Latest / Shouty Brain / #3: Katie
Transcript
- Trevor Holland: Hey Katie. Katie: Hey Trav. Trevor Holland: Are you turning mate? Katie: Yeah, good. Sweaty on my hardest day, but good. Trevor Holland: It's really annoying actually, 'cause I I I I live for fan coverage at all times. And if I have a fan on in here it's gonna sound like I'm in the middle of a wind tunnel and I can't do it. So I'm on a bit of a kind of this is only so long I'm gonna be able to do this before I have to just turn the fan on. It's really hot. I live in the to you being in my flat, the top floor, the roof is right above this room. And so in the summer it's just Katie: You Are you in the back room? Yeah, yeah. Come right in. Trevor Holland: Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the summer in the summer it's just it just the sun just comes beating onto the dark roof and comes into this room and I can barely breathe. But I actually work in this room for my day job as well 'cause I work from home most of the time. Anyway, thanks for coming along, Katie. Katie: Sorry, thanks for having me. Trevor Holland: So Katie is a tattoo artist and actually this is where where we met when you used to work in in Evermore in Bedford is where I first met you. And you've done lots of work on on my sleeve over the last Christ ten years since I met you. Something like that. ⁓ so what you disclosed to me a while ago is that you were you were diagnosed with ADHD about eighteen months ago or so. ⁓ and so I wanted to bring you on to talk a little bit about that, especially in the industry that you work in. You're self-employed, you you work in ⁓ you're an artist and how that kind of fits in with with your ADHD and maybe prior to when you're a tattoo as to how you felt in the other kind of world of work before you were a little bit more self-directed, when things were a little bit more prescriptive and you were expect certain things were expected of you. ⁓ so What I'd like to know, if you don't mind, is how you came into the world of tattooing in the first place actually, 'cause I'm not sure if I've even ever asked you that question. Katie: Yeah, so... ⁓ I was in university in Plymouth doing product design straight out of school thinking that that was what I wanted to do because I've done creative things so I was really into art but my art teachers were horrible my technology teachers were amazing so they encouraged me so I ended up doing that and it was just I met my ex at the time who was probably the first person I ever met who had nice tattoos that made me look at them and go that's actually really cool and I think after about maybe a year Nine months of seeing him and the University was falling apart and I was very much suffering from the ADHD life, like living life on my own for the first time. So I think a lot of the, you know, me not doing well at University was exactly that, just undiagnosed ADHD and I couldn't cope. So I was getting all my projects done last minute like... everything I do, I do really well last minute so a six week project I get done in a day you know like sixteen hours non-stop and then I'd hand it in and I get a good pass and then think I shouldn't be passing that's that's a joke I did it all in a day there's no way that I've produced a quality project in a day when it should have taken me six weeks so I just lost complete faith in in the course I thought it's just a load of shit like there's no way but obviously I now know it's just the best way I work is is all last minute so yeah I decided to leave that and I managed to get apprenticeship straight away and it was the guy that had done my ex's tattoos actually so I was really stoked to go and look at these tattoos and these are amazing talk to the guy who did them and he was like yeah you know he was looking for an apprentice I was there for a year it was a good traditional apprenticeship but it didn't work out like all apprenticeships the guy was ass so I think I got into work just to save up to go self-employed And I think that was about a three year stint of just doing random jobs for us and just hanging out in my early twenties, which I'm really glad I had now, but it was just sort of flitting around from job to job, getting bored, doing some monotonous thing. And then... I think by the time I met Wesley, I'd saved up enough money to go self-employed so I deliberately quit quite a cushy office job to sort of pressure myself into that's it, you're not gonna work at this job forever, you've got to get moving. yeah, quit everything. And that was when Nick offered me the job at Evermore so I quit everything, bought all my kit. moved into a flat in Bedford with Wes when he had no job and I was going from working one day a week at the tattoo shop to like full time all of a sudden so it's really like into the fire with it all but I think that's yeah realise that's the best way I work is just all the pressure to get a big change going. ⁓ Trevor Holland: That's not a that's not an uncommon an uncommon thing for us. ⁓ I've I've heard it from a lot of a lot of people and and I'm definitely a proponent of it. You you do your best work when your back's against the wall and you've got no other option but to do it. And it's it's it's coming right up to right up to the wire and the pressure is a as high as it's gonna get, that's when you disproduce. Right? Katie: Yeah. Absolutely, I think one of the main things that when I was diagnosed and I was diagnosed much much later I'd already been tattooing probably about 10 years by the time I started looking into it. But you just realise that it's the boredom I think is the greatest challenge. And so I've noticed in my life looking back every five years or so, make a giant change. Because just you get settled, know, you get comfortable and then the boredom sets in and you start to like self-sabotage everything to like fix everything. So I think that was... Trevor Holland: Yeah. Katie: yeah looking back one of the most obvious things I'm like I had a really good thing going on and I just burned it all down and moved on to the next thing and it I think at times I really like look back and maybe beat myself up about doing that with certain parts of my life but I in the end it's kind of led to me doing a load of really random things that were like really enriching in the end and also things that I would never have chosen to do but just kind of things that I was compelled to do out of like this Trevor Holland: That's right. Katie: restlessness I think. Trevor Holland: Yeah, this is this is it. It can't that that impulsivity or need for ne need for it's the novel