May 18, 2022 • 61 mins
Jen talks to ADHD coach Kristen Carder about the 8 Executive Functions that people with ADHD struggle with, why ADHD-ers often get later in life diagnosis, and why you hate doing laundry.
To learn more about Kristen's workshops and her podcast "I Have ADHD" go to her website: https://ihaveadhd.com
For more information on Jen Kirkman, the host of Anxiety Bites, please go here: https://jenkirkman.bio.link
and to get the takeaways for this episode please visit: http://www.jenkirkman.com/anxietybitespodcast
To send an email to the show write to anxietybitesweekly at gmail dot com
Anxiety Bites is distributed by the iHeartPodcast Network and co-produced by Dylan Fagan and JJ Posway.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the Anxiety Bites podcast and I am your host,
Jen Kirkman. I have a d h D. Oh sorry,
Welcome to another episode of Anxiety Bites. I am your host,
Jen Kirkman. My guest today is Kristen Carter and her
website is I have a d h D dot com.
(00:31):
But I'm also announcing I have a d h D.
And it's been such an interesting unraveling of figuring out
that I had it, not believing it for so many
years because I didn't seem to have the typical symptoms
that I'd always heard about. And my diagnosis came right
(00:52):
on the edge of when a lot of this information
was freely available on the Internet, and so I thought,
I mean, I do think I have it, and you
hear me talk about it in this episode that I
was actually diagnosed by some when I lived with who,
I thought that I was having bizarre emotional regulation issues
around you know, meeting deadlines, treating the laundry as that
(01:12):
we're launching a nuke. And when I talked to my psychiatrist,
because I've always I always had one, for I had
the same one for twenty years. He would prescribe and
presence as needed, and anxiety medication is needed for flying.
And when I brought this a d h D potential
(01:32):
diagnosis to him, he said, yeah, I think you know,
from what we've talked about, you definitely have some symptoms
of it. And I took the very long questionnaire and
I came up as someone who has it. But it
wasn't really resonating with me yet because I kept thinking, well,
but I you know, I didn't have trouble paying attention
in school, and and I wasn't running around dance and
(01:55):
my pants. And I took ballet after school. You know,
I took dance lessons and piano lessons many times a week,
and I was able to focus in class. But now
when I look back over all of that, Yes, I
took piano lessons and I loved it and I was
completely in the zone and completely focused at my lessons.
(02:15):
Did I practice. I hated practicing it just I decided
to draw even though I wanted to. It's it was
always this thing that I really actually want to but
I can't get started ballet. I wanted to be a dancer,
I mean, was the number one thing in my life,
you know, ended up in comedy. But I wasn't a
little kid who dreamed of being a comedian. I dreamed
(02:36):
of being a dancer. Did I practice now? But I
love being in class. You know, it's just like these
little things where it doesn't have to be so literal
where you're jumping up and down in your seat and
the teachers saying, go to the principle's office because you're
so disruptive. You know, I was kind of good to
two shoots, as afraid of getting in trouble. But I
had outbursts, you know, I definitely did, not often, but
at least once a year, which you know, there's not
(02:59):
a lot for you know, someone with a d h D,
they don't really get taken to a psychiatrist or medicaid
because once a year there's an outburst. But there were
little things here and there, and you know, a d
h D some people do think of it as an
anxiety disorder. There are so many things that exist with
(03:20):
it and so many things that it mimics, and it's
hard to figure out what is this true a d
h D or you know, am I am I over
here having more O c D. It's a it's a
tricky little diagnosis, but once you really lock into what
it is, and you've lived long enough and you can
(03:42):
look back and and think, oh, oh, it's all coming together.
It must feel like, I don't know, if you've had
some kind of undiagnosed more of a physical illness. Maybe
you've been tired for ten years and will have been saying, oh,
you're just lazy, or you eat too much sugar, and
(04:02):
then you find out, oh, no, it's it's actually this
uh chronic well, I don't even know chronic thing that
you know, I've got some blood thing or I don't know,
but it feels very much like that. Once I started
to learn more about it, once more information became readily available.
There is a part of me that can self diagnosed,
and there is a part of me that brings these
(04:24):
things to a psychiatrist that I now see and he validates, yes,
these are a h D symptoms. Here are the things
that people do for it. So now I have tools,
and now I can just even recognize, I mean even
just me thinking this is that a d h D behavior.
It doesn't matter where did it come from, just knowing
(04:45):
it in the moment and just thinking I am convinced
right now that if I do blah, blah and blah.
I will soothe this feeling that I have no time.
If I just do this, this, and this, I will
soothe that feel ng that I can do it all
and I have to do it all at once. And
I just keep telling myself you're wrong. I know it's
(05:07):
impossible to believe, but that's not true. So take a
contrary action, you know, That's what helps me. But it
really did put a lot of things into focus for
me where I've had trouble regulating emotions, which may sound like, oh,
I'm having these outbursts and I'm running around screaming. I've
definitely done that. But but what I mean more is
(05:29):
when feelings feel so intense that you don't know. Oh,
not everyone feels this way, you know. Obviously we all
have our moments, but where you're insides almost feel like
a roller coaster from quote normal human experiences, and it
can be so overwhelming that you might not be able
to function, you know, And no one ever thinks of
(05:53):
that as a d h D. I mean, I don't.
I don't mean no one. Obviously, professionals understand it, and
people that have had it and have really been diagnosed
understand it, but just you stop someone on the street,
they would not say, oh, yeah, that sounds like an
a d h D symptom. You know, I think a
d h D is one of those diagnosis that a
lot of the symptoms have probably just been people writing
(06:13):
you off as crazy your whole life. And so it's
been a huge relief for me to to find out
really what this mysterious little disorder is. And so I
wanted to talk to Kristen Carter specifically, because again, we've
(06:34):
got our neuroscientists out there, we've got our you know,
I'm a brain blah blah person, and I know what
a d h D is, but so rarely do these
people have a d h D. I wanted to talk
to someone who has a d h D and somehow
managed to start a great podcast, to become a coach
(06:56):
that helps other people with a d h D, that
leads workshop, that has a great website, that is a
mom with you know, a husband and kids, this huge,
fully functioning life that's running on all cylinders, and she
has a d h D. And she had to slowly
realized as she was educating herself that a lot of
(07:21):
the things she had had been misdiagnosed, not completely understood
or explained to her, and she took matters into her
own hands. And so that's how I feel my journey
is a little bit and in the in the sense
of I'm a high functioning a d h d R
and sometimes I need to hear someone that actually knows
(07:43):
what it feels like as well as has the science
and the research to talk about it intelligently and back
it up. But that I just was so excited that
that she came on the podcast. And so if you're
a fellow a d h d R, as Kristin calls us,
welcome to this episode, think you will get a lot
out of it. For me, I think the biggest thing
(08:04):
that I actually really learned from listening to Kristen's podcast,
and it's something I hadn't heard this before, but it
just clicked one day and I went, this is the
answer to everything, is that a d h D is
not just about not being able to pay attention. In fact,
(08:27):
it really has so little to do with not being
able to pay attention. It's a neurodevelopmental disorder that impairs
your ability to regulate yourself, including your attention and your emotions.
The emotions I feel is the part we never hear
about it. We never hear about I mean, but you're
(08:48):
gonna hear about it on this episode, so let's just
get right to it again. I will tell you a
little bit about my guest Kristen Carter. She has a
great podcast called I Have a d h D. It's
the number one top rated podcast for adult a d
h D. She's got over two million downloads. Again, you
(09:09):
can work with her. She is a coach that helps
people with a d h D. And she also helps
adults figure out how to get ship done and enjoy
their lives. So if you need support, check out her
(09:29):
website I have a d h D dot com. It
will be linked in the show notes. So let's go
to my conversation. Oh my god, this happened on another episode.
This bluetooth thing keeps talking to me. I know I
should edit that out. What am I going to do that?
This is the Anxiety Bites podcast, This isn't the Perfection podcast.
(09:53):
Enjoying my conversation with Kristin Carter. Chris and I've already
told all my guests all about you in the intro,
and I don't normally start podcast this way because it's
usually just about them. I normally knows our podcasts this
way because it's usually about the anxiety symptom or disease
(10:13):
itself that we kind of focus on. But I do
want to focus on your story of how you became
an a d h D coach because I feel like
it's such an a d h D success story and
and it really illustrates how we have to advocate for
ourselves and almost feels like some even though there's a
lot of info out there that's sort of the problem,
(10:34):
we're kind of on our own. So would you tell
my listeners the story of how you came to be
you know, what what you do for a living, and
how you came to that. Yes, I would love to,
so thank you so much for that. I think that
you know, the way that my story has kind of
(10:56):
played out really proves that us each years often have
to try a bunch of things before we kind of
come home to what we were always meant to do.
And that's the way that I feel coaching has been
for me. I feel as though it kind of found
me and I feel just like at home in it.
(11:20):
Um So I've always coached people Um. What I realized
now looking back, is like against their will. I've been
coaching people people, sorry, everyone at the exactly. Um, like
with no consent. I've been coaching family members, friends, teachers.
It's like it's people have come to me my whole life. Um.
(11:44):
And it was always something that I you know, I
just really enjoyed doing. My best friends nicknamed me coach.
I didn't even know life coaching was a thing though,
I just like it's it really is a new industry.
And so at the time I am that I went
looking for a d H D help, I could not
(12:04):
find someone that I really resonated with, that I felt
was speaking my language, that really was a reflection of
who I was and you know, the person that I
wanted to become. And so I got pretty frustrated in
my thirties kind of going around looking, you know, looking
(12:25):
at different podcasts and googling different coaches and like all
of these things. I just kept trying to find an
example that I wanted to follow. And there are some
amazing examples out there, but not anybody that I really
resonated with. And so the first thing that I did
was listened to that little nagging voice inside of my
head that said maybe I could start a podcast, Maybe
(12:48):
maybe I could do it. And I do have the
kind of person outy that's like, let's just go for it, right,
which I think a d h D just really played
a beautiful part into that. So I was like willing
to take the risk. I was willing to um put
myself out there, and I just went for it like impulsively, UM,
just like Okay, let's do it. And I kind of
(13:09):
threw out my podcast into the darkness of the night
and hoped that no one would ever listen to it. Ever,
I didn't know that launching a podcast was the thing.
I didn't know to gathering an audience. I was just like,
I'm just gonna shove this episode out there in the
dark cover of the night and hope that no one
ever listens to it. And it turns out that people
really resonated with it, and I do think it's because
there was a space that needed to be filled with
(13:32):
a personality like mine, UM, and I think many people
could have done it. I just decided to do it
right and so UM. Then, once the podcast was really
being listened to, a lot of people started reaching out
to me for coaching, and it was a very similar
experience where I was like, yeah, I could probably do that.
At the time, I was working with students who had
(13:55):
learning differences and I was coaching them, and so I thought, well,
I could do this with adults. Let's just kind of
tweak it. And it was like magic. It was so
much fun. The first couple of sessions that I did,
I was like, holy bleep, I cannot believe how much
fun this is. And the connection that you get to
(14:16):
create with a client, and the dopamine hit from seeing
someone make real changes in their life, it's just incredible.
And so I needed more of that dopamine hit. Really,
I was like, let's do more. Do we lack a gosh? Yes?
And I was just I craved it so um. Over
the course of about a year, I went from I
(14:38):
owned the company. It was like a tutoring company. I
owned a brick and mortar company in my town, um
tutoring business. And I really transitioned into coaching full time.
And that was a very scary, risky decision. I had
seven part time employees at the time. I had a
business that was paying my bills. It was you know,
it wasn't what I loved to do, but it was fine.
(15:01):
I had no reason, you know, to be like I'm
going to close down this baby and go like with
a different baby. But I just felt like coaching was calling.
