LATE BLOOMERS

Are you tired all the time, even when it feels like you haven’t done much? This week, Rich and Rox unpack ten everyday things that can drain their neurodivergent batteries: masking, disrupted sleep, sensory overload, basic self-care, hyperfocus, social hangovers and the effort of feeling everything so intensely. Rich reflects on the exhaustion of pretending all day at the bank and why losing his routine has made looking after himself harder; Rox explains why everyday tasks rarely feel automatic, her brain switches on the moment she wakes up and an exciting plan can become an exhausting commitment.

It’s really about the effort other people don’t see, recognising when you’re running on empty and giving yourself permission to rest. Along the way, there’s a dispute over bedroom boundaries, an unexpectedly deep dive into golf balls and a shared decision that the next activity should probably be a nap.

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Your partner turns up late to a date. Red flag, or ADHD? They correct every tiny detail in your stories. Red flag, or autism? This week on LATE BLOOMERS, Rich and Rox play Red Flag or Neurodivergent, working through ten dating behaviours the internet loves to call toxic and asking what's really going on underneath.

Most of it comes straight from their own relationship. Rox has forgotten their anniversary more than once (one year she apologised with a song on TikTok) and used to go eight hours without a text during songwriting sessions. Rich shuts down mid-argument, corrects her stories because "I don't need to be right, I just need it to be right", and admits he's disgustingly neutral when she's venting about someone who's upset her. They also get honest about a recent wobble where Rox felt Rich didn't fancy her anymore, and how one awkward conversation fixed it.

The takeaway: neurodivergence explains a lot, but it doesn't excuse everything. A partner who listens, talks and adapts is the real green flag.

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This week on LATE BLOOMERS, Rich and Rox sit the Great Adulting Test: 20 questions pulled from Reddit and the internet about what actually makes someone a functional adult, with producer Max keeping score.

Rox lost her licence in her 20s for running red lights, thinks "important mail" means her skincare deliveries, and has 350 unread WhatsApp chats. Rich has never paid a bill late in his life but will not do small talk with strangers, full stop. Neither of them knows their bank balance within £100, and nobody can agree who actually booked the dentist.

It's ADHD vs autism at its most petty, and one of them wins comfortably. Keep score at home and let us know in the comments.

Get our book THE CHERRY TREE THEORY
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Listen to the audiobook
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Shame doesn’t say you did something bad. It says you are bad—and that belief can quietly ruin your whole life. This week, Rich and Rox confront ten things they’ve struggled to forgive themselves for, including addiction, debt, divorce, executive dysfunction, parenting mistakes and feeling like they’d wasted their lives.

Rich shares the darkest consequences of his gambling addiction, while Rox opens up about the shame of being unable to manage basic tasks and believing she couldn’t trust herself. It’s raw, occasionally brutal and somehow still funny—because your worst mistake doesn’t have to become your entire identity.

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CHAPTERS
00:00 The difference between shame and guilt
01:38 “I can’t let anybody see how I live”
03:03 “What’s that smell?”
05:03 “My mistakes are unforgivable”
05:50 Rich’s gambling addiction
07:30 Why everyone needs a redemption story
08:13 “I’ve wasted my life”
11:02 “I’ve failed in relationships”
14:03 “I’m a terrible friend”
16:06 Loop Earplugs
17:08 “Why don’t I want to be touched?”
18:40 “I can’t trust myself”
21:27 Being an emotionally unavailable father
23:23 “I’m scared I’m a bad parent”
26:13 Shame about autistic sensitivities
27:41 Final thoughts

You might take the mask off after work—but are you actually taking it off at home? This week, Rich and Rox expose ten ways ADHD and autistic people can still perform around the people they trust most, from saying “I’m fine” and agreeing to plans you secretly dread to hiding sensory overwhelm, exhaustion and chaos.

They talk fake facial expressions, panic-cleaning, apologising for moods that have nothing to do with you and why “I’ll do it later” often means something completely different. It turns out feeling safe enough to be honest can involve more awkward conversations—and fewer forced cuddles.

