Ep 19: The things Katherine Richardson could tell you

This week's guest gets it from every angle: Katherine "Kat" Richardson is a late-diagnosed ADHDer, a mum navigating her own son's likely neurodivergence, and the author-illustrator behind The Things Enid Can Tell You — a children's book about a sparkly-brained girl that never once uses the word "ADHD."

Kat and the hosts trade late-diagnosis stories that will sound painfully familiar: the report cards that said "talks too much" and "needs to apply herself," the university degrees started and abandoned on a whim, the diagnosis that arrived not as grief but as relief mixed with a strange kind of double-edged clarity — finally knowing why, and also knowing this is permanently who you are.

Kat talks candidly about writing her book before she'd even fully unpacked her own masking, about the ADHD-house reality of forgotten showers and rotten apples left in odd corners, and about her very deliberate choice not to label Enid's brain at all — because a children's book that announces "this character has ADHD" lands differently to a kid than one that just lets a sparkly character be herself.

It's a warm, funny, occasionally chaotic conversation about writing honestly, parenting differently to how you were parented, and giving kids language for their brains that we never had for our own.

What We Talk About in This Episode

• Kat's late ADHD diagnosis story: report card comments, undiagnosed years, and finally asking the question out loud in her late 20s
• The "double-edged sword" of diagnosis: relief at finally having an answer, alongside the realisation that no amount of trying will make you different
• University chaos: switching degrees between Antarctic science, guide dog training and a communications degree finished via distance education at double speed
• Why "always early" can be the same anxiety as being late
• Parenting a sensory-driven, possibly-neurodivergent toddler son, and catching herself repeating the same "can you just sit still" messaging she's trying to break
• Reparenting: working out what actually damaged you growing up versus what was just imperfect but harmless
• Writing her first book, Diary of a Red Handfish, about a real endangered Tasmanian species and a real conservation project
• Publishing under two names — Kat for her business, Katherine Richardson for her books — and why that split exists
• The deliberate choice not to name ADHD or autism anywhere in The Things Enid Can Tell You, so kids can recognise themselves without a clinical label attached
• Avoiding stereotypes: writing a messy, imperfect, lovable character without reducing her to "the ADHD kid who's always late and disorganised"
• The exhausting mental load of basic self-care tasks (showers, teeth-brushing) and the tricks she uses to get herself to do them anyway
• Where to find Kat's books and her illustration/editing studio

Key Takeaways

• Late diagnosis often isn't followed by grief so much as a strange, double-edged relief: "this explains everything" and "this is permanently who I am" arriving at the same time.
• Being chronically early can be driven by the same anxiety as being chronically late — it's still time-related distress, just pointed the other direction.
• The most authentic representation in children's books often comes from writing your own story first, rather than deliberately setting out to "write a diverse character."
• Reparenting isn't about getting everything right — it's about identifying what actually caused harm growing up and interrupting that specific pattern, not chasing an impossible standard of perfect parenting.
• Basic daily tasks (showering, brushing teeth) can carry a genuinely higher mental load for ADHD/autistic brains, and finding a "trick" that works is a legitimate strategy, not a failure to just "do the normal thing."

Who This Episode Is For

Anyone who got diagnosed later in life and is still working out what to do with that knowledge. Parents looking for children's books that let a neurodivergent-coded character just be a full, funny, flawed person rather than a walking symptom list. And anyone who has ever quietly wondered whether they should have finished that degree they abandoned in week three.

A Message From This Episode

You don't need permission to tell your own story, and you don't need a diagnosis to hand to prove it's real. The most authentic writing — and the most authentic parenting — usually comes from working out what actually hurt you, not from getting everything technically right.

About This Episode's Guest

Katherine "Kat" Richardson is an author, illustrator and late-diagnosed ADHDer. She is the author-illustrator of The Things Enid Can Tell You, a children's picture book about a sparkly-brained girl, and Diary of a Red Handfish, a self-published children's book about one of Tasmania's most endangered fish species. She also runs an illustration, editing and book design studio supporting other authors, with a particular focus on making the process accessible for neurodivergent clients.

Both books are available through Kat's website and Amazon. 

Follow & Connect

Instagram: @motherhoodunmaskedunfiltered

Guest: Katherine "Kat" Richardson instagram: @peskyploverstudio 

Subscribe & Follow

New episodes every Thursday. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and follow @motherhoodunmaskedunfiltered on Instagram for clips, carousels and behind-the-scenes chaos.