the need for novelty, things that are new and exciting. we we have a real kind of stagnation issue, don't we? So w w once something stops being engaging, it becomes something you just don't want anything to do with anymore. And I don't know about you, but I've been balls to the wall with things, like all in. Katie: That's the novelty, isn't it? Trevor Holland: as passionate as a person can be about a certain thing, spend all the money on on getting the things to to do this. So for example, this was ⁓ this was only about f five years ago. I've o I've owned a guitar, ⁓ a fender strat for twenty years. I never really learned to play it properly. I just liked having it. I suddenly decided I wanted to learn how to take it apart, put it back together again and repaint it and do all this stuff to it. And I spent loads of money learning how to use a soldering iron and all sorts of stuff. It took me absolutely ages. I ruined my spare room spraying this guitar, put it back together, and then once I was done with that, I never touched it again. I just didn't do anything with it. but but you could but the way it the way you go from a hundred to to naught is is instantaneous for me. I'll be so interested, like I said, but then suddenly Not only do I not care about that thing anymore, it's almost like I I I despise that thing and I want nothing to do with it. Katie: I think of it a bit like, it's a bit of a beautiful curse, ADHD, because it allows you those really hyper-focused moments when you find something you love. And it can be from anything, from people to food to just music, everything. You'll love it, like, I'll listen to a song on repeat and then I won't listen to it for like six years and I'll completely forget that it ever existed. So it allows you to like something so much deeper and sort of really feed into that dopamine cycle. But I think then when something, you turn off something, especially like favourite food, then it can be a bit, yeah, really sets you back. you're like, I, you know, sometimes it makes you even question like, what do I even like? Cause like all my hobbies and interests change so quickly. But I think also if you know that you do that. Trevor Holland: But with sorry. Katie: you can kind of work it into your to benefit you know not fight against it I think that for a lot especially in tattooing I'll find that with a project I'll do a painting or I'll do like two or three paintings and I'll be really really into watercolour or some oil painting for me. It's every different medium. I'll do cross stitch, I'll do crochet and I kind of have to allow myself to just do whatever I feel like to kind of feed the creativity dopamine even if it's not necessarily like beneficial to what I should be doing right now or it's not going to help my career or it's not going to develop a skill that I don't have already. But I think by allowing yourself to do anything that you fancy, kind of when you want, and kind of, I think you get your best out of yourself. By just allowing yourself to have that, not beating yourself up when you... stop doing something. It can be really frustrating for people around you, think, to be like, yeah, you just spent all that money on that thing. And now I know what you're going to do. You're going to do this for a few weeks and then you're just never going to start like look at it again. I think it could be quite annoying when especially it's something you really want to do more of. Like I did these giant drawings during lockdown and it was only lockdown that like gave me enough time to actually finish them. But sometimes having an unfinished project sitting around your house as well for like six months, does like you start beating yourself off about it. It's like, I just wish I could finish something but then it's easy to disregard the fact that you have done 50 unfinished projects but you've still done half of you know 50 really interesting things that you like so I think learning to sort of forgive myself a bit I don't necessarily get everything finished and I maybe start a bit too much or change yeah the thing I want to do all the time but I don't know Trevor Holland: think what's what's what's good about the way you're doing it is it's it may not be outwardly advantageous to do, but it's also not necessarily harmful, ⁓ because it all it all stays within the realms of of visual art in some capacity, right? So i all these things you're doing are all in in the same postcode of activities, right? So it might not necessarily be advancing certain aspects of your art, but Katie: Hmm. Trevor Holland: it it doesn't what I'm saying is you're not necessarily doing things that are damaging your career or or or or causing harm to it. Whereas w I've I've done things where it's like you mentioned about the need to change everything. The mount I've had these bright ideas that have resulted in me quitting my job over them because I wanna pursue this thing now. This thing which is a flash in the pan, which never amounts to anything. I've got I've got an ADHD C V. ⁓ I've got about twenty jobs on it. And when I when you when you when you're asked in interviews or in application forms why did you leave your this employer? I don't want to say things like 'cause I went to the cinema and I saw a film and it made me want to do that, so I I quit. Katie: Yeah, you've got to hide the compulsivity but it's usually the... yeah that's my motivation to do a lot. But you know, sometimes it's a video game that I just cannot put down and then it does affect the rest of my life because I cannot enjoy anything if I'm not doing that one thing that my brain just really wants to do right now. There's kind of like, know, once you've, again, it all comes around to, I think, being diagnosed in the first place. You go through those cycles of, you get the sadness, right? You get the, if only, you know, if only I hadn't, think of all the things I could have done. I wouldn't have done this. Maybe I would have finished university. Like, everyone's got that kind of, oh, what have I missed out on? And you get, like, yeah, sort of a few weeks of, you know, feeling a bit down about it. But then you go for like, all right, you know, educating myself about all the different parts of ADHD and trying to figure out how I can use that knowledge to help me going forward. ⁓ And then you kind of get into the analyzing all the aspects of your life. And I think that was a hard part for me, especially say the tattoo industry and all creative industries. You find a really high proportion of people who have like, you know, on the spectrum, they've got ADHD or