Lies People with ADHD Tell Themselves (And Why They're So Relatable)

If you have ADHD (or even if you don’t), you’re going to relate to Amy sharing "15 lies people with ADHD keep telling themselves" and her personal experience with each lie. One of the lies is about screenshots, so Amy takes a look back at the 6000+ screenshots she has on her phone and shares some that might be of interest to y'all....like this recipe for 'No Bake Almond Flax Balls' she found from 2015:

1 cup of dry old fashioned oats
1/4 cup of dark chocolate chips1/2 cup of natural almond butter1/2 cup of ground flaxseed
1/3 cup of raw honey
1 tsp. vanilla

This recipe reminds us of Kat's protein balls. Click HERE to see her recipe + take a screenshot of it only for it to live forever in your screenshots and not be put to use! Ha. 
Hope you enjoy this episode and you can slowly but surely get better at NOT believing these lies. Baby steps though....you don't want to get overwhelmed by trying to change too many things at once. 

*The list of 15 lies was put together by Alex Partridge, founder of LADbible and host of the ADHD Chatter podcast! Here are all 15 lies: 

- A new notebook will solve all of my problems.
- I’ll take a screenshot and look at it later.
- I need to buy some top tier professional gear because this hobby will stay in my life forever.
- I’ll remember this person’s name.
- I’ll put that pile of clothes away later on.
- I definitely have enough time to buy a coffee before work.
- I’ll just save this to my desktop now and organize it later.
- I’ll be there in 5 minutes.
- I can organize two social gatherings in one day and be ok afterwards.
- I’ll remember to cancel that free subscription before my card gets charged.
- I definitely need all these tabs open even though they are so small I can’t read them anymore.
- 30 minutes, that’s definitely enough time to get ready.
- I’m going to put laundry on and empty the machine when it’s finished.
- I’m going to grab something in the other room, and I won’t get distracted by a side quest.
- This is the last time I will buy another reusable shopping bag.

HOST: Amy Brown // RadioAmy.com // @RadioAmy

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Cats up little food for yourself life. Oh it's pretty bad. Hey,
it's pretty beautiful, beautiful that for a little more family.
It's exciting, said, he can't cut your kicking it with
full thing with Amy Brown, Happy Thursday. Four things Amy here.

(00:34):
And if you have ADHD, you're going to enjoy this episode.
But even if you don't, you might find some of
the things I'm going to talk about helpful. Kat and
I were talking the other day about how there's this
perception that everyone has ADHD on socials, and while that's
not the case, not everyone has it. Sometimes it can
feel that way, and I gotta say some people are

(00:54):
definitely just using it for engagement. But regardless, the increased
awareness and discussion around ADHD is helpful. So that's good.
I guess misinformation aside. I don't like when people don't
know what they're talking about and they're putting things up.
But something that made me laugh and also made me
feel very seen this week was a post put up

(01:16):
by Alex Partridge. He's a founder of lad Bible and
host of ADHD Chatter, which is a podcast dedicated to
well ADHD, and he quickly ran through fifteen lies that
people with ADHD keep telling themselves and it is so accurate,
like painfully accurate. Even if you don't have ADHD, you'll

(01:39):
likely relate to at least a few of these. And
I'm going to go through Alex's list and then share
my own thoughts around the lie. Now, the first lie
is I'll take a screenshot and look at it later.
Here's the deal. We're not going to look at it later.
I checked my phone before I sat down to record,
and I have six five hundred and twenty eight screenshots

(02:03):
in my phone. I picked some at random to share
with you. That way, they aren't just wasted screenshots just
sitting in my phone for no reason. On June third
of last year, I have a screenshot. It's a picture
of a frog, and it says a female frogs fake
their own death to avoid mating with males they don't like. Now,
I'm pretty sure I took that screenshot for fun Fact

(02:25):
Friday on The Bobby Bone Show, so it probably didn't
totally go to waste. But I have a lot of
fun fact screenshots throughout my phone that I know I
have forgotten about and not gone back to for the show.
On November third of last year, I took a screenshot
of a post that was put up about turning your
phone to grayscale because it can help our mental health.

