ADHDifference

ADHDifference - ADHD & THE JIU-JITSU MINDSET + guest Julio Rivera

• Julie Legg & Jel Legg • Episode 57

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Julie Legg speaks with Julio Angel Rivera, a New York City-based writer, mental health advocate, and martial arts coach, about his experience with ADHD, bipolar disorder, depression and CPTSD.  

This jiu-jitsu philosophy profoundly resonates with how Julio has come to approach ADHD and mental health, and has learned to flow with challenges and embrace nonlinear paths to progress. Diagnosed at 42, he reflects on the struggles he faced before his diagnosis and the personal growth that followed and shares his insights on neurodivergence, trauma, and resilience. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS 

  • Decades of training in jiu-jitsu, judo, and MMA provided Julio not only a physical outlet but philosophical grounding. 
  • Mindfulness has become a vital tool in Julio’s mental health repertoire. He discusses the importance of learning to notice triggers and stay present during moments of dysregulation, which can help to de-escalate situations before they spiral - a skill rooted in both therapy and martial arts discipline. 
  • Julio is the author of Brokedown Sensei and Internal Jiu-Jitsu (released May 2025) and blogger on Threads, Medium and Substack. 

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JULIE: I'm Julie Legg, author of The Missing Piece and diagnosed with ADHD at 52. Welcome to ADHDifference. In this episode I chat with Julio Angel Rivera. He's a New York City writer, mental health advocate and self-defense coach. The Brazilian jiu-jitsu, judo and Japanese jiu-jitsu black belt has also taught kickboxing and MMA. Decades of training has shaped his fighting philosophy but just as important has been his experience with mental illness, trauma recovery, mindset and emotional regulation. Diagnosed with ADHD at 42, this former World Masters Jiu-Jitsu champion, who is open about his mental and emotional struggles, is now a published author and blogger. Julio welcome so much to the show. Thank you for joining us today. 

JULIO: It's my pleasure Thank you Julie. [And you're in New York City?] I am, I'm in New York. I had no idea that you were in New Zealand when we first chatted online so I was really struck by that. So yeah, you're quite far away. 

JULIE: We are indeed but you know this ADHD hits every part, every corner of the world. You know, ADHDifference is all about the conversation about keeping ADHD no longer a mystery, you know, and really talk openly about some of the challenges we experience but also how individually we can overcome some of those challenges. And yeah, just talking openly about our journeys I think does the world of difference for us. Talking of which, Julio you were diagnosed with ADHD as an adult in your early 40s. Now I know there's a lot to your journey but I was wondering if you could share some of the challenges you faced prior to that diagnosis. 

JULIO: Well you know, first of all I hated school as a kid, right. It was really hard to... I mean I was a good student so I didn't have a hard time with grades because I couldn't pay attention luckily, but I hated to read. I mean I couldn't read for more than a couple of lines I'd have to read the same line over and over and over again you know. So I just did my best to sit in front of the class, and like make sure I was staring at the teacher, and make sure I took copious notes and you know, did my best. But I really hated going and because of that I wasn't well read as a kid. You know I didn't start reading lots of books until I got much older. When I got my first dose of medication I felt like I, you know, my eyes popped open and I could finally enjoy reading a book. But growing up I'd forget a lot of things you know. And I considered myself lazy as a kid, even though I did a lot and I was busy a lot, I still felt like I didn't have the motivation that other people did you know. And I didn't know what was wrong with me and I felt like I should be much more capable than I was showing myself to be. But of course I didn't know what was going on with me at the time. So I always felt like I could do better than what I was doing you know. It was like I was missing a certain level, I was missing a certain gear. And no matter what I did I couldn't seem to spark that genuine... that genuine focus that I wanted to have you know on everything that I did. So it was a bit of a struggle growing up and I had comorbidities that I had to deal with so, you know, combined with the trauma and everything else it made growing up a real challenge for me. 

JULIE: Tell me about your comorbidities if you may because with ADHD it's very common to have add-ons which poses extra challenges on top of our ADHD. Are you happy to share some of that? 