something. and then you start sort going well am I just into this because I have ADHD and people who have ADHD like this you know video games and alternative music and all sorts of things ⁓ so yeah I think I think there's like there was a lot of things where I got a bit sort of disenfranchised I guess about everything I was doing right am I just doing it because I'm novelty seeking and you know But again, it's like, I've got lot of hobbies and lot of traits that I sit down and talk to my customers about. And there's a lot of the same things you'll hear back. You're like, ⁓ I love this. I do this with my customers with ADHD. And we're just like, we're so similar. Sometimes it takes away a little bit of like a, you start questioning like, okay, so what, what is actually like my core interests and what makes me me? So you have like a whole personality, like sort of, I don't know. Trevor Holland: Or have you Katie: You start questioning everything. Trevor Holland: Since you started asking those questions of yourself, have you managed to answer any of them? So if you ask yourself the question of what what is it that makes you you, do you know the answer to that now? Katie: guess I'm working on that. I think it's more about giving myself room and kindness. But I think I'm in a lucky position where I've sort of fallen into a really fortunate situation where, you know, my partner Wes, he's been amazing through everything with ADHD and he's sort of facilitated me to sort of, I mean, he's done a lot of creating our workspace that suits him, but... It suits us so well that I have the perfect space to now just sit back and go, I just figure out. Now I have all the space and all the time, I've got a lovely creative working environment. I have all the tools that I need to sit down and grow. Okay, what do I really like to do? And I'm enjoying my life so much right now, have been since we moved for a long time. I'm very lucky to do something I enjoy every day and it is hard, it is stressful. It's crazy how much we've worked this year setting up the new studio. but I do not think I would have got through any of this or the last few years if I hadn't had that ADHD diagnosis because the amount of workload we've had and the amount of decision-making as well and I find that with ADHD that the decision-making abilities mine are shit I just I just cannot so luckily Wes's sort of fills in sort of a lot of my weaknesses and again so I can't remember where I was going with it but um Trevor Holland: That's okay. I mean being being being self employed No, it's fine. Being being so ⁓ being self employed must must have its challenges because ⁓ you know I I'm employed in the traditional way and I find that difficult enough. But but being self employed when you're responsible for getting all your ducks in a row. No one's doing that for you. There's no HR department, you are the HR department, you are the accounts department, you are the every department. I mean Katie: So yeah, there's a comment right as well. Trevor Holland: You've got you've got Wes at your side, but but d have you found that's a a difficult thing to be able to navigate when you got ADHD? Katie: Oh massively, as I said before there's certain patterns you notice in yourself and I think one of them is like relationships sabotage because you do get bored and if you don't know you've got ADHD and you start getting bored in a relationship you just start thinking well the relationship's the problem isn't it? If it was all good I wouldn't be bored I wouldn't be thinking about breaking up so in previous situations... especially in Covid, there was a time where I was like that was just at the part where I was thinking about something's wrong, you know, we were supported from the government grants at home, we were like isolated and shut down for like the longest time of anyone else. So we were just, I was just like, okay, perfect situation. I should be able to enjoy my home time because we've got a lovely flat that we've made nice and I've got loads of hobbies. So on paper, I'm being paid to stay home and do things I enjoy. I don't have anything I need to do. And I was not able to enjoy myself. I was deadly bored every day and also kind of like panicking that I wasn't using my time wisely enough. And I was just getting myself into a right mess. Everything was falling apart. I don't know what exactly made me think I think I went to talk to my GP about anxiety because my we were having a lot of like big arguments and I just could not keep my shit together you know it was the sort of another lovely trait of having ADHD and being bored is sometimes she'll just generate arguments for the stimulation and being in lockdown and the constant monotony of that I think that was something that was reoccurring and Wesley would do everything to just make my life easy and I'd find something to like argue with him about and it was just repeating and I think I finally saw that was probably my all my kind of creation so yeah I talked to my GP about anxiety, went through the like CBT talking therapy. I think from doing that I realised that I didn't have anxiety. It was the things that I was doing constantly, repeatedly, were causing me to be anxious. And so was like looking at those actions she suggested to get an ADT diagnosis. And luckily at the time the wait list was a year or it was six months that turned into a year. Whereas nowadays it's like, you know, three or four years, I think minimum. Trevor Holland: ⁓ it's yeah, is is so you went through sorry, you went through the NHS for it, yeah? Katie: side. I did, yeah. It was the right to choose and there was just one that my CBT therapist told me that she knew of the one that had like the lowest wait time so I won't be there when it was still like a year or so but that was a big yeah I mean unfortunately I had all of Covid lockdown undiagnosed still sort of managing but I think starting to think about, you know, maybe I do have ADHD. You start to be able to adjust your life and make changes and that really helped, I think. Trevor Holland: So whatever you're whatever you're comfortable to tell me ⁓ w what tell me about the the actual assessment process if you're able to. ⁓ how how it felt, having the conversation, you know, what what it what it looked like and ultimately how you felt when you were told that yeah, you got it. Katie: was a frustratingly short process. It was about 20 minute conversation. So it was oddly validating and also frustrating that it took so long to get a 20 minute conversation out of someone and then be like, yeah, you're right. You do have ADHD. And