It was just calling me. And so UM that has
been even though it was a very scary decision to make,
it was the best decision ever because as soon as
I went all in on it, UM it really did
(15:24):
totally explode. And that has been really fun. It's been
a wild ride. It's been UM very humbling privilege to
be able to walk side by side with so many
adults with a d h D who have just really
been overlooked for so long, who have not found UM
(15:45):
the right fit as far as self development and help
and for so long have kind of been floundering. And
to be able to like gather in you know, so
many people who who just really need UM some specific
support has just been just the privilege of a lifetime.
(16:07):
We'll be right back. I'm wondering if you can tell
me what you have noticed in yourself like about getting
diagnosed that was maybe different than maybe what a man experiences.
I feel like for MENU, it's that kind of cut
(16:27):
and dry. Literally they can't pay attention in school, and
it's followed in their whole life, and they need something
to focus. And I've always been very high functioning. I've
if I have a deadline at work and it means
I have a job or not, like I'm gonna do it.
I mean, I may be having a complete internal nervous breakdown,
but nothing doesn't get done. And I love making lists
(16:48):
and I'm extremely organized, Like if you move this lotion
on my desk, I'm gonna put it right back. But
everything else is a complete whirlwind in my life. And
so I thought for sure first along, Um, there's no
way I can have a d h D because I
don't have these three symptoms that are most common in men. Yeah,
that's really really interesting. So I think that I wonder
(17:14):
if your anxiety like plays a beautiful part in keeping
you on task? Do you think like making sure, because
what I find with my clients is that those who
have like anxiety around performance and making sure things are
just so and um, you know, keeping your job stuff
(17:36):
like that like very good things. Um, they are actually
functioning better on the outside because they have that dose
of anxiety to come in and really give them the
juices needed to get the job done. So they might
not have the dopamine to get started, but they have
that kick of anxiety that's like, hey, if you don't
(17:58):
do this, we're gonna lose the job. And it's a
job and wouldn't be homeless, right, Like I'm I'm in
a shopping cart in every one of my fantasies, I'm
like living in a shopping cart with slippers on and
talking to myself. And so I'm like, well, it's interesting
you brought that up because you had said that one
of your gifts of a d h d's putting yourself
out there. And I had the same thing as a performer.
You know, I was never afraid to get on stage
(18:20):
or anything like that, and people would say, you know,
what's your secret, and I would say, I'm maybe I'm
just crazy, like I don't even think about consequences. I'm like,
I need to do this, and now I'm realizing. I know,
I'm still realizing, and I've just had another epiphany. That's
one of the gifts of a d h D. But
you know, it's one of those things where for me,
if and then I'm going to get to my questions
(18:40):
for you. But if if you asked everyone I've ever
worked with do you think she's neurodivergent? Do you think
she has a d h D? They'd say no. But
if you ask any romantic relationship I've had, they'd be
like anywhere from yes to she's crazy. And so if
you could tell us what is the definition of a
d h D. And I know that you and I
(19:01):
agree that it's a terrible name for for a disease.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is a terrible name for what
how huge this is. Yeah, it really is a terrible
name for it because it's extremely misleading. There's actually no
deficit of attention. We actually have just as much attention
as anybody else, except we struggle to regulate our attention,
(19:24):
which means we struggle to put it on the right
thing for the right amount of time in order to
get that thing accomplished. Right. Um. In addition to that,
and you know you asked about women and a d
h D, I think one of the most important components
for women to understand is we don't just have this
(19:46):
struggle to regulate our attention. We also have the struggle
of regulating our emotions and so with women specifically. Um,
I think that this component is very key because we
feel emotions very intensely. Now, there's no way to prove
whether we feel emotions more intensely than somebody else, because
(20:08):
nobody can like get into my body and know how
I'm feeling a sensation and whether or not that's more
than you. Right, But our reactions seem to be bigger,
um than a neurotypical reactions, right, And so when we
get frustrated, it's debilitating. When we get excited, it's stabilitating.
When we get sad, it's stabilitating. Like we have a
(20:31):
very hard time self soothing coming down off of emotions,
making sure that we are regulated and even keeled. So
this makes so much sense when you talk about like
romantic partners might label me as being a little bit crazy,
because when you are feeling those like whether it's like
the emotion of love, even like, we have trouble regulating
(20:56):
that in our bodies, and so we the way that humans,
if we don't know how to regulate and self soothed
within our bodies, then we try to get it out right.
And so we want to throw that love onto other people,
or we want to throw that anxiety or that UM frustration,
and so a lot of times what's happening is we're
(21:17):
trying to regulate ourselves by kind of UM reacting, responding,
and kind of throwing our emotions at other people, which
can be very tricky when it comes to relationships, right,
And so I d h D is a self regulation disorder.
We have so much trouble regulating our attention, regulating our emotions.
(21:39):
And if that is what we can really take away,
that will change everything, because that perspective really shifts our
focus to Okay, It's not just a deficit of attention
where it's like, oh, there she goes again, squirrel. It's like, no,
I have attention, it's just I struggle to regulate it.
(22:01):
And I struggled to keep that attention on the most
important thing. And part of that is because I've less
dopamine in my brain. And so when it's something like laundry,
there's like fifty seven steps in getting laundry done, so boring.
I don't care about it at all. I will just
wear dirty clothes, like who cares, right, And so the
(22:24):
levels of dopamine involved with UM getting through the task
of laundry, it's incredible, right, And so when we have
less dopamine, laundry can feel like I would rather die
than do the slaundry, Like I'm just gonna it. Must
get misdiagnosed a lot of depression, right, because it's like
because it's a round a task. So you could go
to a therapist and tell that story. Oh, for example,
(22:46):
my laundry makes me want to die, and they're like, oh, depression.
But it's like you're not hopeless in life, you're not
unmotivated in life. It's just that something that doesn't produce dopamine.
It's almost like to to make fun of ourselves. And
I don't really mean this, but like the bad way
to put it is like we're just like little like
heathen heathens, like little brats that are like, do I
(23:06):
get dopamine from this? I don't want to, you know exactly.
But what we're not realizing is no ner normal but
like neurotypical people, Um, it's not like they're getting a
spike of dopamine like their skydiving, but they just have
enough so that it doesn't feel so you know, like
they're drowning if they're doing this, right, Is that what
it is? Yeah, exactly. And this is why, or one
(23:28):
of the reasons why so many a d H dars
are just labeled selfish and lazy, interesting and self centered
is because it's like, oh, you don't want to do
the dishes. Like what's going on? Right, Like, oh, you
just want to do the fun stuff and not the
boring stuff. So like in a partnership, that can be
really tricky, right, And so when my husband feels like
(23:50):
he's the one that is always doing the laundry or
always doing the dishes, that can really breed resentment, whereas
like I do want to participate, it's just like it
feels like death, like I would rather do please let
me do anything else, right, And so that can be
really really tricky. And so many of the things that
we struggle with are things that everyone struggles with, right,
(24:14):
and so it can be extremely difficult to diagnose. It
can be extremely difficult to explain to friends and loved
ones because um, if you're like, yeah, I hate doing laundy,
everybody's like yeah, like who loves nobody loves doing laundry?
Like what are you talking about? You just do it
and there's like molding And as the tricky part I like, yeah, exactly.
(24:37):
I like to ask myself in every situation, how can
I make this more fun? How can you meet this
more fun? That's Michael. I asked myself that seven billion
times a day. And so for me, a lot of times,
I pop in my airbuds and it's in a podcast
or blast music, and I dance around with my kids.
My son Crosby, he's eight years old. When we fold laundry,
we pop a pair of his underwear on our head,
(24:59):
clean underwear, pop a pair of underwear on her head,
and we just fold laundry with underwear. And I had like,
it's just we're always looking for ways to make things
more fun because then those tasks that feel like death
really do become more bearable. And also thinking of the outcome.
I love having a clean kitchen, I really do. Yeah,
it's the best, Like clean counters. It's the best feeling.
(25:23):
So if I can focus on clean counters they're coming,
they're coming, like, and really get my brain to think
about like what it's going to feel like when it's done.
Oftentimes I can get that like self induced opamine hit
and that's enough to get me rolling. And you know,
it's funny that you sphysfically mentioned laundry. Um, you know
(25:44):
I can do it obviously, uh. And I'm kind of
a neat freak, so but like you said, that's probably
a little anxiety induced, maybe a tad CD induced. But
a boyfriend I lived with at one point said to me,
you know, you treat laundry like on your to do list,
with the same importance as if you were like the
president and you have to launch a nuke, Like to you,
(26:06):
do I launch this nuke? Or do I do this
laundry now or in the morning. It's the same intensity.
And that was that sentence is what brought me to
mention it to my then psychiatrist, And he's like, that
is a d h D. And I was like, what
Because I will do the laundry, but I will also
(26:27):
not do It's not procrastinating either, Like if I had
any work from home assignment do the next day or deadline,
I'm like, how could I possibly begin this writing deadline tonight?
There's a pile of laundry to fold. And to me,
it's not the way some people might choose to do
some housework to procrastinate. To me, it's like everything has
(26:48):
to get done or I'm always five two minutes late
because I have to put everything in its placed before.
You know, It's like everything is of the same importance
and I can't um It's it's not like I can't
I know intellectually that the deadline is more important than
the laundry, but my body feels so overwhelmed that I
won't be able to focus on the deadline if the
(27:09):
laundry is not done. And so I end up so
many times in my life staying up really late to
do every single thing so that when I wake up
in the morning everything feels perfect. But that you never
catch that carrot. That's that's dangling that I dangle for myself.
And so whatever that mess is is is how my
(27:31):
a d h D works. And I even though I
got that diagnosis twelve years ago, I sort of like
said sure, great and then didn't do anything about it.
And it's not until the last few years that I went, Okay,
this is pretty unmanageable, and now I'm doing something about it.
But does that sound like something you hear a lot
in your in your coaching. Oh my word, yes, And
(27:52):
you just described it so beautifully, and God bless your psychiatrist.
For knowing that that was a d h D, because
I don't think that most would. And he said, most
people come in. Everyone comes in self diagnosing depression or
anxiety because they know what that feels like. Every said,
every single person that's ever come in asking if they
have a d h D, it's because a friend or
(28:12):
someone they lived with or family member has told them
either you have that or you have this thing, and
go tell your psychiatrist these things you're doing because I
don't know what that is, but not normal. And he's like,
so everyone always gets diagnosed by someone else in their
life with d h That was kind of interesting because
we're driving them absolutely crazy totally. Okay, So this is
a perfect time to mention executive functions because what you
(28:36):
were describing is the executive function of prioritization. Yeah, okay,
so the executive functions are housed in our frontal lobe,
and when you have a d h D, your executive
functioning is deficient. Okay, and so I'm just gonna breathe through.
There's eight executive functions, okay. Impulse control meaning struggling to
(28:58):
put on the brakes, take stop and think and like
really wait before we jump in and do right. Emotional regulation,
which we already talked about a little bit, like that's
the self soothing after yes, an emotional explosion, Right, maybe
you can ruin your whole day if you have one.
So your emotions can be very distracting, So maybe you
(29:19):
fight with your partner in the morning and then you
can get nothing done at work for the rest of
the day because all you can think about is this
fight that you had and your body is still reacting
to it. You just cannot calm down from it, right.
Um Flexible thinking, which is really an interesting one. So
a h d s do tend to be very creative
(29:41):
and outside the box except for when we're not. That's
really the only way I can describe it. Like we're
super creative. We think outside the box except for when
we don't. And then when we can't think outside the box,
it is like black or white, and we really struggle
to look beyond what we're se and we also really
(30:01):
struggle with transitions. So I pull into my garage and
the idea of getting out of my car and like
going in and being a mom. It's just like so overwhelming.
