Episode: ADHD, Comedy & Coaching: Building a Life That Works for Your Brain Guest: Elle Felicity — Writer, performer, and ADHD coach; founder of Chaotic Good Coaching; creator of Close All Tabs (Smock Alley, 2024); advocate for lived-experience-led support and sustainable neurodivergent life design.

Host: Al Bellamy Producer: Ian Lawton

Episode summary

Writer, performer, and ADHD coach Elle Felicity joins Al Bellamy for a deeply candid, often funny, and emotionally resonant conversation about late diagnosis, reframing your identity, and working with your brain rather than against it. Elle shares her journey from years of shame and self-help rabbit holes to creating a one-woman show about her internet search history—and becoming an ADHD coach. The episode explores creativity, chronic illness, cultural communication clashes, game theory, masking, reframing, and how coaching can help build a personal user manual for your brain.

Key takeaways

• Late diagnosis reframes the past: it doesn't change who you are, but changes the context of your life.

• Misunderstanding is a core trauma for many neurodivergent people—coaching and creative work can rebuild self-trust.

• ADHD is not a character flaw; it's a different cognitive operating system that often masks as laziness, inconsistency, or contradiction.

• The myth of consistency doesn't serve everyone—nonlinear thinkers need nonlinear processes.

• Coaching is distinct from therapy: it's future-focused, collaborative, and supports the client to build meaningful, values-driven strategies.

• Lived experience is essential: the best ADHD coaches often come from within the community.

• Concepts like masking, PDA, and spiky profiles are still evolving—clearer definitions are needed to prevent drift or overgeneralization.

• Creativity for neurodivergent people is often tied to bottom-up processing—building meaning from details, not starting with the big picture.

• Game mechanics (e.g. RPG stats, skill buffs) can be powerful metaphors for understanding strengths and needs.

• Coaching can help clients identify "+2 to focus" environments and tools—building a user manual for your own brain.

Topics & timestamps

• 00:00–03:58 — Introductions; Elle's late diagnosis; years of misdiagnosis and shame.

• 03:58–06:43 — Reframing the past through a neurodivergent lens; identity, memory, and misunderstanding.

• 06:43–09:44 — Special interest in psychology; empathy, trauma, and the mismanaged search for answers.

• 09:44–13:53 — If society could change one thing about ND understanding: mutual accommodation, not one-way adaptation.

• 13:53–17:47 — Cultural norms, autistic communication, and narrative dissonance in film/TV.

• 17:47–20:50 — Writing Close All Tabs: comedy, self-help, and a spreadsheet of 1,869 browser tabs.

• 20:50–27:43 — Webbed thinking, bottom-up processing, perfectionism, nonlinear creativity.

• 27:43–31:10 — The myth of consistency; working in bursts; validating irregular creative patterns.

• 31:10–34:19 — "Where are the walls?": boundaries, spaghetti-at-wall processes, and thinking within containment.

• 34:19–38:38 — What is ADHD coaching? Differences from therapy; future focus; self-directed goals; red flags.

• 38:38–41:13 — Elle's training path, lived experience, and why this career finally fits.

• 41:13–43:24 — Epiphanies, video games, skill trees, and min-maxing: Fallout 4 as a neurodivergent coaching metaphor.

• 43:24–50:28 — Buff items in real life; "plus two to focus" chairs; activation, novelty, and dopamine.

• 50:28–53:10 — Coaching as building your own user manual; the power of client-led strategy.

• 53:10–54:08 — "One boring thing about yourself"; sharks, cats, and fear of the question.

Resources mentioned

• Close All Tabs – Theatre show written and performed by Elle Felicity (Smock Alley, Scene + Heard 2024)

• Chaotic Good Coaching – Elle's coaching practice

• GoldMind Coaching – UK-based neurodivergent-led coach training academy

• divergentnexus.ie – Independent ADHD coaching credential and ethics resource

• Terms discussed: Spiky Profiles, Min-Maxing, Bottom-Up Processing, Double Empathy Problem

  Resources mentioned

  • Close All Tabs – Theatre show written and performed by Elle Felicity (Smock Alley, Scene + Heard 2024)

  • Chaotic Good Coaching – Elle's coaching practice

  • GoldMind Academy – ADHD coach training

  • Divergent Nexus – Ireland-based neurodivergent-led coaching resource

  • Pete Wharmby on Autistic Communication – YouTube talk (starts at 5:25)

  • Monotropism –

    • monotropism.org

    • National Autistic Society explanation

  • Double Empathy Problem –

    • Summary for non-academics (Reframing Autism)

    • Original paper by Damian Milton (2012)

  • Spiky Profiles – Overview from ADHD Working UK

  • Situational Variability – ADDCA blog on managing variability

  • Interest-Based Nervous System – Explanation from Neurodivergent Insights

  • The Brown Model of Executive Functioning – Brown ADHD Clinic overview

Pull quotes

• "Diagnosis didn't change me—it changed the context of my life."

• "I spent years thinking I was lazy and broken. Now I know I'm ambitious, but nonlinear."

• "Coaching helps you build a user manual for your own brain."

• "Sometimes your headphones are your +2 to focus."

• "The myth of consistency does not serve a spiky profile."

• "I make spaghetti-for-wall art—but I need to know where the walls are."

Credits

Host: Al Bellamy Guest: Elle Felicity Producer: Ian Lawton Recorded for the Neuroconvergence Podcast