again, it's like, oh, you know, it's really obvious case of my mum sent all of the school reports I'd had, which say exactly the same thing again and again of like really smart, but talks too much and doesn't pay attention. And you know, was... start and repeat, was like yeah, signs. But yeah, the actual process, was like just a video call, just like this and I hate that. was alright though. was, yeah, he said to me, you're like the easiest client to diagnose because I tried one medication and it seemed to work quite well for me and that was it. So, maybe I should have tried something else but. haven't had any problems really with the medication I've taken. can't remember exactly what it's called but it's the methylphenidate one. But yeah, that's been fine. Trevor Holland: So talk talk to me about that, because sometimes there can be some misconceptions about ADHD medication. I take I take the same one as you. there are misconceptions especially online where where people assume that it's it's it's a magic pill, you take it and suddenly you're awake. have you seen them seen the movie Limitless with Bradley Cooper? It's about tw ⁓ fifteen years old. so this this guy ⁓ Katie: Not off the top of my head. Trevor Holland: it discovers this street drug which unlocks all of your mind's ⁓ abilities. Th the old theory that you only use twenty percent of your brain's ⁓ potential. And it's this drug that unlocks the rest of your brain and it suddenly makes you hyper aware and hyper vigilant and super intelligent and it makes you suddenly achieved wonders. And people think that the A A H D medication is gonna do a similar thing. ⁓ but what was Yeah. Katie: It's almost the opposite, it? It's almost... you already have all the eight voices in your head going off all the time, and the tablet, if anything, just allows you to hear that one mainstream of thought and quietens down everything else. that's what... once you get through the initial... ⁓ like rush of I guess your body getting used to it in the first place so I had like yeah palpitations and increased thirst like I think there were two days where I've never been more thirsty ever it was horrible but past that I felt like nothing almost so it's very easy to forget to take it because it's almost not noticeable which is kind of what you want isn't it Trevor Holland: Right. It does feel subtle. But y and I don't ⁓ for me, I was started on quite a low dose, because you know, you all know that it there are certain physical risks in terms of blood pressure and and y on your cardiovascular system and stuff. So they like to make sure everything's working as it should and you have to get checked every now and then as well. So they kept me on a low dose and but then built it up gradually. It was an incredibly subtle feeling for me. It's like I didn't realise it was doing anything until I was already in the midst of achieving slightly more. I was all I was already in in the process. I was already at work not quitting. You know what I mean? Katie: Yeah, that's it. think a lot of the hard work starts before you take the tablet. It's before you've been diagnosed. When you start reading online about the things that help people with ADHD and it's all the boring stuff. It's going and doing an exercise regularly, having a routine, sleeping well, eating healthy foods, eating a decent breakfast. Yeah, socialising, balancing your life. It's like, one of the cures for ADHD is just get all your shit together. And so I did make a lot of effort into sorting out my routine, going to the gym regularly before I took the medication. I think that helped just as much as taking the medication. I don't think I would have been as successful if I hadn't done, you know, improving my lifestyle choices at the same time. I think that made just as much difference and it's kind of nice to know as well because if you don't get on with the tablets I know that there's a bunch of like kind of natural remedies that help almost as effectively if for any reason I can't keep taking the medication you know because it is you know quite strong. I'm sure there's, you know, lots of other health reasons you might have to sort of stop taking it. But yeah, think the two things together have been amazing. But it's just funny to me that it's a controlled, obviously addictive drug. And every time you go pick it up the pharmacist is like, just, you know, make sure you don't take too much. And it's like, if anything, it's like, I'll just forget to take it and then I'll forget to take, pick up. That's the, the new battle is remembering to order my prescription before I need it and before I run out. Cause yeah, every, every time I probably have about two, three days in between where I really should be taking it. I've just run out. So that's the current battle. Trevor Holland: Every month, every month, same shit for me. ⁓ well I've I've got away w I've I I've I've managed to to never run out completely. I've ⁓ but every month it's right down to the wire of whether it's gonna be done in time. But I've never actually managed to run out entirely. Katie: That's good. I think so far I've just been messed up by the shortages. I think there's just been a few times where they just didn't have the prescription in at time. Trevor Holland: Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think there is a bit a fearmongering around it because it's in the same family of drugs as amphetamins. it's not you're not taking speed, it's related to it. ⁓ but for people with ADHD who take ⁓ methylphenidate or others, it's it doesn't have the effect that you would think it would have. So for example, before I was medicated I used to just drink coffee like a motherfucker. I just couldn't stop because I I needed that stimulation. But it didn't stimulate me. It made me sleepy, if anything. ⁓ it made me a little bit a little bit jittery, but it made me tired. Katie: Yeah, I... I had to cut down because I got an eye twitch that would not go away after I was, yes, just before I had the tablet. That was probably the most severe symptom I actually had from the medication was actually just stopping drinking coffee. I only gave myself two days to wean off all the coffee before I took my tablet and I had the worst headache I think I've ever had for like two days and yeah I had to stop that but that became my coping mechanism before I had the prescription. It was a good coping mechanism but yeah it's just as bad as everything else in the end. Trevor Holland: So you talked a little bit about your school reports, which you know, you you could everyone's experience with with ADHD is is