. So are you telling me, legit, please don't lie,

that you can clean the kitchen without thinking about it? Yeah, I can clean the kitchen, but I can also like be up to date with laundry and it not really impact my day. I'll just do it as and when I hear the machine go off. So it isn't a thing. But if I said to you, there's five loads of laundry to do today, that'd be your day. That'd be my full-time job. Yeah.

I could do it, but it would be a full-time job. I just cannot imagine what it feels like to exist in a body that can autopilot through cleaning and laundry. Like if I had that button, oh man, I feel a bit jealous of you right now. So that, well no, I mean, it's not great. It's good that the clothes are clean, but it's not a fun thing. Do you know what I mean? Like, cleaning and laundry, it's just a thing. It's not something I...

But mind you, I suppose I'd take it for granted probably. Clean clothes. Yeah. Oh man. So I guess that's a huge issue. The inability for me to do anything on autopilot. And it's really common for ADHD is to not be able to pick up routines. Yeah.

Might be as simple as teeth cleaning, check an email, laundry. You then also have issues just with organization and time. So if you're thinking about booking a doctor's appointment, that isn't, okay, what is your, if you were going to book a doctor's appointment, how would you do that? Just phone them and say, I need to see a doctor. See, I am a bad adult.

Well, no, I mean, you struggle with that, can you? So I wouldn't be able to phone very easily. That's so embarrassing to say, but I really struggle with phone anxiety, knowing what to say, thinking I'm going to get caught off guard. For example, they'll ask me, are you free Tuesday 12 o'clock? I need to check my calendar. I don't know if that's up to date. So I don't ring because it's too much. So I need to email and then if they don't email me back. So you struggle getting a doctor's appointment in this country.

I struggle getting a doctor's appointment. And that's, that's like really serious because if you need a health checkup or something's wrong, we end up ignoring it, not getting the help that we need. And that's actually quite scary. But that element of it's too overwhelming, like I can't figure out the dates. It can just stop you from doing that kind of stuff. Other things like form filling. For me, I don't currently have a driving licence. The thought of going and filling out all those forms. I'd love

to drive. It would really help me getting places I need to go. I'd probably see friends more. I'd have freedom. I can't get over the hurdle of filling the form. So like you just get stopped at the first hurdle when you're trying to access into adulthood. It's like I'm watching everyone else in the room and I'm just outside the window, like can't find the door. So I'm just staring in. Yeah. And I suppose when you do do it, it takes its toll, right?

Like you're quite tired after, say you were doing laundry and we were talking about that autopilot or booking a doctor's appointment. If you did do it, that would be you written off. Like you'd be knackered. I'd be done. Yeah. And that's the other thing. I feel there's an energy component that's different between you and I. So you said you could do laundry throughout the day and it wouldn't

impact the rest of your day. Yeah. As long as I'm at home. If you're at home. So for me, one load of laundry is going to wipe me out. Focusing on it, lifting it, folding it, probably going to get backache. I'm going to really struggle with motivation, force through. After that, I'll be done. So very often with ADHD, you have a choice between doing your adult things that day or doing something at work or something social. And you have to, you have to choose. And then you've got the added thing of whenever your brain decides, this is what I'm going to do today.

I'm going to learn soap making. Yeah. And then you go and do that. So like stuff gets dropped, doesn't it? And it's not like you've really got a choice. If your brain says, this is my thing now, this is your hyper focus now, you haven't got a choice in that really. You can't, you're physically uncomfortable unless you can fully research it and understand it. It's so rubbish. Just feels like an obstacle course of trying to do adult things and the brain is looking for any reason not to do

it, whether it's physical pain, no motivation, a random new hyper focus. Why can't I just do the thing? Well, I think probably we should talk about what does it look like to be an ADHD successful ADHD adult. Because you're obviously, you're doing quite well now. And I think people will need some hope. Yeah, no, sorry. I'm just feeling a bit sorry for myself. I think it's really important to say it doesn't look like doing all the laundry, being super clean and doing your job and booking all the doctor's appointments. Someone with ADHD forcing themselves through that with willpower or with probably anxiety, that's how you end up in burnout. Like forcing yourself

