April 18, 2025 • 51 mins
Kate and Oliver are convinced they both struggle with ADHD, and according to our guest Psychiatrist Dr. Ned Hallowell, they may be onto something!
Is ADHD based on your genetics? Is the propensity to procrastinate deep in your DNA? And, what can you do to find your focus?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I am Kate Hudson and my name is Oliver Hudson.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
We wanted to do something that highlighted our relationship.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And what it's like to be siblings. We are a sibling,
Railval No, no, sibling. You don't do that with your mouth.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Vely, that's good.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I am so excited too because of Adhd. I just
want to say one thing. I haven't had a drink
in a month. Yeah, a month. I haven't had a
drink in a month, and I'm not a cigarette in
a month.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
I'm so proud of you.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
It's a double edge though, because I'm going to be
sober on your birthday. I don't care. Damn it, you're
supposed to.
Speaker 5 (01:04):
That makes you. I'm going to toast to your sobriety.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
But then I'm going to go to Cabo.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
So just just take it easy, just enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I just I feel fucking great. I mean, I'm reading.
We'll go over all that.
Speaker 5 (01:20):
Yeah, let's do the guests on the We've.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Been waiting for this doctor ned Hallowell, which I think
is how we pronounce it, hallowell Hallowell.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
We'll find out.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
I am incredibly exciting because you talk about this a lot.
We talk about this a lot. I think ADHD is
like like like narcissism, like gaslighting, like all these like
you know, hashtag things.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
It is very very.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Overused to you know, to diagnose people. But I think
we come from a long line of people who have
certain types of things like dyslexia ADHD. And I'm really
excited to going to lay it all out.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
ADHD is hot right now? But is it too hot?
Is it? ADHD is as saturated the market?
Speaker 5 (02:14):
All right, let's invite him in.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Hello, how are you?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
I'm fine? Thanks, so are you?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
We're good. We're very excited to have you on.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Well, I'm excited to be with you. You guys. You
know you guys. Are you guys run the world?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, one of us is Kate's.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Your Kate, and the fellow with you is your husband.
Speaker 5 (02:41):
That's my brother, Oliver.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Oliver.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yes, but she did call me a Greek god when
we were young, so I did.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
I felt like he needed that kind of validation.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Well with you as his sister, no, wonder Well.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Now so I someone who understands me.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Oh my god, really you look like you're similar ages,
are you? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I'm older? So thank you? Really?
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Well, yeah, yeah, and you're so you see see if
I'm up on my People magazine you're married to a
baseball player.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
No, no, but I did date a baseball player once.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Okay, so that wasn't who No, you did not make that.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
That was really I think you're writing People magazine from
like two thousand and thirteen, nine nine.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
How did you get into this? It's really wonderful of
you to do it. I mean, you're trying to give
add the good name it deserves.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Or get get you go. Because we.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Come from a family of uh eighty people, Oliver and
I grew up. We grew up in you know, a
time same with my mom when people weren't putting a
name to what it was that made certain things really difficult.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
It was smart and stupid and try harder that's.
Speaker 5 (04:07):
Right, or figure a way around it, you know. And
I think people.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Who suffered from ADHD were sort of you know, you say,
like had had nothing to understand really what it was
except that, you know.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
For I think for Oliver and I it wasn't.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
About necessarily our intelligence or even our ability to get
it done. It was the procrastination. It was the last minute.
And I can speak for Oliver to you, we're very
similar like this, like you know, procrastinate till the last
last minute right before class, doing everything you can to
just get by. And yet when you kind of took
the time to do the work and were able to
(04:45):
have some sort of structure, would would have far more success.
But no tools to create structure. On top of that,
we didn't have the kind of family because I think.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
They all have the same thing.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
It really understood structure to help like help us through
whatever that was that we were struggling with.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
It was just like, you know, you're failing this class.
Figure it out.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
And and when I had my son writer, I realized
there was something going on when he was really young,
about three years old, about third grade, and I had
him assessed and it was the first time I really
understood ADHD is like a real like actually understood the
Bell curve where you could have and test like in
the nineties of intelligence, but your executive function could be
(05:36):
you know, under a seven percent.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
And how that we've.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Learned the jargon, I'm impressed. That's good.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yeah, well, I've had to help I've had to try
to help guide even amidst my own struggles.
Speaker 5 (05:47):
And then Oliver and I had this moment like about a.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Year ago where he all, he was like, I was
I think I afraid?
Speaker 5 (05:54):
Who said at first? But like we walk into bookstores,
we have the same experience.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
We're like, I want to read every book, and then
you pick up a book and it just like it
takes like a year.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, and in this moment right now, but yes.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
It just sits there and you try so hard. I've
figured out some tools. But anyway, we struggle with this.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
And so, by the way, I have not been I
don't know if you have, Kate, but I have not
been clinically diagnosed with anything at all.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Oh well, I could take care of that in about
ten minutes. But that, Oh that's another thing. It has
made people make it sound so complicated and it really isn't.
Have you read any of my books, by the way.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
No, no, but we because we don't have the focused No.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
No, I know, I know. But the last one is
only one hundred pages long.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Oh wow, I can do that.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
The express reason of people with add My first one,
Driven to Distraction, came out in nineteen ninety four. It
was too long. I mean, lots of people read it,
but or said they read it, but you know it
was just too long. But the recent ADHD two point
zero is only one hundred pages and most of most
people can get through that, and it's a total eye opener.
(07:02):
I'm telling you you will just jump for joy. It's
so not nearly as complicated as people think it is,
but it's much richer and much more. It's a way
of being in the world. I don't even think of
it as a medical diagnosis. Certainly. The term deficit disorder
is it's just wrong. We don't have I have the
(07:22):
condition along with thiss like sia. I don't have a
deficit of attention. I have an abundance of attention. My
challenge is to control it. My mind is going seventeen
ways all at once, and that's hard, you know. And
as you mentioned procrastination, the reason we procrastinate is we
(07:42):
crave high stimulation. We cannot do boredom. Boredom is our kryptonite.
We just can't do it. So one way of creating
high stimulation is to create a crisis. Well, one way
to create a crisis is to procrastinate. So if you're
getting something done at the very last minute, you've got
a big bullets of adrene on and adrenaline is uh
(08:02):
nature's own riddlin or adderall, you know, So you're you're
self medicating without meaning to self medication. That's why that's
why we also we love to get into arguments and
fights and difficult relationships and and god, I love It's
also why we're so unbelievably generous. We uh, we we
just we just give give give this just our our
(08:24):
our way of being. And it's such an interesting condition.
And and but to get rid of the pathology, no
deficit disorder, I mean I renamed it variable attention stimulus
trait and and the variability is the key. We are
never the same person day to day, minute to minute
even and we can be explosive one second, we're we're
(08:47):
rapturously in love, the next second, we're we're arguing back
and forth the next second. But we do have a
heart of gold unless we've been traumatized so much that
that has been beaten out. This but most of us
were unbelievably naive. I mean, I can't tell you how
many women I asked to marry me on the first date.
It's like, let's make it last, you know, And that's
(09:11):
so typical. You know, we're these babes in arms, and
you know, God looks out for us because most of
us are pretty norn talented, which is which is, which
is good.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
But when did you start this? Meaning when you were
young you had eighty HD or eighty D or whatever
the hell it was called.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Oh yeah, well I'm seventy five years old. Right, you're
supposed to say you don't look it, right, but you.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Don't look it. Yeah, you look you don't look at
day over fifty eight.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Thank you. But so when I was in school, I
went to school in Chatham Down and Cape caught.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
It and that was a very you know, I got
my ID stolen in Chatham. Oh no kidding, I sure did.
I had a fake ID and I was going into.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
That bar there. My wife is from there, My my
in laws are from Falmouth. I go there every year.
They're Bostonians, my wife. So you know, Chatham a good
old wasp.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Oh yeah, like you know, you know what I call
the WASP triad, alcoholism, mental illness, and politeness.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Exactly, that loss and the Chatham we we just we
called it a drinking town with a fishing problem. Yeah
that's all.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
So there, I am in first grade and I can't read,
and you're supposed to learn to read in first grade,
and they didn't. They didn't know from learning differences. They were,
like I said, smart and stupid and try harder. And
they actually to get you to try harder, they would
spank you. They spank kids in first grade and Chatham
back then. But I was so lucky. I had a
(10:46):
teacher by the name of missus Eldridge, and she lives
in my memory forever. She knew there was more to
kids having trouble reading, them being stupid, and there were
better ways to help them than punish them and humiliate them.
So what was my treatment plan? What was my IEP?
During reading period, We'd be sitting at these little roundtables
reading those exciting books he spot run and she would
(11:09):
just come over and sit down next to me. I
would feel so safe, you know, none of the other
kids would laugh at me as I would stand more
and stutter because I had the Mafia sitting next to me.
And that was my IEP. Now, by the end of
the year, I was the worst reader in the class,
but I was the most enthusiastic terrible reader. You know,
I really wanted to learn to read. And that's because
(11:31):
the part of my brain that has talent with words
was trying the best it could to inch its way
out because it hadn't been scared away by the punishments
and the shame and the ridicule. It hadn't yet reached
its critical mass, if you will. But at least the
door was still open because of that wonderful lady's arm. Now,
(11:54):
I ended up majoring in English at Harvard, and I've
while doing pre med and I've written twenty three book books.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
And wow, it.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Doesn't look like I have a reading disability, but I
sure do. It takes me forever to get through a book.
My wife says, I don't know how you know anything.
It takes me a lot. But it's it's like like
everything in this world, it's all paradoxical. You know, you
can do this, you can't do that, You want to
do this, you can do And as long as people
(12:23):
don't try to beat us into submission, we change the world.
Whoever invented the wheel definitely had add you know. And
Hollywood is add heaven as Wall Street, you know, and
wherever you find high intensity, high creativity, high emotional emotional
(12:45):
energy you'll find add. Like I said, the thing we
can't do is lack of stimulation, boredom. We just can't
do it. Deaf, we won't do it. We can't do it.
It's like it's our kryptonite.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah, it's so fucking true. I feel that so much.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
That's another thing we say a lot of fuckings. Yeah
the f bumps.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Really is that true?