JULIO: Yeah of course. I have bipolar too and CPTSD, complex post-traumatic stress disorder and I was diagnosed with those at the same time that I got my ADHD diagnosis. So the combination of the three really made my life make sense for me from the beginning. You know, I had lots of fear that I'd carried as a child that followed me throughout my adult life. And I'd have these bouts of severe, severe depression followed by hyper-mania, followed by depression, and I'd cycle that way throughout the year. Sometimes the depression or hyper-mania would last weeks or months at a time you know, and the depression would get to the point where I'd feel suicidal. I'd have suicidal ideation constantly. So I started getting therapy when I was 12 and it did help. I was seeing someone at school and it helped me kind of feel more at ease with myself to know that other people had issues too. But it was still such a struggle. I mean I hadn't been diagnosed as a child. I just knew that I was depressed and anxious but I didn't really have a name for that. And I was ashamed of my anxiety because to me, it was just fear and I was from a place where showing that you were afraid was bad. You became a target if you were afraid. So for me I felt like... I felt like a coward. And the combination of feeling like a coward and getting depressed makes you feel like you're worthless. And when you combine that with the feelings of not being enough because of ADHD and not being able to do enough it really led me down a path of having a rather dark image of myself for a long time. But then when I'd go through the hyper-mania I felt like I was the king of the world and nothing could stop me. And all of a sudden the hindrances I had because of ADHD weren't there anymore. All of a sudden I could focus on reading a book. All of a sudden I wanted to study something that I hated as a kid but this energy would boost me and almost heal me in a way but it was a... it was a false panacea you know. It was temporary because eventually the depression would catch up to me and I would slam into a brick wall. And the pain was unbearable for a very, very long time. 

JULIE: That is so tough, so tough. You've got multiple things going on. You're doing the best you can without understanding a lot of it. Tell me with your martial arts when did that kick in for you and why? 

JULIO: Well you know, when I started to see a therapist at 12, I also started lifting weights at that time. My brother had a plastic weight set at the house and I admired pro wrestlers and I wanted to be big and strong. And I think in reality I wanted to build a tough outer exterior to protect myself you know because I was so afraid. So I started lifting weights and then at 14 I started competing in bodybuilding and winning competitions. And I was the youngest to win a bunch of different competitions. And I won the national championship as a teenager in bodybuilding. And I'd always wanted to do martial arts but at the time, when I was bodybuilding, I was much too large and it was... I was cumbersome to move around with that much size. So when I was done competing in bodybuilding when I was 23 I threw myself into martial arts full on. It just became an obsession and eventually I ended up getting three black belts, and opening my own academy, and teaching a slew of students, and having my own black belts that I promoted. So that's when martial arts kind of took over. And I found that through my body I could express things that I couldn't verbally. As much as I loved communicating with my words there were some things that were locked inside that needed to be expressed physically. And first bodybuilding did that for me. But then when I found martial arts, and I could do this with a partner, and experience the same kind of emotion and feeling with another partner, it really brought it to another level for me. And the camaraderie of martial arts really made a difference for me. Because it's tough to find people you have something in common with especially when you have certain disorders. You tend to see the world differently than other people. So martial arts was a common denominator for me with people from all different walks of life. So I wanted to share that with other people, so that's why I opened my own school and I had my students and [Brilliant.] I don't know what I would have done without martial arts. 

JULIE: Now and this would have been going on when you were undiagnosed. So you would naturally fell into a space where you could be with like-minded others and a space where you felt at home or seen. That's wonderful, wonderful. What actually brought you to your diagnosis because that was, that came sometime later, didn't it? 

JULIO: Yeah it did. Well I was married at the time and I was a very... I was a mild-mannered guy but every now and then I would have these explosive episodes and my ex-wife was concerned. And she's a social worker so she pinpointed it as being partially because of my trauma. She would get frustrated a lot too because I would forget things and I was... I seemed like I wasn't paying attention or that I wasn't concerned with her feelings. But it was just that I would forget. I wasn't trying to you know, and I would miss lots of things. And she'd repeatedly say "Oh I told you about this yesterday. Don't you remember?" Or I, you know. So it... that caused some issues with us. She felt like I guess maybe she thought I wasn't holding up my side of the bargain in some ways. And then I felt like she was sort of asking for something I couldn't give her. I was just doing the best that I could but it never seemed to be enough. And it kind of reminded me of when I was a kid and I didn't feel like I was enough. So she encouraged me to seek treatment and I resisted for a long time because although I was in therapy as a kid, I'd stopped when I when I started bodybuilding, and then later martial arts. Those things took the place of therapy for me. And I know now that they can't substitute for therapy but at the time you know, they distracted me enough where I didn't have to think of my issues and I didn't have to remember certain things. I could just be physical and that was it. So with my ex-wife's encouragement, I went to see a psychiatrist. And I had been very resistant to medication or anything like that, but when I sat down with him we had an hour-long conversation and he gave me some reading materials and said "Listen I want you to read this stuff and tell me if it resonates with you." And I read Smart But Stuck, which is... which just changed my life you know, to find out that other people were experiencing the same lack of motivation that I was, although they knew they had it in them you know to do better, it was... just it put me at ease so much. And then of course my first dose of medication, it was just... it was just another world you know. So after that I couldn't stop thanking my ex-wife for suggesting I go to the psychiatrist as much as I resisted it at the beginning. Yeah. 