to live as others do, take so much energy, you will make yourself ill. I've done it numerous times. So we can't judge ourselves by the normal adulting standard. And that isn't a get out of jail free card. That isn't using it as an excuse. That is genuinely a way to try and help us exist in the world, think that we're okay, live a life that's got some joy and happiness in it. And you know, I do just need to say, because I can't sit here and just say, well, I'm successful now. I've cracked it. I have so much support through you and

through the Dubby community that I almost feel it's unfair. Not everybody has a partner that is willing to do more of the adulting in the house, the admin, the organization, the calendar. I don't know what I'd do without you, babe. Hmm. And it really, that even that thought scares me because I don't know if I'd cope because I never coped before. Life was really, really horrible before you. Obviously, I'm in therapy and I do have some better systems, but I'd find

it really, really difficult if I didn't have you. I think though, where you're maybe different now. And I reckon a lot of people listening will maybe fall into this is that they'll be trying to do all the adulting and stay on top of things, um, really struggling, feeling a huge amount of shame and not telling anyone or not asking for help. Because it's embarrassing. I feel like the journey you've been on over the few years, if I got hit by bus or whatever and was just gone, you would ask for help. I'll be down to White Cliffs of Dover, mate. What do you mean I'd ask for help? But let's be serious for a minute. I think you would be

better. Maybe let's not use the analogy of hit by bus. I don't know. So say I went away for six months for something. I was called to serve my country or something. Okay. I know I was, so I was coming back. Okay. So six months, I couldn't help you.

That might be a better. So I would live in a pig's title five months, 29 days, and then sort it all out. Oh dear, you're not helping me with this trail of thought. But what I'm saying is, I feel like you would feel less shame about asking for help from somebody safe, like your manager Mark or the accountants or whatever. Like you would be really open and honest about the things that you struggle with, whereas

you wouldn't historically. You would ignore it and you would bury it because of the shame and embarrassment. Is it the hit by a bus? Is it just railroaded? Yes, it I would say I need more help with the finance stuff. I'd probably speak to friends if I was feeling really low, I hope. I'd be know. I just think it's so important for me to say the reason why I'm able to be happy, live shame-free and have success in music and with the books and stuff is because I have unbelievable support at home. And often that's the missing piece.

ADHDs are used to shaming themselves, thinking they're broken, thinking they need to try harder. Very often you don't need to try harder, you just need support. And I think, you know, the reason I don't want to repeat what I've said, but, and we do get some stick for this on the internet, not loads, but we do get some. What if I'm at home watching this episode of Late Bloomers, single, what do we say to them?

Yeah. Because that's very real, right? There has to be coping mechanisms or something that we can say to them. And I think it is asking for support and I think it is identifying safe people to really go in on the things that you're most embarrassed about you're going to need to share. Yeah. So I think the first thing is to throw out the window, scoring a hundred percent on the adult test. Yeah. Ain't happening. Okay. It's all good. We're going to get a hundred percent on other tests. Yeah. Empathy, creativity. We ain't getting a hundred percent

on the adult test. So that's got to go. So it's finding a system that works for you, that works for two weeks and then find in another one, whatever you need to do to get through your week and not shaming yourself in the process. So if the bedsheets haven't been changed for a couple of months, but you've managed to get to work and pay that bill, no shame is needed. No shame is needed. Like you've got to go at your own pace. You've got to go slower. And I honestly, truly do believe that body doubling is the most magic things for ADHD is I experience it at home with you. I experience with friends, with the kids and through the body doubling on Dubby. Like when you're not here, I go on the body doubling sessions on Dubby and I can clean the kitchen.

I can clean my teeth. Like it really works. So for anyone that doesn't know, we have an app called Dubby and we run multiple body double sessions a day. We just log on and work with about a hundred other people. And look, like legitimately as well, people are doing arts and crafts, some of them,

but some of them are really just cleaning their teeth or washing up or doing admin or paying bills and stuff. Like it's such an eclectic group of people. There's something about a hundred people all working together and you know that they're working on things that they find a bit tough. That you feel like you can do it too. It removes for me the shame. It gives me a little dopamine boost. We've obviously got the hosts being like, yeah, come on, you're washing the dishes. So that really helps. Now, obviously not everyone

is going to want to do it on an app, but you can do that with your friends. If you don't want to go on an app, phone a friend, get a parent around, use a FaceTime, listen to a podcast. Just so you know, you aren't alone. We have to get rid of this feeling that we're all failing. Because waking up as an ADHD, you often wake up with a sense of failure already before you've even tried your day. So I think what it looks like to be a successful ADHD adult, ADHD adulting is asking for help and finding support in the areas that you struggle with due to your condition. Yeah.