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Oh yeah, because we have all this frustration that we
need to bleed out of it, you know, in one
way is to throw in an F bomb.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah. Did you use your experience, you know with that?
Did that propel you into your line of work?
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Oh? Well yeah? So then I go. I had this
distinguished academic career where nobody thought anything. I knew I
was a slow reader, but that hadn't been diagnosed because
I'd done so well. Nobody thought you, nothing can be
wrong with you. And the same with the ADD. I mean,
most people didn't even think ADD was real back then.
I mean I graduated from Harvard in nineteen seventy three,
(13:49):
and most people have never even heard of it. They'd
heard of dyslexia, but they didn't really know what that
was either, And so I just went ahead. You know,
and it was clear that I wanted to be a
psychiatrist because my father was crazy, you know, the lost pride.
My family was a family of drugs and lunatics, and
and you know, they were all well meaning though they
(14:14):
were they were nice, which matters, you know. And and
but I was on a mission. And that's another thing.
We're very mission driven that the two of you, you're passionate.
You you, it's what makes you so good. And so
my mission was to, uh, you know, give the strange
(14:34):
mind a good name. I'm proud to be the way
I am. I don't feel the least bit of shame.
I think other people should be envious. And the reason
is they don't have new ideas. Are what we have
in spades that other people don't have is this huge imagination.
We we don't realize how big it is because we've
always had it. We don't realize how dull most people are,
(14:56):
you know. And then and they just can't conceive.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Of It's so funny say that, because I always wonder
like my brain is so on fire. I mean, I
love my brain, but it's I'm thinking this in my
bad mamma. I'm creating scenarios that don't exist. I'm entering
worlds that I might have created just for and I'm like,
what am I doing right now? I'm playing out death
scenarios where my whole family is dead and I'm alone.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
I did that all the time. I'm just like, I
do the same thing.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
What am I doing? You know?
Speaker 5 (15:25):
Oh my god?
Speaker 1 (15:26):
That?
Speaker 3 (15:26):
And like every scenario, my brain wanders. And sometimes I'll
sit in bed when I'm really quiet and I'll think
of this like insane like fairy tale, like science fiction world,
and I'll be like a and then it's gone.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
I'm like, where did it go? I can't write it down.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Don't worry, It'll come back. You couldn't get rid of
it if you wanted to.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
I you know, I wonder my son has this thing
because he's he's you know, he he has the type
where like it takes.
Speaker 5 (15:58):
Him forever to wake up and morning and I don't know,
I don't know what that is. I'm like, I wake
up and I'm like, I'm shot out of a cannon.
Rider has this thing where.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
He Rider that's a great name. How old is he now?
Speaker 5 (16:12):
He's twenty one?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Oh boy? Oh my god?
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Yeah, yeah, so he's doing really great, but he's his
struggle is like to get up in the morning.
Speaker 5 (16:22):
It takes him forever.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Well, actually, that's pretty common. We have trouble shutting it
down at night. As I like to say, I don't
want to leave the party. Yeah, when we finally get
ourselves to shut it down in the morning, it raising
it back up again. Is my daughter, we had to
buy her a flying alarm clock so she hadn't get
out of the bed to turn it off.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Oh that's so funny.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Yeah, and what so that's basically because the brain's finally resting.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah, and it's just it's just for whatever whatever makes
our brain unusual, it doesn't like to be put down,
and then it doesn't like to be activated.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Are there different forms of adh Oh.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yeah absolutely, I mean it's it's certainly multi varied.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
No, no tools, I mean yeah, yeah, yeah. Talk about
that in just firs a second, because I want to
get into there's so many questions. But you know, you've
got first of all, ADHD seems hot right now. It's
like everyone is ADHD. My algorithm is all ADHD. You know,
from sort of the disastrous you know, to where their
suicide to sort of the you know, just this sort
of scraping of the surface of it. You know, So
(17:36):
how does the what's the spectrum?
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Well, first of all, it's so misunderstood. Like I said,
I could and if you read two point zero you'll
see it's going to Yeah, it's it's a way of
being in the world that is fundamentally different from other
people's way of being in the world. But there are commonalities.
So I mean, well, no two adds are the same.
You take us as a group, and you can see
(18:00):
that there's a lot in common. And where does non
add leave off and add begin. It's sort of like
where does day leave off and night start? You know,
there's a long period of dusk, and so it is
with this condition. You can't say exactly where, but you
(18:20):
sure can say there's a difference between night and day.
You know, there's no doubt about that. So people who
like to say, well you can't tell, well, that's true.
You can't tell at what time we go into night,
but you can say midnight is different from noon. And
that's the way it is. With this condition. We were
tremendously varied. We tend to be very creative, passionate, generous.
(18:43):
Like I said, impulsive. But by the way, the three
so called definings in the diagnostic manual, you know, this
condition is classified as a mental illness, which is ridiculous.
We should all be so mentally ill anyway. The three
defining qualities that make up the definition or distractability, impulsivity,
(19:05):
and hyperactivity, Well take each one of those and turn
it on its head and you get a positive that
you can't buy or teach. The flip side of distractability.
Of distractability is curiosity. You know, what's that? What's that?
What's that? Yeah, you're being distracted, but you're being distracted
because you're so curious. You want to know what's that,
(19:26):
what's in there? What you're constantly When I was a kid,
they called me the question box and they say, oh,
here he comes. Better to get out of the way.
You know, he's going to wear you at with all
his questions, you know. And then and then impulsivity. Oh
that's so bad, he's so impulsive. We'll give me asking
to marry me. On the first daid over and over again.
What is creativity? But impulsivity gone right? You don't plan
(19:50):
to have a new idea. They pop spontaneously impulsively. You know,
and and and you can't on demand say okay, now
be creative. I mean you as an actor must feel
that all the time your best moments or your ad libs,
or your your you know, where did that come from?
You know? And and and then the third one, hyperactivity
(20:11):
you get to be My age is called energy. I'm
really glad I've got this little turbo pack on my back.
So what I'm trying to tell the world is get
it out of the Diagnostic Manual of Madness the DSM,
and put it into the Diagnostic Manual of Life like Shakespeare.
I mean, you know, and and uh, because that's where
(20:33):
it ought to be. It's it's a variant on the
theme of normal, but it's very much not normal. I mean,
you know, most people don't have it and don't have
I tell I tell people I don't treat uh, I
don't treat disabilities. I help people unwrap their gifts. Yeah,
this is a gift that does not unwrap itself.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
And when you're talking to you, do you usually would
you work with an old and children or I mean,
do you work with people anymore?
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Oh? Yes, Oh I love it, and both children and
adults more adults now than kids, although kids for sure.
Most people bring their kids to me to have me
unbrainwash them, you know, tell them that there's actually a
lot of good about this and you're not a las,
you know, and yeah, and they just sit up in
their chair. It's like it's like sprinkling fairy dust. I mean,
(21:22):
they just suddenly you can see them. It's like those
things enemies. You put them in a bottle of water
and they just blossom. Well, that's that's what these kids
do when they hear the truth about who they are.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
So so there's two parsons. There's hearing the truth, which
is which makes your back go up strater, Yeah, but
then there's implementing sort of the lessons or the the
tactics to bring out the best in your add So
that's why you.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Need You need three things. You need knowledge, which you
get like we're doing now. You need structure because we
get up time and go to bedtime a few you
know creative people who say I don't like structure, I say, yes,
you do. Look at shape. You look at Shakespeare and Mozart.
They worked within the tightest most structured forms you could imagine,
and within that they created infinite variety. So structure and
(22:12):
creativity go hand in hand without one. Without structure, you
have chaos. With structure, you create beauty. And then and
so that you need information. You need structure. Uh, you
need a coach, and that could be a teacher, a parent,
a therapist, a doctor. Somebody really understands what Missus Eldridge
(22:35):
was for me. She didn't know from add but she
knew a talented kid when she saw one, and and
helped draw that out. And then and then the then
the question of medication, which is so misunderstood. Medication is
like eyeglasses. When it works, you see clearly. When it
doesn't work, that doesn't work, and that's okay, you don't
(22:55):
have to have it. It's it's not necessary. But when
it works, it's a godsend. It's an absolute godsend. People,
you know, people say, well, I'd rather try try without
medicine for a few years, and I say to them,
that's fine. I've written books about how to unwrap the
gift of add without meds. But it's sort of like saying,
why don't we do a few years of squinting before
(23:17):
we try eyeglasses? You know, why not try the proven
remedy that will make all the non medication remedies that
much easier to use. People are amazingly neanderthal or just
skittish when it comes to medication, and well they should be,
because there's a lot of bad meds out there.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
You know, for sure, I get nervous about me. I
get nervous about like kids on adderall and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
I don't know why I should get nervous, but that's
why it's so important to see a good doctor. And
there aren't that many to find. You know, a lot
of people say they know about it and how to
treat it, but they really don't.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
How many different add meds are there. I know there's
like vive ants and there's adderall.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
It's probably fifteen, but the basic two the core too.
And this is very reassuring news. Guess what year simula
was first used to treat what we now call add
Let's make a wild guess.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Okay, I'm going to say eighteen fifty, eighteen, eighteen nineties.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I'm going to say you are nineteen thirty nineteen thirty seven, right,
nineteen thirty seven, eighteenth century, But you're right. I was.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I went to like I went to this like pharmacy
that was like in the wild West. That was like
an old mock up, and they had they had all
kinds of medications that we had no idea.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
Like was like, whoa, look at all this stuff. And
that was eighteen ninety six or.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Something in the nineteen thirty zero. Was that medication actually
targeting attention? No?
Speaker 1 (24:46):
No, no, no, nobod you've heard of that? No, no, no,
it was that was what it was targeting was the
one symptom you can't ignore, which is disruptive behavior. God,
it was boys who were throwing chairs around.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
And what was that medicaid amphetamine? It was infinamine.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Adderall yeah, yeah, and it worked wonders and the kids,
and far from not wanting to do well, they loved it.
They called it their arithmetic phill till now they could
finally memorize these infernally boring math facts that they'd literally
been unable to do before. They were so boring. You
give them some amfetamine and they're sitting down there, humming,
(25:24):
and they're happy because everyone wants to do well, and
they were doing well. They'd gotten their eyeglasses.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
And the medication when it works or it doesn't, work
like I guess, it just has to sort of coincide
with your chemistry and it's got to work correctly. I
took adderall one time at Coachella where a friend's like, dude,
take an adderall. It's fucking brad, And I took it
and I hated it. I was like, I feel like shit.
