LATE BLOOMERS

Are you working a job you love—or staying in one that’s slowly making you miserable? This week, Rich and Rox dig through their entire career histories: first jobs, bad bosses, promotions, burnout, quitting, career pivots, failed dreams and the strange ways neurodivergence shaped what work did and didn’t suit them. Rox talks about going from thriving in fast-paced service jobs to feeling completely out of her depth in a graduate accountancy role, before eventually leaving banking for music; Rich reflects on spending 20 years at Barclays, the managers who shaped him and what finally made him change direction.

It’s really about career shame, starting again and the idea that job-hopping, quitting or getting it wrong doesn’t mean you’ve failed—you might just be collecting the pieces that eventually lead you somewhere that fits.

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CHAPTERS
00:00 The Career Graveyard
01:24 Rich’s first job at Sainsbury’s
03:52 Rox starts “Helping Hands”
06:06 Rox’s first proper job
09:27 Rich becomes a manager at 19
13:27 Why ADHD can make interviews easier than the actual job
14:49 “Something was missing in me”
16:06 “You need to go home”
18:59 Rox moves into banking
21:28 Mixing up BUY and SELL on a trading floor
22:32 Loop Earplugs
23:22 Rich’s life at Barclays during the credit crisis
25:22 The bosses you never forget
27:55 Rox starts writing songs
29:21 Leaving the bank for music
30:33 The record label collapses
33:30 Starting again in Amsterdam
34:31 The beginning of ADHD Love
35:13 What old jobs still teach you
37:47 “Every wrong turn was actually a right turn”
38:55 Why messy career paths are completely normal
39:45 Rich’s forgotten childhood dream
42:10 Final thoughts

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.

Get our book THE CHERRY TREE THEORY
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Listen to the audiobook
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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.

Get our book THE CHERRY TREE THEORY
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Listen to the audiobook
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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
http://linktr.ee/cherry.tree.theory

Listen to the audiobook
https://linktr.ee/CHERRY.TREE.AUDIOBOOK

20% off Loop Earplugs: https://www.loopearplugs.com/adhdlove

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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This week on LATE BLOOMERS, Rich and Rox break down the six types of memory — and why ADHD and autism hit almost every single one in opposite directions.

ADHD struggles hardest with working memory and prospective memory, described as writing on a whiteboard while someone else actively wipes it. But it can come with genuinely excellent semantic and procedural memory, the kind that makes songwriting easier than cleaning the kitchen. Autism runs almost the reverse: strong working, prospective, semantic and episodic memory, but real struggles holding onto the emotion behind a memory, even the painful ones.

They also get into why autistic memory relies entirely on a calm nervous system, and Rox's actual advice if you've got ADHD: assume you have no memory at all, and externalise everything.

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This week on LATE BLOOMERS, Rich and Rox are laying down the ten commandments for surviving a world that wasn't built for your brain. No cards, no notes — Rox is running the whole manifesto from memory, which given the memory episode is a bold choice.

Protect your energy like it's gold, master the art of strategic masking, stop apologising for existing, and stop trying to be neurotypical — you'll burn out whilst failing. Plus the coffee-in-bed morning routine they both refuse to let anyone derail, and why being the only "normal" one in your friend group is actually the first warning sign.

If you're exhausted from pretending to be like them, this one's your permission slip to stop.

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This week on LATE BLOOMERS, Rich and Rox are asking the question nobody wants to answer honestly — who's actually more empathetic, ADHD or autism? Spoiler: everyone's had it backwards.

They break down the three types of empathy nobody talks about, why Rich's empathy sometimes tips into full-blown overwhelm, and why the "autistic people don't feel empathy" myth needs to die. Rox also drops one of the most quietly devastating stories either of them has shared on the show.

If you've ever wondered whether you're actually empathetic or just anxious and pretending, this one's for you.

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This week on LATE BLOOMERS, Rich and Rox are taking apart five pieces of relationship advice everyone treats as gospel — and explaining why they fall apart completely when one or both of you is neurodivergent.

