Daniel Buckley was thirty-two before he had a name for what was going on in his head. For as long as he could remember he had been restless, discontented, unable to sit still or hold his focus on anything that didn’t grip him - and he had simply assumed that was him. That was the way he was, and the way life was.

His wife Simone saw it long before he did. For more than a decade she told him something wasn’t right, that he couldn’t rest, that he had no structure. He wasn’t ready to hear it. The day before she died, after years of illness, she went through his symptoms one by one and asked him to get help for his ADHD.

Daniel tells Laura what happened next - the newspaper article that felt like a tap on the shoulder, the Irish clinics that never rang him back, the trip to England to be assessed at all. He is open about drinking to escape thoughts he had no other way of managing, about the day he stopped, and about the ordinary moment months later when he heard his son laughing outside an open window and realised he had never felt peace before. It’s also the story of what he built out of it: a service designed, in his words, to get people to a clinician in weeks rather than years.

He spent thirty-two years assuming that was just who he was

Restless, discontented, unable to focus — Daniel had no framework for any of it until he was assessed at thirty-two.

Simone saw it more than a decade before he accepted it

He only heard it the day before she died, when she went through his symptoms and asked him to get help.

Undiagnosed ADHD and alcohol are closely linked

Daniel describes drinking to escape feelings he couldn’t regulate. He stopped in August 2022, so he could be the father his son deserved.

There was no route to a diagnosis in Ireland

Public waiting lists ran to years, and not one of the private clinics he rang or emailed came back to him. He was assessed in England instead.

He chose therapy and coaching over medication

Having stopped drinking, he worked weekly on emotional regulation, learning to recognise emotions he’d never had names for.

Peace arrived as an ordinary moment

Months after his diagnosis he heard his son laughing with friends through an open window and felt, for the first time, that he was all right.

A diagnosis is a turning point, not an end point

The piece of paper changes nothing on its own. What matters is the understanding and the support that come after it.

He built the service he couldn’t find

ADHD Now offers access to a clinician within seven days and has grown to over a hundred clinicians across ADHD and autism care.

ADHD Now

Daniel’s online ADHD assessment and support service

AutismCare

The autism and AuDHD assessment service built alongside it

ADHD Ireland

The national charity, with support groups and information

Samaritans Ireland

Free, confidential support, any time, on 116 123

02:54 — Diagnosed at thirty-two, and the bottlenecks he hit

03:38 — “That’s the way I am, that’s the way life is”

04:24 — Illness, Joey’s arrival, and Simone going on dialysis

07:33 — Drinking to escape, and the day he stopped

09:38 — A decade of Simone telling him something was wrong

10:05 — The day before she died: “please get help for your ADHD”

11:45 — The newspaper article that felt like a tap on the shoulder

12:23 — No one called back, so he went to England

16:55 — “A diagnosis is not the end point. That’s the turning point.”

19:35 — Hearing his son laugh, and feeling peace for the first time

21:12 — The stranger outside the hospital who became his business partner

40:00 — Advice for young people, and what he thinks life means

Thanks for listening! You can watch the full episode on YouTube here. Don’t forget to follow The Laura Dowling Experience podcast on Instagram @lauradowlingexperience for updates and more information. You can also follow our host, Laura Dowling, @fabulouspharmacist for more insights and tips. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review—it really helps us out! Stay tuned for more great conversations.

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In this bitesize moment pulled from the Laura Dowling Experience back catalogue, comedian and content creator Dympna Little shares how humour helped her family carry her mother's terminal illness and final days.

She describes laughing together even in the palliative care room, the moment her mother noticed and said "it's lovely," and the voice message her mother recorded that became her legacy. Tender, warm and bittersweet.

🔑Key Points

• How humour can hold a family together through the hardest time

• Why laughter and grief are not opposites

• The moment her mother noticed them laughing and said "it's lovely"

• The voice message her mother left, and what legacy can look like

💛 If you're grieving, be gentle with yourself. There's no right way to do it.

🎧 Listen to the full episode here.

Thanks for listening! You can watch the full episode on YouTube here. Don’t forget to follow The Laura Dowling Experience podcast on Instagram @lauradowlingexperience for updates and more information. You can also follow our host, Laura Dowling, @fabulouspharmacist for more insights and tips. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review—it really helps us out! Stay tuned for more great conversations.