(02:47):
Grayscale makes scrolling less addictive for our brains. The screenshot
said it directly impacts your brain's primal urge to scroll.
Less scrolling equals better mental health, and then the post
said more in caps, but I didn't screenshot the caption,
so I don't have the more part for you. Those
are two that are from last year. But then I
got curious like what some of the older screenshots on

(03:09):
my phone might be, so I scrolled all the way
back to the very first screenshot that is on this
current phone that I have, and it is from December
twenty eighth, two thy fifteen, and it's a recipe for
no bake almond flax balls. Now I'm not even sure
where it's from because all I can see is the
recipe and the ingredients, and I'm gonna share it with

(03:31):
you right now case you want to make them. But
I have no idea if they're good, because I do
not recall if I ever even made these balls back
in twenty fifteen. What you need is one cup of
dry old fashioned notes a fourth cup of dark chocolate chips,
a half a cup of almond butter, a half a
cup of ground flax seed, a third of a cup

(03:52):
of raw honey, and a teaspoon of vanilla. Those are
kind of like Cat's protein balls. I mean, Ish doesn't
have the protein and maybe she has some other things,
but she recently posted her recipe at cat van Buren
is her handle. If you want to go try hers,
they're so good, you can go to her page. Now
you can take a screenshot of the recipe and then
you can never go back to screenshot and maybe never

(04:13):
make them, because that is what we do. Another screenshot
that I'll share with you that might be of use
to you as a screenshot that I took on October
twenty fifth, twenty nineteen. It's a post from the Brain Coach.
They put up something on Instagram titled signs you might
be projecting. Sign number one you overreact to something you're

(04:36):
insecure or shameful about. Sign number two, you tell someone
else they can't achieve a goal because you feel incompetent
in achieving it. Sign three you express other people make
you uncomfortable when it's really you who feels socially anxious
around others. Sign four you believe someone hates you when

(04:57):
you're the one who has strong dislike for that person.
And the fifth sign you criticize or hate someone for
their appearance, So when it is you who is deeply
insecure about that specific flaw. That one was back from
twenty nineteen, and we went all over the place we
had twenty fifteen. I do have a screenshot from yesterday
that's more current and relevant because Mel Robbins recently released

(05:22):
her book The Let Them Theory, and my sister mailed
me a copy and I started reading it. But I
had googled something yesterday and I guess I took a
screenshot of it, and it says here, let them think
negative thoughts about me is a phrase associated with Mel
Robins Let them theory, which encourages individuals to detach from
the need to control what others think about them, essentially saying,

(05:44):
let them have their opinion and focus on managing your
own actions and reactions instead of worrying about others' perceptions.
So boom, look at me using a screenshot I just
took yesterday. I'm already sharing it with y'all. I'm putting
it to good use. But yeah, that's the first lie.
I'll take a screenshot and I will look at it later.

(06:04):
You're not going to look at it. Second lie, a
new notebook will solve all of my problems. Okay, this
one is one hundred percent true for me, a very
true lie. The joy of a fresh notebook, it just
feels so good. But somehow before I use up the
entire journal, like the whole magic of it has completely

(06:25):
worn off, and now it's just this other notebook and
a pile of all these half used journals that I
swear I'm going to get back to and I never do.
And if you're like me and this lie hits home,
we need to challenge ourselves to not buy any new
notebooks until we finish the notebook that we currently have.
Right now, for some reason, I am literally journaling in
two different notebooks. I have no idea why. Actually three,

(06:47):
because I have my Gratitude journal that I also work through.
So yeah, three different journals for me right now. Some
days I guess it's just whichever one is closest to me,
depending on if I'm journaling in my room or the
living room, and I need to stick with one at
a time and resist from buying a new one. So
repeat after me. A new notebook will not solve all

(07:10):
of my problems. I do not need to buy another one.
I need to stick with one journal at a time.
Lie number three. I need to buy some top tier
professional gear because this hobby will stay in my life forever.
This one actually makes me think of Cat more than myself.
I mean, she just bought all of this nail stuff,
but I kind of say she's definitely committed, like she's

(07:31):
doing so many people's nails. She's really good at it,
and she's enjoying it. I've started a lot of hobbies
in my days, but I think this is the one
that I least relate to because I don't necessarily buy
a bunch of stuff and go all in and think
I'm going to do it forever. I think I've accepted
that it's probably going to be short lived, and it's
kind of kept me from jumping into other hobbies because

(07:52):
I'm like, ugh, I'm probably just going to give up
on this, so I'm not going to do it. But Kat,
she goes all in on her hobbies. I'm definitely curious
to see how long the nail salon out of her kitchen.
Lobby goes how long it lasts? Lie number four, I'll
remember this person's name. Now. Names are in and out

(08:15):
of my head in less than a few seconds. I
done the trick where I try to say it out
loud three times, like in the conversation, Like that's what
they say you're supposed to do. Like if someone says, hey,
I'm Katie, it'd be like, oh, it's nice to meet you, Katie,
And then at some point in the conversation, so Katie,
where are you from? And then later in the conversation
you maybe say like, oh, okay, Katie, it was nice