Now this is really subconscious, but I almost always want
to pull out my phone and hang out on my
car before I go into the house. I heard that
on your show, and I was fascinated with that because
(30:22):
I never thought about all the different transitions we make
in a day, so many, and that I do think that,
you know it. I had a therapist once tell me
that even happy change in life can cause anxiety. And
she meant, like bigger things like you move or you
get a new job, but the mini transitions we do
(30:43):
every day, but like you said, going from work mode
to mom mode, or going from just go to bed
mode to work mode, or work mode to social mode,
you know. And I never thought about that, And I've
caught myself since I heard you talk about that, noticing
that I need a little I need a little transition time.
I need to do something yes, And so if you
(31:08):
just begin to observe yourself, you might notice like, Okay,
I'm sitting here working and now I need to transition
to like, you know, making dinner, but I'm gonna have
a snack first. Like even those like little subtle things
are like this is the work before the work, This
is the transition, like I'm getting I'm like talking myself
(31:29):
into it. This is why it's so often people with
a d h D will get to work and then
they will just do like meaningless tasks, so they'll go
on their phone, they'll scroll B B. I have a podcast.
I'm pretty sure I called it The Work before the Work,
which is a really I don't know basic basic. If
anybody has better podcasts suggestion titles, please reach out to me,
(31:52):
because sometimes I'm not very creative. But it's like the
scrolling time where you you use that time to talk
yourself in to getting into flow, getting into the work,
getting into like getting your brain and body ready to work.
It's fascinating. Um. So that's so everything we just talked
about was under the flexible thinking executive function right, that
was flexible thinking. Okay, another executive functioning UH skill is
(32:16):
working memory, which is not like your memory like, hey
we went to Disney World when I was five years old.
It's not that kind of memory. It's holding something in
your mind long enough to get it done. So maybe
your partner texting and they're like, hey, we're at a
milk can you stop in your a home And you're like, sure,
no problem, You're never getting that milk if it's me
We're never getting that milk, partner, we love you. We're
(32:37):
never getting that milk, right, because it's holding that thing
in your mind and just kind of keeping it there
long enough to complete the task. It's not going to happen, right,
And so we have to set reminders and build all
kinds of scaffolding around our memory. Self monitoring, which is
staying on task, so that goes hand in hand with
(32:58):
the working memory. Right, So I have to remember the
task and then I have to continually bring my focus
back to task at hand, Task at hand. This is
what we're doing. Task at hand, um, task initiation. So
it's getting started now. A lot of that is related
to lower levels of dopamine, so like getting started on
the task is very difficult, and it's also related to
(33:18):
the flexible thinking like transitioning into it right organization, which
I think goes without saying. If you've ever seen somebody
with a d H D S car or well, maybe
yours is beautiful, I mean brand new, like it looks
brand new, like there's not anything. Okay, A typical a
d H D car is going to be um kind
(33:41):
of like I don't know if you've ever pictured a
dumpster fire. It should be like that. It's gonna be
like that. Okay, But here's the one where um, you
and I can really focus in on And this is
the last one prioritizing and planning. So somebody with a
d h D is going to hear all of the
(34:01):
tasks at the same volume level. So I want you
to think about that. I love that that image. Yes,
I think it's really helpful. Let's say you have fifteen
tasks to complete and they're all varying importance. Logically, your
brain knows, I know that the work project is more
important than the dishes, obviously, right, your brain knows that
(34:25):
the dishes can sit there. The work project as a
deadline needs to be done. But in an a d
h D brain, the volume level on those two tasks
is exactly the same. So if you think of let's
say you have fifteen tasks to complete in a day,
they're all set to a different radio station, but they're
all on the same volume. They're all kind of screaming
(34:46):
at you. Your focus is likely jumping from one thing
to the next, bouncing back and forth. Which one do
I start? Oh, this one's important, Oh, this one's important,
And so many people with a d h D. Pardon
the image look kind of like they're running around like
a chicken with its head cut off, like, Oh, I'm
gonna do this for five minutes, and I'm gonna do this,
(35:07):
and you're just kind of bouncing around because we don't
have the volume control of I'm going to turn down
the volume on these lesser important tasks, and I'm I'm
gonna blast the volume on this thing that has a
deadline that's in an hour, and so everything that is
screaming at us at the same volume, and it's very disorienting.
(35:28):
It's very confusing, it's very difficult to organize, you know,
where should I start, what should I do? What should
I give my attention to. And it's not because we're
not smart. It's not because we don't logically know what's
most important. But you said it best. My body just
feels so pulled to these lesser important tasks. And that's
(35:49):
exactly what it is. It's like instead of um, you know,
being able to really tune into the thing that is
the most important, it's just like everything is screaming at
me and I just need to, like, um, satisfy my
overwhelm by just kind of like running around and trying
to do all of them at the same time, which
we know does not work. We'll continue the interview on
(36:14):
the flip side of a quick message from our sponsors.
I have another question about going back to one of
these eight executive functions. So in terms of the black
(36:35):
and white thinking, hm, you know, I really want to
explore that more. That's something I've I've had my whole life,
so I'm I'm very interested in it. But for people
that may not know, or maybe they think they have
any eg or maybe they just want to understand it better,
I know, it's all or nothing thinking. It's kind of inflexible.
What is an actual like person suffering from black and
(36:56):
white thinking? What might they be thinking? And how does
that make them feel or what does that stop them
from doing? Even I love this question, and I think
that the best way to describe black and white thinking
is in the area of perfectionism. So perfectionism is the
most commonly endorsed thought distortion of a d H D Okay,
(37:19):
So what that means is research that Dr Russell Ramsay
has done shows us that although it's not a symptom
or an impairment of a d h D. It is
something that most adults with a d h D struggle with,
and so perfectionism can look like this, I have a
work project due tomorrow morning, and I'm missing three components
(37:43):
of it. So I shouldn't bother even finish this project
because it's black or white, all or nothing. Well, it's
not going to be done, it's not going to be perfect.
They're going to be mad at me anyway because I'm
missing these three components. So I'm just not going to
continue with it, right, right, And so all are nothing
(38:04):
thinking really prevents us from being able to just move
forward imperfectly and produce B minus work, which often is
like really amazingly good enough. But what we want to
do instead is say, since I can't produce A plus work,
I'm not going to even bother. It's not even worth trying.
(38:27):
It's not even worth putting my effort into. I'll just
go do the laundry, I'll just go through the dishes,
I'll just go do these other tasks that are screaming
at me at the same volume. Right, And so that
is where I see all or nothing or inflexible thinking
really coming into play. Is in the area of perfectionism
because um the idea and it's just kind of like
(38:51):
ingrained in us that if we and what I mean
by that, I did this like big motion, it's like
in our bodies, like if if I cannot complete this
to the level that I think I'm going to receive
praise and zero criticism, that I'm not even going to
bother to finish it, I'm not even gonna I'm gonna
figure out a way to hand it in late I'm
(39:12):
going to figure out a way to be sick tomorrow.
I'm going to figure out a way to avoid it
at all costs. Oh, I'm just stood of that. You know,
like charm, Most of us A D T years are
very charming. So I'm going to charm my way out
of it because I know that it's not going to
be a plus work And so I can't even bring
myself to produce something that is what I am um
(39:33):
qualifying as like a lesser a lesser quality. And so
I love the use of perfectionism because I think it's
the secret enemy in all anxiety recovery. And I think
people don't want to start because they don't like to
hear well, it's something you can live with. But for me,
(39:55):
it's like living with it has almost just kind of
made it go away. But anyway, I know it's like
sort of a side note of what you're saying. But
I love the perfectionism. Now I'm learning a new thing
is black and white thinking, Yes, it's so cool to
put those two things together. Yeah, because I think a
lot of people think perfectionism is oh, she's type A,
(40:15):
she does everything perfect. It's literally the opposite. It's like
this person that you would never think to call it
perfectionists because you know they don't turn their work in.
It's because they're perfectionists. So many people who are not
functioning are not functioning because they are perfectionists. Yeah, that
makes so much sense. And so thinking about like when
(40:40):
you were talking about emotional control, like self soothing after
you know, an emotional explosion or some kind of just
anything emotional. I was thinking back to, like I think
it was a long time. I was in my early
twenties and there was a writing job that my agent
had told me about and said, you know, you have
to write like a sample script and you know, I
(41:02):
have a few days to do it, and I'd just
gone through a breakup like that day and I never
wrote it, and she was like, don't ever let you
know something like that get in the way of going
for something again. And I was thinking, yeah, yeah, but
it was so in my body that I couldn't. It
wasn't that I was like writing, but thinking thoughts, Oh,
(41:24):
I I'm sad. It was I don't know how anyone
would have written it was like the flu or something,
you know, I mean, not the same symptoms, but I
was so overwhelmed and that I would have had to
self soothe before I started writing. But I didn't know
how or I didn't even know that was happening. I
just thought when I was going through everybody had, so
I just in my head made up, Oh, my agents
(41:44):
never been through a breakup, so she doesn't know it's sorking,
you know, I had no idea. And so now looking
back on things like that, you know, I can reframe
it as like, oh, that was that kind of a
d h D lack of self soothing and so like
for anyone listening. I know I did just kind of
describe it, but like, what does that mean when someone
can't self soothe? And and does that make sense to
(42:05):
you that it was so in the body that it's
like not in the mind, right, Yes, So first of all,
it completely makes sense. And then second, you know, so
many of us with a h D did not grow
up in families where there was any emotional intelligence or
(42:26):
any conversation about emotions. Most of us were invalidated, um
when we had feelings, most of us because those emotional
explosions made our parents or caregivers feel a type of way,
they often wanted to shut it down, and so we
(42:46):
never were taught how to experience an emotion. I'm just
saying most um, in my experience, I really haven't met
one dar who's like, oh no, I from a family
with a very high emotional intelligence, and it was taught
from a young age how to experience emotions in my body,
and I know exactly how to self sooth. Like I've
(43:09):
never met one, and I've coached thousands of people. So
I was going I would say that like the only
I'm like somewhere in the middle where it's like my
family didn't denying anything, but they all had a d
h D. I think I'm diagnosing my parents. They were
so emotionally reactive, and then I'd being emotionally and everyone
was just emotionally reacting like popcorn popping, and it was
totally acceptable, but we just never like discussed it or
(43:31):
went further. So like everyone has their explosion and then
you just kind of forget about it and you keep going.
You know. It was like, so that was like my modeling,
and I was like, oh, what, we don't act like this,
like when you get out and you meet other people
and what are you doing. It was like it's like
almost worst to have it encouraged. Yes, oh my goodness.
So when you're experiencing something so big in your body,
(43:55):
most of us find it to be such an uncomfortable
experience that we really try to either resist it or um.
So that would look like trying to ignore it, trying
to avoid it, trying to push it away, trying to
distract ourselves from it, right, and so like it's kind
of still residing there with us, but we don't want
(44:16):
our attention on it because it feels so uncomfortable, or
we try to just like explode and get it out
of us, right, So that would be like reacting, which
sounds like that's how your family was, like just kind
of react, react, react, and like, so the big emotion
would come up, it explodes out of me. I kind
of throw it at you, and then we kind of
go about our business and we're all fine, exactly fine. Um.
(44:41):
The biggest thing that I have learned in the last
five to ten years, and the thing that I try
to teach my clients UM and I think gives them
so much power, is the ability to really process and
feel our emotions. And people don't understand, Like they come
into an A d h D coaching program and they're like,
(45:01):
where are my tips and tricks? And I'm like, I'm
not that kind of coach like you. I'm not going
to teach you anything that you can google. You already
know this stuff. But what you can't learn from the googles,
like what you need an actual human to teach you
is like how do you process an emotion? How to
expand yourself big enough to make room for this emotion.