is is is unique to them, but at the same time if you read twenty school reports from kids with ADHD who are undiagnosed at that point, you'd see pretty much the same school report for everyone. ⁓ so apart from your actual academic performance, how was your experience at school? Did you did you Did you how were you with having friends and stuff? Did you have any kind of what do you did you struggle at school or anything like that? Katie: Real mixed bag, think some years I had a great time, I had plenty of friends and other years just not so much so there would definitely be years where I think it comes from being so self-involved with whatever I was interested in at the time. There were years where I didn't want to go outside and play, I just wanted to sit and draw. I would love, I'd be the only kid that's excited when it's raining because you get to do wet play days where you get to inside and draw something. I think the only time that was at primary school or I probably just not interested in social I very much used to just be on my own doing something creative I and I think that probably did sort of yeah I remember going home and my mum sort of being like have you made any friends? I'm like why would you ask that? So I think again maybe I see some ADHD in my mum and I think she suffered from maybe the similar things with me but I was quite socially confident and socially awkward at the same time I think that's quite common, sort of, you get both because again you do things impulsively that make people laugh and maybe you didn't intend to so you kind of lean into it so there was definitely years where I was quiet and insular and definitely years where I was more like class clown depending on how I guess hyperactive I was and But yeah, I think I had quite a normal school other than when I was really, really interested in a subject, I was able to spend all of my energy doing that one thing to the point where I was a bit obsessive. As I my DT teachers were really encouraging and I just loved. like everything about their lessons and GT and you know everything like that at the time to the point where I finished my A levels I think I got 99 % on the coursework and 100 % on the exam because the teacher was like this is the book that the exam is based on and he said just as in passing if you read and memorise this book you'll get 100 % in the exam and I memorised the book I kind of obsessively revised only that one topic nothing else I didn't revise anything else only DT and I could read and write the book from cover to cover and this is like a hefty A-level textbook with diagrams about how everything's made and everything and I memorized the whole thing including the diagrams that I could write out Trevor Holland: Shit. Katie: like word for word. And like yeah, maybe at that point I should have been like, something's not normal about me. But again, it's a bit like a superpower when you can harness it if it's something useful. And that really wasn't a good use of my time, but was kind of satisfying. Trevor Holland: That's that's the the the real double edged sword of if something is interesting to you and engaging to you then you will absolutely excel at it. But if it's anything else, it's a write off, right? Katie: Yeah, trying to get me to do any sort of cleaning. It's just my white whale. Trevor Holland: Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ with sin since you've been diagnosed, 'cause you said that you spent some time learning about ADHD. What what have you I guess what I'm asking is what what have you really learned about yourself since you've had your diagnosis, you've started being treated for it? ⁓ have you learned something about anything about yourself that you weren't aware of before or things make things are more clear to you in any way? It's a bit of a weird question I'm asking, I've realised. Katie: Yeah, I mean, in a lot of ways. It kind of clarifies a lot of the decisions I made and good and bad decisions as well. It definitely shines a light on you in ways where don't necessarily want to see. And I can't really put my finger on any one particular thing. Yeah, I think more it's probably highlighted maybe negative traits about myself which are not very nice to live with. So again, it's like feeling sympathy from a partner to like maybe make some positive changes. I think one of the things is when you're low energy and you don't have any focus to give or especially for me at the end of the day where I can socialize and all day with clients, I really need to come back and just completely like... zone out. I can't even summon the energy to be nice to anybody around me. I think that's quite common and Wessie will come home and we'll to share, even though we spend all day together, it's lovely, we spend way too much time together, but we'll spend all day working together, come home and Wessie will, his version of unwinding is to basically talk me through anything that he's not had time to talk through the day, show me what he's been working on, anything like that, just have like a kind of daily summary chat. Whereas I kind of need to come home and just stare dead at a wall or a screen or my phone for about 30 minutes 40 minutes before I can feel like myself again and I think you got to be careful with like masking because I found that what I was doing was you know socializing all day for work coming back and then masking to give Wes the time that he needs to talk to me as soon as we got home and then having like a crash because I've put too much energy to other people and that's continued as soon as I get home so I think it's asking for boundaries that maybe you don't you know I'd love to be able to be present as soon as I get home and be nice and it feels a bit horrible to ask to just be like just leave me alone just I need this like 30 minutes 45 minutes of just yeah just being like neutral like I'm not not human I'm just like an entity to be ignored But yeah, I found that noticing that I can mask and sometimes do around West at home is the slippery slope of, you know, this needs to be like my safe place where I don't do that and I can just relax, Yeah, I think I've noticed from that again at times where I've been really rude really big like not present not available to to my partner When what I'll do now is you know recognize that I've got no energy I'll like communicate that needs to space and now it's like a pattern where he can tell this time of the day is sort of You know, you should leave me alone for a while But yeah, think noticing that my shitty behaviour wasn't necessarily because of any good reason and