My wife is takes Vivance and it's a game changer.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
She's on Vivans.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
She gets Yeah, she gets everything fucking done. She takes
it as needed.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
You've seen how dramatic it can be.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
I have and I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna
take Avance. I'm gonna make a I'm gonna fucking make
a float plan. I'm gonna take up. I'm gonna do
my ship. And I took a vive Vance and I'm like,
oh man, I don't know good. I don't like this.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Okay, what was it? What? Let me know? What was
the dose? Oh gosh, that makes a big difference. Before
you give up, right before you give up on it,
just check the dose, because what these mens do is
very dose related.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Yeah. The lowest is like ten milligrams five vans.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
The lowest is I think they have a five now,
but yeah, you know it. Basically it's an increments of
ten milligrams up to around seventy.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Okay, but there's no such thing.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
By the way, the pharmacists don't understand this. But there's
no number diagnosis that is by definition too high. You
assess whether the dose is too high or too low
by what it does to you. If it makes you wacky,
then the dose is too high. If it does nothing,
then the dose is too low. And again we need
(26:57):
a sudden attack of common sense to you know, for
this all to be resolved.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Well, the timing of this is interesting because I have
never gone to a doctor. I've been in therapy all
my life, but I've never been clinically.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Diagoned over what Kate did to you as a little boy.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Well to get over what I did to her the
other way around. But I've but you know, I've called
a few friends and they've said, oh, you need to
see this person, and I got in touch with someone
and it was this long, crazy testing in this I'm like,
I don't want to.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Do all this and you shouldn't have to.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
So then how is one sort of quickly diagnosed? Like,
how do we know whether we have this, you know, gift.
Let's just reframe it, Yeah, like.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
How can you distinguish between.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Someone who knows it as well as I do? And
by the way, don't tell people that I said I
can diagnose you in a half an hour because they'll
think I'm a crack. But I absolutely can. I mean,
I can honestly diagnose someone the minute they walk in
the room. I can feel it emanates alf of them.
I can feel a fertile imagination when I'm with one.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
So are we? Are we all crazy? Am I? Am
I officially diagnosed?
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Yes, West? Can I ask.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
You about Can I ask out the correlations with.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
ADHD or ADD and anxiety and depression?
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Oh yes, let me tell you. I mean again, it's
it's obvious and very straightforward.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
And sorry interrupts you, but I suffer. I'm on twenty
milligrams of lexipro because anxiety has been a at an
issue in my life.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
And I think we should realise that. Do you still
have libido?
Speaker 2 (28:36):
By the way, too much? Babe?
Speaker 1 (28:41):
The problem with SSRIs is they diminished libido and they're
cognitively dulling. You lose a few IQ points and I
don't think that's worth it unless you really needed So.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
No, I was real quick. Sorry, I tried to wean
off of it, and I did it correctly, and I
was so fucked up. I had to back on because.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
You need it. So you're one of the people who
needs it, and it's a good thing we have. It's
just widely overused. But the relationship between the relationship between
the two is as follows. If you can't focus and
get organized and do what Kate earlier called correctly executive function,
you can't do that. It's such a fundamental part of
(29:22):
everyday life. You're going to be anxious. What am I
going to miss? What am I going to overlook? Who's
going to call me out next? What am I going
to get in trouble for? And you're you're walking around
like you know, oh my lord.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
You're like in a constant state of failure, like you're
just failing.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Exactly, exactly exactly, and that feels like shit. So not
only are you anxious, but you're in a low grade depression.
It's not really depression as it is anxious apprehension that
you know you're not feeling good about yourself or about
your life. Well, that's going to look like depression. So
you get diagnosed with these two artifacts caused by the
(29:58):
untreated add of anxiety and depression, and what happens almost always,
particularly with adult women, you get put on an SSRI
to treat the side to treat the effect of the
untreated ad D. To treat the anxiety and depression, you
get put on an SSRI that has all kinds of
side effects that are undesirable. So if instead you treated
(30:21):
the add first, then you'd feel more focused, so you
wouldn't be so anxious, and your your achievement would go
up so you wouldn't feel so depressed.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
I think, Oliver, this is a really interesting thing.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
I am like, this is my favorite podcast ever. And
by the way, I want to be friends. Like I
just want to put that out there. I don't know
where you live.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Where live just outside of Boston.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Okay, good, I'm there. I'm there for three weeks during
the summer. Come hang out, like, oh you can, I'd.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Be the toast of the neighborhood. You know who he knows? Wow?
Speaker 3 (31:04):
I really, I really I really want Like, how can
a parent okay who can't afford to see have their
child see somebody but notices this and their child, like.
Speaker 5 (31:15):
How how do they support their how do they support
their child? Like, what's the best way to reach it?
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Because I know how hard I know how hard it is,
and uh, you know, to to even just to even
just to know that you're what what it is that's
going on with your kid? Like, how can like someone listening,
like what can they do that can make just just
like one thing or something simple that they can clue
(31:43):
into for their kids.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Well, knowledge is incredibly powerful. And if they would read
two point zero the most Reasons the shortest, I mean
people really, they start crying ten pages into the book.
Chapter one lays out what it is. Isn't holy shit?
You know why didn't someone tell me this? And it
saves marriages, it saves childhoods, it saves jobs, it saves careers.
(32:08):
I mean people get fired right and the left because
of the impulsivity that comes with add or they get
kicked out of school and they get chalked up as
bad seed or you know, the devil's animo. All it
is is imagination run wild. The analogy I give kids
that say, it's like you've got a Ferrari engine for
a brain. You've got this incredibly powerful race car for
(32:29):
a brain. The problem is you have bicycle brakes. Well,
I'm a break specialist. I'll help you strengthen your breaks
so you won't drive through stops on so you won't
spin out on curbs, so you'll win the races. You're
a champion in the making, but you got to strengthen
those breaks first.
Speaker 5 (32:46):
Olie, is this making you emotional a little?
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah? I mean it's just so spot on, like I
just relate to it entirely, and just you know, we were
talking about before you came on. But you know, I
haven't had a drink in a month. I haven't had
a cigarette in a month, and for me, that's big.
I might be a lower case a alcoholic. I definitely have,
you know, impulsivity issues, addiction sort of, it's I can
(33:12):
feel that it's a part of you know, So actually,
Kate asking that, you know, I've never been more clear.
I feel like I'm on my brain is on fire
now with sort of this, the fog has lifted and.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Your best work is ahead of you. Are you an
actor as well?
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Or yeah? Yeah, yeah, so this is this is part
of I have so many questions. But you know, for
me personally, I we have. We have an extremely talented family,
and everyone is in this business. Yeah I am the
most talented, but I am I I'm the most talented
(33:49):
I could be. I could win in a world wards
as actor, I could directing by.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
The most modest on top of them.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah. Yeah, but if there's so much inside of me
that I want to get out, but it's so difficult
because I get overwhelmed and quit. You know, I don't
know how to access it, and it's frustrating because I
know how great I am.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Well, wait, you guys, I have to I have to
interrupt this because my son just facetimed me and I said, honey,
I'm on a podcast.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Guys, amazing.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
We're talking with an ADHD expert. And he writes, I
hope he's making me sound like the genius I am.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Right now, Well, writer Rider, her son is a lot
like me, a lot like.
Speaker 5 (34:41):
I think the most like you.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Raised them right. Sadly, they're like two percent, you know,
ninety eight percent get told from day one that they're
bad boys, bad girls there. They know fluts, their hyper
sexual their addicts there.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
I'll never forget when my son came home in sixth
grade and and writer, funny, popular, cool, makes everybody laugh, Like,
and he just came home weeping.
Speaker 5 (35:09):
I'm so stupid. I can't. I'm so dumb.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
I'm and I and and I was like, what a
terrible Like you know when when it's your child and
you know how brilliant they are, it's like, thank God,
I'm not that kind of parent that needs excellence in
in in academics.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
She's like, I know, I recognize.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
The gift without without decorating it with grades, And.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Let me can I can I just get back to
this impulsivity thing again, because I because it can be dangerous,
you know, with gambling or drugs or alcohol or sex
or all of that. Right, Oh, all of it.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Absolutely, I've done all of those, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Right, So how how do you come out of that?
You know what I'm saying, Like, at what point are
you moving into real addiction stuff in one point? And
what point is it sort of your ADHD and impulsivity
taking over?
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Oh that's like the thing where does day leave off
the night begin? And one of the best rules of
life I ever learned was from my first year of
psychiatric training. Tom Gutal was his name, and he said
never worry alone, and that is so profound. Well, just
(36:25):
never worry alone. When you worry alone, you get into
worst trouble. That's when your worst introspections happen, when your
worst fears get confirmed, when you hate yourself, when you
behave impulsively, you get drunk, or attempts suicide or whatever
it might happen to be or you know. And so
if you if you have people, reliable, others, friends, whatever,
(36:50):
that you and that you're honest enough to tell them
the truth. You know, some of our stuff is not
exactly we want everyone to know about it. But if
you're brave enough, and that's the solution, is to not
worry alone.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
I love that I might get that tattooed on me.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
That's just the best.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Well, it's interesting because my kids, you know, wild are
my oldest.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
I'm like, what a good name for someone with add
His name is Wilder.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
His name is Wilder.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
And I'm like, do you think you have like a
d D? And he's like, oh, yeah, of course, he
goes there's no doubt, of course. But he's like but
he's just like kind of oh, he's cool with it.
He's like I don't. Yeah, of course the.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Guy he should be. I mean I brag about it.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
I tell people, yeah, and even Body my middle kids.
My middle boy's name is body.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
And Body or Brody Body.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Body bo d H. I like like Bodystockpham and and
you know, his brain is on fire and he's crazy
and he's like, oh yeah, yeah, I'm nuts. I know
they're all crazy, but there seems to be an acceptance
of their insanity, you know.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
And thank God, thank God, because we live in you know,
there's so many narrow minded people out there and they
do so much damage. But you know, you know, I
haven't believe in God, and people pin me down about that,
and how can't you believe in God? It's a fairytale.