(45:23):
And so the technique that I teach my clients is
called the surf technique. I learned it from Dr Sasha Heinz.
I adore her. You can go look correct okay. So
SURF stands for stop okay. So the first thing is
just like like stop, could you just like and stop right. So,
like so many times you're feeling this big emotion and
(45:44):
we just want to like gog, google, gogle, and I
want to like move around to all the different things
so that I don't have to feel this in my body.
First thing to stop and then let the emotion they
use for unfold. Let it unfold in your body. Now,
this is the hardest part because we don't want it
and team that we don't want to feel it. We
think that an emotional experience is like a problem, like
(46:07):
I need to solve this, what's the what's the solution here?
And it's not a problem, it's an experience to be had.
You are an emotional being and you are having an
emotional experience. This is very normal. So let it unfold
in your body. The best way that I can describe
that is if you picture the emotion like, let's say,
in your chest, and you just take a deep breath
(46:28):
and try to expand the space around the emotion. So
you're just trying to create space around it. You're not
trying to get rid of it. You're just letting it
exist within you and you're just creating more space for it.
Like I have the capacity for this to exist within me,
I don't have to resist it. I don't have to
(46:50):
distract myself from it, and I don't have to vomit
it on anyone else. You can just be here with me,
in my body, and so I just let that experience unfold.
So maybe I take like five deep breath and I
just let that happen, and eventually the emotion will recede.
So that's the r okay, eventually that emotion will recede.
(47:11):
Once it does recede, the F is for like figure
it out, find the name. Either find the name of
it if you didn't know what the emotion was, find
like the couple of thoughts causing the emotion, like what
what's the really going on here? Why was it there
with you? Most of us want to do that before
we've processed the emotion. Why am I feeling this? What's
(47:34):
going on? I need to solve this problem? Right? But
instead just like really experiencing the emotion, letting it unfold
within you, and then when it recedes, then you can
do all of that figuring out stuff. Find the name,
why was it here? What is it here? To teach me?
And I know that sounds like a long process. But really,
(47:54):
in five minutes you can gain so much power back
because you've really allowed that emotion two exist within you
and then recede. And maybe you'll have to do that
five times, ten times a day, but what it allows
you to do is function. So, Okay, I need five
(48:15):
minutes to process this, but now I can go on function.
I can go write my piece. Oh here it is again,
I need to process it. Okay, now I can go
back to functioning rather than letting your whole day be
hijacked by that intense emotion. And I love that you
said you know, it seems like, oh, it seems like
this long thing, but it's really five minutes. Even when
you just said stop, I could feel that in my body,
(48:38):
like oh yeah, you know, because I'm always like fluttering
around doing a million things, and it's like just stop,
just stop, Like even if I'm not feeling some intense emotion,
like have I just just stopped like for no reason,
you know? And that can be so powerful in and
of itself that I can see where that wouldn't take
that long to do that you that are and f
(49:01):
I love that you said up because I always ask
people for like tips and tricks and things like that,
and I love that you don't have the typical a
d h D tips and tricks like this is as
we said, like, um, a NERD developmental disorder that impairs
your ability to regulate yourself, including your attention and your emotions.
That's what I got from your show, And I love
(49:21):
that we kept it on that topic because I think
it will be a relief for some people to hear that,
like there's an emotional part to this anxiety bites will
be right back after a quick little message from one
of our sponsors. Why do you think people have such
(49:44):
latent life diagnosis of a d h D. I don't
mean latent life like, but you know, it's not like
for the people that don't have the kid kind jumping around.
Why do you think it takes till people in like
thirties and forties too get diagnosed. Is it is that
the person just not even realizing it something that needs diagnosing,
so they don't ask anyone, or is it like hard
to figure out? Well, women specifically are diagnosed much later
(50:09):
in life. So the median age for a woman being
diagnosed is thirty eight wow, thirty eight years old, So
I learned that from Dr Patricia Quinn, who is just
like a giant um when it comes to a d
h D. And so that is wild when you think
about that, and I think that there's two answers. I
(50:31):
think for females, Um, there's such a stigma and um,
what is the word. Oh gosh, there's no words coming
to my brain. I'm so sorry. Oh I love it.
This is me all the time. Oh my god. It's
a very simple word too, it is not it's not
a very intellectual word. But anyway, there's such a stigma
(50:52):
around a d h D UM where people just think
it's for boys and not just boys, little white boys.
So it's little white boys, right. And so when a
girl is presenting with being spacey, being highly reactive, having
trouble self regulating, being perfectionistic, like all of those things
that really show up for girls and women, they're not
(51:15):
clinicians are not really understanding it d h D. And that, um,
you know, it's important to assess girls for it d
h D. So that's that. So the reason why many
women are being diagnosed later in life is because they
usually will reach a certain point in their life where
their coping skills are just no longer working, got it.
(51:38):
So it's just like you've had all your kind of
maladuptive skills for so long that you hit a wall exactly.
And so maybe you hit perimenopause, or maybe you you
did find in college, but now you're going to grad
school and that's like you know, ship show or like
something like that. I think that, Um, there's also a
lack of self awareness. So in general, with people with
a d h D, there's a really huge lack of
(52:00):
self awareness. And so by the time somebody finally hits
thirty and their brain kind of catches up and finally
develops into a fully formed human brain. Um, that's when
more of the awareness is available to them, and so
they will be more willing to seek out a diagnosis.
So I learned from Dr Russell Barkley that the a
(52:22):
d h D brain is about um thirty percent behind
developed mentally than a neurotypical brain. Wow huge. So that
means that our brains are not fully formed until we're
in our thirties, and so that's when the awareness and
the AHAs usually start. Is my thirties that I am
(52:46):
seeing that all over the and that was my story
as well it's now mine. Now that I know that,
I'm like, oh that makes sense, yes completely, And so
like any of you who know a d h D
kids or teens, Like if you think of an a
d h D teenager, like a thirteen year old is
really acting so immature like a nine year old. And
(53:10):
that makes sense because the a d h D brain
develop mentally is just behind. It just takes so much
longer for them to catch up. So an a d
h D college student is really acting like a mid teenager, right,
And so when you think about that, you're like, okay,
that makes a lot more sense. So those who were
not diagnosed in childhood, who didn't have teachers or coaches
(53:31):
or parents who were really aware. And on top of it,
we're often not diagnosed until our thirties or forties or
fifties or sixties. I have people in my program who
are diagnosed in their seventies, God bless them, Like it
is never too late to be diagnosed. Um, And that's
usually because the self awareness is finally there and slash
(53:53):
or their partner, their boss, somebody is like them, excuse me,
like you need to go to this okay, Like me
with my laundry exactly. Are you now someone who can
identify as an a d h D er. I'd love
(54:14):
to hear from you if if this episode affected you
in any way, please email me Anxiety Bites Weekly at
gmail dot com, and please do leave a review if
you'd rather do that on Spotify or iTunes or I
guess they call it Apple podcast. Now leave five stars.
You can leave a review, you can write anything that
you want. Follow me on social media at Jen Kirkman.
(54:34):
I'm there on Instagram and Twitter, and I post a
little audio grams from each episode. If you go to
my website you can read the bullet point takeaways that
I'm about to give to you right now for every episode,
and please tweet about the show, post about it on Instagram.
I would love it get the word out. The more
people that listen, the more people get better, and the
(54:56):
more people that get better, the less we have to
deal with people running around with undiagnosed anxiety without any tools.
All right, takeaways from my episode with Kristen. A d
h D simply stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which
Kristen finds to be a terrible name because again, a
d h D is a neurodevelopmental disorder that impairs one's
(55:21):
ability to regulate themselves, including their attention and their emotions.
A d h D is not inherently a deficit in attention.
People with a d h D yes their ability to
control or supervise their own emotions or intentions is impaired.
(55:41):
Although a d h D is technically a disorder, you
can look at it as a brain difference or just
a different way of functioning. But you are not neurotypical,
and thank God for that. A d h D impairs
our executive function. So what is that? Well, there are
eight executive functions that work together. So one is impulse control.
(56:06):
That's learning to curb your own impulses. So you have
a thought, you have an idea, and you might immediately
take action without having you know, a moment to stop
and think. You know, you don't think, is this something
I want to do? Will it lead towards my goal?
Does it make sense? Long term? You're basically a Ferrari
engine with bicycle breaks. Emotional control that's another executive function.
(56:30):
You can't self soothe after an emotional explosion. It could
even ruin your whole day. For example, you might not
even be able to get work done. And another executive
function that neurotypical people have that is difficult for a
d h dars is flexible thinking. A d h D
years are black and white thinkers. They're all are nothing.
Flexible thinkers. They go with the flow, they change plans,
(56:52):
they transition from one test to another. A d h
d ars may find themselves having a tough time transitioning
from one task to another, and to them, you know,
it's like everything is terrible or everything is amazing. They
often have to find ways to stay in the gray area.
Another executive function is a working memory or verbal working memory.
(57:13):
This can be tough for an a d h dear.
Neurotypicals kind of do this easily to keep themselves on task.
It's like having an inner conversation with yourself. It's your
mind's eye, your ability to see pictures and hold the
task in your mind long enough to get it done.
An a d h D person may remember something from
(57:33):
a long time ago, all of that time we went
to Disney World. But they're not going to remember to
stop for milk on the way home, even if they
have the best of intentions, and even if they thought
about it three times. Self monitoring is another executive function
that basically means staying on task and focusing on the
critical right thing, being able to notice when you're not
(57:53):
working according to your plan and you know. It includes
checking in with yourself, self evaluating and jesting and making
changes accordingly. This does not come easily to someone with
a d h D. Planning and prioritizing that's kind of
lumped together as one executive function. So a new typical person,
their brain looks at the day, assesses what needs to
get done, naturally puts things into priority order. The a
(58:15):
d h D brain, everything is on the same plane
and seems to have the same level of importance. Right
It's like what I was talking about with a work
deadline or my laundry that needs folding. It's all important
to us, and it's all screaming at us at the
same volume. We don't know where to start. A lot
of people with a d h D will go into
(58:36):
overwhelm and shut down task initiation as another executive function,
and that can be simply too much for someone with
a d h D. We have to muster up the
motivation for something and then organization as another executive function.
It includes not only organizing things, but our time, our money,
or thoughts, our friend groups. Again, this can be challenging
(58:58):
for someone with a d h D. So when one
or more of these eight executive functions are impaired, life
gets pretty difficult. A d h D is a spectrum disorder.
We don't all experience the same level of impairment and
in the same areas. People with a d h D
(59:18):
tend to have lower levels of dopamine firing off in
their brain. We have fewer dopamine receptors, so when we
are doing tasks like folding laundry that give us absolutely
no dopamine reward, it can be really difficult to muster
up that motivation and to get things done. Now, people
may misinterpret that as being lazy, but it really can
(59:42):
feel overwhelming. And so something that Kristen does is when
she knows that she's suffering from a lack of dopamine
and she has to do a task that not only
doesn't interest her, but it causes this sort of angst
about having to do it, she'll try to make it fun,
whether she is around with her kids or she puts
on a fun podcast to listen to. You know, you
(01:00:04):
might want to listen to music or put on a
crazy hat or something, but just something to make it
fun and to get some good vibes flowing. People UM
with a d h D are often diagnosed later in
life because it can take a little longer to realize
(01:00:24):
that you are not functioning at your full level. You
may have to actually hit a wall. For for a
lot of women, UM, they may not be diagnosed until
they're in their thirties. And it's said that the brain
of someone with a d h D takes a little
longer to develop than that of a neural typical person.
So some people say latent life diagnosis, you might be
(01:00:48):
right on time and pretty normal within the world of
people with a d h D. So again, I hope
this episode helped. I know it's certainly helped me and
I can talk about a d h D all day long.