"If they wanted to, they would." "Never go to bed angry." "They should just know." Rox explains why her memory has nothing to do with how much she loves Rich, Rich makes the case for going to bed mid-argument, and the dishwasher gets stacked twice. There's also a birthday story that nearly ends in a domestic.

If you've ever been told your relationship is doing it wrong, this one's for you.

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This week on LATE BLOOMERS, Rich and Rox are doing something different. Ten neurodivergent hot takes, controversial questions, and genuinely unpopular opinions — and they're trying really hard not to get cancelled in the process.

Is masking always bad? Is self-diagnosis valid? Is the autism spectrum too big? They go there. All of it. And they don't always agree.

Fair warning — some of these will make you uncomfortable. That's kind of the point...

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This week on LATE BLOOMERS, Rich and Rox are getting into RSD — rejection sensitivity dysphoria. The thing that's been quietly ruining lives for decades and most people don't even know it has a name.

If you've ever spiralled over a text that says "we need to chat," catastrophised before walking on stage, or spent years replaying every embarrassing moment you've ever had, this one's for you.

Rich brings the therapy science, Rox brings the Reddit, and between them they've got 10 tips that actually help.

It gets honest. It gets funny. And it might just explain a lot.

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Rich and Rox are going there this week. If your sex life has taken a hit since an ADHD diagnosis, or you've always wondered why intimacy feels so much harder than it should. This one is for you.

They're breaking down the four big reasons ADHD kills your sex life: the shame spiral that starts with a messy bedroom, the brain that never switches off, the energy that's completely gone by the end of the day, and the resentment that quietly builds between partners. And then they're giving you the four fixes that actually work.

No toxic positivity. No generic relationship advice. Just Rich and Rox being honest about what's gone wrong for them and what's actually helped.

Fair warning — it gets real. But it ends in a good place.

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This week on LATE BLOOMERS, Rich has had enough of autism misconceptions, so Rich and Rox are going through the top ten myths one by one and busting them wide open. Rich didn't know what was coming. That's kind of the point.

From "autistic people can't feel empathy" to "sensory issues are just being difficult" to the big one — is autism being overdiagnosed — this episode covers a lot of ground. Rich talks about what it actually feels like to have emotions on the inside that nobody can see on the outside, why flip flops are genuinely the enemy, and why the label "high functioning" needs to go in the bin.

If you've ever had to explain your autism to someone who thinks they already know what it looks like, this one's for you. And remember if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person...

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This week on LATE BLOOMERS, Rich and Rox are sharing the ADHD hacks that actually work — not the "just set an alarm" nonsense, the real ones. Ten tried and tested strategies pulled straight from their actual life together.

From setting timers in seconds instead of minutes, to the lesser of two evils trick, body doubling, and why buying a nice water bottle is genuinely a productivity hack — this one is packed. Rox also admits she still doesn't notice when Rich is using the hacks on her. Which honestly says it all.

If your brain makes every task feel like a mountain, this episode is for you.

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Rich and Rox are doing something different this week.Rich and Rox are doing something different this week. Instead of talking about the hard stuff, they're talking about the good stuff — the 10 strengths and superpowers that come with a neurodivergent brain.

They've each picked five for the other one, and honestly some of them will surprise you. From hyperfocus and pattern recognition to crisis calm and deep empathy, this episode is a reminder that your brain isn't just a problem to manage.

Fair warning though — they're not pretending it's all sunshine. If you're in the thick of it right now, they see you. But if you're ready to hear the other side, this one's worth your time.

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Rich and Rox are back in the Reddit hole.Rich and Rox are back in the Reddit hole. This week it's 20 ways ADHD brains chase dopamine, and Rox sits through every single one like a woman being personally investigated.

Research spirals that end in never booking the holiday, new hobbies that become your entire personality for three weeks, starting a fresh business to avoid doing anything on the current one. All of it is here, all of it is too real.

Score yourself in the comments. Rox got 20 out of 20 and is soooo fine about it...

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You've just been diagnosed with ADHD or autism — now what? In this episode, Rich and Rox walk through the 10 emotional stages of life after a late diagnosis: the surreal moment everything starts to make sense, the relief-and-grief whiplash, the identity crisis (what's me vs. what's neurodivergent?), and the painful truth that a diagnosis doesn't fix you — and can even make things worse before it gets better.