I say, well, you believe in love, don't you? And
most people say yeah. I say, well, God is love.
(38:14):
It's just that simple, you know.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Now, I'm with you. I'm not. I don't know. But
is God a person in the sky.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
No, it's a spirit. It's a force. It's an invisible force, right,
but like gravity is an invisible force.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
I still want to understand something that a parent can
do to help their child, Like what is something like
tangible something they could start.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Kate just what I've been saying. Teach them about their brain,
teach them read read. I wrote a shorter book recently.
It's called adhd Explain and and it's got illustrations, and
I mean, it's even shorter, it's even easier to read.
But it's not watered down. It's not like a children's book.
It is in the format but people. And it's wonderful.
(39:12):
So you can read that with them and then and
then it can't be done in one sitting. It's it's
over the course of a childhood, of a lifetime and
and and it's a matter of delving. I still discovered
parts of myself I didn't know. I mean, and it's
a wonderful exploration to finding out, you know. And it's
plus and minus pain and pleasure. I too had a
(39:36):
major drinking. I wasn't alcoholic, but I looked forward to
my drinks every day. And then about five years ago,
without planning or even wanting to, I just stopped. I
had no idea. It was the grace of God because
I was I was trying to start a new book
and the title of it is You're better than you
think you are. And I think my brain knew that
(39:56):
I do better off alcohol than So.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
How much would you drink when you came home on.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Your average day? I mean more than two beers I'll
say that. You know, I'd go out for dinner and
I'd have two or three martinis yeah, and two or
three glasses of wine.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
And before I got married, well that was thirty five
years ago. But even when I was dating Soup, my
idea of heaven was to go out with a beautiful
woman and who was intelligent, and we would have amazing
conversation over several martinis and several cigarettes, and we'd settle
all the issues of the world. We'd harmal recreation.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
I mean, that was that was heaven to me, And
even as.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
I describe it now, it sounds pretty good. You know.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Yeah, God, I'm definitely visiting you this summer.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
Yeah, no, I mean what is that before we I
have one other question about like the hyper focused add
like the ones that go into hyper focus where they
can go, well, we all do.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
I mean, That's why I can write so many books.
I mean, but when we are creatively engaged, we are rock.
We are laser being focused. The building could be burning
down and we are not aware we are so there.
You're probably like that when you're acting, both of you.
I mean, when you're doing something creative that you want
to be doing, it can be incredibly difficult, like, but
(41:23):
you guys do it's very very you know what I
do writing, very difficult disciplines. But we love it and
so we focus on it, and we also hate it
because it's never I don't know about you, but it's
never as good as I want it to be. And
so it's like golf, and you're never as good as
you want it to be. But why do I play it?
Because nothing's better?
Speaker 2 (41:42):
How about that? Masters? By the way, Oh, by the way,
I'm gonna scratch golfer. I used to be a plus two.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Are you really? I'm inssed?
Speaker 4 (41:53):
I was.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
My eighty D sort of focused me on that when
I was in my late twenties and thirties.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Eighty eight. Golf is a great add sport because you
get another chance every time. Yeah, you know, I had
bet on malcol Roy and I thought I won that
I thought I lost.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
God what it was so great?
Speaker 5 (42:10):
It was so much fun to watch.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
You're a golf fan.
Speaker 5 (42:14):
You know what's funny? I love I got. I got
the bug about a year ago.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
Now I'm really loving playing golf, and now I love
watching I've never enjoyed it, and now I like put
on even like you know the Ladies PGA, and I
watch it like, oh.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
No, it's incredible control over all these moving parts. A
beautiful golf swing is beautiful.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
And Rory's is my favorite golf swing ever.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Ollie, Ollie, the Greek god that he is, has an
amazing golf swing.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Who's Allie? Is he?
Speaker 5 (42:53):
Oliver is the person that you're talk Ollie? Oliver my brother? Yeah,
he's Oliver.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Oh yeah, yeah, we got to work on that add But.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
It's really touching and obvious how much you love each other.
That's it's really yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Do you have other siblings?
Speaker 3 (43:12):
No, we have We have siblings. We have three, so
it's four of us that all grew up together. So
me and three brothers including Allie and then Oliver and
I all together, we have six siblings.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Oh we halves, there's halves in there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
And are your are your parents creatives too?
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (43:30):
Every single one?
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Yeah, that's wonderful. What and you grew up in California?
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Yeah, in Colorado.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
You're both in your forties.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
I'm forty eight. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Wow, you have to write this at some point, you know, I.
Speaker 5 (43:45):
Know we should.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Well, that's what's fun about this podcast is being able
to sort of connect in a different way, you know,
Katie and I being able to have these conversations with
you and other people, and you learn about yourself, you know,
as we go through this process of the podcast, this
has been amazing. I cannot wait to read your book,
that hundred pager and I feel like as a d
(44:07):
as add gets more prominent, your books are going to
get shorter and shorter, the point where it's like you're
going to open up the book and it's like you
if you've bought this book, you have it. That's it.
But before we leave, I know we got to go,
but I want to ask a real quick question about
you know, how you've seen this, you know, this gift
(44:30):
grow and has it gotten has there been more? And
how much social media? How much technology is influencing this
or if it is at all?
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Oh my god, it is, like I mean, I it's
an answer to my prayers when I published Driven Distraction.
I have a very good friend who's a major player
in the in the publication world, and he said, ned,
don't get your hopes up. This book is not going
to change your life. And second, I don't like your time.
(45:00):
It sounds like a book about cars, and all of
those statements have proven to be very wrong. It's not
a book about cars. And it dramatically changed my life,
but more important, changed the lives of millions of people.
It's sold two million copies and still selling strong. And
then the other books I've written, they're not all about
(45:20):
add book about worry, a book about raising children that's
my favorite book, and a book about connection, a book
about my own crazy family. The title is because I
came from a crazy family, And that was my answer.
By the way, people would say, why did you become
a psychiatrist? Because I come from a crazy family. It's
(45:42):
I am so blessed and relieved and great. I mean
the fact that I'm talking to you, that means it's
going to move even more and the chance for truth
and knowledge to do good in this world. It's just
wonderful when you see it, because so often the opposite,
you know, held sway, But this is this is a
(46:05):
good news diagnosis. Unlike most medical diagnosis I can say
to my patients for sure, you will get better. How
much better I can't tell you, but I can promise
you you will your life will improve and and and
that's pretty wonderful feeling.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
You know, have you seen a spike, a growth, a
growth just TikTok?
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Yeah? You know? Have you seen me on TikTok? No?
Speaker 2 (46:32):
I haven't. But I'm wondering if, like you think that
tick because everyone says it does. But from a doctor standpoint,
does TikTok fuck you up?
Speaker 1 (46:39):
No? What? No? Yes, yes, and no. Social media can
fuck you up. It's and it's not just the content
of the social media. It's what you're not doing when
you're on social media. You're not playing baseball, you're not
having sex, you're not writing an you're not you know,
(47:02):
daydreaming lying on your back in the grass and daydreaming.
You're you're not doing all the things that your mind
is meant to do. And watching TikTok is pretty low
on the on the on the on the table of
what is good for you to do. And I say
that as someone who I've made like fifty TikTok things
about add but some of them are just so inane
(47:25):
and then people really do get addicted. They really do.
They if you define addiction as craving and then becoming
really violent when you don't get it, Yeah, TikTok addictions,
social media addiction is very real. But don't worry about that.
Just channel your kids and other kids into the garden
(47:46):
of delights that that life offers in a positive and
constructive way. You guys are you guys are the fairy
godmothers of this world. People look up to you and
follow you, and you happened. I can tell just in
talking to you. Happen to be good through and through. Uh,
You're You're honest, you're playful, you're fun, you're creative. You
happen to be very attractive, which never hurts, and you
(48:10):
know it's And you're doing your like this. You don't
need to do this podcast, You're you're doing it because
you want to do something useful, do something creative, and
you are. Yeah, I'm not buttering you up. I'm just
saying what I'm feeling.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
And that that made me feel so good.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
Well, I'm one going to buy your book right now
that I know me too.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
We've suddenly we've made new friends.
Speaker 3 (48:35):
When did your book two point zero come out two
years ago, and do.
Speaker 5 (48:40):
You have another one coming out soon?
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Well? As soon as some I mean, I keep polishing, polishing, polishing.
I've never put so much time into a book ever.
I've been working on it for a couple of years.
And like I said, the title is You're better than
You Think you are? And I just I see this
as a as a as a problem bigger than any
by far. There are just so many people out there
(49:04):
who sell themselves short. Yeah, you know, and they and
they give up too easily because they just don't have
that faith in themselves. And it almost always comes back
to they don't have the right people encouraging them. It
is just very hard to pull yourself up by your
own bootstraps. And they have the talent, they have the goodness,
(49:25):
they have the motivation, and and they they just in fact,
the book, the first line of the book is how
do you convince a person that it's Sunday when it
is in fact Sunday.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
I love that, And then that's that's the conundrum that
so many people live with.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
It. Yeah, well, you two are very special and I
thank you for.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Thank you for I appreciation. This is really fun.
Speaker 5 (49:57):
Thank you so much. Have the best day and we'll
have you on again.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
Keep in touch, keep this going.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Take care.
Speaker 5 (50:04):
Yeah all right, thanks doctor, But how great?
Speaker 2 (50:09):
I love him. I want to be his friend. I
want him to mentor me. I wanted to take me
to the Promised Land whatever that is.
Speaker 5 (50:15):
I feel inspired me too.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
I'm gonna go like direct something and win on a war.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
But you know what you should say is that what
you want to do is get off your is reap
for me. Yeah, like what an amazing thing to be like.
Oh wait, I've been treating my symptom, not the actual problem.
Speaker 5 (50:38):
Yeah, so maybe you need to get off. Try to
get off of it. Not wait till after the summer.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
Don't ruin our summer.
Speaker 5 (50:48):
Let's let's not get weird. Increase.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
Yeah, maybe I'll start in like you know, when we
get home, like in August.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
Yeah, and like wean off and then and then try yeah,
try something else as long as you feel good about it.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
You know. Wow, that was cool.
Speaker 3 (51:08):
I know I hear way for a rider to hear
this one. Yeah, anyway, I loved it. I love you.
Speaker 5 (51:12):
I loved it.
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I am Kate Hudson and my name is Oliver Hudson.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
We wanted to do something that highlighted our relationship.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And what it's like to be siblings. We are a sibling,
Railval No, no, sibling. You don't do that with your mouth.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Vely, that's good.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I am so excited too because of Adhd. I just
want to say one thing. I haven't had a drink
in a month. Yeah, a month. I haven't had a
drink in a month, and I'm not a cigarette in
a month.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
I'm so proud of you.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
It's a double edge though, because I'm going to be
sober on your birthday. I don't care. Damn it, you're
supposed to.
Speaker 5 (01:04):
That makes you. I'm going to toast to your sobriety.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
But then I'm going to go to Cabo.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
So just just take it easy, just enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I just I feel fucking great. I mean, I'm reading.
We'll go over all that.
Speaker 5 (01:20):
Yeah, let's do the guests on the We've.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Been waiting for this doctor ned Hallowell, which I think
is how we pronounce it, hallowell Hallowell.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
We'll find out.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
I am incredibly exciting because you talk about this a lot.
We talk about this a lot. I think ADHD is
like like like narcissism, like gaslighting, like all these like
you know, hashtag things.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
It is very very.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Overused to you know, to diagnose people. But I think
we come from a long line of people who have
certain types of things like dyslexia ADHD. And I'm really
excited to going to lay it all out.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
ADHD is hot right now? But is it too hot?
Is it? ADHD is as saturated the market?
Speaker 5 (02:14):
All right, let's invite him in.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Hello, how are you?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
I'm fine? Thanks, so are you?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
We're good. We're very excited to have you on.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Well, I'm excited to be with you. You guys. You
know you guys. Are you guys run the world?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, one of us is Kate's.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Your Kate, and the fellow with you is your husband.
Speaker 5 (02:41):
That's my brother, Oliver.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Oliver.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yes, but she did call me a Greek god when
we were young, so I did.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
I felt like he needed that kind of validation.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Well with you as his sister, no, wonder Well.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Now so I someone who understands me.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Oh my god, really you look like you're similar ages,
are you? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I'm older? So thank you? Really?
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Well, yeah, yeah, and you're so you see see if
I'm up on my People magazine you're married to a
baseball player.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
No, no, but I did date a baseball player once.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Okay, so that wasn't who No, you did not make that.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
That was really I think you're writing People magazine from
like two thousand and thirteen, nine nine.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
How did you get into this? It's really wonderful of
you to do it. I mean, you're trying to give
add the good name it deserves.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Or get get you go. Because we.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Come from a family of uh eighty people, Oliver and
I grew up. We grew up in you know, a
time same with my mom when people weren't putting a
name to what it was that made certain things really difficult.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
It was smart and stupid and try harder that's.
Speaker 5 (04:07):
Right, or figure a way around it, you know. And
I think people.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Who suffered from ADHD were sort of you know, you say,
like had had nothing to understand really what it was
except that, you know.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
For I think for Oliver and I it wasn't.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
About necessarily our intelligence or even our ability to get
it done. It was the procrastination. It was the last minute.
And I can speak for Oliver to you, we're very
similar like this, like you know, procrastinate till the last
last minute right before class, doing everything you can to
just get by. And yet when you kind of took
the time to do the work and were able to
(04:45):
have some sort of structure, would would have far more success.
But no tools to create structure. On top of that,
we didn't have the kind of family because I think.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
They all have the same thing.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
It really understood structure to help like help us through
whatever that was that we were struggling with.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
It was just like, you know, you're failing this class.
Figure it out.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
And and when I had my son writer, I realized
there was something going on when he was really young,
about three years old, about third grade, and I had
him assessed and it was the first time I really
understood ADHD is like a real like actually understood the
Bell curve where you could have and test like in
the nineties of intelligence, but your executive function could be
(05:36):
you know, under a seven percent.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
And how that we've.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Learned the jargon, I'm impressed. That's good.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yeah, well, I've had to help I've had to try
to help guide even amidst my own struggles.
Speaker 5 (05:47):
And then Oliver and I had this moment like about a.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Year ago where he all, he was like, I was
I think I afraid?
Speaker 5 (05:54):
Who said at first? But like we walk into bookstores,
we have the same experience.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
We're like, I want to read every book, and then
you pick up a book and it just like it
takes like a year.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, and in this moment right now, but yes.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
It just sits there and you try so hard. I've
figured out some tools. But anyway, we struggle with this.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
And so, by the way, I have not been I
don't know if you have, Kate, but I have not
been clinically diagnosed with anything at all.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Oh well, I could take care of that in about
ten minutes. But that, Oh that's another thing. It has
made people make it sound so complicated and it really isn't.
Have you read any of my books, by the way.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
No, no, but we because we don't have the focused No.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
No, I know, I know. But the last one is
only one hundred pages long.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Oh wow, I can do that.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
The express reason of people with add My first one,
Driven to Distraction, came out in nineteen ninety four. It
was too long. I mean, lots of people read it,
but or said they read it, but you know it
was just too long. But the recent ADHD two point
zero is only one hundred pages and most of most
people can get through that, and it's a total eye opener.
(07:02):
I'm telling you you will just jump for joy. It's
so not nearly as complicated as people think it is,
but it's much richer and much more. It's a way
of being in the world. I don't even think of
it as a medical diagnosis. Certainly. The term deficit disorder
is it's just wrong. We don't have I have the
(07:22):
condition along with thiss like sia. I don't have a
deficit of attention. I have an abundance of attention. My
challenge is to control it. My mind is going seventeen
ways all at once, and that's hard, you know. And
as you mentioned procrastination, the reason we procrastinate is we
(07:42):
crave high stimulation. We cannot do boredom. Boredom is our kryptonite.
We just can't do it. So one way of creating
high stimulation is to create a crisis. Well, one way
to create a crisis is to procrastinate. So if you're
getting something done at the very last minute, you've got
a big bullets of adrene on and adrenaline is uh
(08:02):
nature's own riddlin or adderall, you know, So you're you're
self medicating without meaning to self medication. That's why that's
why we also we love to get into arguments and
fights and difficult relationships and and god, I love It's
also why we're so unbelievably generous. We uh, we we
just we just give give give this just our our
(08:24):
our way of being. And it's such an interesting condition.
And and but to get rid of the pathology, no
deficit disorder, I mean I renamed it variable attention stimulus
trait and and the variability is the key. We are
never the same person day to day, minute to minute
even and we can be explosive one second, we're we're
(08:47):
rapturously in love, the next second, we're we're arguing back
and forth the next second. But we do have a
heart of gold unless we've been traumatized so much that
that has been beaten out. This but most of us
were unbelievably naive. I mean, I can't tell you how
many women I asked to marry me on the first date.
It's like, let's make it last, you know, And that's
(09:11):
so typical. You know, we're these babes in arms, and
you know, God looks out for us because most of
us are pretty norn talented, which is which is, which
is good.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
But when did you start this? Meaning when you were
young you had eighty HD or eighty D or whatever
the hell it was called.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Oh yeah, well I'm seventy five years old. Right, you're
supposed to say you don't look it, right, but you.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Don't look it. Yeah, you look you don't look at
day over fifty eight.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Thank you. But so when I was in school, I
went to school in Chatham Down and Cape caught.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
It and that was a very you know, I got
my ID stolen in Chatham. Oh no kidding, I sure did.
I had a fake ID and I was going into.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
That bar there. My wife is from there, My my
in laws are from Falmouth. I go there every year.
They're Bostonians, my wife. So you know, Chatham a good
old wasp.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Oh yeah, like you know, you know what I call
the WASP triad, alcoholism, mental illness, and politeness.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Exactly, that loss and the Chatham we we just we
called it a drinking town with a fishing problem. Yeah
that's all.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
So there, I am in first grade and I can't read,
and you're supposed to learn to read in first grade,
and they didn't. They didn't know from learning differences. They were,
like I said, smart and stupid and try harder. And
they actually to get you to try harder, they would
spank you. They spank kids in first grade and Chatham
back then. But I was so lucky. I had a
(10:46):
teacher by the name of missus Eldridge, and she lives
in my memory forever. She knew there was more to
kids having trouble reading, them being stupid, and there were
better ways to help them than punish them and humiliate them.
So what was my treatment plan? What was my IEP?
During reading period, We'd be sitting at these little roundtables
reading those exciting books he spot run and she would
(11:09):
just come over and sit down next to me. I
would feel so safe, you know, none of the other
kids would laugh at me as I would stand more
and stutter because I had the Mafia sitting next to me.
And that was my IEP. Now, by the end of
the year, I was the worst reader in the class,
but I was the most enthusiastic terrible reader. You know,
I really wanted to learn to read. And that's because
(11:31):
the part of my brain that has talent with words
was trying the best it could to inch its way
out because it hadn't been scared away by the punishments
and the shame and the ridicule. It hadn't yet reached
its critical mass, if you will. But at least the
door was still open because of that wonderful lady's arm. Now,
(11:54):
I ended up majoring in English at Harvard, and I've
while doing pre med and I've written twenty three book books.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
And wow, it.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Doesn't look like I have a reading disability, but I
sure do. It takes me forever to get through a book.
My wife says, I don't know how you know anything.
It takes me a lot. But it's it's like like
everything in this world, it's all paradoxical. You know, you
can do this, you can't do that, You want to
do this, you can do And as long as people
(12:23):
don't try to beat us into submission, we change the world.
Whoever invented the wheel definitely had add you know. And
Hollywood is add heaven as Wall Street, you know, and
wherever you find high intensity, high creativity, high emotional emotional
(12:45):
energy you'll find add. Like I said, the thing we
can't do is lack of stimulation, boredom. We just can't
do it. Deaf, we won't do it. We can't do it.
It's like it's our kryptonite.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah, it's so fucking true. I feel that so much.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
That's another thing we say a lot of fuckings. Yeah
the f bumps.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Really is that true?
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Oh yeah, because we have all this frustration that we
need to bleed out of it, you know, in one
way is to throw in an F bomb.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah. Did you use your experience, you know with that?
Did that propel you into your line of work?
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Oh? Well yeah? So then I go. I had this
distinguished academic career where nobody thought anything. I knew I
was a slow reader, but that hadn't been diagnosed because
I'd done so well. Nobody thought you, nothing can be
wrong with you. And the same with the ADD. I mean,
most people didn't even think ADD was real back then.
I mean I graduated from Harvard in nineteen seventy three,
(13:49):
and most people have never even heard of it. They'd
heard of dyslexia, but they didn't really know what that
was either, And so I just went ahead. You know,
and it was clear that I wanted to be a
psychiatrist because my father was crazy, you know, the lost pride.
My family was a family of drugs and lunatics, and
and you know, they were all well meaning though they
(14:14):
were they were nice, which matters, you know. And and
but I was on a mission. And that's another thing.
We're very mission driven that the two of you, you're passionate.
You you, it's what makes you so good. And so
my mission was to, uh, you know, give the strange
(14:34):
mind a good name. I'm proud to be the way
I am. I don't feel the least bit of shame.
I think other people should be envious. And the reason
is they don't have new ideas. Are what we have
in spades that other people don't have is this huge imagination.
We we don't realize how big it is because we've
always had it. We don't realize how dull most people are,
(14:56):
you know. And then and they just can't conceive.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Of It's so funny say that, because I always wonder
like my brain is so on fire. I mean, I
love my brain, but it's I'm thinking this in my
bad mamma. I'm creating scenarios that don't exist. I'm entering
worlds that I might have created just for and I'm like,
what am I doing right now? I'm playing out death
scenarios where my whole family is dead and I'm alone.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
I did that all the time. I'm just like, I
do the same thing.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
What am I doing? You know?
Speaker 5 (15:25):
Oh my god?
Speaker 1 (15:26):
That?
Speaker 3 (15:26):
And like every scenario, my brain wanders. And sometimes I'll
sit in bed when I'm really quiet and I'll think
of this like insane like fairy tale, like science fiction world,
and I'll be like a and then it's gone.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
I'm like, where did it go? I can't write it down.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Don't worry, It'll come back. You couldn't get rid of
it if you wanted to.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
I you know, I wonder my son has this thing
because he's he's you know, he he has the type
where like it takes.
Speaker 5 (15:58):
Him forever to wake up and morning and I don't know,
I don't know what that is. I'm like, I wake
up and I'm like, I'm shot out of a cannon.
Rider has this thing where.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
He Rider that's a great name. How old is he now?
Speaker 5 (16:12):
He's twenty one?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Oh boy? Oh my god?
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Yeah, yeah, so he's doing really great, but he's his
struggle is like to get up in the morning.
Speaker 5 (16:22):
It takes him forever.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Well, actually, that's pretty common. We have trouble shutting it
down at night. As I like to say, I don't
want to leave the party. Yeah, when we finally get
ourselves to shut it down in the morning, it raising
it back up again. Is my daughter, we had to
buy her a flying alarm clock so she hadn't get
out of the bed to turn it off.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Oh that's so funny.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Yeah, and what so that's basically because the brain's finally resting.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah, and it's just it's just for whatever whatever makes
our brain unusual, it doesn't like to be put down,
and then it doesn't like to be activated.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Are there different forms of adh Oh.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yeah absolutely, I mean it's it's certainly multi varied.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
No, no tools, I mean yeah, yeah, yeah. Talk about
that in just firs a second, because I want to
get into there's so many questions. But you know, you've
got first of all, ADHD seems hot right now. It's
like everyone is ADHD. My algorithm is all ADHD. You know,
from sort of the disastrous you know, to where their
suicide to sort of the you know, just this sort
of scraping of the surface of it. You know, So
(17:36):
how does the what's the spectrum?
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Well, first of all, it's so misunderstood. Like I said,
I could and if you read two point zero you'll
see it's going to Yeah, it's it's a way of
being in the world that is fundamentally different from other
people's way of being in the world. But there are commonalities.
So I mean, well, no two adds are the same.
You take us as a group, and you can see
(18:00):
that there's a lot in common. And where does non
add leave off and add begin. It's sort of like
where does day leave off and night start? You know,
there's a long period of dusk, and so it is
with this condition. You can't say exactly where, but you
(18:20):
sure can say there's a difference between night and day.
You know, there's no doubt about that. So people who
like to say, well you can't tell, well, that's true.
You can't tell at what time we go into night,
but you can say midnight is different from noon. And
that's the way it is. With this condition. We were
tremendously varied. We tend to be very creative, passionate, generous.
(18:43):
Like I said, impulsive. But by the way, the three
so called definings in the diagnostic manual, you know, this
condition is classified as a mental illness, which is ridiculous.
We should all be so mentally ill anyway. The three
defining qualities that make up the definition or distractability, impulsivity,
(19:05):
and hyperactivity, Well take each one of those and turn
it on its head and you get a positive that
you can't buy or teach. The flip side of distractability.
Of distractability is curiosity. You know, what's that? What's that?
What's that? Yeah, you're being distracted, but you're being distracted
because you're so curious. You want to know what's that,
(19:26):
what's in there? What you're constantly When I was a kid,
they called me the question box and they say, oh,
here he comes. Better to get out of the way.
You know, he's going to wear you at with all
his questions, you know. And then and then impulsivity. Oh
that's so bad, he's so impulsive. We'll give me asking
to marry me. On the first daid over and over again.
What is creativity? But impulsivity gone right? You don't plan
(19:50):
to have a new idea. They pop spontaneously impulsively. You know,
and and and you can't on demand say okay, now
be creative. I mean you as an actor must feel
that all the time your best moments or your ad libs,
or your your you know, where did that come from?
You know? And and and then the third one, hyperactivity
(20:11):
you get to be My age is called energy. I'm
really glad I've got this little turbo pack on my back.
So what I'm trying to tell the world is get
it out of the Diagnostic Manual of Madness the DSM,
and put it into the Diagnostic Manual of Life like Shakespeare.
I mean, you know, and and uh, because that's where
(20:33):
it ought to be. It's it's a variant on the
theme of normal, but it's very much not normal. I mean,
you know, most people don't have it and don't have
I tell I tell people I don't treat uh, I
don't treat disabilities. I help people unwrap their gifts. Yeah,
this is a gift that does not unwrap itself.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
And when you're talking to you, do you usually would
you work with an old and children or I mean,
do you work with people anymore?
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Oh? Yes, Oh I love it, and both children and
adults more adults now than kids, although kids for sure.
Most people bring their kids to me to have me
unbrainwash them, you know, tell them that there's actually a
lot of good about this and you're not a las,
you know, and yeah, and they just sit up in
their chair. It's like it's like sprinkling fairy dust. I mean,
(21:22):
they just suddenly you can see them. It's like those
things enemies. You put them in a bottle of water
and they just blossom. Well, that's that's what these kids
do when they hear the truth about who they are.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
So so there's two parsons. There's hearing the truth, which
is which makes your back go up strater, Yeah, but
then there's implementing sort of the lessons or the the
tactics to bring out the best in your add So
that's why you.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Need You need three things. You need knowledge, which you
get like we're doing now. You need structure because we
get up time and go to bedtime a few you
know creative people who say I don't like structure, I say, yes,
you do. Look at shape. You look at Shakespeare and Mozart.
They worked within the tightest most structured forms you could imagine,
and within that they created infinite variety. So structure and
(22:12):
creativity go hand in hand without one. Without structure, you
have chaos. With structure, you create beauty. And then and
so that you need information. You need structure. Uh, you
need a coach, and that could be a teacher, a parent,
a therapist, a doctor. Somebody really understands what Missus Eldridge
(22:35):
was for me. She didn't know from add but she
knew a talented kid when she saw one, and and
helped draw that out. And then and then the then
the question of medication, which is so misunderstood. Medication is
like eyeglasses. When it works, you see clearly. When it
doesn't work, that doesn't work, and that's okay, you don't
(22:55):
have to have it. It's it's not necessary. But when
it works, it's a godsend. It's an absolute godsend. People,
you know, people say, well, I'd rather try try without
medicine for a few years, and I say to them,
that's fine. I've written books about how to unwrap the
gift of add without meds. But it's sort of like saying,
why don't we do a few years of squinting before
(23:17):
we try eyeglasses? You know, why not try the proven
remedy that will make all the non medication remedies that
much easier to use. People are amazingly neanderthal or just
skittish when it comes to medication, and well they should be,
because there's a lot of bad meds out there.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
You know, for sure, I get nervous about me. I
get nervous about like kids on adderall and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
I don't know why I should get nervous, but that's
why it's so important to see a good doctor. And
there aren't that many to find. You know, a lot
of people say they know about it and how to
treat it, but they really don't.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
How many different add meds are there. I know there's
like vive ants and there's adderall.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
It's probably fifteen, but the basic two the core too.
And this is very reassuring news. Guess what year simula
was first used to treat what we now call add
Let's make a wild guess.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Okay, I'm going to say eighteen fifty, eighteen, eighteen nineties.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I'm going to say you are nineteen thirty nineteen thirty seven, right,
nineteen thirty seven, eighteenth century, But you're right. I was.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I went to like I went to this like pharmacy
that was like in the wild West. That was like
an old mock up, and they had they had all
kinds of medications that we had no idea.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
Like was like, whoa, look at all this stuff. And
that was eighteen ninety six or.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Something in the nineteen thirty zero. Was that medication actually
targeting attention? No?
Speaker 1 (24:46):
No, no, no, nobod you've heard of that? No, no, no,
it was that was what it was targeting was the
one symptom you can't ignore, which is disruptive behavior. God,
it was boys who were throwing chairs around.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
And what was that medicaid amphetamine? It was infinamine.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Adderall yeah, yeah, and it worked wonders and the kids,
and far from not wanting to do well, they loved it.
They called it their arithmetic phill till now they could
finally memorize these infernally boring math facts that they'd literally
been unable to do before. They were so boring. You
give them some amfetamine and they're sitting down there, humming,
(25:24):
and they're happy because everyone wants to do well, and
they were doing well. They'd gotten their eyeglasses.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
And the medication when it works or it doesn't, work
like I guess, it just has to sort of coincide
with your chemistry and it's got to work correctly. I
took adderall one time at Coachella where a friend's like, dude,
take an adderall. It's fucking brad, And I took it
and I hated it. I was like, I feel like shit.
My wife is takes Vivance and it's a game changer.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
She's on Vivans.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
She gets Yeah, she gets everything fucking done. She takes
it as needed.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
You've seen how dramatic it can be.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
I have and I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna
take Avance. I'm gonna make a I'm gonna fucking make
a float plan. I'm gonna take up. I'm gonna do
my ship. And I took a vive Vance and I'm like,
oh man, I don't know good. I don't like this.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Okay, what was it? What? Let me know? What was
the dose? Oh gosh, that makes a big difference. Before
you give up, right before you give up on it,
just check the dose, because what these mens do is
very dose related.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Yeah. The lowest is like ten milligrams five vans.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
The lowest is I think they have a five now,
but yeah, you know it. Basically it's an increments of
ten milligrams up to around seventy.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Okay, but there's no such thing.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
By the way, the pharmacists don't understand this. But there's
no number diagnosis that is by definition too high. You
assess whether the dose is too high or too low
by what it does to you. If it makes you wacky,
then the dose is too high. If it does nothing,
then the dose is too low. And again we need
(26:57):
a sudden attack of common sense to you know, for
this all to be resolved.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Well, the timing of this is interesting because I have
never gone to a doctor. I've been in therapy all
my life, but I've never been clinically.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Diagoned over what Kate did to you as a little boy.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Well to get over what I did to her the
other way around. But I've but you know, I've called
a few friends and they've said, oh, you need to
see this person, and I got in touch with someone
and it was this long, crazy testing in this I'm like,
I don't want to.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Do all this and you shouldn't have to.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
So then how is one sort of quickly diagnosed? Like,
how do we know whether we have this, you know, gift.
Let's just reframe it, Yeah, like.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
How can you distinguish between.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Someone who knows it as well as I do? And
by the way, don't tell people that I said I
can diagnose you in a half an hour because they'll
think I'm a crack. But I absolutely can. I mean,
I can honestly diagnose someone the minute they walk in
the room. I can feel it emanates alf of them.
I can feel a fertile imagination when I'm with one.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
So are we? Are we all crazy? Am I? Am
I officially diagnosed?
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Yes, West? Can I ask.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
You about Can I ask out the correlations with.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
ADHD or ADD and anxiety and depression?
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Oh yes, let me tell you. I mean again, it's
it's obvious and very straightforward.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
And sorry interrupts you, but I suffer. I'm on twenty
milligrams of lexipro because anxiety has been a at an
issue in my life.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
And I think we should realise that. Do you still
have libido?
Speaker 2 (28:36):
By the way, too much? Babe?
Speaker 1 (28:41):
The problem with SSRIs is they diminished libido and they're
cognitively dulling. You lose a few IQ points and I
don't think that's worth it unless you really needed So.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
No, I was real quick. Sorry, I tried to wean
off of it, and I did it correctly, and I
was so fucked up. I had to back on because.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
You need it. So you're one of the people who
needs it, and it's a good thing we have. It's
just widely overused. But the relationship between the relationship between
the two is as follows. If you can't focus and
get organized and do what Kate earlier called correctly executive function,
you can't do that. It's such a fundamental part of
(29:22):
everyday life. You're going to be anxious. What am I
going to miss? What am I going to overlook? Who's
going to call me out next? What am I going
to get in trouble for? And you're you're walking around
like you know, oh my lord.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
You're like in a constant state of failure, like you're
just failing.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Exactly, exactly exactly, and that feels like shit. So not
only are you anxious, but you're in a low grade depression.
It's not really depression as it is anxious apprehension that
you know you're not feeling good about yourself or about
your life. Well, that's going to look like depression. So
you get diagnosed with these two artifacts caused by the
(29:58):
untreated add of anxiety and depression, and what happens almost always,
particularly with adult women, you get put on an SSRI
to treat the side to treat the effect of the
untreated ad D. To treat the anxiety and depression, you
get put on an SSRI that has all kinds of
side effects that are undesirable. So if instead you treated
(30:21):
the add first, then you'd feel more focused, so you
wouldn't be so anxious, and your your achievement would go
up so you wouldn't feel so depressed.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
I think, Oliver, this is a really interesting thing.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
I am like, this is my favorite podcast ever. And
by the way, I want to be friends. Like I
just want to put that out there. I don't know
where you live.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Where live just outside of Boston.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Okay, good, I'm there. I'm there for three weeks during
the summer. Come hang out, like, oh you can, I'd.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Be the toast of the neighborhood. You know who he knows? Wow?
Speaker 3 (31:04):
I really, I really I really want Like, how can
a parent okay who can't afford to see have their
child see somebody but notices this and their child, like.
Speaker 5 (31:15):
How how do they support their how do they support
their child? Like, what's the best way to reach it?
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Because I know how hard I know how hard it is,
and uh, you know, to to even just to even
just to know that you're what what it is that's
going on with your kid? Like, how can like someone listening,
like what can they do that can make just just
like one thing or something simple that they can clue
(31:43):
into for their kids.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Well, knowledge is incredibly powerful. And if they would read
two point zero the most Reasons the shortest, I mean
people really, they start crying ten pages into the book.
Chapter one lays out what it is. Isn't holy shit?
You know why didn't someone tell me this? And it
saves marriages, it saves childhoods, it saves jobs, it saves careers.
(32:08):
I mean people get fired right and the left because
of the impulsivity that comes with add or they get
kicked out of school and they get chalked up as
bad seed or you know, the devil's animo. All it
is is imagination run wild. The analogy I give kids
that say, it's like you've got a Ferrari engine for
a brain. You've got this incredibly powerful race car for
(32:29):
a brain. The problem is you have bicycle brakes. Well,
I'm a break specialist. I'll help you strengthen your breaks
so you won't drive through stops on so you won't
spin out on curbs, so you'll win the races. You're
a champion in the making, but you got to strengthen
those breaks first.
Speaker 5 (32:46):
Olie, is this making you emotional a little?
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah? I mean it's just so spot on, like I
just relate to it entirely, and just you know, we were
talking about before you came on. But you know, I
haven't had a drink in a month. I haven't had
a cigarette in a month, and for me, that's big.
I might be a lower case a alcoholic. I definitely have,
you know, impulsivity issues, addiction sort of, it's I can
(33:12):
feel that it's a part of you know, So actually,
Kate asking that, you know, I've never been more clear.
I feel like I'm on my brain is on fire
now with sort of this, the fog has lifted and.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Your best work is ahead of you. Are you an
actor as well?
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Or yeah? Yeah, yeah, so this is this is part
of I have so many questions. But you know, for
me personally, I we have. We have an extremely talented family,
and everyone is in this business. Yeah I am the
most talented, but I am I I'm the most talented
(33:49):
I could be. I could win in a world wards
as actor, I could directing by.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
The most modest on top of them.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah. Yeah, but if there's so much inside of me
that I want to get out, but it's so difficult
because I get overwhelmed and quit. You know, I don't
know how to access it, and it's frustrating because I
know how great I am.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Well, wait, you guys, I have to I have to
interrupt this because my son just facetimed me and I said, honey,
I'm on a podcast.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Guys, amazing.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
We're talking with an ADHD expert. And he writes, I
hope he's making me sound like the genius I am.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Right now, Well, writer Rider, her son is a lot
like me, a lot like.
Speaker 5 (34:41):
I think the most like you.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Raised them right. Sadly, they're like two percent, you know,
ninety eight percent get told from day one that they're
bad boys, bad girls there. They know fluts, their hyper
sexual their addicts there.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
I'll never forget when my son came home in sixth
grade and and writer, funny, popular, cool, makes everybody laugh, Like,
and he just came home weeping.
Speaker 5 (35:09):
I'm so stupid. I can't. I'm so dumb.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
I'm and I and and I was like, what a
terrible Like you know when when it's your child and
you know how brilliant they are, it's like, thank God,
I'm not that kind of parent that needs excellence in
in in academics.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
She's like, I know, I recognize.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
The gift without without decorating it with grades, And.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Let me can I can I just get back to
this impulsivity thing again, because I because it can be dangerous,
you know, with gambling or drugs or alcohol or sex
or all of that. Right, Oh, all of it.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Absolutely, I've done all of those, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Right, So how how do you come out of that?
You know what I'm saying, Like, at what point are
you moving into real addiction stuff in one point? And
what point is it sort of your ADHD and impulsivity
taking over?
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Oh that's like the thing where does day leave off
the night begin? And one of the best rules of
life I ever learned was from my first year of
psychiatric training. Tom Gutal was his name, and he said
never worry alone, and that is so profound. Well, just
(36:25):
never worry alone. When you worry alone, you get into
worst trouble. That's when your worst introspections happen, when your
worst fears get confirmed, when you hate yourself, when you
behave impulsively, you get drunk, or attempts suicide or whatever
it might happen to be or you know. And so
if you if you have people, reliable, others, friends, whatever,
(36:50):
that you and that you're honest enough to tell them
the truth. You know, some of our stuff is not
exactly we want everyone to know about it. But if
you're brave enough, and that's the solution, is to not
worry alone.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
I love that I might get that tattooed on me.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
That's just the best.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Well, it's interesting because my kids, you know, wild are
my oldest.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
I'm like, what a good name for someone with add
His name is Wilder.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
His name is Wilder.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
And I'm like, do you think you have like a
d D? And he's like, oh, yeah, of course, he
goes there's no doubt, of course. But he's like but
he's just like kind of oh, he's cool with it.
He's like I don't. Yeah, of course the.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Guy he should be. I mean I brag about it.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
I tell people, yeah, and even Body my middle kids.
My middle boy's name is body.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
And Body or Brody Body.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Body bo d H. I like like Bodystockpham and and
you know, his brain is on fire and he's crazy
and he's like, oh yeah, yeah, I'm nuts. I know
they're all crazy, but there seems to be an acceptance
of their insanity, you know.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
And thank God, thank God, because we live in you know,
there's so many narrow minded people out there and they
do so much damage. But you know, you know, I
haven't believe in God, and people pin me down about that,
and how can't you believe in God? It's a fairytale.
I say, well, you believe in love, don't you? And
most people say yeah. I say, well, God is love.