JULIE: What do you wish more people understood about the emotional landscape and sometimes roller coaster with someone with ADHD, especially when you've got trauma in there as well and other mental health challenges? What do you wish people understood more about us in that situation? 

JULIO: Well that we're not just fidgety kids you know, there's much more to it. And we're not lazy and we're... we don't... it's not that we don't care about life or about doing our chores or anything that we need to do, it's just that we're physically incapable of doing it at the moment. And I understand that's tough for people to understand, to realize, to relate to, because it you know, it's hard to say to someone "Hey it's a lack of dopamine. I can't, I can't get up." You know? "I can't, I can't function because it's just the way my brain is." Some people just dismiss you and they think you're just not trying hard enough. And somehow if they just push you and push you and push you, you'll do better. And it just makes you feel worse and worse when they do that, you know. So I think... I think it's important to be compassionate with people with ADHD and give them the accommodations that they need. Give us the accommodations we need sometimes because we can do the, just as good of a job as anyone else as long as it's done in a certain way you know. And I think that's most important.

JULIE: Thank you. Now you are the author of two books currently. The Brokedown Sensei and Internal Jiu-Jitsu which is very much along your martial arts theme of course. Why did you write those books and what do you hope readers will take away from your work? 

JULIO: Well you know, the first book was intended to be a book talking about the metaphor of between life and jiu-jitsu, jiu-jitsu as life, and life as jiu-jitsu. And as I started to write, I was in a hyper-manic stage, and I had just gotten divorced, and I started just scribbling notes in a notebook. And I wrote the first draft of my first book by hand but I purposely wrote it in handwriting that I couldn't read so that I wouldn't go back and read anything. I wanted to just let out all this emotion in the first draft and then attack it where I could actually read... actually read it. So I didn't start typing till the second draft. And because I wasn't medicated at the time, during hyper-mania you think you're cured. So often times people will stop their medication when they're hyper-manic, and that's what I did. I thought I was cured. So I fell into a deep depression eventually and... but I was cycling between hyper-mania and depression. So from one day to the next, my writing would be you know, I would be talking about how great life was and how you know, it was all rainbows. And then the next day it was nothing is worth it. Life was not worth living. But I wanted to, once I realized what was happening and what I was writing, I kind of let myself go and said, you know, what I'm going to be as raw and as real as possible because I need to do this right now. Whatever happens, you know. And so I continued writing and before I knew it I had 500 pages chronicling what it's like to cycle in bipolar too, which wasn't what I was expecting to write. So when I got the chance to publish a second book, and I got contacted by a publisher, I knew that I wanted to write the book that I originally intended. You know, something that people could go to again and again. Something that talked about jiu-jitsu and mental health and how we can navigate mental health using jiu-jitsu principles and using the idea of giving way rather than resisting. And I felt like, and I still feel, that mental health is the absolute most important issue there is in the world and the most important thing that we can deal with and address. So I wanted to share my experiences with people because I knew how lonely it could be to have ADHD, or to have bipolar, or to have you know trauma that you've experienced and live in this sort of shell that you want to break through so badly but you feel like you're you know in many cases embarrassed about your condition and you don't want to speak up. So as someone who was seen as strong and physically capable I wanted to come out and say "Hey look. I go through these things. I feel like I'm lazy. I feel like I'm not doing enough, you know. I get sad and depressed and even though my life is going great sometimes I still have these terrible feelings. So it's okay that you have those feelings too. You know, it's okay to feel weak sometimes even when you're strong." And that's really what I wanted to convey in my books. 

JULIE: Wow. And you talked about not resisting but flowing through? [Yes, going with the flow of what's going.] Going with the flow. Can you give me some examples of how jiu-jitsu and life, how the two work together in that manner? 

JULIO: Sure. Well with depression, depression is especially akin to jiu-jitsu practice because when you get depressed it's very difficult to fight it off. It's impossible to fight it off. You can try to say "I'm not depressed." You can put a smile on your face. You can do all these things, but when you're severely clinically depressed you have to kind of ride it out. And accept that the depression has happened and accept that you're going through this at the moment and the tide will turn. And you need to stay busy and do the things that you know, do things that will uplift you. You have to find the path to victory but accept that you're being attacked at the same time. And in jiu-jitsu you know, we spar every day and you're always facing this opponent that's trying to hold you down, sometimes pin you to the ground. And depression is the same. You feel like you're stifled. You can't breathe. You're suffocating in many ways. So depression, when I feel the most depressed is when I'm reminded most of the lessons I've learned on the mat. I've learned that just by moving in you know, an inch this way, or a quarter of an inch that way, you can escape if you move correctly. And it's not about brute force. If someone is holding me down it's not about me pushing them away. It's about me finding the right angle to escape. And in life when we're faced with obstacles sometimes we try to just blow through them but you know, sometimes it's important to understand that we can also climb over. We can go around it. There are many other ways besides slamming our way through a brick wall. And to me that's something that I didn't really assimilate until I was a black belt because I always fought things and I always resisted everything that was happening. If something would go wrong I would freak out, or I would yell, or I'd get angry, or... and I can honestly say, I can't remember the last time I got really really angry. Of course I get angry like anyone else but I don't blow my top anymore. I... whatever's happening I face it and I look for a solution. And you know I may get down a little bit over it but I'm not going to deny that it's happened because there's no solution in that. And that's how jiu-jitsu relates to life. 

JULIE: Wow. And you're a mental health advocate now rather than full on into your martial arts, is that correct? 

JULIO: Yeah. I you know, through my writing in particular I've had so many people contact me and I've been lucky enough to be able to you know talk some people through some issues. And help some people and just be a be a shoulder to cry on sometimes or just an ear to listen. And I think... I think being open about what I've gone through, some people are surprised about it and some people feel liberated by seeing that I've spoken up. And you know, I've gotten so many great messages from people that have said you know "Thank you for being so open, and being so honest, and being so raw. And you know, your articles resonate so much with me." And it's a blessing and I'm able to do these workshops as well where I combine self-defense and mindfulness and compassion and you know, self-awareness. And so many elements that I think are important to make us feel empowered in life, both physically, mentally and emotionally as well. So I think I'm doing what I can now to talk to as many people as I can. And the medium that I found to do that is through my writing. You know, it used to be my students at my martial arts academy. I used to have these sort of mat therapy sessions where after training we would all kind of sit around and talk about what our issues were and try to help each other resolve them. Or someone would come to me in private and you know, again I would just lend an ear and if they needed advice I'd give it to them. But I wouldn't just you know, offer it up or throw advice at them and say "This is what you should do." And I think it's important to, most important when you're listening to someone, to not be judgmental. And that's what... that's what I think I provided for my students and for the for my readers as well. I think that that they know that I'm someone that's not going to... that's not going to judge them if they reach out to me, and I'm honored by that. 

JULIE: Sometimes it takes that. People need to see the vulnerable side of someone who appears so strong and together. If they can actually you know, really tap into that vulnerability and they feel safer to acknowledge their own challenges and nod and go "Yeah that's a bit of me too." So I take my hat off for you for being just so open. And what a beautiful environment with combining martial arts, mindfulness, and you know on the mat therapy in a different kind of a way. Julio, you also do private coaching. Can you tell me more about that? 

JULIO: Sure. Most of my clients are from the business world and I love working with them because they're people that have probably never, well not probably, definitely never gotten into a fight in their life you know. And they usually come to me because they don't know what they would do if they got into an altercation. And they just want to feel more confident, and more powerful, and more self-aware. And I think knowing that I'm not just building tough fighters but I'm helping these people deal with life on an emotional level is so rewarding for me. I work with largely people in their 40s and 50s so it's not like these tough guys you know that are walking the streets looking for fights. And then when I see the difference in people's lives and I see how much more confident they are, and how they feel like they can protect themselves and their family, but they don't have to anymore because they don't feel... they don't have the need to get physical because they don't they're no longer targets. They don't. They carry themselves differently and life becomes easier for them and they're able to flow with things better. And I love it. I love working with people and I love working with my clients. 

JULIE: I think that internal confidence knowing that you are able to protect yourself. Or yeah or to yeah, to defend yourself in a situation whether it is used or not must be very yeah must be very good. Good for the soul to stand taller and you know, stride with more confidence. That sounds brilliant. 

JULIO: Yeah it gives you a certain amount of freedom too because you can all of a sudden streets that you wouldn't go down before, you know, you feel confident walking down that street. And in New York City of course we have the reputation for being a a pretty tough town. Our subway system is a little bit scary sometimes. So it's just empowering for people to know that they can take care of themselves. Yeah and of course I like to touch a lot on mental health and wellness when I'm doing our training so often times the session will turn into sort of a quasi therapy session while we're working out, you know. Which I love because I get to explore my feelings as well and I really get to relate to my clients in a different way. So it's been fantastic for me. 

