Show Notes
Podcaster PJ Vogt has talked about his ADHD for years. Casually. Almost cheerfully. Then things changed. He decided to go off his ADHD medication, and he found the neuropsych report from when he was 13. It didn’t say what he thought.
On this episode of Hyperfocus, PJ, who’s spent his entire career making some of the most popular podcasts around – like Reply All and Search Engine — talks about his journey to understand his own brain. And how when he reread that old assessment, he found something messier than the story he’d been telling himself.
Host Rae Jacobson follows him through that reckoning and the big question: What happens when the label that shaped your identity turns out to be blurrier than you imagined?
They talk through the trade-offs he’s still sorting out now that he’s stopped taking medication, and the advice he’d give younger people with a brain like his.
More from Hyperfocus with Rae Jacobson
“Isn’t everyone a little ADHD?” If you have ADHD, you’ve heard it. Maybe you’ve felt the flash of rage, and the sadness underneath, because the question can make it sound like your life-altering brain difference is being reduced to a personality quirk. But there’s a more thoughtful version that could be worth asking: Is ADHD a spectrum?
Are you mad at me? It’s a question “Hyperfocus” host Rae Jacobson has asked more times than she can count.
We’re dropping into your feed a week early to announce a new investigative podcast from Understood.org. It’s called Zero Reject: The Uncertain Future of Special Education. This is episode 1. If you like it, follow Zero Reject wherever you get your podcasts. Beth Gellman-Beer spent her whole career fighting for kids with disabilities — first as a student written off as “lazy,” then as a federal civil rights attorney who found her dream job protecting students like her younger self. Then her entire office was eliminated. Reporter Anya Kamenetz traces Beth’s journey from an unfair fourth-grade classroom to the front lines of a sweeping overhaul at the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights — and what it means for the 25,000 families still waiting for a response to their complaints. With fewer people to enforce the law, what happens to the students the system was built to protect? For more on this topic Listen: Zero Reject Read: What is HHS, and what does it have to do with special education? Read: What is the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), and what’s its role in special education? For a transcript and more resources, visit Hyperfocus on Understood.org. You can also email us at [email protected].
How does ADHD collide with femininity and gender expression? This has been a big question on Rae’s mind. So recently, she sat down with her friend and colleague Cate Osborn for a chat on her podcast, Sorry I Missed This. We’re sharing that episode with you today.
Your smartwatch tracks your steps and your pulse. Soon, devices like it could track your brainwaves, and even tell if the wearer is neurodivergent.