(38:14):
It's just that simple, you know.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Now, I'm with you. I'm not. I don't know. But
is God a person in the sky.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
No, it's a spirit. It's a force. It's an invisible force, right,
but like gravity is an invisible force.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
I still want to understand something that a parent can
do to help their child, Like what is something like
tangible something they could start.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Kate just what I've been saying. Teach them about their brain,
teach them read read. I wrote a shorter book recently.
It's called adhd Explain and and it's got illustrations, and
I mean, it's even shorter, it's even easier to read.
But it's not watered down. It's not like a children's book.
It is in the format but people. And it's wonderful.
(39:12):
So you can read that with them and then and
then it can't be done in one sitting. It's it's
over the course of a childhood, of a lifetime and
and and it's a matter of delving. I still discovered
parts of myself I didn't know. I mean, and it's
a wonderful exploration to finding out, you know. And it's
plus and minus pain and pleasure. I too had a
(39:36):
major drinking. I wasn't alcoholic, but I looked forward to
my drinks every day. And then about five years ago,
without planning or even wanting to, I just stopped. I
had no idea. It was the grace of God because
I was I was trying to start a new book
and the title of it is You're better than you
think you are. And I think my brain knew that
(39:56):
I do better off alcohol than So.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
How much would you drink when you came home on.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Your average day? I mean more than two beers I'll
say that. You know, I'd go out for dinner and
I'd have two or three martinis yeah, and two or
three glasses of wine.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
And before I got married, well that was thirty five
years ago. But even when I was dating Soup, my
idea of heaven was to go out with a beautiful
woman and who was intelligent, and we would have amazing
conversation over several martinis and several cigarettes, and we'd settle
all the issues of the world. We'd harmal recreation.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
I mean, that was that was heaven to me, And
even as.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
I describe it now, it sounds pretty good. You know.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Yeah, God, I'm definitely visiting you this summer.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
Yeah, no, I mean what is that before we I
have one other question about like the hyper focused add
like the ones that go into hyper focus where they
can go, well, we all do.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
I mean, That's why I can write so many books.
I mean, but when we are creatively engaged, we are rock.
We are laser being focused. The building could be burning
down and we are not aware we are so there.
You're probably like that when you're acting, both of you.
I mean, when you're doing something creative that you want
to be doing, it can be incredibly difficult, like, but
(41:23):
you guys do it's very very you know what I
do writing, very difficult disciplines. But we love it and
so we focus on it, and we also hate it
because it's never I don't know about you, but it's
never as good as I want it to be. And
so it's like golf, and you're never as good as
you want it to be. But why do I play it?
Because nothing's better?
Speaker 2 (41:42):
How about that? Masters? By the way, Oh, by the way,
I'm gonna scratch golfer. I used to be a plus two.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Are you really? I'm inssed?
Speaker 4 (41:53):
I was.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
My eighty D sort of focused me on that when
I was in my late twenties and thirties.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Eighty eight. Golf is a great add sport because you
get another chance every time. Yeah, you know, I had
bet on malcol Roy and I thought I won that
I thought I lost.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
God what it was so great?
Speaker 5 (42:10):
It was so much fun to watch.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
You're a golf fan.
Speaker 5 (42:14):
You know what's funny? I love I got. I got
the bug about a year ago.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
Now I'm really loving playing golf, and now I love
watching I've never enjoyed it, and now I like put
on even like you know the Ladies PGA, and I
watch it like, oh.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
No, it's incredible control over all these moving parts. A
beautiful golf swing is beautiful.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
And Rory's is my favorite golf swing ever.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Ollie, Ollie, the Greek god that he is, has an
amazing golf swing.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Who's Allie? Is he?
Speaker 5 (42:53):
Oliver is the person that you're talk Ollie? Oliver my brother? Yeah,
he's Oliver.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Oh yeah, yeah, we got to work on that add But.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
It's really touching and obvious how much you love each other.
That's it's really yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Do you have other siblings?
Speaker 3 (43:12):
No, we have We have siblings. We have three, so
it's four of us that all grew up together. So
me and three brothers including Allie and then Oliver and
I all together, we have six siblings.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Oh we halves, there's halves in there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
And are your are your parents creatives too?
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (43:30):
Every single one?
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Yeah, that's wonderful. What and you grew up in California?
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Yeah, in Colorado.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
You're both in your forties.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
I'm forty eight. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Wow, you have to write this at some point, you know, I.
Speaker 5 (43:45):
Know we should.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Well, that's what's fun about this podcast is being able
to sort of connect in a different way, you know,
Katie and I being able to have these conversations with
you and other people, and you learn about yourself, you know,
as we go through this process of the podcast, this
has been amazing. I cannot wait to read your book,
that hundred pager and I feel like as a d
(44:07):
as add gets more prominent, your books are going to
get shorter and shorter, the point where it's like you're
going to open up the book and it's like you
if you've bought this book, you have it. That's it.
But before we leave, I know we got to go,
but I want to ask a real quick question about
you know, how you've seen this, you know, this gift
(44:30):
grow and has it gotten has there been more? And
how much social media? How much technology is influencing this
or if it is at all?
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Oh my god, it is, like I mean, I it's
an answer to my prayers when I published Driven Distraction.
I have a very good friend who's a major player
in the in the publication world, and he said, ned,
don't get your hopes up. This book is not going
to change your life. And second, I don't like your time.
(45:00):
It sounds like a book about cars, and all of
those statements have proven to be very wrong. It's not
a book about cars. And it dramatically changed my life,
but more important, changed the lives of millions of people.
It's sold two million copies and still selling strong. And
then the other books I've written, they're not all about
(45:20):
add book about worry, a book about raising children that's
my favorite book, and a book about connection, a book
about my own crazy family. The title is because I
came from a crazy family, And that was my answer.
By the way, people would say, why did you become
a psychiatrist? Because I come from a crazy family. It's
(45:42):
I am so blessed and relieved and great. I mean
the fact that I'm talking to you, that means it's
going to move even more and the chance for truth
and knowledge to do good in this world. It's just
wonderful when you see it, because so often the opposite,
you know, held sway, But this is this is a
(46:05):
good news diagnosis. Unlike most medical diagnosis I can say
to my patients for sure, you will get better. How
much better I can't tell you, but I can promise
you you will your life will improve and and and
that's pretty wonderful feeling.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
You know, have you seen a spike, a growth, a
growth just TikTok?
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Yeah? You know? Have you seen me on TikTok? No?
Speaker 2 (46:32):
I haven't. But I'm wondering if, like you think that
tick because everyone says it does. But from a doctor standpoint,
does TikTok fuck you up?
Speaker 1 (46:39):
No? What? No? Yes, yes, and no. Social media can
fuck you up. It's and it's not just the content
of the social media. It's what you're not doing when
you're on social media. You're not playing baseball, you're not
having sex, you're not writing an you're not you know,
(47:02):
daydreaming lying on your back in the grass and daydreaming.
You're you're not doing all the things that your mind
is meant to do. And watching TikTok is pretty low
on the on the on the on the table of
what is good for you to do. And I say
that as someone who I've made like fifty TikTok things
about add but some of them are just so inane
(47:25):
and then people really do get addicted. They really do.
They if you define addiction as craving and then becoming
really violent when you don't get it, Yeah, TikTok addictions,
social media addiction is very real. But don't worry about that.
Just channel your kids and other kids into the garden
(47:46):
of delights that that life offers in a positive and
constructive way. You guys are you guys are the fairy
godmothers of this world. People look up to you and
follow you, and you happened. I can tell just in
talking to you. Happen to be good through and through. Uh,
You're You're honest, you're playful, you're fun, you're creative. You
happen to be very attractive, which never hurts, and you
(48:10):
know it's And you're doing your like this. You don't
need to do this podcast, You're you're doing it because
you want to do something useful, do something creative, and
you are. Yeah, I'm not buttering you up. I'm just
saying what I'm feeling.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
And that that made me feel so good.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
Well, I'm one going to buy your book right now
that I know me too.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
We've suddenly we've made new friends.
Speaker 3 (48:35):
When did your book two point zero come out two
years ago, and do.
Speaker 5 (48:40):
You have another one coming out soon?
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Well? As soon as some I mean, I keep polishing, polishing, polishing.
I've never put so much time into a book ever.
I've been working on it for a couple of years.
And like I said, the title is You're better than
You Think you are? And I just I see this
as a as a as a problem bigger than any
by far. There are just so many people out there
(49:04):
who sell themselves short. Yeah, you know, and they and
they give up too easily because they just don't have
that faith in themselves. And it almost always comes back
to they don't have the right people encouraging them. It
is just very hard to pull yourself up by your
own bootstraps. And they have the talent, they have the goodness,
(49:25):
they have the motivation, and and they they just in fact,
the book, the first line of the book is how
do you convince a person that it's Sunday when it
is in fact Sunday.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
I love that, And then that's that's the conundrum that
so many people live with.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
It. Yeah, well, you two are very special and I
thank you for.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Thank you for I appreciation. This is really fun.
Speaker 5 (49:57):
Thank you so much. Have the best day and we'll
have you on again.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
Keep in touch, keep this going.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Take care.
Speaker 5 (50:04):
Yeah all right, thanks doctor, But how great?
Speaker 2 (50:09):
I love him. I want to be his friend. I
want him to mentor me. I wanted to take me
to the Promised Land whatever that is.
Speaker 5 (50:15):
I feel inspired me too.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
I'm gonna go like direct something and win on a war.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
But you know what you should say is that what
you want to do is get off your is reap
for me. Yeah, like what an amazing thing to be like.
Oh wait, I've been treating my symptom, not the actual problem.
Speaker 5 (50:38):
Yeah, so maybe you need to get off. Try to
get off of it. Not wait till after the summer.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
Don't ruin our summer.
Speaker 5 (50:48):
Let's let's not get weird. Increase.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
Yeah, maybe I'll start in like you know, when we
get home, like in August.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
Yeah, and like wean off and then and then try yeah,
try something else as long as you feel good about it.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
You know. Wow, that was cool.
Speaker 3 (51:08):
I know I hear way for a rider to hear
this one. Yeah, anyway, I loved it. I love you.
Speaker 5 (51:12):
I loved it.
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