ADHD, Trauma & Burnout with ND Coach Anna Granta
Anna Granta, an ADHD coach from the UK, shares her journey from a successful tech career to her true passion for coaching, highlighting her experiences with ADHD, trauma, and self-discovery. Her story offers valuable insights into the interplay of ADHD and trauma and emphasizes the importance of community engagement and self-empowerment.
Highlights:
Anna discusses how trauma and people-pleasing masked her ADHD symptoms during her school years.
She highlights the significance of choosing trauma-informed therapists for neurodivergent individuals.
Anna shares her transition from a tech career to ADHD coaching, emphasizing her dedication to helping others through community support and burnout resources.
Summary
In this podcast episode, Anna Granta, a UK-based ADHD coach, shares her compelling journey from a successful career in tech to discovering her true calling in coaching. Anna discusses her childhood experiences with undiagnosed ADHD and dyslexia, emphasizing how trauma and the need for adult approval masked her symptoms. Her story resonates with many who have felt misunderstood or overlooked, offering valuable insights into the complex interplay between ADHD and trauma. Anna’s path to self-discovery and empowerment serves as a powerful narrative for anyone navigating similar challenges.
Anna’s passion for coaching and community engagement shines through as she transitions from tech to a career dedicated to helping others. Her enthusiasm is evident in her interactions on social media and her development of a timely burnout course designed to support those in need. Anna’s warmth and commitment to making a positive impact are contagious, and her work in creating resources for burnout recovery highlights her dedication to helping others thrive.
Throughout the episode, Anna emphasizes the importance of trauma-informed therapy for neurodivergent individuals, advocating for a deeper understanding of the overlap between ADHD and trauma. She shares personal insights on the value of vulnerability, accepting help, and fostering supportive relationships. Anna’s story not only highlights her personal growth and resilience but also underscores the importance of community support and self-empowerment for those navigating the complexities of ADHD and trauma.
Transcript
00:00 - Sarah (Host)
The Adulting with ADHD podcast is not a substitute for medical advice. Please see a medical professional if you think you have ADHD or if you have questions about your current treatment. To support this podcast or to access the podcast archives, visit patreoncom slash. Adulting with ADHD. This is the Adulting with ADHD podcast self-empowerment for people with ADHD. I'm very excited to have with me Anna Granta, who is an ADHD coach based in the UK. Welcome, anna Hi. Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here. I'm very excited to be talking with you today. First off, do you want? This episode is about ADHD and trauma. To kick things off, would you like to share with the listeners your ADHD diagnosis story?
00:56 - Anna (Guest)
So when I was a child, I was diagnosed with dyslexia. I was fortunate to have a teacher who had a close family member with dyslexia, so she was able to spot those signs at a time when a lot of children were not diagnosed with anything. But dyslexia was what she knew. Dyslexia was what she identified, it was what I was tested for and it was what I was diagnosed with. Nobody thought to look into ADHD, even though they often come together.
01:24
So fast forward 20 something years and I left a good job in tech due to a combination of being burnt out and having to support my son with a tricky transition to school. So I looked around at all the things I was doing in my current job to try and figure out what do do I want to do next? What do I love? And I realized that what I love most was when people would appear at my desk and go we've heard you're good to talk to. I need to talk to somebody and I'd be like this is interesting, let me ignore all my work which I'm procrastinating on. Go and talk to you about, instance. Yeah, and that was what I loved. I love listening to people, listening to them talk through their problems and nudging them towards figuring out simple, effective solutions. Like I, went into tech to solve problems, but people are so much more rewarding to work with than computers, so I impulsively quit my successful tech career and decided to train as a life coach.
02:28
I didn't know that I had ADHD at this point, but a couple of local women in my area had ADHD.
02:33
They'd just been diagnosed and they'd heard that they should find an ADHD coach and this was before the pandemic. So they were looking locally for people that they could work with face to face, and there weren't any in my area. In the UK there still now aren't that many, something that people are only now beginning to be more aware of. So they found me and they asked if I would be willing to learn about ADHD and support them, and I was like, yes, let's learn about a new thing, let's do all the research. This sounds exciting. So after a lot of reading and talking with them and learning, the penny kind of dropped. For me, there's a reason that I get on so well with these women that I totally understand their struggles and can empathize with them really easily. About two years ago I had gone through that process and I gathered up my courage and I went to speak to my GP who referred me on for an adult ADHD assessment, and I'm still on that waiting list.
03:36 - Sarah (Host)
Oh my gosh, oh you poor thing. Yeah, we had spoken offline or should I say online, on Twitter, about the intersection of trauma and ADHD and your experience how did, or how does trauma hide ADHD for you?
