Apr 27
Growing up in a politically active environment, Welsh local politician Sara Robinson was always drawn to social justice, and when she realized she had ADHD at 41, her life path started to make perfect sense.
Sara’s strong reaction to injustice–one of her ADHD strengths–drove her to get involved with local politics in order to make positive changes at the community level, and most recently, led her to advocate for changes in U.K. legislation around ADHD in criminal, education, and healthcare settings.
Like many of us, Sara struggles with rejection sensitive dysphoria, but her passion for social justice has always overridden any fears she has of being seen. She says, "Now that I've opened my eyes to it, post-diagnosis, I can't unsee the injustice."
Join us as Sara shares her ADHD journey, what’s changed since getting diagnosed, how building community has transformed how she sees her ADHD, the importance of women getting involved in politics at the local level, and so much more.
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"I've never really seen myself as a success, I just do the things that I'm really interested in and I guess the perfectionist in me means I want to do them as well as possible."
- Sara Robinson
"Realizing that ADHD is a real thing, the validation that I’m not weird or I’m not just overly sensitive, which I kind of told myself for years–‘why can't you be less sensitive? Why can't you be less weird? Why can't you just snap out of this?’–now I know that it's part of who I am and it actually brings lots of good things with it as well. I have had to learn to be a lot kinder to myself, and that's been the biggest learning from all of it."
- Sara Robinson
"I see success as the people who've carved out enough time to spend quality time with their families and to pursue their passions. I think the fetishization of busyness can be a very damaging thing."
- Sara Robinson
- Sara, award-winning writer and PR strategist, shares her passions and accomplishments in Wales.
- Sara wanted a diagnosis of ADHD to understand why she works differently and make positive changes to her lifestyle.
- Sara shares her decision to drop out of university at 17, choosing to pursue independent learning and travel instead.
[26:46 - 45:47] Rejection sensitivity and ADHD
- Sara shares her experience with rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD), a debilitating fear of rejection commonly found in individuals with ADHD.
- Sara discusses her experience with ADHD and how it affects her self-criticism and emotional responses to criticism from others.
- Sara expresses concern about the toxic atmosphere in politics, particularly for women, and the need for empathy and kindness in leadership.
- Sara advises her younger self to find a tribe of people who share her energy and validate her identity, as she did through this podcast interview.
- Sara believes that understanding and communicating her boundaries has been key to living successfully with ADHD.
- Sara discusses her experience with meditation, including a deep state of relaxation and missing a personal training session due to being in a meditative state for an hour.
Website: www.sararobinsoncomms.co.uk
LinkedIn: Councillor Sara Robinson
Insta: @sararobinson_81
Whatsapp group: ADHDivas
