Living Vividly: The ADHD Experience Through Voices featuring Victoria Rashid and Jarrett Terrill

Living Vividly: The ADHD Experience Through Voices featuring Victoria Rashid and Jarrett Terrill

[00:00:00] So for the last 40 years or so, I'm not going to give away my age because I'm a lady. I have been living with, um, this thing, this thing that has many arms and legs, like one of those, uh, bugs that you see in your basement, that scurries away when you bring it, when you, uh, pick up a laundry basket. I don't know what those things are called.

I have them in my basement and I saw one outside once. And. And here I go. It's ADHD. I have some explaining to do. Let's get into it. [00:01:00] Hey, allians and new listeners. Welcome back for another episode of Ayana explains it all the podcast hosted by me, Ayana Fakir, the black Muslim lady lawyer who has an opinion on everything.

And I do mean everything. Ayana Explains it all is the podcast that bridges the gap between current events and human behavior because you need to know what's going on and why people act the way that they do and how their actions affect society as a whole. Ayana explains it all is available at www.ayanaexplainsitall.com.

That's A-Y-A-N-A explains it all.com and at all of your major and minor. streaming platforms for podcasts, including the flagship Spotify. We are on Apple podcasts. We are on Amazon music. We are on Pandora. We are on, I heart radio. We are on all of [00:02:00] these sites that you can find linked at the website. Www. ayanaexplainsitall. com. Make sure you go to the website or wherever you listen to podcasts and you rate it, you subscribe to it. You leave a review if you like it, if you love it, if you hate it, that's fine too. I take all forms of love and tender hatred. I would love it also if you would share this podcast with friends and family and let people know that there is a Muslim woman out there who's talking about things you need to know about.

And it's not just about religion. I know, people think Muslim, doing a podcast, it has to be about religion. No, I talk about everything. I talk about government, politics, history, technology, environment, mental health, uh, emotional health. I talk about, I add personal stories. I talk about everything, everything that's in the news, things that are happening in my life.

I'm sitting at home in Northeast Ohio, and I'm recording this on Saturday, May the 18th, [00:03:00] 2024. And it's a beautiful day outside. And I'm like, but I have to do this. I have to record. I love being outside when it's sunny and warm because Northeast Ohio, you know, sunny and warm days are not the, uh, are not the wheelhouse of Northeast Ohio.

We usually have gloomy, glum, gray, snow, cold, rain, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm so grateful to God for the sunny and warm days. But, I have been working on this particular episode of Ayanna Explains It All for, I will say, three weeks now. And if you listen to the introduction, you know why I get distracted, man.

I get distracted, but also I get, um, I get stopped up. Like the thoughts don't flow. Like I will sit down at my laptop. intentionally to record, to write, to record my ideas, to, you know, hash things out, [00:04:00] hammer something out, to read articles, to read stories. And I will literally find something else to do.

I'll find some other way to be distracted, or I'll just sit and stare at the computer screen. And nothing will come out. None of the ideas won't pour, pour forth. And it was just one night I was, I was reading a bunch of different articles about ADHD, which I do every day, actually. And this particular batch of articles was really giving.

It was really good. It was really inspiring. And I just started writing. I just started writing, writing, writing. And it was one o'clock in the morning. And, and, and that's usually how it happens. It's usually at odd hours. I always tell people I keep odd hours because the desire to do something for me does not happen right away.

Like as soon as my feet hit the floor, when I get out of bed, I'm like, yes, I'm going to do this and this and this. [00:05:00] No, I get around to it. It's not because I'm lazy. It's because I literally don't want to do some things, things that I want to do. Oh, I'm on it, honey. I'm jumping. I'm getting ready to go. I'm ready.

I've been thinking about it. I'm, I'm anxious and I'm height. Like if I tell myself that I can go and buy a plant or get some new flowers, go to the garden center. Oh, please. I'm up. I'm up. I don't want to be indoors reading. I would love to go to a park and read, and so if I have to sit inside and do it, Oh, okay. I guess. And then I had to sit at the dining room table because the dining room is the place that has the best light. And of course I have to have the comfy chair. And of course, because I'm usually either burning up hot. Or freezing cold. I have to have a blanket and then I have to have my foot rest. I have to make sure that's in the best position. And then I have to have my giant jug of water.

So I got to make sure that's [00:06:00] filled and cold and I have to have my pen. I have a special ink pen and it says make today your bitch. I love it. And I have to have my bookmark. So these, I can't just like get up and do something. I have to, all of these things have to be lined up. And I need motivation too. I need to be pushed. I do. I need to be pushed. And I'm interviewing my friends. I interviewed two of my friends for this podcast episode, and that was a good thing to push me to, to, to finally be like, sit down and do this. Another reason why it was difficult for me to sit down and do this, because I am talking about something that's happened to me, something that is happening to me.

And something that I've been living with for years. And I think some people think, Oh, it's easy to talk about yourself. It is not. It's not because you have to share things about yourself that, ordinarily people wouldn't want others to know. You wouldn't want other people to know that you have [00:07:00] a disorder and that you take medication for it and the things you've struggled with the problems you've had because of it.

And, you have to be really open. You have to be nonjudgmental of yourself. You have to be honest. And that's hard for people. We don't want others knowing these things about us. We want to hide these things. I'm not that kind of person though. But at the same time, Saying exactly what I want to say.

 Without being critical, but also without being talking for the sake of talking. That's where it gets hard for me. I don't want to be just sitting here telling you this because I need something to talk about. No, there's a reason I'm talking about this. And one of the reasons is that I've been looking at a lot of, um, ADHD content on the internet, particularly on Instagram.

And then, uh, I don't know how many weeks ago it was, but Amanda Seals, the, the podcast comedian, [00:08:00] comedian, writer actress. She was on the club Shay Shay podcast with Shannon Sharp, and she was talking about, Being a person with autism and how that came about and it came out eventually that she had not been formally diagnosed by a doctor, but that she had done whatever she did to reach the conclusion that she has autism.

Now, a lot of people do this with ADHD as well. But when she said that, it got me to thinking how, when I first had the inkling that something was wrong, that I was just kind of looking online and I was going through like the symptoms of ADHD, this symptom, this symptom, and I was like, well, that, I mean, that sounds, that sounds like me.

You know, ending our periods, we're going into perimenopause and then menopause symptoms. Um, [00:09:00] of these disorders worsen because there's that dip in estrogen and it affects your brain.

And if your brain is already neurodivergent, I was just going to get worse. It's just going to get worse. And one thing I noticed around PMS is that I would get incredibly anxious, just out of nowhere, just get anxious. