Episode Description

Plum Ruffles spent most of her life being told, one way or another, that she was too loud, too emotional, too opinionated and somehow, at the same time, not enough. Diagnosed with ADHD at 41, after two children, a lifetime of masking and a family that's neurodivergent from top to bottom, she's now the founder of Not Too Much, a community that's grown from one honest Christmas Day Instagram post to nearly 30,000 followers in months.

Plum grew up in Kuwait, including through the Gulf War at age eight, before moving to the UK at 13 into a schooling system and a level of bullying that nearly cost her everything. She talks to Beth about what her nervous system learned from that childhood, the diagnosis that finally gave her a framework for who she is, what happens when ADHD, autism, postnatal depression, perimenopause and PMDD all collide at once, and why she believes community - not another self-help book - is what actually helps neurodivergent women survive motherhood.

Show notes

This is a conversation about being handed a label late in life and discovering it isn't a life sentence. It's a manual, albeit an incomplete one. Plum Ruffles and Bethany Wright talk about childhood environments that hold a neurodivergent brain together (and the ones that don't), the grief that comes with a late diagnosis, and what it actually takes to build a life, and a motherhood, with enough room in it.

Themes: ADHD and autism diagnosed in adulthood, neurodivergent motherhood, PMDD and perimenopause, masking and burnout, bullying and mental health, and building community around honesty rather than performance.

If you've ever felt like you were too much in one breath and not enough in the next, this one's for you.

Key takeaways

• The environment you grow up in can hold a neurodivergent brain together or let it fall apart — the brain doesn't change, the surroundings do.
• A late diagnosis brings relief, grief, disbelief and anger, often all at once, and often not in that order.
• Masking protects you as a child but exhausts you as an adult — and self-compassion has to come before anything else can heal.
• Community with other neurodivergent women isn't a nice-to-have — Plum calls it "the medicine" for a lifetime of feeling like the odd one out.

Find Plum Ruffles

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plum.ruffles/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/plum-ruffles/

• Not Too Much (community): https://www.instagram.com/wearenottoomuch/

More from Notes from the Not There Yet

• Website: https://notthereyetproject.co.uk
• Substack (The Not Yets): https://thenotthereyetproject.substack.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notthereyetproject/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-not-there-yet-project/
• Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NotThereYetProject
• Listen on Spotify: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/bethany-wright6/

Podcast EditorCharlotte Gunnellhttps://charlottegunnell.com/