(08:35):
to meet you. So there you go. That's an example
of using a name three times. But I never make
it to the three times because I forget it before
I can even get it out. I will say I've
found some brain gym exercises on YouTube that are supposed
to be helpful when you're meeting someone new, like you
discreetly can do these little exercises with your hands that
will help you remember their name, Like if you're moving

(08:58):
your hands and fidgeting them a certain way. I just
can't ever remember to start doing the exercise. With my
hands when I'm meeting someone, so I haven't really been
able to try that out. Lie five. I'll put that
pile of clothes away later on. Now. For me, I'm
a pretty tidy person, but I definitely start to form piles,
and it annoys me so much. I hate that I

(09:19):
am this way. They're neat piles, but they are still piles,
and I don't want to be this way. I just
want to put stuff up right away and stop with
the piles. You know, they get put away eventually, but
is that eventually like a week or is it three weeks?
I just add to the piles again. I'm tidy about it,

(09:39):
like the piles will be neat, like I'll even spend
time tidying up the piles, and the time tiding the
piles could be spent putting the piles away, but I
just procrastinate that for some reason. It makes zero sense.
Lie six. I definitely have enough time to buy a
coffee before work. Now, I want you all to underst

(10:00):
especially if you have someone in your life that has
ADHD and you do not understand how they are the
way they are with time ADHD. Time blindness is real,
and if you have ADHD. You know that you will
convince yourself that there is time to do X y
Z when there is just not time. So pro tip.

(10:21):
Something I have to do is I have to build
in buffer time. It is your best friend. Have your
people lie to you about time, Lie to yourself about time.
Build in that buffer time because you need it. Set
a timer, make sure you got clocks around, check the map,
see how long it's going to take you to get somewhere.
We just have to start being proactive about this sort

(10:43):
of stuff because we need to be on time now work.
I am always on time to work because I have
fear built into me. If we are late to the
Bobby Bone Show, we are sent home. So I'm reacting
out of fear. Other areas in my life I don't
have that fear, So I don't know. My time blindness
kicks back in and I just never tend to make

(11:04):
it somewhere on time. I do try to be respectful
if it is work or like someone's event, but if
there's any leeway for me to be a little bit late,
well I end up late. Lie number seven. I'll just
say this to my desktop and I'll organize it later.

(11:30):
Lie number seven I'll just say this to my desktop
and I'll organize it later. Those one sort of like screenshots.
You end up with so many random things on your
desktop and you're never going to go through it. You're
not going to organize it. I will say that I
did clean up my desktop out of necessity over Christmas break,
because I had the time and it just needed to

(11:51):
be done. I started to get overwhelmed looking at my computer.
Only a few things have made their way back onto
my desktop this month, the month of January, and hopefully
I will keep it tidy. In fact, when I get
done recording this episode, I'm gonna go through and put
things in the trash that I need to move to
the trash or put them in their appropriate places, because

(12:12):
right now my desktop is manageable, and I'm gonna hold
myself accountable to that and keep it clean. Line number eight.
I'll be there in five minutes. Now. Five minutes in
ADHD time could mean fifteen minutes. For some that could
mean thirty We're not trying to lie, it's just that
our internal clock is a little bit off. I just

(12:33):
told you about ADHD time blindness. That is real, but
also we tend to be very very very optimistic with
our time, Like our internal clock is just optimistic. So
know that we're we're thinking positively. Lie nine, I can
organize two social gatherings in one day and be okay afterwards.

(12:55):
Now this is such a lie. Socializing takes energy and
or ADHD brains. Two events in one day or one
night can take so much out of us. So make
sure if you do have to do this, that you
have time to recover. I saw a funny meme yesterday
of a guy. He was walking out of his house

(13:16):
looking super sad and sort of like annoyed at himself,
and the text over it was my ADHD self leaving
the house for something I committed to when I was
full of dopamine. I felt that meme at my core
when I saw it light in. I'll remember to cancel
that free subscription before my card gets charged. Now, I

(13:38):
feel like this one is a lot of us, whether
we have ADHD or not. Streaming services are making a
killing off of the sly how many of us meant
to cancel forgot to cancel, and now we're paying ten
dollars or whatever a month for something that we don't
even use. Now, I highly recommend going through your subscriptions

(13:58):
on your phone and canceling them. You will save so
much money. You've got to block this out in your
day now. At least if we do it once a year,
we can avoid paying for something for years and years.
We'll probably pay for it for a few months, but
that's where we draw the line. You need to go
check your phone and your subscriptions if you haven't done

(14:19):
that lately, Lie eleven, I definitely need all these tabs open,
even though they are so small and I can't even
read them anymore. Now. I know some of you cringed
at hearing that because you would never be able to
live this way. But for me, right now my computer,
it is tabs on tabs on tabs, and they are

(14:40):
my reminder to go back to something that I need
to remember to do, or something that I want to
look more into, or that I want to maybe buy later.
Only problem is I may not go back to it
for days and days, and the tab just stays open
until one day I may give up on it completely
and close the tab and I never go back to
it anyway, So it was totally pointless having it open

(15:02):
for days and days and days. So yes, this is
a lie that we don't need to leave all of
the tabs open on our computer. It's actually really bad
for our computers. But that's how I feel like. My
brain is just have all these tabs open at once,
and I'm trying to just get through them all. Lie twelve.
Thirty minutes. That's definitely enough time for me to get ready.

(15:25):
Are y'all seeing a theme here with people in ADHD
in time? Yeah, well thirty minutes is not. I often
think that it's enough time, but somehow the time it disappears,
and then I am completely rushing out the door, trying
to brush my teeth, grabbing my shoes so I can
put them on in the car, and I'm just totally behind.
We got to be more responsible than that. Lie thirteen.

(15:46):
I'm going to put laundry on and empty the machine
when it is finished. Now, for me, personally, I love
doing laundry, so this only happens to me when I
try to do too many loads in one day. It's
sort of like over scheduling yourself with events and you
get overwhelmed. That happens to me with laundry. I get
a little ambitious, and I think i'm gonna do so
many loads, and I end up doing well, and then

(16:08):
I just overcommit, and then I get behind and I
make more piles, and then sometimes I even end up
rewashing clothes that end up sitting in the machine for
a couple of days. But I know I cannot be
alone in that lie fourteen. I'm gonna grab something in
the other room and I'm not gonna get distracted by
a side quest. This one is so real. I feel

(16:31):
like we all can start off with the vest intentions
and then suddenly we're in a completely different room organizing
something in the closet that is so random that we
don't even need to be going through when we went
in there to grab something completely different, or we're sitting
on the bed like this happened to me in the
guest room the other day. Ended up sitting on the

(16:51):
bed and there on TikTok doing something because I think
when I was in the guest room grabbing something, I
ended up getting a text message from I believe where
she was sending me this TikTok to watch, and then
I sat down on the bed to watch the TikTok,
and then that got me to the app and I
started scrolling through watching more and more videos on TikTok,
and next thing, you know, I forgot why I even

(17:13):
went into the guest room. Like that's how these little
things happen, very real, Lie Lie. Number fifteen, the final one.
This is the last time I buy another reusable shopping bag.
Now for me, this happened to me the other day
at Trader Joe's. I bought new reusable shopping bags, and
I said this exact thing to myself. But next time

(17:37):
when I go, will those bags be in my car? No,
because I'm gonna forget to put them back in my car.
And then when I'm there, am I gonna buy some
new ones and say that same exact thing to myself
or just opt for the paper bags? Yeah, that's probably
going to be what happens. Speaking to Trader Joe's, I
saw a really funny video last night of the s
girl talking about how you know she likes to pay sure.

(18:00):
The Trader Joe's executives like sitting around the table thinking
about where to put another store, and they're looking at
each other and they're like, so is it a really
inconvenient spot? Yep, We'll parking be terrible and really hard
to navigate for people. Yep, yep, yep, we'll the store
layout makes zero sense to people. Yep, okay, perfect, let's

(18:21):
do it, because people will still come and they're not wrong.
We still show up. I mostly go to Trader Joe's
because I find that their organic produce is such a
great price. Some of the other stuff, I'm kind of
over the novelty things that they have, although they can
be pretty tasty at times, but it's more so like
the good prices and really great cheese at a good price,

(18:42):
and really good flowers. And that's something I'm trying to
get into, is buying fresh flowers. That used to be
anti the flowers, but now I'm trying to keep some
around my house. My sister encouraged me to do that
last summer when my niece was living with me as
my intern. She came on the podcast about it and
this whole thing, and I've been doing better. I got

(19:04):
some fresh flowers actually from Trader Joe's for Stashira in
her room. So sometimes they're in my kitchen, sometimes they're
in the living room. But I thought, oh, these little,
tiny pink roses are making me think of Stashira in
her room and she may like them. So I got
some for her and put them in her room, and
that was just something special, all right. So there you
have it, fifteen lies that hit way too close to