All right, Well, tell a friend about the podcast, meet
(01:01:09):
me on social media at Jen Kirkman again, like I
said on Twitter, on Instagram, check out everything Kristen Carter
again linked in the show notes and yes, anxiety bites,
but you're in control. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
(01:01:31):
visit the I heart radio, app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
This is the Anxiety Bites podcast and I am your host,
Jen Kirkman. I have a d h D. Oh sorry,
Welcome to another episode of Anxiety Bites. I am your host,
Jen Kirkman. My guest today is Kristen Carter and her
website is I have a d h D dot com.
(00:31):
But I'm also announcing I have a d h D.
And it's been such an interesting unraveling of figuring out
that I had it, not believing it for so many
years because I didn't seem to have the typical symptoms
that I'd always heard about. And my diagnosis came right
(00:52):
on the edge of when a lot of this information
was freely available on the Internet, and so I thought,
I mean, I do think I have it, and you
hear me talk about it in this episode that I
was actually diagnosed by some when I lived with who,
I thought that I was having bizarre emotional regulation issues
around you know, meeting deadlines, treating the laundry as that
(01:12):
we're launching a nuke. And when I talked to my psychiatrist,
because I've always I always had one, for I had
the same one for twenty years. He would prescribe and
presence as needed, and anxiety medication is needed for flying.
And when I brought this a d h D potential
(01:32):
diagnosis to him, he said, yeah, I think you know,
from what we've talked about, you definitely have some symptoms
of it. And I took the very long questionnaire and
I came up as someone who has it. But it
wasn't really resonating with me yet because I kept thinking, well,
but I you know, I didn't have trouble paying attention
in school, and and I wasn't running around dance and
(01:55):
my pants. And I took ballet after school. You know,
I took dance lessons and piano lessons many times a week,
and I was able to focus in class. But now
when I look back over all of that, Yes, I
took piano lessons and I loved it and I was
completely in the zone and completely focused at my lessons.
(02:15):
Did I practice. I hated practicing it just I decided
to draw even though I wanted to. It's it was
always this thing that I really actually want to but
I can't get started ballet. I wanted to be a dancer,
I mean, was the number one thing in my life,
you know, ended up in comedy. But I wasn't a
little kid who dreamed of being a comedian. I dreamed
(02:36):
of being a dancer. Did I practice now? But I
love being in class. You know, it's just like these
little things where it doesn't have to be so literal
where you're jumping up and down in your seat and
the teachers saying, go to the principle's office because you're
so disruptive. You know, I was kind of good to
two shoots, as afraid of getting in trouble. But I
had outbursts, you know, I definitely did, not often, but
at least once a year, which you know, there's not
(02:59):
a lot for you know, someone with a d h D,
they don't really get taken to a psychiatrist or medicaid
because once a year there's an outburst. But there were
little things here and there, and you know, a d
h D some people do think of it as an
anxiety disorder. There are so many things that exist with
(03:20):
it and so many things that it mimics, and it's
hard to figure out what is this true a d
h D or you know, am I am I over
here having more O c D. It's a it's a
tricky little diagnosis, but once you really lock into what
it is, and you've lived long enough and you can
(03:42):
look back and and think, oh, oh, it's all coming together.
It must feel like, I don't know, if you've had
some kind of undiagnosed more of a physical illness. Maybe
you've been tired for ten years and will have been saying, oh,
you're just lazy, or you eat too much sugar, and
(04:02):
then you find out, oh, no, it's it's actually this
uh chronic well, I don't even know chronic thing that
you know, I've got some blood thing or I don't know,
but it feels very much like that. Once I started
to learn more about it, once more information became readily available.
There is a part of me that can self diagnosed,
and there is a part of me that brings these
(04:24):
things to a psychiatrist that I now see and he validates, yes,
these are a h D symptoms. Here are the things
that people do for it. So now I have tools,
and now I can just even recognize, I mean even
just me thinking this is that a d h D behavior.
It doesn't matter where did it come from, just knowing
(04:45):
it in the moment and just thinking I am convinced
right now that if I do blah, blah and blah.
I will soothe this feeling that I have no time.
If I just do this, this, and this, I will
soothe that feel ng that I can do it all
and I have to do it all at once. And
I just keep telling myself you're wrong. I know it's
(05:07):
impossible to believe, but that's not true. So take a
contrary action, you know, That's what helps me. But it
really did put a lot of things into focus for
me where I've had trouble regulating emotions, which may sound like, oh,
I'm having these outbursts and I'm running around screaming. I've
definitely done that. But but what I mean more is
(05:29):
when feelings feel so intense that you don't know. Oh,
not everyone feels this way, you know. Obviously we all
have our moments, but where you're insides almost feel like
a roller coaster from quote normal human experiences, and it
can be so overwhelming that you might not be able
to function, you know, And no one ever thinks of
(05:53):
that as a d h D. I mean, I don't.
I don't mean no one. Obviously, professionals understand it, and
people that have had it and have really been diagnosed
understand it, but just you stop someone on the street,
they would not say, oh, yeah, that sounds like an
a d h D symptom. You know, I think a
d h D is one of those diagnosis that a
lot of the symptoms have probably just been people writing
(06:13):
you off as crazy your whole life. And so it's
been a huge relief for me to to find out
really what this mysterious little disorder is. And so I
wanted to talk to Kristen Carter specifically, because again, we've
(06:34):
got our neuroscientists out there, we've got our you know,
I'm a brain blah blah person, and I know what
a d h D is, but so rarely do these
people have a d h D. I wanted to talk
to someone who has a d h D and somehow
managed to start a great podcast, to become a coach
(06:56):
that helps other people with a d h D, that
leads workshop, that has a great website, that is a
mom with you know, a husband and kids, this huge,
fully functioning life that's running on all cylinders, and she
has a d h D. And she had to slowly
realized as she was educating herself that a lot of
(07:21):
the things she had had been misdiagnosed, not completely understood
or explained to her, and she took matters into her
own hands. And so that's how I feel my journey
is a little bit and in the in the sense
of I'm a high functioning a d h d R
and sometimes I need to hear someone that actually knows
(07:43):
what it feels like as well as has the science
and the research to talk about it intelligently and back
it up. But that I just was so excited that
that she came on the podcast. And so if you're
a fellow a d h d R, as Kristin calls us,
welcome to this episode, think you will get a lot
out of it. For me, I think the biggest thing
(08:04):
that I actually really learned from listening to Kristen's podcast,
and it's something I hadn't heard this before, but it
just clicked one day and I went, this is the
answer to everything, is that a d h D is
not just about not being able to pay attention. In fact,
(08:27):
it really has so little to do with not being
able to pay attention. It's a neurodevelopmental disorder that impairs
your ability to regulate yourself, including your attention and your emotions.
The emotions I feel is the part we never hear
about it. We never hear about I mean, but you're
(08:48):
gonna hear about it on this episode, so let's just
get right to it again. I will tell you a
little bit about my guest Kristen Carter. She has a
great podcast called I Have a d h D. It's
the number one top rated podcast for adult a d
h D. She's got over two million downloads. Again, you
(09:09):
can work with her. She is a coach that helps
people with a d h D. And she also helps
adults figure out how to get ship done and enjoy
their lives. So if you need support, check out her
(09:29):
website I have a d h D dot com. It
will be linked in the show notes. So let's go
to my conversation. Oh my god, this happened on another episode.
This bluetooth thing keeps talking to me. I know I
should edit that out. What am I going to do that?
This is the Anxiety Bites podcast, This isn't the Perfection podcast.
(09:53):
Enjoying my conversation with Kristin Carter. Chris and I've already
told all my guests all about you in the intro,
and I don't normally start podcast this way because it's
usually just about them. I normally knows our podcasts this
way because it's usually about the anxiety symptom or disease
(10:13):
itself that we kind of focus on. But I do
want to focus on your story of how you became
an a d h D coach because I feel like
it's such an a d h D success story and
and it really illustrates how we have to advocate for
ourselves and almost feels like some even though there's a
lot of info out there that's sort of the problem,
(10:34):
we're kind of on our own. So would you tell
my listeners the story of how you came to be
you know, what what you do for a living, and
how you came to that. Yes, I would love to,
so thank you so much for that. I think that
you know, the way that my story has kind of
(10:56):
played out really proves that us each years often have
to try a bunch of things before we kind of
come home to what we were always meant to do.
And that's the way that I feel coaching has been
for me. I feel as though it kind of found
me and I feel just like at home in it.
(11:20):
Um So I've always coached people Um. What I realized
now looking back, is like against their will. I've been
coaching people people, sorry, everyone at the exactly. Um, like
with no consent. I've been coaching family members, friends, teachers.
It's like it's people have come to me my whole life. Um.
(11:44):
And it was always something that I you know, I
just really enjoyed doing. My best friends nicknamed me coach.
I didn't even know life coaching was a thing though,
I just like it's it really is a new industry.
And so at the time I am that I went
looking for a d H D help, I could not
(12:04):
find someone that I really resonated with, that I felt
was speaking my language, that really was a reflection of
who I was and you know, the person that I
wanted to become. And so I got pretty frustrated in
my thirties kind of going around looking, you know, looking
(12:25):
at different podcasts and googling different coaches and like all
of these things. I just kept trying to find an
example that I wanted to follow. And there are some
amazing examples out there, but not anybody that I really
resonated with. And so the first thing that I did
was listened to that little nagging voice inside of my
head that said maybe I could start a podcast, Maybe
(12:48):
maybe I could do it. And I do have the
kind of person outy that's like, let's just go for it, right,
which I think a d h D just really played
a beautiful part into that. So I was like willing
to take the risk. I was willing to um put
myself out there, and I just went for it like impulsively, UM,
just like Okay, let's do it. And I kind of
(13:09):
threw out my podcast into the darkness of the night
and hoped that no one would ever listen to it. Ever,
I didn't know that launching a podcast was the thing.
I didn't know to gathering an audience. I was just like,
I'm just gonna shove this episode out there in the
dark cover of the night and hope that no one
ever listens to it. And it turns out that people
really resonated with it, and I do think it's because
there was a space that needed to be filled with
(13:32):
a personality like mine, UM, and I think many people
could have done it. I just decided to do it
right and so UM. Then, once the podcast was really
being listened to, a lot of people started reaching out
to me for coaching, and it was a very similar
experience where I was like, yeah, I could probably do that.
At the time, I was working with students who had
(13:55):
learning differences and I was coaching them, and so I thought, well,
I could do this with adults. Let's just kind of
tweak it. And it was like magic. It was so
much fun. The first couple of sessions that I did,
I was like, holy bleep, I cannot believe how much
fun this is. And the connection that you get to
(14:16):
create with a client, and the dopamine hit from seeing
someone make real changes in their life, it's just incredible.
And so I needed more of that dopamine hit. Really,
I was like, let's do more. Do we lack a gosh? Yes?
And I was just I craved it so um. Over
the course of about a year, I went from I
(14:38):
owned the company. It was like a tutoring company. I
owned a brick and mortar company in my town, um
tutoring business. And I really transitioned into coaching full time.
And that was a very scary, risky decision. I had
seven part time employees at the time. I had a
business that was paying my bills. It was you know,
it wasn't what I loved to do, but it was fine.
(15:01):
I had no reason, you know, to be like I'm
going to close down this baby and go like with
a different baby. But I just felt like coaching was calling.
It was just calling me. And so UM that has
been even though it was a very scary decision to make,
it was the best decision ever because as soon as
I went all in on it, UM it really did
(15:24):
totally explode. And that has been really fun. It's been
a wild ride. It's been UM very humbling privilege to
be able to walk side by side with so many
adults with a d h D who have just really
been overlooked for so long, who have not found UM
(15:45):
the right fit as far as self development and help
and for so long have kind of been floundering. And
to be able to like gather in you know, so
many people who who just really need UM some specific
support has just been just the privilege of a lifetime.
