Late Diagnosis and Letting Go with H.H. Rune

Hacking Your ADHD

William Curb

Mental Health, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 702 Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2025

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hey Team!

This week I'm talking with H.H. Rune, a Pacific Northwest-based author whose writing explores neurodivergence, identity, and rediscovering meaning in everyday life. Rune was diagnosed with ADHD at 52 after decades of feeling like she was just "bad at life"—something I know I’ve felt a lot of in my own journey.

In our conversation today, we talk through the emotional processing of a late diagnosis—Rune describes it as going through the five stages of grief—and how she’s reshaped her relationship with herself, her work, and the people around her. Rune also shares the evolution of her long-running book series and how ADHD both challenged and fueled her creative process.

Listen to the Climbing the Walls podcast here!

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/225

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This Episode's Top Tips

1. Avoid relying on memory, especially for creative ideas, and lean on tools like reminders, email, and structure to back up your attention. Don’t trust your brain to remember and instead trust the systems you’ve set up.

2. Try celebrating your ADHD curiosity. Instead of shaming yourself for going down “random” thought paths, reframe your curiosity as a gift and use humor to engage others.

3. Getting a late diagnosis can require a lot of emotional processing. Rune describes going through the five stages of grief post-diagnosis, acknowledging that the loss of a "life that could have been" is real and valid.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD.
0:05.7	I'm your host, William Kerb, and I have ADHD.
0:10.0	On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain.
0:16.0	Hey team, this week I'm talking with H.H. Rune, a Pacific Northwest-based author whose writing explores
0:21.5	neurodivergence, identity, and rediscovering meaning in everyday life. Rune was diagnosed with
0:27.1	ADHD at 52, after decades of feeling like she was just bad at life. Something I know I felt
0:32.8	a lot of in my own journey. In our conversation today, we talked through the emotional processing
0:37.1	of a late diagnosis. Rune describes it as going through the five stages of grief,
0:41.6	and how she's reshaped her relationship with herself, her work, and the people around her.
0:46.6	Rune also shares the evolution of her long-running book series and how ADHD both challenged
0:50.9	and fueled her creative process. If you'd like to follow along on the show notes page, you can find that at hacking your ADHD.com
0:58.5	slash 225.
1:03.2	This episode is brought to you by understood.org.
1:06.3	So I want to tell you about another podcast I think you would really like.
1:09.2	It's called Climbing the Walls.
1:11.1	It's a six-part series that investigates why women with ADHD have gone underdiagnosed for so long,
1:15.7	and how that changed dramatically during the pandemic,
1:17.7	when the diagnosis of ADHD and women skyrocketed.
1:21.0	I've listened to the first five episodes, and I'm itching to hear the six-one once that comes out.
1:25.2	This series has been a ton of fun to listen to as host
1:27.6	Daniel Elliott explores these questions around women and ADHD and how the picture that's been
1:32.0	painted around this topic so far isn't quite what it seems. The show asks, why women, why now,
	...

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