it was just because I was, you know, tired and had nothing left in the tank. It's kind of hard to look at yourself and go yeah I've been really kind of rude to you. Especially family growing up as well. think a lot of like my teenage years being really horrible to my parents because that's totally normal. But I think a little bit extra if you're ADHD and you're burnt out from school you know your parents want nothing more than connect to you and you literally just don't have any interest in talking to them. So there's a lot of guilt you carry around for that. Trevor Holland: D but do you not find that the guilt gets a little bit i is eased by the realisation of of why you're doing it? Katie: Absolutely, yeah, it definitely is a bit. I still got, you know, too much empathy. think lots of people with ADHD, too much empathy. So you feel everything quite severely. but it's good as well to acknowledge, you know, sometimes you are the problem and just because you've got ADHD and sometimes you need a little bit of time, sometimes you do have to suck it up and just be like, you know, this person deserves kindness, even if I don't have the energy for it. Trevor Holland: Yeah. It's it's It's a it's a it's a tight rope, I think, because you're absolutely right. You you you know, you you've got ADHD and you know, it's not an excuse for behaviour, it's it's th the reason for it. but at the same time you wanna try and be considerate of others. ⁓ you don't wanna be like, Well, I've got ADHD so you have to do this, you have to do that and you have to just leave me the fuck alone because I'm Katie: Yeah. Trevor Holland: somehow a priority. but at the same time it's also knowing that you have these limitations that other people don't necessarily have. Just because they're not visible and and just because you have the ability to push through and and mask, you can only do that for so long before you have a cataclysmic collapse. And it and you shouldn't necessarily have to because it's it it's almost physically painful and it's really unhe un it's really bad for you isn't it to to allow allow that to be your life. You know, you you you're spending your day doing it at work and it's part and parcel of of your job is to is to socialize with your clients and have those conversations. For me, I'd be so fucking tired after work that I wouldn't need half an hour or forty minutes. I'd need a day to get over it. Katie: Yeah, yeah, often, two days a week off is not enough for anyone I think, especially with ADHD. I need a whole day to do nothing and that's Sunday for me and I'll still go to the gym on Sunday because I know I need it. and I'll still do housework because I know I need to do it. And even that takes away from my full day to just recharge, you know? If you have a negative interaction at the gym or something pisses you off, you know, or something takes longer at home, that's it. You're like half your day is just filled with frustration. But it's definitely like a pre diagnosis cycle for me I recognize and I'm feeling less now is that once a month I just have a huge breakdown and I think for women that usually kind of coincides with whatever period cycle you're kind of going through they'll just be one week where everything falls apart and you scream at everyone you love and you'll just like it's kind of really frustrating because you'll have three weeks of normality where you feel like really on top of things and then out of nowhere it could be nothing it could be the smallest and you're just right back at square one and you know crying and screaming and everything's you know the worst thing in the world and that was happening every single month before I was diagnosed and it's much less likely to happen now it's not always you know not gonna happen but it's something a lot more thing I've read about with your period cycle, the week before your period, your dopamine levels are so low, it's almost not worth taking your ADHD medication because it's a waste, because it does not hit the baseline of like normal dopamine. So that kind of, if that's usually the week before my period, it's usually when I'll have the massive emotional crash, everything will go to shit. So knowing that. There's almost nothing you can do to avoid it because it's a natural process your body goes through, like you just kind of go right out. But knowing it and identifying when that's going to happen, if you're lucky enough to have a regular cycle, it makes it a bit easier. But it's just an extra thing that I've... And again, the women's sort of health is definitely lower priority across the board and with ADHD even more so because they've barely done any, I don't think there's any ADHD research that's specifically looking at women. And so, you know, there's loads of stuff about the medication can affect your periods. They don't mention that at all. So sometimes, you know, you start taking the medication and then it throws all of your hormones out of balance. And then you've got two different sort of... battles so it's another fun perk of being a woman is just more hormones more chemicals to kind of understand and live with as well but getting there it's definitely a lot easier now Trevor Holland: Yeah, that's an i that's an interesting thought. I I hadn't and obviously I'm now gonna feel guilty about the fact I haven't thought about it. But ⁓ by the same token, why would I? ⁓ Katie: No, you only think about it when you experience it and for a long time you just put it down to like normal period stress. Everybody has that week of feeling shitty. It's just if you've already got low levels of dopamine it's so much harder. It's yeah, fun. Trevor Holland: Now, what I'm interested is so you've been tattooing, you said, for about decade or a bit more than decade. Katie: It's been about 13 years now, I think. Trevor Holland: No. Do you ever worry that you're gonna stop wanting to do it? Katie: not nowadays no there's definitely a point I think with tattooing there's a lot of ego sort of you know a lot of big ego involved with promoting yourself online and lots of competition I try not to I'm not very social media kind of savvy I don't really like sharing much of myself online I think it's quite common So there was definitely years and years where I put my career first and I don't know what point there was definitely a point where I said to Wes, it might have been bad that it wasn't always the case. I think now my priorities have changed. It's not work first and then everything else. It's like me and Wes and then work and everything else. And I think since then and again, being bit more