And for some reason, there's so much shame and embarrassment around asking for help we struggle on alone. And recognizing the things that you are brilliant at, because you wouldn't have recognized the fact if your, you know, empathy, emotional connections and stuff, you wouldn't have seen that because it was overshadowed by the CCJs in the bills out there. It's hard babe, because if I go back to 10 years ago, living alone in a basement flat in London in absolute pigsty, couldn't see the floor, mold growing,

washing up that's been in a sink for six months, disgusting clothes, bottles and cans everywhere, electricity shut off because I couldn't figure out how to pay for it. If I go back to that version of me, great, I'm nice to go for a coffee with or give you a cut. In that moment, empathy for others does nothing. Maybe there could have been some empathy towards myself, but I needed help. I needed help. I do remember, even in that moment, my friend Kat, I do remember texting her and she said, where are you? And I said, I've just come to a coffee shop because my electricity's been shut off. So I haven't got a wifi at home. Yeah.

Her going, what? And she came round, she topped up my meter with 10 pounds. I didn't ask. Yeah, of course. She just did it. So had I have asked her like, Hey, I'm so struggling. I'm behind on my electricity bill. I can't figure out how to top it up. Yeah.

She would have been round. So I do just want to encourage people to reach out. It won't be everybody that can or wants to help, but there's always somebody. Yeah. And needs to be the right people. There's a lot of judgmental people out there, isn't there? Yeah. Don't ask a judgmental person.

And, you know, it is important to see what we're good at. And I do think that now I've got support for the adulting areas that was a constant stress and struggle, the free time and the lack of shame that I'm feeling on a constant basis has meant I've been able to write books, do music, think about a body doubling app, but it's built on the top of a lot of support. So when an ADHD is supported, you can unlock some amazing other things, but some of us are just drowning and you don't get to do that. So getting support, whatever that looks like for you is probably number one. I think as well to sort of end this so often the conversation is around

and our conversation is around self compassion, self kindness and being nice to yourself, working with your brain and I'm all for that and it's amazing. But if I am cooking dinner for Lily and she's coming back from school, I can't mess that up. An 11 year old needs feeding. Or picking her up from school or whatever. Do you know what I mean? There is no bad adulting when it comes to kids. Or if I need to get an urgent doctor's appointment

and something is really going on, you can seriously impact your life and the lives of those around you. So there are times when we simply have to do it. They're like emergencies. I feel like though, from witnessing you, there's an override switch. When it's like it has to witnessing you, there's an override switch. When it's like it has to happen, it does happen.

Weirdly when it comes to the kids, I can override. Even when you were babysitting your friend's kids back in the day, like you would never not be there when they finished school. Do you know what I mean? There was an override. My full-time job was doing that. There was a lot of anxiety, a lot of double-checking times and schedules, arriving an hour anxiously early. Sometimes that is what we're going to have to do. You will have to work double as hard to do the thing and you're going to be tired, but you have to do it. So it's important to kind of understand that we have that

override switch. And yeah, I get, I think as well health, I just want to kind of end with healthcare because, and I'm not telling anyone what to do because, uh, my mom died of cervical cancer and it's been a really long time since my last smear test, but maybe we could all just that one test, that one thing we've been putting off. Maybe we could all just try from this episode. That would mean the world. Maybe you can body double me trying to, cause I've got a letter about it. I just haven't managed to sort it out. So guys, if you're listening to this episode and there's something to do with your health, maybe it's a tooth decay or you've got a pain or you're

due for a smear or a scan or a screening. Why don't we all do one thing? Cause we can do one thing? Because we can do one thing. So that's it, the ADHD adulting podcast. I hope we haven't made you feel... Yeah, it's a bit of a low one. I feel like adult in one actually. Do you reckon? At the beginning when I said adult in one, ADHD zero.

I think you are. But having chaos and fun and living a great life in ADHD one. So guys, thank you so much for being here. Please like, subscribe, follow. Please let us know if you have got one healthcare challenge or anything that this episode helped you to do. That's what we're here for. And we really hope to see you next week. Yeah.