In late 2023, while broadcaster Petra Bagust was interviewing Anika Moa for her Grey Areas podcast, the tables were turned when the singer/songwriter suddenly posed a personal question mid-chat.
Anika, who had been discussing living with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) curiously remarked, “Do you have ADHD?”
After a quick pause, Petra retorted “Noooo, I don’t think so!” But the comment stirred something that stayed with her long after the microphones were switched off.
“Then in May last year, I was talking to Sonia Gray about her experience with neurodiversity,” recalls Petra. “I was like, ‘hmm what if this is me? And what if this makes me make sense?’”
In the following months, after watching her youngest son Teddy, 18, also get diagnosed with ADHD, the mum-of-three began keeping a diary of her own symptoms. One of the first things she noticed was a penchant for “perpetual procrastination and time blindness”.
Then she underwent extensive testing by an Auckland psychiatrist.
When we chat, it’s been a few months since her diagnosis of both the hyperactive and inattentive symptoms of ADHD, which is known as the ‘combined type’ presentation.
The 52-year-old prefers the Māori word for it: aroreretini, meaning ‘attention goes to many things’.
Embracing ‘neurospicy’
As she welcomes the Weekly into her busy, intergenerational home – offering hugs, waving a mascara wand in one hand and taking drinks orders – she is “100 percent” embracing being ‘neurospicy’ and talking kindly to herself.
“I see it now as my brain functions differently. My brain is wired in a certain way that makes certain things phenomenally easy – it’s perfect for being a presenter and thinking fast – while being really challenged by other things like life admin,” she shares candidly.
“What if every one of us is somewhere on the spectrum? What if there is a little bit of spicy in all of us? It’s not a terrible thing.
“Something big I’ve learned is that you can’t tether your ADHD behaviours to your character. For example, if you are not good at remembering times, birthdays or names, and you are exhausted doing basic routine tasks, then you get perceived to be daydreamy or lazy.
“Or if you miss an appointment, you’re unreliable – and those become character flaws. So you’re constantly trying to fix your character because you think there’s something wrong with you.
“That’s a heavy burden. I was so relentlessly critical and judgemental and thought I must make myself do better!”
Reflecting back on her teen years, she says trying to meet the expectations of others was an endless, exhausting game of whack-a-mole.
“When I became depressed as an 18-year-old, it was because my brain was working so hard to keep all these systems going: look the right way, act the right way, speak the right way.
“My mum Judi was very affirming of who I was, although she had very high standards and I was working hard to make sure I met those and got good grades.”
The battle with burnout
Then there was burnout. Evidence shows that people with untreated ADHD can get burnout from going too hard and trying to prove they’re not lazy.
It’s something Petra experienced after co-hosting TVNZ’s Breakfast show in 2012.
“At the end of Breakfast I was burnt out. I was empty. I had three young children and I wasn’t made to do the same thing every day while feeling jet-lagged. And I wasn’t made to be emotionless,” tells the upbeat broadcaster.
“It wasn’t a safe place to even be me. That was a dark time. I was trying so hard to be everything that everyone else needed me to be. I did take six months out of work just to recover my joie de vivre. But really, I’ve always kept myself on a tight leash.” Until now.
Petra ‘unleashed’
She’s walking into 2025 as Petra: unleashed, if you will. The diagnosis has freed up a lot of mental energy to not hold herself to such“relentlessly high standards” anymore.
“I talk and listen for a living but going into menopause – oh, helloooo – I sometimes couldn’t find my words,” says Petra, who works as an emcee for events, a media chaplain and a podcaster.
“I would get off stage and berate myself for any little thing I didn’t do or say. Nobody else would notice, but my thoughts were hyper-critical.
“However, I’m much calmer and more compassionate in the way I talk to myself [now]. Sometimes I stand in front of the dishwasher and go ‘okay there’s no dopamine hit here… shall we empty it anyway?’
“And I’m really good at saying yes!” she laughs. “In the past, I would be angsting about unloading it because my bouncy brain doesn’t want to do any kind of repetitive, boring task.”