forgiving with myself, you know, knowing that maybe I will get bored of everything eventually. Tattooing might also be one of those things. There was a lot of years where I was stressing myself out over, you know, like, what if I don't make enough money? You know, what if I can't do this for as long as I like? And I've been doing it over 10 years and that feeling never goes away. You never feel safe. And it's kind of good because it encourages you to always push yourself, I think. Always kind of earn your spot and try and be better at everything. ⁓ But it, yeah, it puts a lot of pressure on you, I think, to keep it up and... I don't know, portray an image of success and confidence because that's all people want to see from their terrorists most of the time. You know, if you're just going to get a tattoo. Trevor Holland: Yeah, no no one wants no one wants to see a skittish tattooist, do they? They want to see one who doesn't look like they're particularly confident in what they're doing. Katie: Yes, you are of exude confidence. So if you go and I'm really worried my bookings are, you know, I'm not very busy and whatever. It's not, you know, it's just not worth putting out there. So there's a lot of like hiding any kind of insecurities. But yeah, I think. first five, six years I would have absolutely said, yeah I do worry that, no, I'll want to do this forever and I'll, you know, it's my thing, I don't ever want to quit. But now I'm like, it's like, if I just didn't want to do it anymore, I'd just find something else. There's a million other things that think I could do. I think it's more important that I remain self-employed. It's like, cannot handle having a boss and a job and other people's expectations. So as long as I can set my own expectations, I think I'd be quite happy doing something non-creative even, you know? Because I think now I value the the space you kind of live, like give yourself when you're self-employed and how you can get so much more. You know, it's the social side of tattooing that I love the most and drawing separately. Those two things I love. I could get those things in loads of different ways. I would always love to tattoo but maybe I won't always tattoo. There's lots of reasons why it's not necessarily a forever job as well. I've got plenty of friends who are younger than me that have carpal tunnel. The busier you get the worse your health gets mostly like with your hands and your joints and your back. ⁓ But hopefully I'll be able to tattoo forever but if not... Trevor Holland: Yeah, yeah. Katie: I could happily do a bunch of other things. While we were setting up the new studio, me and Wes were sort of like talking about other things that we could do as a couple together if it didn't work out, because then it kind of takes all the pressure off. It's lovely if we open the studio and it's been and it has been great, but also... So many people beat themselves up and make their job everything about themselves and you just put so much more stress on it, you know? So I think we've grown together to be like prioritised and tattooing is lovely but it's not the main priority. It's just trying to lead a nice happy life together is the priority and as long as tattooing can go nicely with that I'll tattoo but we'll see. Trevor Holland: That's good. It's good to be it's good to be philosophical about it. I think the reason I asked is because whenever I because I'm overwhelmingly self aware to the point of n you know, being pathological with it, ⁓ I I will question every decision I make. Whereas before Katie: We'll see how much changes. Trevor Holland: I was diagnosed, I didn't ever think about stuff like that. I was very much just fly by the seat in my pants, but now I'm medicated. Now since being I diagnosed with autism, which you know, I'm incredibly analytical about everything that I do. whenever I'm entering into a new endeavour of some sort, ⁓ a new project, something that I feel passionate about, I almost ruin it for myself because I'm thinking, ⁓ no, I hope this isn't gonna be another flash in the pan. I really want this one to stick. And I start to self sabotage because I'm like, well, this is this isn't gonna last. So why bother putting all the effort into it now? 'Cause I know it's not gonna last. And it's it it's very difficult just to just to well, why why not just enjoy it while if it is if it is a flash in the pan, then it is. But why not just enjoy it while while it while you are enjoying it and then if if you stop enjoying it then to do something else. So it you're not harming anybody, you know? Katie: Mm. I think most of the negativity when it comes to stuff like it just comes from living in a capitalistic society where everything has to be profitable to be worth doing and that's what takes all the joy out of tattooing it's like saying yes to tattoos you don't really want to do because you need to make money just don't do them just don't do things you're not excited about because at the of the day there's always someone that would be excited to do that tattoo and everybody deserves to get a tattoo where the person's excited to do it Yeah, I think if you try and again, it's easy said than done saying no, but you could say yes, but... Trevor Holland: That's yeah, that's that's spot on because as as you know about me, because I I I had a I I I worked an apprenticeship at a tattoo shop myself years and years ago and this wasn't an art first ⁓ enterprise at all. It it was it was a you know, s squeeze as much money out of this as possible, which a lot of businesses will do in whatever whatever area they're in and yeah, fair enough, that's the way you want to r run your business, fine. But There were very rarely gonna be projects coming through the door that the artists felt passionate about and they felt interested in doing. It was just it was just that production line of of of of names and stars and the other ho you know, just just the stuff that just gets churned out. The minimum price stuff that you in and out in thirty minutes and here's the next one, here's the next one. They didn't really give a shit about what they were doing, but they were making a nice living doing it. Katie: Yeah. Trevor Holland: But there was no passion there because they were never getting anything through their doors that would let them really design something beautiful that's really specific to that person and makes them feel really good about doing it. ⁓ so it's it's it's good that you have given yourself a situation where you you'll do the ones that you wanna do and that makes it makes the art that you're doing that much