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Anna Lechleiter works with people who have never been able to speak, and who have spent their lives being treated as though they had nothing to say. She is a Spelling to Communicate practitioner, and her job is to give non-speakers a way to tell the world what has been going on in their heads all along.

She explains why speech is a motor problem rather than a thinking one: the words are there, but the brain cannot reliably drive the body that produces them. That distinction changes how non-speaking people are assessed, educated and spoken to, because almost every standard autism assessment measures motor control and reports the result as intelligence.

Anna talks Laura through what happens in a session, from stencil boards to a keyboard, and tells the story that changed her mind completely: a young man called Caoimh, a letter board, and a freezing afternoon when he spelled out that he hoped it would snow. The last stretch belongs to the spellers themselves, as Anna reads the words of Max, Caoimh and Megha in their own language.

Non-speaking is a motor problem, not a thinking one

The words are there. The difficulty is the brain reliably getting the body to produce them, which Anna describes as a brain-body disconnect rather than an absence of understanding.

Spelling to Communicate moves communication out of the fine motor

Speech, writing, texting and sign language all depend on fine motor control, so S2C uses the gross motor instead: a pointing motion towards letters on a board.

Assessments measure motor control and report it as intelligence

Because the tests need reliable motor responses, people who cannot produce them are recorded as profoundly intellectually disabled, and that label follows them for life.

Most non-speakers can already read

Text is everywhere, on signs, subtitles and packaging, and spellers have usually absorbed far more than anyone assumed. That is why sessions start with age-appropriate material rather than the basics.

Progress is built like any other motor skill

New neural pathways are created and then myelinated through repetition, so lessons change every session and words are never spelled twice, keeping the focus on the motor rather than the answer.

The spellers make the argument better than anyone

Max, Caoimh and Megha describe apraxia, sensory overwhelm and their own ambitions. Keith's line, that his mind works perfectly but the messages get mixed up on the way to his body, sums up the conversation.

PALZ (Play and Language Zone) — Anna's hub in Naas, Co. Kildare

Spelling to Communicate at PALZ — how the method is taught in Ireland

I-ASC — the International Association for Spelling as Communication

Elizabeth Vosseller — the speech-language pathologist who developed S2C

AsIAm — Ireland's national autism charity, information and support line

00:00 — Max's message to the world

02:18 — The colleague's brother who suddenly had a voice

03:05 — What Spelling to Communicate actually is

07:24 — How assessments measure motor and report intelligence

09:37 — How many non-speakers there are in Ireland

10:10 — Inside a first session at the hub

17:21 — Neuroplasticity and building a brand-new motor skill

24:50 — Stencils, letter boards and moving to a keyboard

36:23 — Anna's ABA background, and why she moved away from it

44:01 — Keith, the letter board and "I hope it snows"

48:55 — Max, Keith and Megha, in their own words

53:54 — Art, an exhibition and the meaning of life

Thanks for listening! You can watch the full episode on YouTube here. Don’t forget to follow The Laura Dowling Experience podcast on Instagram @lauradowlingexperience for updates and more information. You can also follow our host, Laura Dowling, @fabulouspharmacist for more insights and tips. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review—it really helps us out! Stay tuned for more great conversations.

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In this bitesize moment pulled from the Laura Dowling Experience back catalogue, preventive cardiologist Dr Paddy Barrett argues that most people chase health without ever defining it — like a blindfolded archer aiming at a target they can't see.

He lays out three things actually worth optimising, and tells the story of walking away from the peak of his career when he realised he'd climbed the wrong mountain.

🔑Key Points

• Why "I want to be healthy" means nothing without a target

• The blindfolded archer, and aiming at something you can actually see

• Three things worth optimising: how long you live, the quality of those years, and how you spend your time

• Why it's never too late to climb back down and start again

🎧 Listen to the full episode here.

Thanks for listening! You can watch the full episode on YouTube here. Don’t forget to follow The Laura Dowling Experience podcast on Instagram @lauradowlingexperience for updates and more information. You can also follow our host, Laura Dowling, @fabulouspharmacist for more insights and tips. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review—it really helps us out! Stay tuned for more great conversations.

