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ADHDifference

Author: Julie Legg

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ADHDifference challenges the common misconception that ADHD only affects young people. Diagnosed as an adult, Julie Legg interviews guests from around the world, sharing new ADHD perspectives, strategies and insights.

ADHDifference's mission is to foster a deeper understanding of ADHD by sharing personal, relatable experiences in informal and open conversations. Choosing "difference" over "disorder" reflects its belief that ADHD is a difference in brain wiring, not just a clinical label.

Julie is the author of The Missing Piece: A Woman's Guide to Understanding, Diagnosing, and Living with ADHD (HarperCollins NZ, 2024) and ADHD advocate.

112 Episodes
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Julie Legg explores The Drama Triangle — a powerful framework that helps make sense of our reactions in emotionally charged moments. Originally developed by Stephen Karpman and brought into the ADHD conversation by Bex O’Malley, this tool highlights three common roles we can fall into: Victim, Rescuer, and Persecutor. With ADHD, where emotional responses can feel fast, intense, and hard to shift, these roles can show up quickly and even change mid-conversation. But with awareness comes choice...
Julie Legg explores how many of our emotional reactions (especially anxiety and hesitation) are not about the present moment at all, but are driven by old predictions the brain learned in the past. Drawing on insights from Brian DesRoches, the episode introduces the concept of memory reconsolidation, the brain’s ability to update outdated emotional patterns when it experiences something different from what it expects. Rather than trying to force change through willpower or positive thinking, ...
Julie Legg speaks with psychotherapist Dr. Katie Brzozowski about the inner critic, where it comes from, why it can feel so loud for ADHDers, and how it shapes the way we see ourselves. Katie explains how a lifetime of correction, criticism, and misunderstanding can become internalised, turning into the harsh self-talk many ADHDers carry into adulthood. These “tapes” often resurface during moments of stress, grief, burnout, or life transitions — amplifying self-doubt and making it harder to m...
Julie Legg speaks with therapist Jennifer Noll Sparks, creator of the Create the Win System — a practical, science-informed approach designed to help people move through overwhelm and take meaningful action, even on the hardest days. Drawing from both her professional background and lived experience, Jennifer unpacks why so many ADHDers feel stuck... not from laziness, but from nervous system dysregulation. She introduces the concept of the window of tolerance, explaining how overwhelm can sh...
Julie Legg is joined by Kamy Moussavi, former engineer and founder of Step Together, who brings a powerful and personal perspective to the conversation around ADHD, emotional eating, and the brain’s relationship with food. Kamy shares his own childhood experience with obesity, restrictive dieting, and undiagnosed ADHD, revealing how traditional approaches like calorie counting failed to address the real drivers behind his behaviour. Together, they unpack the critical link between dopami...
Julie Legg speaks with Tiara Brumberg, certified ADHD coach, entrepreneur, and founder of The Middle Coaching. Tiara lives and breathes the realities of ADHD both professionally and personally — as a mum to three children with ADHD, a partner to a husband with ADHD, and an ADHDer herself. Together, they explore what Tiara calls the “messy middle” — the real-life space where executive functioning challenges, emotional dysregulation, parenting pressures, and everyday family chaos collide. Tiara...
Julie Legg speaks with Dominic Carubba, a former U.S. Army officer, sales leader, and ADHD coach who was diagnosed later in life after decades of high performance that masked a quiet erosion of self-trust. Dominic shares how ADHD can drive overcomplication, overthinking, and constant attempts to compensate for perceived shortcomings. Even when life looks successful from the outside, internally many ADHDers feel like they are always catching up, always trying to prove themselves. The con...
Julie Legg speaks with psychotherapist and author Brian DesRoches (Living a Trigger-Free Life), whose work focuses on the neuroscience of emotional learning and a process called memory reconsolidation. Brian explains why so many people struggle with recurring triggers, self-sabotage, and emotional patterns even after years of insight or therapy. Rather than simply managing reactions or trying to “think positive,” Brian describes how the brain actually stores emotional learning and how those m...
Julie Legg speaks with Ryan Turner — motocross rider, recruiter, content creator, and founder of Dopamine Hunters. After receiving his ADHD diagnosis in adulthood, Ryan began reflecting on a lifetime of intensity, stimulation-seeking, and relentless energy that had previously felt chaotic and misunderstood. Through motocross and other high-adrenaline pursuits, Ryan discovered that the environments many people see as risky or extreme can actually bring calm, focus, and clarity to ADHD minds. T...