03:55 - Anna (Guest)
Yeah. So I was desperate to please my teachers, right to get that adult approval, right to get that adult approval, and that was a real motivation to focus in class, even when it was hard to sit quietly, to behave, not to attract the wrong kind of attention. And I did brilliantly academically and I think that was one of the things that meant that nobody was really considering ADHD, because ADHD is naughty boys who won't sit, still keep throwing things and do poorly in class. I was none of those. I was sitting at the back, unobtrusively playing with my hand, doodling a little bit, staring out the window, not causing anybody any trouble absolutely.
04:44 - Sarah (Host)
Oh gosh, that's a whole other. And is that the traumatic part for you is?
04:49 - Anna (Guest)
no, school was actually my safe place. That was your happy place oh yeah, school was where I knew what the rules were and I knew that I could perform. Maybe it was a lot of effort, but the rules were consistent and I loved that yeah but it was.
05:04
I think it was the traumatic experiences that made me so desperate to get the approval of my teachers and then, as I got older, people pleased that, which I think helped hide some of the social struggles. I've always been able to read people very well. Again, it's a trauma response because, yeah, when those dangerous adults are having a bad day, so you can move out the way. So we're very good at reading people and adjusting my behavior to keep other people comfortable and that means that people think that you know what you're doing socially.
05:39 - Sarah (Host)
Yeah, absolutely. Wow. This is hitting home a little bit because I too was a goody two-shoes and wanted to just fade away. And you're right, it makes it easy to mask the whole thing, even if you don't even know you're masking. It makes it very easy to do when you're well-behaved. What steps did you take to be able to? You mentioned a little bit in your intro that now you're on a waiting list, so let's rewind a little bit to when you first realized there might be something more there. What did you do? I think?
06:15 - Anna (Guest)
I avoided it for a little bit. I was already reading all of these books, both to support people that I was working with, but also I knew that my son was struggling to adjust to school and I was starting to read about what that might be, and so I was very immersed in almost like the culture of neurodivergence before I realized they were always my people because I always knew I had the dyslexia, but then I was like no, this is not.
06:43
So it's hard to really pinpoint a moment where I was like I think it was hard for me to phone that GP. I was absolutely terrified.
06:52 - Sarah (Host)
I don't know if you've ever been put on a waiting list, but therapy is hard to come by these days. If you need therapy and you need someone to talk, to consider BetterHelp. I've been using BetterHelp on and off since the pandemic and it's honestly been really helpful when I can't reach my normal therapist, to save 10% off your first month visit. Betterhelpcom slash ADHD adulting. That's betterhelpcom slash ADHD adulting.
07:19 - Anna (Guest)
You know that I would be dismissed and I would be ignored, that I wouldn't be taken seriously, and that isn't what happened at all. Actually, I have to say the GP was very understanding, very professional, but I did a lot of homework before I made that call, so I don't really have a moment where I like, yeah and off, absolutely.
07:41 - Sarah (Host)
it's seldom like this linear journey or like the movie moment of oh, oh, my God. So when you, when you were connecting, like you've seemed to have connected the trauma and ADHD relationship, was that just in your readings or how were you able to? I'm going a little off script to you and this isn't one of the questions.
08:02 - Anna (Guest)
Yeah, it's funny, a lot of people can be reluctant to diagnose someone who definitely has trauma with ADHD because there can be overlap. There is overlap in how they present, but also ADHD is a factor that puts you at increased risk of trauma, right? So a lot of people do have both, and in my work I've come to realize that experiences are not by default traumatic or not traumatic. It depends on the individual and how they experience those things. And if you have ADHD, you're experiencing them a bit differently to other people, and I think that we can, you know, find things traumatic which other people do not find traumatic yeah, yeah, um, that would be driving for me.
08:52 - Sarah (Host)
And then I don't know, I don't know how many adhd years have highway driving anxiety, but, boy, that triggers me every time. So what, if? What are some of the major learnings you've come across as you're working with your clients and going on your own exploration?
09:10 - Anna (Guest)
In terms of trauma, do you mean?
09:14 - Sarah (Host)
Yeah, do you see this coming up with your clients, especially like workplace trauma, for example, that can stem from ADHD? I guess I'll rephrase this If you had one major like for the people listening right now one major learning about reconciling, like that's. I guess that's even also another question Is trauma something? Trauma and ADHD is that something to be reconciled or is it just something to be aware of? Do you have an opinion about that or what's your approach to working through those things?
09:49 - Anna (Guest)
So I think it's helpful to understand if you have trauma and if you have ADHD, so you just know when to be really gentle with yourself, when to go. This is super hard for me and actually maybe it's too hard right now and I'm going to take a step back or try something else. I think it's super important for neurodivergent people to be really aware when they're choosing therapists. Many of us need therapists. Therapy can be really helpful to choose someone who is trauma informed as well as knowledgeable about whatever neurodivergent conditions we might have, about whatever neurodivergent conditions we might have, because a lot of not trauma-informed therapy can actually further traumatize somebody who is neurodivergent with a history of trauma really interesting.