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Vicki Notaro is back! Her new novel, Anywhere but Here, follows three friends all hovering around 40 and living completely different lives. As Vicki puts it, you can be 40 and you can be a granny, or trying to conceive, or single, or divorced. She and Laura talk about the pressure women feel to have everything sorted by a certain age, and why marriage or a mortgage was never meant to be a finish line.

Vicki also gives an honest update on her women's health journey: years of very painful periods, a suspected endometriosis that turned out to be ovarian cysts, a PMDD diagnosis and cyclical depression alongside lifelong anxiety, a coil, surgery, a recurrence, and the oral progesterone that cleared her brain fog within two days.

From there the conversation turns to what young people lost when magazines disappeared. Vicki spent four years at Kiss from the age of 22, acting as a "big sis" to teenage readers, and she makes a warm case for edited, expert-checked advice over the "wild wild west of TikTok" — before Laura hands her a pile of anonymous listener confessions to answer.

Women the same age are living completely different lives

"You can be 40 and you can be a granny" — Vicki's novel follows three friends around 40 at entirely different stages, something she sees as new in Irish life.

Milestones are a beginning, not a finish line

Vicki talks about the pressure to have the house, the relationship and possibly a baby sorted by a certain age, and why she has never seen those moments as the end of the story.

Writing about being child-free by choice once brought hate mail

She first wrote about not wanting children at 22, when it was still taboo, and was told again and again that she just hadn't met the right man.

Years of pain, and a diagnosis that came later

Suspected endometriosis turned out to be ovarian cysts, and a PMDD diagnosis explained the low, cyclical days sitting on top of lifelong anxiety.

Hormones can lift brain fog within days

After a cyst returned, her consultant added oral progesterone alongside the coil she already had, and Vicki describes her brain fog clearing within two days.

Magazines did a job nothing has replaced.

At Kiss, Vicki answered readers' questions about periods, spots and first kisses as their "big sis" — advice that was edited, curated and expert-checked.

Confessions, answered without judgement

Laura hands Vicki anonymous confessions from the Love Your Vulva live show — desire, hygiene, being left out for not having children, Botox and breast reduction — and the answers stay kind throughout.

Anywhere but Here

Vicki Notaro's fourth novel, published by Penguin

Endometriosis

the condition first suspected behind Vicki's years of period pain

Period problems and PMDD

HSE guidance on severe premenstrual symptoms

Love Your Vulva Live

Laura's live show, where the anonymous confessions were gathered

00:00 — Vicki takes over as host for the summer

06:23 — Anywhere but Here: three women, three different lives at 40

09:29 — The pressure to have it all sorted by a certain age

10:34 — Writing about being child-free at 22

13:30 — Kiss magazine and being everyone's "big sis"

21:51 — Writer's block in her mother-in-law's spare room

24:50 — Painful periods, suspected endometriosis and ovarian cysts

25:50 — A PMDD diagnosis and cyclical depression

26:39 — Oral progesterone and brain fog lifting in two days

28:27 — Listener confessions, answered honestly

35:40 — Botox honesty, and why Laura stopped

Thanks for listening! You can watch the full episode on YouTube here. Don’t forget to follow The Laura Dowling Experience podcast on Instagram @lauradowlingexperience for updates and more information. You can also follow our host, Laura Dowling, @fabulouspharmacist for more insights and tips. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review—it really helps us out! Stay tuned for more great conversations.

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In this bitesize moment pulled from the Laura Dowling Experience back catalogue, fitness coach, author and speaker Brian Keane tells the story of hating his first career as a teacher — and the line from his mum that changed everything.

He's honest that reinvention isn't instant (he went broke twice before it worked) and lands on a reframe anyone can use: it's not being stuck that traps you, it's the feeling of being stuck.

🔑Key Points

• The day Brian knew his first career was the wrong fit

• His mum's question: "what would you do for free?"

• Why it's the feeling of being stuck, not the situation, that holds you back

• How reinvention can take time, including failing along the way

🎧 Listen to the full episode here.

Thanks for listening! You can watch the full episode on YouTube here. Don’t forget to follow The Laura Dowling Experience podcast on Instagram @lauradowlingexperience for updates and more information. You can also follow our host, Laura Dowling, @fabulouspharmacist for more insights and tips. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review—it really helps us out! Stay tuned for more great conversations.