(19:27):
home for those of us who struggle with ADHD. And
I really feel like laughing at these things can just
help us take the pressure off. We're all just trying
to do our best, and maybe we start small if
we're wanting to work on these, you know, don't go
canceling all your subscriptions. If that seems overwhelming, maybe just
find one to cancel one that you forgot about and

(19:49):
cancel it. Put away one of your piles around your house,
whatever piles you have formed, start with one put them away.
Which a hack that I saw too about if you're
having company over. This is something I saw someone on
TikTok doing, like they have this one basket and they
keep if they have company coming over, and then they
know they don't have time to pick up. And sometimes

(20:11):
you can be rushing around trying to get everything put away.
But what you do right before someone is coming over
is throw everything into the basket, and that way your
clean up time before company is faster. And then you
put that basket away. And the only problem here is
you got to remember after the company leaves sometime within
the next day, you make yourself finally put everything away

(20:33):
in the basket. But it does help speed up your
cleanup time for people coming over if you have that
dedicated basket. Okay, so back to the piles. Go pick
one of your piles today. Maybe even shoot, I should
have told y'all while you're listening to this, maybe when
you first started the episode, to work on your piles.
So while you listen, but just one pile, put it away.

(20:55):
And then there's obviously the notebook challenge, where you need
to finish one notebook all the way through before you
get distracted by a pretty new journal. Next time you're
at Target or whatever story you're at and you're like,
oh my gosh, this journal is so cute. I need it.
You don't. You have to finish your other ones before
you buy a new one. So these are all just
baby steps, all right. Hope y'all are having the day

(21:18):
that you need to have. I will see you on
Saturday for Outweigh with Leanne. That's our podcast dedicated to
disordered eating and body image. The tagline is a life
without disordered eating, outweighs everything, which I did. Get a
really awesome email from one of you about Outweigh. I'll

(21:38):
go ahead and read that now. It's from a listener
named Carol, and I love that she sent this note.
I'm going to have to afford it with Lisa, which
Lisa is who I originally started Outweigh with. Leanne is
co hosting with me now Leanne Ellington, but Lisa Haym
was my original co host back in twenty twenty when
we started it. Here's the email. Hey, Amy, I want

(21:59):
to go back to when you and Lisa started out Weigh.
I never knew about orthorexia, and you and Lisa opened
my eyes. I was never inerexic, baalimic or anything like that,
but I would say I was a binge eater and
definitely orthorexic. As you know that pendulum of restricting and
then going the other direction for a bit, and you
know it can swing a lot. But now I am

(22:21):
at a happy and even balance. I've been doing some
traveling over the past few years. I'm working part time
and my husband who's retired, so we can travel, and
this week we are on vacation. Today as I was
eating a portabello mushroom with spinach and cheese salad. I
had some fries as well, and I thought about you
and Lisa. What a delicious plate of food. And I

(22:43):
really enjoyed the fries without guilt, as I probably would
have pushed them completely aside a few years ago. I
don't really eat fries very often because I don't want
my cholesterol to go up, but I know my body
can deal with it on occasion. Traveling these last three
years would have been so stressful. If you and Lisa
had not opened my eyes and taught me so much,

(23:05):
I would have worried about eating. Quote right now, I
eat to nourish my body and for enjoyment. Please forward
this to Lisa if you think she might like to
read it. I am sixty years old. I add that
because I want you to know it's all ages that listen.
Thank you your friend Carol from Parish, Florida. And I
love that. Carol wrote that too, and she's also sharing

(23:28):
that what she started listening to outway in twenty twenty,
so she was fifty five years old, and she had
spent fifty five years of her life living a certain
way and then she decided to make some changes, and
now she's able to enjoy life more than ever and
travel with her husband and not look at food with
this moral value of being right or wrong or good

(23:48):
or bad. She's just enjoying food and she knows what's
good for her body. You know, she mentions her cholesterol.
But when you're in the throes of an eating disorder,
you're just seeing things as good or bad, or right
or wrong, or what's going to make you bigger smaller.
But when we eat that way, speaking of small, we
make our world very small and we shrink our opportunities down.

(24:12):
And now Carol's able to travel the world and really
enjoy life and take up more space and live life
in a more full way. So I love that so much.
So thank you Carol for sharing that email. I love
hearing from y'all. Y'all can send me emails Four Things
with Amy Brown at gmail dot com and again. I'll
see y'all on Saturday for Outweigh and then next Tuesday

(24:35):
for the fifth Thing with Kat. In the meantime, I'm
at Radio Amy on Socials by e