The default for an ADHD brain is interest, not importance. Motivation comes from an emotional response, or by what’s interesting to them. It also doesn’t surprise Petra that her late diagnosis has arrived during the throes of the hormonal whiplash of menopause.
It’s when women may experience exacerbated symptoms due to the decline in oestrogen and progesterone levels, or a drop in dopamine levels, which are already lower in females with ADHD.
This decline can also impact other brain functions, potentially leading to difficulties with memory, organisation, and emotional regulation, which are common in ADHD.
On finding the ‘magic’ of common ground
These cognitive interruptions during midlife is a topic Petra and menopause advocate/author Niki Bezzant will touch on as they kick off their Hot Mess tour next month in Auckland, Christchurch, Queenstown and Rotorua.
Through their work, they’ve met too many women who enter menopause feeling unprepared and without support. They want to widen the conversation and demystify this often-overlooked phase of life.
“This season can feel like a rollercoaster – physically, emotionally, and mentally,” says Petra, who is well-known for her Christian faith. “We want women to know they’re not alone, and we’re bringing the conversation into the light with warmth, wisdom, and a good dose of laughter.
There’s an appetite for menopause talk in real life.
“There’s something magic about women being in the room together. We’re better doing life together. I already know this, that’s why the Grey Areas with Petra Bagust podcast works. “It’s about being seen, being heard, being understood and lifting the lid on issues that many people are too shy to raise in public. If women resonate with hearing a conversation, they go ‘Oh that makes sense! I’m not alone!’”
Not going it alone
That theme of connection and how no one can get through life alone is a big one for Petra, who has always worn her heart on her sleeve. Her home life represents this, too.
After her father Daniel suffered two strokes and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in recent years, he and Petra’s mother Judi sold their house and moved into Petra and husband Hamish’s property, renovating the loft apartment above the garage for themselves. During our chat, he sits at Petra’s dining table doing a voice rehab class.
Her middle child, Jude, 19, is in his second year of studies at Massey University in Wellington. He regularly sends his mum photos of the meal he’s cooked for the flat dinner that night. “And I am well impressed!” she says proudly. “There are always lots of vegetables – honestly the meals look yum!
Their “baby”, Teddy, 18, has graduated high school. “He stuck it out even though he has dyslexia and was diagnosed with ADHD in September last year. He said ‘Mum, I wouldn’t have finished high school without Ritalin medication’.
“He’s now having a ‘gap year’ restoring cars and teaching himself automotive stuff. He’s hoping to secure a job working with cars.”
Soul food
With her kids leading busy lives, it means Petra has more time to do work that fills her soul. She is absolutely fizzing about being asked to host her first guided art tour to Europe this August.
“Gorgeous chef Chelsea Winter does epic food tours but I get to hang with 25-30 art lovers from all parts of New Zealand on a Taste of Europe escorted tour,” says Petra, brimming with enthusiasm.
“We’re going to eat our way around Italy, France and Spain for two weeks: both visually and with our mouths, with proper tour guides.
“Art history was my favourite subject at school and I did a fine arts degree in painting. Getting to tell stories about the lives of fabulous artists is a match made in heaven for me.”
ADHD brains have lower levels of dopamine. Where do you get your dopamine hits from?
I get them from wearing colour, being present with people, being onstage, dancing, swimming in cold water, tasting something delicious, being outside, and patting my animals.
What makes you furious?
When I have to pause mid-sentence (with brain fog) trying to remember what I want to say. My husband encourages me with: “You can do it!”
On this season’s Grey Areas, you interview your son Teddy, who described feeling “something was off” before his diagnosis. Is that how you felt?
I felt… just different. As a child, I often felt I didn’t belong and wondered: “why don’t I fit in?”
Are you and Niki (co-host of Hot Mess) similar?
No, she’s such a different personality type to me, it’s quite fabulous. We’re the perfect foil for one another!
For the Hot Mess tour dates, locations and tickets see hotmesstour.nz. For info about An Art Lover’s Taste of Europe, email: [email protected]
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