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What do you do when you feel stuck - in a job you hate, a relationship that has gone flat, or a version of yourself you no longer recognise? Life and business coach Mark Fennell joins Laura for a warm, practical conversation about how people actually get moving again - starting not with a grand plan, but with a single next step.

A qualified electrician who began as a youth volunteer worker, Mark shares how coaching became his life's work, and why identity - how you see yourself - sits underneath almost everything. He speaks with real tenderness about the loss he and his wife carried when they were told they couldn't have children, and how they slowly built a genuinely contented life by asking one question: what can we still do that brings us in that direction?

From the medical student who became a millionaire painter-decorator to the young carer who believed he would never laugh again, Mark's stories keep returning to the same truths: make the decision, take the action, and be careful what you define yourself as. Along the way, he and Laura take a more realistic look at manifestation, the fluff in the wellness world, and why, in relationships especially, action communicates far more than words.

You don't have to figure out your whole life — just the next step

When a young medical student admitted he only knew what he didn't want, Mark's question — when were you last fully content? — led him to painting, and eventually to running a hugely successful painting and decorating business.

Identity is the most important vision board

How you see yourself matters more than any board on the wall — even a Fortune 500 CFO Mark worked with was gripped by imposter syndrome until she saw that her experience, not her credentials, had earned her the role.

Contentment can be rebuilt after loss

When Mark and his wife were told they couldn't have children, they refused to let it ruin their lives — and by taking small steps towards contentment, without putting a time on it, they reached a place with no void.

Take manifestation with a pinch of salt

What you focus on shapes what you notice, but thinking without action is dead — and the most important thing to manifest isn't the bigger house or the best job, it's a content life.

Burnout ends where honesty begins

Mark collapsed in the gym and was rushed to hospital with a suspected heart attack — what followed was health anxiety, and a recovery built on balance, movement and refusing to say "I am an anxious person".

Action communicates far more than words

A couple Mark worked with rediscovered each other not through big emotional talks but through a date night — a reminder that relationships, like gardens, need tending before you decide they're done.

Be careful what you define yourself as

Mark learned from his granny, who refused to see herself as a cancer victim, that the labels we accept shape how we live — and, as he reminds young people, nobody is confident all of the time.

Breakthrough — Mark Fennell's book on moving from stuck to unstoppable, published by Gill

Mark's practical guide to getting unstuck.

Mark Fennell — coaching, courses and speaking

Also on Instagram and TikTok.

00:00 — Introduction

02:36 — From electrician and youth worker to coach

05:47 — Identity: the most important vision board

07:32 — Fertility loss and choosing contentment

10:00 — The med student who became a painter-decorator

13:07 — Manifestation with a pinch of salt

16:46 — How the book Breakthrough came about

19:15 — Is contentment actually realistic?

20:35 — The fluff in the wellness world

23:29 — The young carer who thought he'd never laugh again

30:13 — Burnout, the gym collapse and health anxiety

39:27 — The date-night story

57:32 — Advice for young people and the meaning of life

Thanks for listening! You can watch the full episode on YouTube here. Don’t forget to follow The Laura Dowling Experience podcast on Instagram @lauradowlingexperience for updates and more information. You can also follow our host, Laura Dowling, @fabulouspharmacist for more insights and tips. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review—it really helps us out! Stay tuned for more great conversations.

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In this bitesize moment pulled from the Laura Dowling Experience back catalogue, former lawyer turned businesswoman Nikki Dwyer explains why coercive, narcissistic abuse rarely looks the way people expect — it's a slow erosion of confidence through criticism, gaslighting and isolation.

She speaks candidly about how losing nearly everything became the moment she could stop drifting and consciously choose who she wanted to be. It's honest, raw and ultimately hopeful.

🔑Key Points

• Why abusive relationships rarely look the way people expect from the outside

• How criticism, gaslighting and isolation slowly wear down confidence

• Why being capable or strong doesn't make you immune

• Turning the loss of everything into a chance to choose who you want to be

💛 If anything here feels close to home, it's not your fault. In Ireland, Women's Aid (womensaid.ie) offers free, confidential support.

🎧 Listen to the full episode here.

