Our ED&WHY Series is here to not only educate you on subjects within the ED&I space, but to provide the WHY behind them. 

We believe that using our platform to help amplify the voices of people with lived experiences around topics and empowering them to share their stories, that this will help bring about conversations and these conversations will lead to change

In this episode, we talk to Joseph Pack (he/him), founder of the Drug Free ADHD newsletter and acclaimed podcast host of Scattered Founder. Be sure to follow him on LinkedIn too, for his daily content:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephpack/

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During the discussion we touch upon:

- Who are the people who follow Joseph on social media and why is his presence needed on Linkedin

- Those who haven’t experienced neurodiversity before or are new to it 

- Understanding neurodiverse behaviour in the workplace

- How to best support neurodiverse employees in the workplace

- Lived experiences on the ADHD journey

- Learning to thrive with ADHD

- Dangers of self medicating with ADHD

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The full (12 minute) conversation can be found on our youtube channel , but for those of you who came here just for the highlights, we've listed some below for you [although the video is there to watch afterwards too, and is full of lived experience gems].

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#1 The current NHS waiting list to be 'officially' diagnosed ADHD is around 2 years, however there is a growing number of people who identify as ADHD without a diagnosis because of this.

#2 Outside of the medication there are not a huge amount of benefits the government are giving to people with ADHD and the medication comes with its own problems, it's not for everyone.

#3 People are at different stages of their ADHD journeys and can display different symptoms on the ADHD spectrum and deal with it in different ways, so it's not a one size fits all disability. 

#4 The 9-6 desk work routine is NOT suitable for people with ADHD and employers need to be educated in order to make provisions for ADHD'ers, who can be their most loyal, creative and productive employees if nurtured correctly. 

#5 The modern world (#patriarchy) and social media want us to all live inside a binary bubble, which many neurotypical people find incredibly easy to do. This isn't the case for neurodiverse people and we function best outside of the binary bubble, it's an extremely hard time to be neurodiverse and it's not talked about enough.

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Go on, these are just a few of the many amazing learnings from this exchange, have a watch below:

This interview was conducted by Lightning Founder Chris King (they/she) who is also diagnosed ADHD and Joseph was paid for his contributions to this video.