10:37
I have. So CBT, for example. I was prescribed CBT for anxiety before I knew I had ADHD. I think this is quite common with women with undiagnosed ADHD. So the problem was I was overwhelmed by having a new baby and specifically getting out of the house with a new baby. Like it's hard. There's a lot of steps, you've got to do them in the right order and then they like throw up or the nappy explodes and you've got to go back to the beginning and do all the steps again. Yeah, it was something that I really struggled with and this led to me kind of avoiding going out right and almost becoming a bit agoraphobic. So that was picked up as anxiety.
11:17
But then in the CBT it's all about like your anxious thoughts are irrational. Just ignore your anxious thoughts and do the thing anyway. Just be a grown-up and get out the house. How hard can it even be? And that's super unhelpful and unkind genuinely hard. Like I needed practical strategies. This is how you pack a diaper bag. This is the list of things you've got to do. Let's laminate it and stick it on your door, not like it's in your head. Just get over it, because it wasn't in my head.
11:46 - Sarah (Host)
It was hard you picture thinking this will be fine, yeah, yeah, any closing thoughts?
11:55 - Anna (Guest)
I think this is all very valuable another trauma response is to be fiercely independent, right, and this is all very valuable. Another trauma response is to be fiercely independent, right, and this is something that I just really work through and learn that what we need other people, we can do far more when we let other people help us, because when we have ADHD, there are certain things that we are not great at and actually, if you can have somebody else help you with that really complicated form either do it or sit with you and kind of body double and motivate you while you do it, it's going to make a big difference, and people are so willing to help if you let them, and actually, if you can be a bit vulnerable and let people know when you need help, that really increases your connection with people, and so that's been a really big learning for me to be vulnerable, accept help, ask for things and connect into those good, supportive relationships in my life.
12:53 - Sarah (Host)
Yeah, just an observation. When you had people coming to your desk for help, you probably didn't think twice about helping them, of course, not.
13:01 - Anna (Guest)
I was delighted to help them.
13:04 - Sarah (Host)
Yeah, exactly, and when it comes to us, we just have no clue how to accept that. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for being here. This has been really. I just relate so much to it because it's on the career front, on the mom front. There's so many ways that this shows up and then, like you said, it's like the chicken and egg thing. Like, did the ADHD cause the trauma? Did the trauma cause the ADHD? And I don't know about you, but in my travels I have finally stopped trying to make it all make sense and just there's a level of acceptance. Right, this is happening and we're still learning stuff. We're even as a field. Yeah, but for our listeners who are looking for this extra support, where can they find you?
13:50 - Anna (Guest)
online. So my website is grantacoachingcom and that has info on. I do one-to-one coaching and I do group coaching. I've got self-study programs on there as well, so you can find the learning method that works for you. On April 14th, I'm giving a free training called Recognizing Burnout. I would love to see some of your listeners there. I gave that training last year and the feedback was amazing, so don't miss that. And then after after that, I'll be launching burnout recovery crew, which is a group coaching program for burnt out ADHDers. So that is again. The feedback from the beta testers has been so encouraging.
14:32
So if you are burnt out or you're susceptible to burnout and you want to break out of those boom and bust cycles, then that is for you. We will learn how to relax, because that isn't something that comes naturally to many of us, but we can practice it. We can learn it how to find balance, so moving away from that boom and bust to a more kind of steady state, knowing our needs, getting the help that we need, and then we will learn to really tap into our creativity and our passions and get that joy of being a creative human with a brilliant brain. But yes, it definitely has its problems and its struggles, but we can do the most amazing things with our problem solving and our imagination and our ability to connect to other people. So I love showing that to ADHDers. So I love showing that to ADHDers once we've got the foundations in place, so that you're not going to have a great idea and then feel a failure when it doesn't come to fruition, but when you've actually got those foundations, that you can do the stuff that you want to do.
15:30
And finally, you found me on Twitter. My handle is Anna Granta, so I will always welcome. You know new people there to say hi and my Instagram is Granta Coaching. Awesome, anna is welcome. You know new people there to say hi.
15:41 - Sarah (Host)
Um, on my instagram it's gronta coaching awesome and I I just want to say I was listening, I'm watching her and she just lit up when I when she started talking about her coaching practice and helping everybody and it's just it takes our conversation full circle because when we first started talking, you mentioned people come into your desk and you loving helping them and I just I love seeing the passion here and this burnout course sounds amazing and timely and so relevant. So thank you so much for all that you do for our community and it was really wonderful talking to you today.
16:22 - Anna (Guest)
Thank you, sarah. It's been really great to be on your show and I look forward to connecting with you again in the future same here on take care, take care bye.