Thanks for listening! You can watch the full episode on YouTube here. Don’t forget to follow The Laura Dowling Experience podcast on Instagram @lauradowlingexperience for updates and more information. You can also follow our host, Laura Dowling, @fabulouspharmacist for more insights and tips. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review—it really helps us out! Stay tuned for more great conversations.

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This week Laura sits down with Dr John Loy, one of the busiest weight-loss surgeons working between Ireland and the UK. He grew up behind the bar of a family pub in County Down, which he says was the best training in medicine he ever had, before a chance meeting in New York changed how he thinks about the whole job.

It's a warm, funny and genuinely eye-opening conversation about obesity as a disease rather than a choice, and about the person on the other side of the desk. John explains why more than half of his patients cry at their first appointment, why he never asks how much weight they've lost, and why the goals that matter are seeing your own child's First Communion from behind the camera — not the number on the scales.

He also gives one of the clearest explanations you'll hear of how weight-loss surgery actually works - the gastric balloon, the sleeve and the bypass - why a bypass is like "a free GLP-1 injection every day for life", and why, despite the rise of the weight-loss injections, demand for surgery is climbing rather than falling.

Obesity is a disease, not a choice

John argues it should be treated in stages, like cancer, and that denying people care on a BMI cut-off is simply wrong.

A gastric bypass is like "a free GLP-1 injection for life"

The surgery isn't just about a smaller stomach; it changes the gut hormones that tell your brain you're full.

The weight-loss injections haven't ended surgery — the opposite

Many patients try the injections first, stall or can't afford them, and find a sleeve pays for itself within a few years.

Three procedures, three different jobs

The swallowable balloon, the sleeve and the bypass each suit a different stage — John explains who each one is for.

Blood sugar settles before the weight comes off

Diabetes can resolve within days of surgery, long before any weight is lost — proof of how closely the gut and brain talk.

The best consultation starts with "why are you here?"

Rather than judging, John asks patients their story — and finds the roots often reach right back to childhood.

Non-scale victories are what matter

He never asks how much weight a patient has lost; he asks whether they can finally take their kids to Disney World.

A childhood in the pub was the best training he ever had

Learning to talk to people across a bar counter, he says, taught him more about medicine than any exam.

Auralia

Dr John Loy's clinic in Dublin, offering gastric sleeve, bypass and balloon procedures

00:00 — Introduction

00:50 — The cruise-ship patient who thought it was his last trip

04:23 — Why half his patients cry at the first appointment

05:20 — Obesity: the last acceptable prejudice

06:52 — From a County Tyrone pub to the operating theatre

09:29 — The gut-brain link: why blood sugar settles first

10:20 — Sleeve, bypass and "a free GLP-1 for life"

10:48 — Are the injections ending surgery? The opposite

13:47 — The balloon, the sleeve and the bypass explained

19:42 — New York and the philosophy of surgery

22:52 — Non-scale victories and the surgical-cat tattoo

34:34 — Ikigai, travel and the meaning of life

Thanks for listening! You can watch the full episode on YouTube here. Don’t forget to follow The Laura Dowling Experience podcast on Instagram @lauradowlingexperience for updates and more information. You can also follow our host, Laura Dowling, @fabulouspharmacist for more insights and tips. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review—it really helps us out! Stay tuned for more great conversations.

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In this bitesize moment pulled from the Laura Dowling Experience back catalogue, broadcaster and mental health advocate Keith Walsh shares what it was like to be diagnosed with ADHD in his late forties — and how going through his son's assessment led to his own.

He's honest and funny about what undiagnosed ADHD looked like day to day, the small systems he built to cope, and why a diagnosis can feel like relief rather than a label.

🔑Key Points

• How going through his son's assessment led to his own diagnosis

• The everyday reality of undiagnosed adult ADHD

• Why a diagnosis can feel like relief rather than a label

• The small systems that helped him cope

🎧 Listen to the full episode here.

Thanks for listening! You can watch the full episode on YouTube here. Don’t forget to follow The Laura Dowling Experience podcast on Instagram @lauradowlingexperience for updates and more information. You can also follow our host, Laura Dowling, @fabulouspharmacist for more insights and tips. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review—it really helps us out! Stay tuned for more great conversations.

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