(16:07):
We'll be right back. I'm wondering if you can tell
me what you have noticed in yourself like about getting
diagnosed that was maybe different than maybe what a man experiences.
I feel like for MENU, it's that kind of cut
(16:27):
and dry. Literally they can't pay attention in school, and
it's followed in their whole life, and they need something
to focus. And I've always been very high functioning. I've
if I have a deadline at work and it means
I have a job or not, like I'm gonna do it.
I mean, I may be having a complete internal nervous breakdown,
but nothing doesn't get done. And I love making lists
(16:48):
and I'm extremely organized, Like if you move this lotion
on my desk, I'm gonna put it right back. But
everything else is a complete whirlwind in my life. And
so I thought for sure first along, Um, there's no
way I can have a d h D because I
don't have these three symptoms that are most common in men. Yeah,
that's really really interesting. So I think that I wonder
(17:14):
if your anxiety like plays a beautiful part in keeping
you on task? Do you think like making sure, because
what I find with my clients is that those who
have like anxiety around performance and making sure things are
just so and um, you know, keeping your job stuff
(17:36):
like that like very good things. Um, they are actually
functioning better on the outside because they have that dose
of anxiety to come in and really give them the
juices needed to get the job done. So they might
not have the dopamine to get started, but they have
that kick of anxiety that's like, hey, if you don't
(17:58):
do this, we're gonna lose the job. And it's a
job and wouldn't be homeless, right, Like I'm I'm in
a shopping cart in every one of my fantasies, I'm
like living in a shopping cart with slippers on and
talking to myself. And so I'm like, well, it's interesting
you brought that up because you had said that one
of your gifts of a d h d's putting yourself
out there. And I had the same thing as a performer.
You know, I was never afraid to get on stage
(18:20):
or anything like that, and people would say, you know,
what's your secret, and I would say, I'm maybe I'm
just crazy, like I don't even think about consequences. I'm like,
I need to do this, and now I'm realizing. I know,
I'm still realizing, and I've just had another epiphany. That's
one of the gifts of a d h D. But
you know, it's one of those things where for me,
if and then I'm going to get to my questions
(18:40):
for you. But if if you asked everyone I've ever
worked with do you think she's neurodivergent? Do you think
she has a d h D? They'd say no. But
if you ask any romantic relationship I've had, they'd be
like anywhere from yes to she's crazy. And so if
you could tell us what is the definition of a
d h D. And I know that you and I
(19:01):
agree that it's a terrible name for for a disease.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is a terrible name for what
how huge this is. Yeah, it really is a terrible
name for it because it's extremely misleading. There's actually no
deficit of attention. We actually have just as much attention
as anybody else, except we struggle to regulate our attention,
(19:24):
which means we struggle to put it on the right
thing for the right amount of time in order to
get that thing accomplished. Right. Um. In addition to that,
and you know you asked about women and a d
h D, I think one of the most important components
for women to understand is we don't just have this
(19:46):
struggle to regulate our attention. We also have the struggle
of regulating our emotions and so with women specifically. Um,
I think that this component is very key because we
feel emotions very intensely. Now, there's no way to prove
whether we feel emotions more intensely than somebody else, because
(20:08):
nobody can like get into my body and know how
I'm feeling a sensation and whether or not that's more
than you. Right, But our reactions seem to be bigger,
um than a neurotypical reactions, right, And so when we
get frustrated, it's debilitating. When we get excited, it's stabilitating.
When we get sad, it's stabilitating. Like we have a
(20:31):
very hard time self soothing coming down off of emotions,
making sure that we are regulated and even keeled. So
this makes so much sense when you talk about like
romantic partners might label me as being a little bit crazy,
because when you are feeling those like whether it's like
the emotion of love, even like, we have trouble regulating
(20:56):
that in our bodies, and so we the way that humans,
if we don't know how to regulate and self soothed
within our bodies, then we try to get it out right.
And so we want to throw that love onto other people,
or we want to throw that anxiety or that UM frustration,
and so a lot of times what's happening is we're
(21:17):
trying to regulate ourselves by kind of UM reacting, responding,
and kind of throwing our emotions at other people, which
can be very tricky when it comes to relationships, right,
And so I d h D is a self regulation disorder.
We have so much trouble regulating our attention, regulating our emotions.
(21:39):
And if that is what we can really take away,
that will change everything, because that perspective really shifts our
focus to Okay, It's not just a deficit of attention
where it's like, oh, there she goes again, squirrel. It's like, no,
I have attention, it's just I struggle to regulate it.
(22:01):
And I struggled to keep that attention on the most
important thing. And part of that is because I've less
dopamine in my brain. And so when it's something like laundry,
there's like fifty seven steps in getting laundry done, so boring.
I don't care about it at all. I will just
wear dirty clothes, like who cares, right, And so the
(22:24):
levels of dopamine involved with UM getting through the task
of laundry, it's incredible, right, And so when we have
less dopamine, laundry can feel like I would rather die
than do the slaundry, Like I'm just gonna it. Must
get misdiagnosed a lot of depression, right, because it's like
because it's a round a task. So you could go
to a therapist and tell that story. Oh, for example,
(22:46):
my laundry makes me want to die, and they're like, oh, depression.
But it's like you're not hopeless in life, you're not
unmotivated in life. It's just that something that doesn't produce dopamine.
It's almost like to to make fun of ourselves. And
I don't really mean this, but like the bad way
to put it is like we're just like little like
heathen heathens, like little brats that are like, do I
(23:06):
get dopamine from this? I don't want to, you know exactly.
But what we're not realizing is no ner normal but
like neurotypical people, Um, it's not like they're getting a
spike of dopamine like their skydiving, but they just have
enough so that it doesn't feel so you know, like
they're drowning if they're doing this, right, Is that what
it is? Yeah, exactly. And this is why, or one
(23:28):
of the reasons why so many a d H dars
are just labeled selfish and lazy, interesting and self centered
is because it's like, oh, you don't want to do
the dishes. Like what's going on? Right, Like, oh, you
just want to do the fun stuff and not the
boring stuff. So like in a partnership, that can be
really tricky, right, And so when my husband feels like
(23:50):
he's the one that is always doing the laundry or
always doing the dishes, that can really breed resentment, whereas
like I do want to participate, it's just like it
feels like death, like I would rather do please let
me do anything else, right, And so that can be
really really tricky. And so many of the things that
we struggle with are things that everyone struggles with, right,
(24:14):
and so it can be extremely difficult to diagnose. It
can be extremely difficult to explain to friends and loved
ones because um, if you're like, yeah, I hate doing laundy,
everybody's like yeah, like who loves nobody loves doing laundry?
Like what are you talking about? You just do it
and there's like molding And as the tricky part I like, yeah, exactly.
(24:37):
I like to ask myself in every situation, how can
I make this more fun? How can you meet this
more fun? That's Michael. I asked myself that seven billion
times a day. And so for me, a lot of times,
I pop in my airbuds and it's in a podcast
or blast music, and I dance around with my kids.
My son Crosby, he's eight years old. When we fold laundry,
we pop a pair of his underwear on our head,
(24:59):
clean underwear, pop a pair of underwear on her head,
and we just fold laundry with underwear. And I had like,
it's just we're always looking for ways to make things
more fun because then those tasks that feel like death
really do become more bearable. And also thinking of the outcome.
I love having a clean kitchen, I really do. Yeah,
it's the best, Like clean counters. It's the best feeling.
(25:23):
So if I can focus on clean counters they're coming,
they're coming, like, and really get my brain to think
about like what it's going to feel like when it's done.
Oftentimes I can get that like self induced opamine hit
and that's enough to get me rolling. And you know,
it's funny that you sphysfically mentioned laundry. Um, you know
(25:44):
I can do it obviously, uh. And I'm kind of
a neat freak, so but like you said, that's probably
a little anxiety induced, maybe a tad CD induced. But
a boyfriend I lived with at one point said to me,
you know, you treat laundry like on your to do list,
with the same importance as if you were like the
president and you have to launch a nuke, Like to you,
(26:06):
do I launch this nuke? Or do I do this
laundry now or in the morning. It's the same intensity.
And that was that sentence is what brought me to
mention it to my then psychiatrist, And he's like, that
is a d h D. And I was like, what
Because I will do the laundry, but I will also
(26:27):
not do It's not procrastinating either, Like if I had
any work from home assignment do the next day or deadline,
I'm like, how could I possibly begin this writing deadline tonight?
There's a pile of laundry to fold. And to me,
it's not the way some people might choose to do
some housework to procrastinate. To me, it's like everything has
(26:48):
to get done or I'm always five two minutes late
because I have to put everything in its placed before.
You know, It's like everything is of the same importance
and I can't um It's it's not like I can't
I know intellectually that the deadline is more important than
the laundry, but my body feels so overwhelmed that I
won't be able to focus on the deadline if the
(27:09):
laundry is not done. And so I end up so
many times in my life staying up really late to
do every single thing so that when I wake up
in the morning everything feels perfect. But that you never
catch that carrot. That's that's dangling that I dangle for myself.
And so whatever that mess is is is how my
(27:31):
a d h D works. And I even though I
got that diagnosis twelve years ago, I sort of like
said sure, great and then didn't do anything about it.
And it's not until the last few years that I went, Okay,
this is pretty unmanageable, and now I'm doing something about it.
But does that sound like something you hear a lot
in your in your coaching. Oh my word, yes, And
(27:52):
you just described it so beautifully, and God bless your psychiatrist.
For knowing that that was a d h D, because
I don't think that most would. And he said, most
people come in. Everyone comes in self diagnosing depression or
anxiety because they know what that feels like. Every said,
every single person that's ever come in asking if they
have a d h D, it's because a friend or
(28:12):
someone they lived with or family member has told them
either you have that or you have this thing, and
go tell your psychiatrist these things you're doing because I
don't know what that is, but not normal. And he's like,
so everyone always gets diagnosed by someone else in their
life with d h That was kind of interesting because
we're driving them absolutely crazy totally. Okay, So this is
a perfect time to mention executive functions because what you
(28:36):
were describing is the executive function of prioritization. Yeah, okay,
so the executive functions are housed in our frontal lobe,
and when you have a d h D, your executive
functioning is deficient. Okay, and so I'm just gonna breathe through.
There's eight executive functions, okay. Impulse control meaning struggling to
(28:58):
put on the brakes, take stop and think and like
really wait before we jump in and do right. Emotional regulation,
which we already talked about a little bit, like that's
the self soothing after yes, an emotional explosion, Right, maybe
you can ruin your whole day if you have one.
So your emotions can be very distracting, So maybe you
(29:19):
fight with your partner in the morning and then you
can get nothing done at work for the rest of
the day because all you can think about is this
fight that you had and your body is still reacting
to it. You just cannot calm down from it, right.
Um Flexible thinking, which is really an interesting one. So
a h d s do tend to be very creative
(29:41):
and outside the box except for when we're not. That's
really the only way I can describe it. Like we're
super creative. We think outside the box except for when
we don't. And then when we can't think outside the box,
it is like black or white, and we really struggle
to look beyond what we're se and we also really
(30:01):
struggle with transitions. So I pull into my garage and
the idea of getting out of my car and like
going in and being a mom. It's just like so overwhelming.
Now this is really subconscious, but I almost always want
to pull out my phone and hang out on my
car before I go into the house. I heard that
on your show, and I was fascinated with that because
(30:22):
I never thought about all the different transitions we make
in a day, so many, and that I do think that,
you know it. I had a therapist once tell me
that even happy change in life can cause anxiety. And
she meant, like bigger things like you move or you
get a new job, but the mini transitions we do
(30:43):
every day, but like you said, going from work mode
to mom mode, or going from just go to bed
mode to work mode, or work mode to social mode,
you know. And I never thought about that, And I've
caught myself since I heard you talk about that, noticing
that I need a little I need a little transition time.