better because you care about it, right? Katie: Bye! But also we've just moved back to a high street studio as well so obviously when we were in Bedford we were doing walk-ins and then we moved to the private studio for the last six years and we haven't really been doing those like normal walk-in tattoos where you meet just like regular people as much everyone who has been coming to us has been getting our particular thing and they know already what you do whereas the new studio we are getting a bit more of just like normal walk-ins which has actually been really quite refreshing just getting more of a cross-section of average normal people instead of... I don't know, like my clients all just like me. You know, they've just end up like me chatting to people like me all day. It's just so easy to do. Whereas in the new studio is like, you'll just get a random cross section of society. It has a nicer balance and yeah, you'll get an occasional time no one wants to do, but we'll say, you know, not for us. But it's a nice balance being back in sort of a public studio, but I think it will be a new. old sort of skills to relearn of balancing your energy of how much you put into the walking customer versus like maybe like Ash, I could do this walking today but what I really want to do is sit in the back and work on my portfolio or stuff like that so it's again every time I change something it's just a new lesson to remember to like say no when you need to give yourself space learn the balance Trevor Holland: How do you have how do you how do you navigate those conversations where you don't have to answer this, but where where you've had you've you've put a lot into a design specifically for a person? ⁓ and you're trying to balance between not being a dick by telling that person outright you know more than they do about it, and you and you know that it's good or not good based on certain design principles. How do you have a conversation with someone where where they're disagreeing with with what you're trying to s what what you're trying to achieve with it and they've got an idea in their head which you know just isn't a good one. Katie: I think before I probably would have tried to change their mind and maybe try and get them to see my point of view. mean, nowadays I would just tell them what I think is best and if I'm happy to do it still, you know. with whatever changes I need to make to make it worth doing, I would. But then I'm much more happy to just let someone go, but it's just not for me this one. You'll probably find someone else who's more happy to do it. So it used to be harder because I used to think, ⁓ we have to get on the same page so I can move forward with this client and think quite linearly, ⁓ Trevor Holland: No, no. ⁓ Katie: Yeah, I think having the time and confidence a bit more to say, you know, I just know this won't work. I'm not going to spend my time telling you why. But, you know, if you want to do this, we can do this. Otherwise, I don't think I want to do that for you. It's definitely a lot easier than it used to be. But also thanks to AI nowadays, we get a lot more AI generated reference, which is a different conversation, sometimes a harder conversation to have. Trevor Holland: I hadn't even thought of that. I hadn't even thought of that. I bet that's really prevalent then, isn't it? It's like asking ha asking chat GPT, make me a a whatever and then you Katie: We shot it. Yeah I've had people put my designs into AI to change my designs slightly. And I hadn't even decided how I wanted to deal with that before, like that came to me for the first time as well so I was just like, Trevor Holland: ⁓ my god. Katie: I've seen a whole range of responses to people being ⁓ very forward as like, know, we don't deal with AI, this is why. I will not look at it, kind of, that's how I internally want to be. To people like, well, you know, some people just need help communicating their ideas, but just... I just think it's just too long conversation to have with every single client to say this is why I don't like AI. I'm just gonna ignore it. I think that's how I'm gonna deal with it. I'm just gonna pretend I don't see any of the AI references that people send me nowadays. But, yeah. Trevor Holland: I'm trying I'm trying to ignore the concept of AI at the moment. You know, you probably don't even know this but but I'm I'm I've been getting into writing the last two or three years and I'm I'm getting quite heavily into writing in writing screenplays and stuff like that. I haven't been able to do much of that over the last few weeks 'cause I've doing this, but ⁓ the it's terrifying for people out there at the moment. ⁓ who are trying to keep things going in this industry with with AI getting more and more capable, almost seems weekly, where you can s Katie: It's terrifying. It's definitely all creative industries. I don't think there's any that haven't been untouched at this point. It's, It's again, I think it's even harder to make the argument for why it's important not to use it. Because there's less and less people all the time. There's plenty of tattoo artists I know that will use AI in their designs and they don't see a problem with it. Because they justify their use of it. Even if... Trevor Holland: Yeah. Katie: you know, it doesn't solve the energy use issue. They're okay with the ethical side of using it to draw. So, yeah, it's a whole can of worms. Trevor Holland: Yeah, that's yeah. Yeah. It is a can of worms indeed. ⁓ so yeah, I just wanted to once again, Katie, thank you. I'm sp it's I know it's not the the easiest way of talking to someone you haven't spoken to in two or three years. is suddenly on a webcam conversation. But I think it was really important to get your get your take on Katie: Yeah, it's been good. Trevor Holland: the the journey you've been on over the last couple of years 'cause, you know, so much has changed but yet hasn't at the same time. But it it's just really interesting to to to hear how how you got where you are and the things that you have to contend with every day which are v very similar in a lot of ways to some of my stuff. So it's been really good to to talk about it. So thank you very, very much. Katie: No, thank you, it's been a pleasure. I think I talked about most of the things I intend to. I'm sure there's a bunch of stuff we missed, but it's the ADHD way. Yeah, yeah, I was like, oh, and this, and this. Trevor Holland: All right, mate. ⁓ well you'll text me about it in a month's time, I'm assuming. ⁓ All right, Kate. Thanks a lot. Take care, my friend. Katie: Yeah, take care, thanks.