Julie Legg speaks with accountant, financial educator, podcast host, and author of ADHD Money, Tina Mathams. Together they unpack the emotional side of money for ADHDers — the impulsive spending, the avoidance, the shame, and the cycle of guilt that can quietly spiral into financial overwhelm. Tina shares her personal story of hitting financial rock bottom while undiagnosed, and how understanding her ADHD completely changed the way she approached money. Rather than relying on willpower or rig...
Julie Legg speaks with psychotherapist Karen Dwyer-Tesoriero, who specialises in adult ADHD, complex trauma, and attachment. With over 25 years in social work and psychotherapy, Karen brings both professional expertise and lived experience to the conversation after discovering her own ADHD later in life through her son’s diagnosis. Together, they discuss powerful overlap between ADHD and trauma, particularly how negative childhood messaging can evolve into legacy burdens that shape adult iden...
Julie Legg chats with Douglas Katz — West Point graduate, Army veteran, inventor — about receiving an ADHD diagnosis in his 50s and how that moment reframed his entire life. Rather than seeing ADHD as something to “manage” or suppress, Douglas began to recognise how his urgency-driven thinking, rapid problem-solving, and constant scanning for stimuli had actually fuelled his success in the military and entrepreneurship. What once felt like quirks or liabilities became strategic advantages in ...
Julie Legg is joined by Kit Slocum, neurodiversity lead and learning experience designer at Flown. With a background in psychology and behavioural neuroscience, and lived experience of ADHD, Kit brings both science and compassion to the conversation about focus, productivity, and nervous system regulation. From going from failing grades to straight A’s after receiving accommodations, to questioning the systems that label distraction as a personal flaw, Kit reframes ADHD through the lens of ne...
Julie Legg sits down with clinical psychologist Dr. Matt Campbell, co-creator of the Our Primal Five framework, to explore why self-care feels so hard especially for ADHDers and why the basics matter more than we realise. Rather than promoting productivity hacks or aesthetic routines, Matt brings the conversation back to foundational human needs: sleep, sunlight, movement, social connection, and mindful consumption. He explains how modern life constantly pulls us away from these essentials, a...
Julie Legg speaks with registered therapeutic counsellor Ariel-Paul Saunders, who brings a relational, intergenerational lens to understanding ADHD. Diagnosed at 38, Ariel began questioning the traditional medical narrative after recognising that his most significant struggles with focus and regulation didn’t begin in childhood, but emerged following a major relational rupture in early adulthood. Together, Julie and Ariel explore ADHD not just as a fixed neurological condition, but as somethi...
Julie Legg is joined by Nika Brunet Milunovic, social worker, researcher, and founder of Calm Nest Collective. Nika shares how years working in the events and creative industries exposed a disconnect between how environments are designed and how human nervous systems actually function. Drawing on her lived experience as a late-diagnosed neurodivergent woman, as well as her academic research, Nika explains why sensory overload, burnout, and emotional collapse are not personal failures, but pre...
Julie Legg sits down with psychiatric nurse practitioner and mental health advocate Carolyn Mallon, whose journey from high school dropout to doctorate-level clinician is both inspiring and deeply relatable for late-diagnosed ADHDers. Carolyn shares how understanding her neurodivergence in adulthood radically shifted her ability to study, self-advocate, and succeed both academically and emotionally. The conversation explores the messy, non-linear paths many ADHDers walk, the grief that can ac...
Julie Legg chats with ADHD coach and advocate Leah Carroll, whose own diagnosis at 28 catalyzed a deep journey of self-understanding and transformation. Leah shares how her early attempts to "fix" her ADHD through medication alone fell short and how travel, radical honesty, and coaching led her to discover the personalized systems that now support her neurodivergent brain. Leah unpacks the behind-the-scenes reality of living with ADHD from executive dysfunction to emotional dysregulation and ...
Julie Legg speaks with Kayla Oughton — a Napier-based AuDHD coach and neurodivergent advocate with an eclectic background in construction project management, health coaching, suicide prevention, and digital marketing. Kayla shares her journey from burnout in a male-dominated construction industry to becoming a voice for ADHDers and autistic women navigating late diagnosis, shame, and self-trust. She talks about the importance of understanding rejection sensitivity, embracing neurodivergent st...
Julie Legg sits down with Dr. Eugene Manley, a bioengineer-turned-cancer scientist, nonprofit founder, and passionate advocate for equity in science and healthcare. Diagnosed with ADHD during graduate school, Eugene shares how his neurodivergent wiring shaped his path from misunderstood childhood behaviours and micromanagement clashes to his deep sense of justice, pattern recognition, and innovation. Eugene opens up about navigating academia, launching a nonprofit to address health disparitie...
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