I need to do something yes, And so if you
(31:08):
just begin to observe yourself, you might notice like, Okay,
I'm sitting here working and now I need to transition
to like, you know, making dinner, but I'm gonna have
a snack first. Like even those like little subtle things
are like this is the work before the work, This
is the transition, like I'm getting I'm like talking myself
(31:29):
into it. This is why it's so often people with
a d h D will get to work and then
they will just do like meaningless tasks, so they'll go
on their phone, they'll scroll B B. I have a podcast.
I'm pretty sure I called it The Work before the Work,
which is a really I don't know basic basic. If
anybody has better podcasts suggestion titles, please reach out to me,
(31:52):
because sometimes I'm not very creative. But it's like the
scrolling time where you you use that time to talk
yourself in to getting into flow, getting into the work,
getting into like getting your brain and body ready to work.
It's fascinating. Um. So that's so everything we just talked
about was under the flexible thinking executive function right, that
was flexible thinking. Okay, another executive functioning UH skill is
(32:16):
working memory, which is not like your memory like, hey
we went to Disney World when I was five years old.
It's not that kind of memory. It's holding something in
your mind long enough to get it done. So maybe
your partner texting and they're like, hey, we're at a
milk can you stop in your a home And you're like, sure,
no problem, You're never getting that milk if it's me
We're never getting that milk, partner, we love you. We're
(32:37):
never getting that milk, right, because it's holding that thing
in your mind and just kind of keeping it there
long enough to complete the task. It's not going to happen, right,
And so we have to set reminders and build all
kinds of scaffolding around our memory. Self monitoring, which is
staying on task, so that goes hand in hand with
(32:58):
the working memory. Right, So I have to remember the
task and then I have to continually bring my focus
back to task at hand, Task at hand. This is
what we're doing. Task at hand, um, task initiation. So
it's getting started now. A lot of that is related
to lower levels of dopamine, so like getting started on
the task is very difficult, and it's also related to
(33:18):
the flexible thinking like transitioning into it right organization, which
I think goes without saying. If you've ever seen somebody
with a d H D S car or well, maybe
yours is beautiful, I mean brand new, like it looks
brand new, like there's not anything. Okay, A typical a
d H D car is going to be um kind
(33:41):
of like I don't know if you've ever pictured a
dumpster fire. It should be like that. It's gonna be
like that. Okay, But here's the one where um, you
and I can really focus in on And this is
the last one prioritizing and planning. So somebody with a
d h D is going to hear all of the
(34:01):
tasks at the same volume level. So I want you
to think about that. I love that that image. Yes,
I think it's really helpful. Let's say you have fifteen
tasks to complete and they're all varying importance. Logically, your
brain knows, I know that the work project is more
important than the dishes, obviously, right, your brain knows that
(34:25):
the dishes can sit there. The work project as a
deadline needs to be done. But in an a d
h D brain, the volume level on those two tasks
is exactly the same. So if you think of let's
say you have fifteen tasks to complete in a day,
they're all set to a different radio station, but they're
all on the same volume. They're all kind of screaming
(34:46):
at you. Your focus is likely jumping from one thing
to the next, bouncing back and forth. Which one do
I start? Oh, this one's important, Oh, this one's important,
And so many people with a d h D. Pardon
the image look kind of like they're running around like
a chicken with its head cut off, like, Oh, I'm
gonna do this for five minutes, and I'm gonna do this,
(35:07):
and you're just kind of bouncing around because we don't
have the volume control of I'm going to turn down
the volume on these lesser important tasks, and I'm I'm
gonna blast the volume on this thing that has a
deadline that's in an hour, and so everything that is
screaming at us at the same volume, and it's very disorienting.
(35:28):
It's very confusing, it's very difficult to organize, you know,
where should I start, what should I do? What should
I give my attention to. And it's not because we're
not smart. It's not because we don't logically know what's
most important. But you said it best. My body just
feels so pulled to these lesser important tasks. And that's
(35:49):
exactly what it is. It's like instead of um, you know,
being able to really tune into the thing that is
the most important, it's just like everything is screaming at
me and I just need to, like, um, satisfy my
overwhelm by just kind of like running around and trying
to do all of them at the same time, which
we know does not work. We'll continue the interview on
(36:14):
the flip side of a quick message from our sponsors.
I have another question about going back to one of
these eight executive functions. So in terms of the black
(36:35):
and white thinking, hm, you know, I really want to
explore that more. That's something I've I've had my whole life,
so I'm I'm very interested in it. But for people
that may not know, or maybe they think they have
any eg or maybe they just want to understand it better,
I know, it's all or nothing thinking. It's kind of inflexible.
What is an actual like person suffering from black and
(36:56):
white thinking? What might they be thinking? And how does
that make them feel or what does that stop them
from doing? Even I love this question, and I think
that the best way to describe black and white thinking
is in the area of perfectionism. So perfectionism is the
most commonly endorsed thought distortion of a d H D Okay,
(37:19):
So what that means is research that Dr Russell Ramsay
has done shows us that although it's not a symptom
or an impairment of a d h D. It is
something that most adults with a d h D struggle with,
and so perfectionism can look like this, I have a
work project due tomorrow morning, and I'm missing three components
(37:43):
of it. So I shouldn't bother even finish this project
because it's black or white, all or nothing. Well, it's
not going to be done, it's not going to be perfect.
They're going to be mad at me anyway because I'm
missing these three components. So I'm just not going to
continue with it, right, right, And so all are nothing
(38:04):
thinking really prevents us from being able to just move
forward imperfectly and produce B minus work, which often is
like really amazingly good enough. But what we want to
do instead is say, since I can't produce A plus work,
I'm not going to even bother. It's not even worth trying.
(38:27):
It's not even worth putting my effort into. I'll just
go do the laundry, I'll just go through the dishes,
I'll just go do these other tasks that are screaming
at me at the same volume. Right, And so that
is where I see all or nothing or inflexible thinking
really coming into play. Is in the area of perfectionism
because um the idea and it's just kind of like
(38:51):
ingrained in us that if we and what I mean
by that, I did this like big motion, it's like
in our bodies, like if if I cannot complete this
to the level that I think I'm going to receive
praise and zero criticism, that I'm not even going to
bother to finish it, I'm not even gonna I'm gonna
figure out a way to hand it in late I'm
(39:12):
going to figure out a way to be sick tomorrow.
I'm going to figure out a way to avoid it
at all costs. Oh, I'm just stood of that. You know,
like charm, Most of us A D T years are
very charming. So I'm going to charm my way out
of it because I know that it's not going to
be a plus work And so I can't even bring
myself to produce something that is what I am um
(39:33):
qualifying as like a lesser a lesser quality. And so
I love the use of perfectionism because I think it's
the secret enemy in all anxiety recovery. And I think
people don't want to start because they don't like to
hear well, it's something you can live with. But for me,
(39:55):
it's like living with it has almost just kind of
made it go away. But anyway, I know it's like
sort of a side note of what you're saying. But
I love the perfectionism. Now I'm learning a new thing
is black and white thinking, Yes, it's so cool to
put those two things together. Yeah, because I think a
lot of people think perfectionism is oh, she's type A,
(40:15):
she does everything perfect. It's literally the opposite. It's like
this person that you would never think to call it
perfectionists because you know they don't turn their work in.
It's because they're perfectionists. So many people who are not
functioning are not functioning because they are perfectionists. Yeah, that
makes so much sense. And so thinking about like when
(40:40):
you were talking about emotional control, like self soothing after
you know, an emotional explosion or some kind of just
anything emotional. I was thinking back to, like I think
it was a long time. I was in my early
twenties and there was a writing job that my agent
had told me about and said, you know, you have
to write like a sample script and you know, I
(41:02):
have a few days to do it, and I'd just
gone through a breakup like that day and I never
wrote it, and she was like, don't ever let you
know something like that get in the way of going
for something again. And I was thinking, yeah, yeah, but
it was so in my body that I couldn't. It
wasn't that I was like writing, but thinking thoughts, Oh,
(41:24):
I I'm sad. It was I don't know how anyone
would have written it was like the flu or something,
you know, I mean, not the same symptoms, but I
was so overwhelmed and that I would have had to
self soothe before I started writing. But I didn't know
how or I didn't even know that was happening. I
just thought when I was going through everybody had, so
I just in my head made up, Oh, my agents
(41:44):
never been through a breakup, so she doesn't know it's sorking,
you know, I had no idea. And so now looking
back on things like that, you know, I can reframe
it as like, oh, that was that kind of a
d h D lack of self soothing and so like
for anyone listening. I know I did just kind of
describe it, but like, what does that mean when someone
can't self soothe? And and does that make sense to
(42:05):
you that it was so in the body that it's
like not in the mind, right, Yes, So first of all,
it completely makes sense. And then second, you know, so
many of us with a h D did not grow
up in families where there was any emotional intelligence or
(42:26):
any conversation about emotions. Most of us were invalidated, um
when we had feelings, most of us because those emotional
explosions made our parents or caregivers feel a type of way,
they often wanted to shut it down, and so we
(42:46):
never were taught how to experience an emotion. I'm just
saying most um, in my experience, I really haven't met
one dar who's like, oh no, I from a family
with a very high emotional intelligence, and it was taught
from a young age how to experience emotions in my body,
and I know exactly how to self sooth. Like I've
(43:09):
never met one, and I've coached thousands of people. So
I was going I would say that like the only
I'm like somewhere in the middle where it's like my
family didn't denying anything, but they all had a d
h D. I think I'm diagnosing my parents. They were
so emotionally reactive, and then I'd being emotionally and everyone
was just emotionally reacting like popcorn popping, and it was
totally acceptable, but we just never like discussed it or
(43:31):
went further. So like everyone has their explosion and then
you just kind of forget about it and you keep going.
You know. It was like, so that was like my modeling,
and I was like, oh, what, we don't act like this,
like when you get out and you meet other people
and what are you doing. It was like it's like
almost worst to have it encouraged. Yes, oh my goodness.
So when you're experiencing something so big in your body,
(43:55):
most of us find it to be such an uncomfortable
experience that we really try to either resist it or um.
So that would look like trying to ignore it, trying
to avoid it, trying to push it away, trying to
distract ourselves from it, right, and so like it's kind
of still residing there with us, but we don't want
(44:16):
our attention on it because it feels so uncomfortable, or
we try to just like explode and get it out
of us, right, So that would be like reacting, which
sounds like that's how your family was, like just kind
of react, react, react, and like, so the big emotion
would come up, it explodes out of me. I kind
of throw it at you, and then we kind of
go about our business and we're all fine, exactly fine. Um.
(44:41):
The biggest thing that I have learned in the last
five to ten years, and the thing that I try
to teach my clients UM and I think gives them
so much power, is the ability to really process and
feel our emotions. And people don't understand, Like they come
into an A d h D coaching program and they're like,
(45:01):
where are my tips and tricks? And I'm like, I'm
not that kind of coach like you. I'm not going
to teach you anything that you can google. You already
know this stuff. But what you can't learn from the googles,
like what you need an actual human to teach you
is like how do you process an emotion? How to
expand yourself big enough to make room for this emotion.
(45:23):
And so the technique that I teach my clients is
called the surf technique. I learned it from Dr Sasha Heinz.
I adore her. You can go look correct okay. So
SURF stands for stop okay. So the first thing is
just like like stop, could you just like and stop right. So,
like so many times you're feeling this big emotion and
(45:44):
we just want to like gog, google, gogle, and I
want to like move around to all the different things
so that I don't have to feel this in my body.