The episode lands where their work always does: how to move from "what's wrong with me?" to self-understanding, and rebuild a life that works with your brain.

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This week, Rich shares 10 “weird” things he always thought were just part of his personality… that actually turned out to be autism.

From struggling with eye contact to leaving parties early, needing space, and even things like rubbing his feet together — we break down the small, everyday behaviours that didn’t seem like anything at the time, but make a lot more sense now.

It’s a funny, honest, and really accessible conversation about what autism can actually look like in real life. Whether you’re diagnosed, questioning, or just trying to understand someone you love — this one might help you see things a little differently.

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It's neurotype warfare, mop in hand. Rox (ADHD) and Rich (autism) go ten rounds on how they actually clean — from anxiety-fuelled 20-minute panic tidies to methodical "do not make a mess" warnings issued two days in advance. Expect dog wipes used on kitchen counters, sitting on the floor reading old birthday cards instead of cleaning, and at least one threat of being attacked with your own laundry.

Producer Max judges. Vibes decide. It ends, inevitably, in rock paper scissors.

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In this episode of LATE BLOOMERS, Rox opens up about her perimenopause journey — from her very first symptoms at to recently starting HRT. She talks honestly about the brain fog that felt like being underwater, the exhaustion nothing could fix, and the moment she was convinced her life was over.

They unpack why perimenopause hits ADHD women harder, why nobody warned us this was coming, and the year Rox left her HRT unopened in the cupboard out of fear. Plus the male doctor who tried to talk her out of taking it.

Then comes the turnaround. Eight weeks into HRT, Rox describes getting her life back — her sleep, her energy, her confidence, her creativity. If you've been feeling weird in your body and wondering what's wrong with you, this one is for you.

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This week, we’re talking about THE ADHD DIET — 10 simple, evidence-backed ways that what you eat can actually impact your ADHD symptoms. From protein and blood sugar to hydration, vitamins and ultra-processed food, we break down the changes that can make the biggest difference (without overcomplicating it).

But… in true LATE BLOOMERS fashion, we’re not exactly smashing it. From Monster-for-breakfast confessions to scoring ourselves a very questionable 3/10, this episode is as real as it gets. Because knowing what helps and actually doing it are two very different things.

If you’ve ever struggled with energy crashes, sugar cravings, or just feeding yourself consistently — this one’s for you. Start small, pick one or two things, and see what happens. No perfection, no pressure… just progress.

For years, I misunderstood the person I love. I thought silence meant disconnection. I thought bluntness was rudeness. I thought a lack of reaction meant a lack of care. I didn’t realise I was filtering everything through my own lens… and getting it completely wrong.

In this episode, we break down 10 behaviours that are often misunderstood in autism — from shutdowns and needing plans, to missing hints and showing love differently. What I once saw as rejection, control, or distance… was actually overwhelm, honesty, and care.

This changed our relationship. Less blame, more understanding. Less shame, more compassion. If you’ve ever felt confused, hurt, or unsure how to read someone you love — this one might change everything.

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This week, it’s ADHD vs Autism: Work Edition… but make it a full-blown competition.

Rich vs Rox go head to head through deadlines, meetings, burnout, vague instructions and more — with Max judging each round and deciding who wins.

It’s chaotic. It’s competitive. It makes absolutely no sense at times.

Will logic win? Will vibes win?
And most importantly… will this format survive?

In this episode of LATE BLOOMERS, Rich and Rox are calling time on the idea that you’re “behind.” From failed careers to addiction, debt, and starting again in their late 30s and 40s, they break down why everything you’ve been through might actually be your biggest advantage.

They share 10 powerful reasons why starting late hits different — from resilience and self-awareness to having nothing left to prove and everything left to gain. It’s honest, a bit chaotic, and full of moments that will make you rethink your entire timeline.

If you feel like you’ve missed your chance, this is your reminder: you haven’t. You’re not late. You’re in your comeback era.

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