JULIE: You also spoke about mindfulness as part of the training that you do, all combined and with your martial arts as well. Can you talk about a really good mindfulness tip for us ADHDers? 

JULIO: Wow there's so much. You know, it's so critical to be aware of everything that you do. Not just superficially but why you do things, why certain things make you react a certain way, why you're taken back to another time in your life when someone's present a certain trigger to you. If we don't understand our own triggers as well as other people's we won't be able to diffuse potentially violent situations. And if you have some compassion for the person that's being aggressive toward you, it's amazing how you can turn the situation around. So just knowing what you're feeling and why you're feeling it in that moment you know, being really genuinely aware of what you're feeling you know, when someone confronts you and not jumping and into attacking them right away but taking that pause. And in martial arts that moment of the pause is when you're judging your partner's reaction, you know. And it's the same in a confrontation you know. You need to take a moment and that moment becomes shorter and shorter the more you practice being aware and being mindful. And then all of a sudden it becomes instantaneous. And there you know, you're able to communicate what you're feeling genuinely in that moment, not in the past. 

JULIE: So martial arts is a big part of your life but writing is too. So you've got your books and I'll put the links in the show notes to where we can find them on Amazon and the rest. But also you're a blogger too. Can you tell us a bit about your blogging? 

JULIO: Sure. I write mostly about mental health as well. I write on Medium and on Substack and on ... and it's given me the opportunity to write every day. First of all I think it's essential for a writer to get practice. So I'm able to put out as much material as you know, I can. I can grind out and it's great practice for me obviously but it gives me a chance to express so many different facets of mental health and mental illness. And one day I can write about my ADHD and the next day I can write about being bipolar. The next day I can write about depression. When I'm feeling good I can write about recovery. I write the way I'm feeling. You know, I never try to pretend that I have all the answers. If I feel at the moment that I don't have any answers you know, I'll say that. And you know, I've thought in the past at certain times "Hey, am I saying too much?" You know "A I exposing too much of myself?" Because you know, especially in my new book you know, I'm providing sort of a path for people to take. So are you supposed to pretend that you've got it all together just because you know you write a self-help book? And the answer to me is no. I mean I think every self-help writer, as much as I don't like that term 'self-help', I think all of us write for ourselves. We write because we've experienced these things and there's still a part of us that you know whatever we're writing about we're still going through challenges. So yeah I mean the blogging is the constant... constant expression of how I'm feeling rather than you know waiting 6 months for a book to come out, you know. 

JULIE: It's a painful wait isn't it, that time between finishing your final manuscript and getting it actually out there. [Yeah.] So good, good to hear that you're still writing yeah a lot, which is brilliant. And so what other projects are in the pipeline for you coming up? 

JULIO: Well Internal Jiu-jitsu just came out in May so we're promoting that very heavily. We've got a launch party coming up in a couple of weeks. I'm doing sort of a jiu-jitsu rave launch party which I think is going to be a lot of fun. So we'll have people actually practicing jiu-jitsu in the center while the party's going on around them. So I'm excited about that. That'll be a fun night. And thinking about the next book already. I need to start sort of deciding what I'm going to write about next because I have a good friend, Josh James, who's a writer who tells me always have your next idea ready to go, you know. So thankfully I've got lots of material and I've been thinking that I may take some of my articles and put them into a collection. Either about ADHD in particular because I've written so many about ADHD, or some about bipolar. So that's something that I'm really... I'm really thinking about. Perhaps putting together 20 of my essays as a collection. 

JULIE: That sounds brilliant. Well you've certainly gone through a heck of a lot in your short life so far. And I'm really glad to see, and I think understanding your brain. And this is maybe the importance of a diagnosis. What you may have struggled through, or inadvertently found strategies aren't always the best strategies are they, when you don't know what you're actually dealing with. So I'm so very, very pleased for you and you seem to be in a beautiful space for being an advocate. And I'm sure our listeners today and also the readers of your book will really appreciate the openness and rawness that you have in sharing your mental health challenges. That's brilliant. Thank you so... thank you so so much for joining us today and I look forward to hearing your name and reading more about you in future. [Thank you Julie. It was my pleasure. Thanks for having me.] Welcome.

People on this episode

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Julie Legg

Host
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Jel Legg

Co-host
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Julio Rivera

Guest