First thing to stop and then let the emotion they
use for unfold. Let it unfold in your body. Now,
this is the hardest part because we don't want it
and team that we don't want to feel it. We
think that an emotional experience is like a problem, like
(46:07):
I need to solve this, what's the what's the solution here?
And it's not a problem, it's an experience to be had.
You are an emotional being and you are having an
emotional experience. This is very normal. So let it unfold
in your body. The best way that I can describe
that is if you picture the emotion like, let's say,
in your chest, and you just take a deep breath
(46:28):
and try to expand the space around the emotion. So
you're just trying to create space around it. You're not
trying to get rid of it. You're just letting it
exist within you and you're just creating more space for it.
Like I have the capacity for this to exist within me,
I don't have to resist it. I don't have to
(46:50):
distract myself from it, and I don't have to vomit
it on anyone else. You can just be here with me,
in my body, and so I just let that experience unfold.
So maybe I take like five deep breath and I
just let that happen, and eventually the emotion will recede.
So that's the r okay, eventually that emotion will recede.
(47:11):
Once it does recede, the F is for like figure
it out, find the name. Either find the name of
it if you didn't know what the emotion was, find
like the couple of thoughts causing the emotion, like what
what's the really going on here? Why was it there
with you? Most of us want to do that before
we've processed the emotion. Why am I feeling this? What's
(47:34):
going on? I need to solve this problem? Right? But
instead just like really experiencing the emotion, letting it unfold
within you, and then when it recedes, then you can
do all of that figuring out stuff. Find the name,
why was it here? What is it here? To teach me?
And I know that sounds like a long process. But really,
(47:54):
in five minutes you can gain so much power back
because you've really allowed that emotion two exist within you
and then recede. And maybe you'll have to do that
five times, ten times a day, but what it allows
you to do is function. So, Okay, I need five
(48:15):
minutes to process this, but now I can go on function.
I can go write my piece. Oh here it is again,
I need to process it. Okay, now I can go
back to functioning rather than letting your whole day be
hijacked by that intense emotion. And I love that you
said you know, it seems like, oh, it seems like
this long thing, but it's really five minutes. Even when
you just said stop, I could feel that in my body,
(48:38):
like oh yeah, you know, because I'm always like fluttering
around doing a million things, and it's like just stop,
just stop, Like even if I'm not feeling some intense emotion,
like have I just just stopped like for no reason,
you know? And that can be so powerful in and
of itself that I can see where that wouldn't take
that long to do that you that are and f
(49:01):
I love that you said up because I always ask
people for like tips and tricks and things like that,
and I love that you don't have the typical a
d h D tips and tricks like this is as
we said, like, um, a NERD developmental disorder that impairs
your ability to regulate yourself, including your attention and your emotions.
That's what I got from your show, And I love
(49:21):
that we kept it on that topic because I think
it will be a relief for some people to hear that,
like there's an emotional part to this anxiety bites will
be right back after a quick little message from one
of our sponsors. Why do you think people have such
(49:44):
latent life diagnosis of a d h D. I don't
mean latent life like, but you know, it's not like
for the people that don't have the kid kind jumping around.
Why do you think it takes till people in like
thirties and forties too get diagnosed. Is it is that
the person just not even realizing it something that needs diagnosing,
so they don't ask anyone, or is it like hard
to figure out? Well, women specifically are diagnosed much later
(50:09):
in life. So the median age for a woman being
diagnosed is thirty eight wow, thirty eight years old, So
I learned that from Dr Patricia Quinn, who is just
like a giant um when it comes to a d
h D. And so that is wild when you think
about that, and I think that there's two answers. I
(50:31):
think for females, Um, there's such a stigma and um,
what is the word. Oh gosh, there's no words coming
to my brain. I'm so sorry. Oh I love it.
This is me all the time. Oh my god. It's
a very simple word too, it is not it's not
a very intellectual word. But anyway, there's such a stigma
(50:52):
around a d h D UM where people just think
it's for boys and not just boys, little white boys.
So it's little white boys, right. And so when a
girl is presenting with being spacey, being highly reactive, having
trouble self regulating, being perfectionistic, like all of those things
that really show up for girls and women, they're not
(51:15):
clinicians are not really understanding it d h D. And that, um,
you know, it's important to assess girls for it d
h D. So that's that. So the reason why many
women are being diagnosed later in life is because they
usually will reach a certain point in their life where
their coping skills are just no longer working, got it.
(51:38):
So it's just like you've had all your kind of
maladuptive skills for so long that you hit a wall exactly.
And so maybe you hit perimenopause, or maybe you you
did find in college, but now you're going to grad
school and that's like you know, ship show or like
something like that. I think that, Um, there's also a
lack of self awareness. So in general, with people with
a d h D, there's a really huge lack of
(52:00):
self awareness. And so by the time somebody finally hits
thirty and their brain kind of catches up and finally
develops into a fully formed human brain. Um, that's when
more of the awareness is available to them, and so
they will be more willing to seek out a diagnosis.
So I learned from Dr Russell Barkley that the a
(52:22):
d h D brain is about um thirty percent behind
developed mentally than a neurotypical brain. Wow huge. So that
means that our brains are not fully formed until we're
in our thirties, and so that's when the awareness and
the AHAs usually start. Is my thirties that I am
(52:46):
seeing that all over the and that was my story
as well it's now mine. Now that I know that,
I'm like, oh that makes sense, yes completely, And so
like any of you who know a d h D
kids or teens, Like if you think of an a
d h D teenager, like a thirteen year old is
really acting so immature like a nine year old. And
(53:10):
that makes sense because the a d h D brain
develop mentally is just behind. It just takes so much
longer for them to catch up. So an a d
h D college student is really acting like a mid teenager, right,
And so when you think about that, you're like, okay,
that makes a lot more sense. So those who were
not diagnosed in childhood, who didn't have teachers or coaches
(53:31):
or parents who were really aware. And on top of it,
we're often not diagnosed until our thirties or forties or
fifties or sixties. I have people in my program who
are diagnosed in their seventies, God bless them, Like it
is never too late to be diagnosed. Um, And that's
usually because the self awareness is finally there and slash
(53:53):
or their partner, their boss, somebody is like them, excuse me,
like you need to go to this okay, Like me
with my laundry exactly. Are you now someone who can
identify as an a d h D er. I'd love
(54:14):
to hear from you if if this episode affected you
in any way, please email me Anxiety Bites Weekly at
gmail dot com, and please do leave a review if
you'd rather do that on Spotify or iTunes or I
guess they call it Apple podcast. Now leave five stars.
You can leave a review, you can write anything that
you want. Follow me on social media at Jen Kirkman.
(54:34):
I'm there on Instagram and Twitter, and I post a
little audio grams from each episode. If you go to
my website you can read the bullet point takeaways that
I'm about to give to you right now for every episode,
and please tweet about the show, post about it on Instagram.
I would love it get the word out. The more
people that listen, the more people get better, and the
(54:56):
more people that get better, the less we have to
deal with people running around with undiagnosed anxiety without any tools.
All right, takeaways from my episode with Kristen. A d
h D simply stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which
Kristen finds to be a terrible name because again, a
d h D is a neurodevelopmental disorder that impairs one's
(55:21):
ability to regulate themselves, including their attention and their emotions.
A d h D is not inherently a deficit in attention.
People with a d h D yes their ability to
control or supervise their own emotions or intentions is impaired.
(55:41):
Although a d h D is technically a disorder, you
can look at it as a brain difference or just
a different way of functioning. But you are not neurotypical,
and thank God for that. A d h D impairs
our executive function. So what is that? Well, there are
eight executive functions that work together. So one is impulse control.
(56:06):
That's learning to curb your own impulses. So you have
a thought, you have an idea, and you might immediately
take action without having you know, a moment to stop
and think. You know, you don't think, is this something
I want to do? Will it lead towards my goal?
Does it make sense? Long term? You're basically a Ferrari
engine with bicycle breaks. Emotional control that's another executive function.
(56:30):
You can't self soothe after an emotional explosion. It could
even ruin your whole day. For example, you might not
even be able to get work done. And another executive
function that neurotypical people have that is difficult for a
d h dars is flexible thinking. A d h D
years are black and white thinkers. They're all are nothing.
Flexible thinkers. They go with the flow, they change plans,
(56:52):
they transition from one test to another. A d h
d ars may find themselves having a tough time transitioning
from one task to another, and to them, you know,
it's like everything is terrible or everything is amazing. They
often have to find ways to stay in the gray area.
Another executive function is a working memory or verbal working memory.
(57:13):
This can be tough for an a d h dear.
Neurotypicals kind of do this easily to keep themselves on task.
It's like having an inner conversation with yourself. It's your
mind's eye, your ability to see pictures and hold the
task in your mind long enough to get it done.
An a d h D person may remember something from
(57:33):
a long time ago, all of that time we went
to Disney World. But they're not going to remember to
stop for milk on the way home, even if they
have the best of intentions, and even if they thought
about it three times. Self monitoring is another executive function
that basically means staying on task and focusing on the
critical right thing, being able to notice when you're not
(57:53):
working according to your plan and you know. It includes
checking in with yourself, self evaluating and jesting and making
changes accordingly. This does not come easily to someone with
a d h D. Planning and prioritizing that's kind of
lumped together as one executive function. So a new typical person,
their brain looks at the day, assesses what needs to
get done, naturally puts things into priority order. The a
(58:15):
d h D brain, everything is on the same plane
and seems to have the same level of importance. Right
It's like what I was talking about with a work
deadline or my laundry that needs folding. It's all important
to us, and it's all screaming at us at the
same volume. We don't know where to start. A lot
of people with a d h D will go into
(58:36):
overwhelm and shut down task initiation as another executive function,
and that can be simply too much for someone with
a d h D. We have to muster up the
motivation for something and then organization as another executive function.
It includes not only organizing things, but our time, our money,
or thoughts, our friend groups. Again, this can be challenging
(58:58):
for someone with a d h D. So when one
or more of these eight executive functions are impaired, life
gets pretty difficult. A d h D is a spectrum disorder.
We don't all experience the same level of impairment and
in the same areas. People with a d h D
(59:18):
tend to have lower levels of dopamine firing off in
their brain. We have fewer dopamine receptors, so when we
are doing tasks like folding laundry that give us absolutely
no dopamine reward, it can be really difficult to muster
up that motivation and to get things done. Now, people
may misinterpret that as being lazy, but it really can
(59:42):
feel overwhelming. And so something that Kristen does is when
she knows that she's suffering from a lack of dopamine
and she has to do a task that not only
doesn't interest her, but it causes this sort of angst
about having to do it, she'll try to make it fun,
whether she is around with her kids or she puts
on a fun podcast to listen to. You know, you
(01:00:04):
might want to listen to music or put on a
crazy hat or something, but just something to make it
fun and to get some good vibes flowing. People UM
with a d h D are often diagnosed later in
life because it can take a little longer to realize
(01:00:24):
that you are not functioning at your full level. You
may have to actually hit a wall. For for a
lot of women, UM, they may not be diagnosed until
they're in their thirties. And it's said that the brain
of someone with a d h D takes a little
longer to develop than that of a neural typical person.
So some people say latent life diagnosis, you might be
(01:00:48):
right on time and pretty normal within the world of
people with a d h D. So again, I hope
this episode helped. I know it's certainly helped me and
I can talk about a d h D all day long.
All right, Well, tell a friend about the podcast, meet
(01:01:09):
me on social media at Jen Kirkman again, like I
said on Twitter, on Instagram, check out everything Kristen Carter
again linked in the show notes and yes, anxiety bites,
but you're in control. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
(01:01:31):
visit the I heart radio, app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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