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The ADHD brain can generate approximately 900 brilliant ideas before breakfast. Finishing one of them is where things get complicated. This week, Rich and Rox share ten ways to harness ADHD creativity without losing the plot, abandoning the project or accidentally bankrupting yourself.

They talk hyperfocus, impossible goals, “dopamine dollars,” building the team your brain is missing and why confidence comes after you start—not before. Rox also discovers she may have leaked the title of another album, which rather proves one of the points.

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CHAPTERS
00:00 ADHD and creativity
02:18 When lightning strikes, run towards it
06:07 Make the goal feel impossible
08:43 Don’t spend your dopamine dollars
10:35 Rox accidentally leaks another album
11:27 Keep your creative project shiny
13:17 Nobody starts confident
15:16 Loop Earplugs
16:22 Build the team your brain is missing
20:54 Don’t become your own bottleneck
23:29 Don’t make permanent decisions in temporary emotions
25:59 Market like you don’t have ADHD
29:45 Don’t bankrupt yourself
33:07 Final thoughts

For years, Rich and Rox told everyone they were "the couple that never argued." Not true anymore. They argue all the time now, they're just better at it. This week they're breaking down exactly how to argue well so it doesn't end in a break-up, using a real recent row of theirs as the case study, plus a few cringe lessons from watching The Ultimatum.

If you're in a relationship, this is the episode you need. Rich and Rox talk through the five rules that stop an argument turning into a breakup: why screaming shuts down all communication, why you can't demand your partner love you the way you love them, why trying to "win" an argument means you've already lost, why calling out your own bullshit disarms a row faster than anything else, and the biggest one, learning to translate what your partner actually means instead of just what they're saying. They also redo one of their worst arguments live, so you can hear exactly what it should have sounded like the first time.

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This week on LATE BLOOMERS, Rich and Rox are throwing out the social rulebook and writing their own. Twenty new rules for a world built for ADHD and autistic brains instead of against them — because eye contact shouldn't be mandatory, small talk shouldn't be the default, and nobody should have to lie about liking a haircut.

From compulsory name badges (because nobody with ADHD can remember a name five seconds after hearing it) to abolishing dress codes, banning greetings cards, and introducing a visible social battery indicator so you never again have to mask through a conversation you don't have the capacity for. This episode covers the unspoken rules that make everyday socialising exhausting for neurodivergent people, and what a world built around executive dysfunction, sensory overwhelm, and direct communication could actually look like. Rich and Rox debate arrival windows instead of start times, why "how are you" should be legally binding, why last-minute plans should just be called plans, and why friendship should be measured by depth, not by how often you text back.

If you're ADHD, autistic, AuDHD, or just someone who's ever felt like the current social contract wasn't written with your brain in mind, this is the episode where two neurodivergent adults finally say the quiet part out loud.

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This week on LATE BLOOMERS, Rich and Rox go through ten weirdly specific things that turned out to be ADHD in disguise. Bendy joints, dopamine dressing, owning 12 water bottles for no reason, and not being able to sleep with a ticking clock in the room.

Rox breaks down why she can't tell she's hungry until she's shaking, why a slice of cheese counts as dinner, and why she's started roughly 100 businesses and finished none of them. Rich points out the parts Rox doesn't notice herself doing, including the inner monologue that occasionally becomes an outer monologue in public.

If you've spent your whole life thinking you were just "a bit weird," this one might explain a lot.

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This week on LATE BLOOMERS, Rich and Rox sit down with Dr. Jolene Brighten to talk about something nobody's telling ADHD women — perimenopause doesn't wait until you're 50, and for a lot of you it's already started.

They get into why ADHD women hit perimenopause about a decade earlier than everyone thinks, why doctors keep saying you're "too young" for what your body's already going through, and why you can end up with twice the symptoms and half the answers. Rox also opens up about a period last year that felt like a full breakdown, and what it took to actually find out why.

Grab Dr. Brighten's new book, ADHD & Women: drbrighten.com/adhdandwomen

More from Dr. Brighten:
Website: www.drbrighten.com
Instagram: instagram.com/drjolenebrighten
TikTok: tiktok.com/@drjolenebrighten
Threads: threads.net/@drjolenebrighten

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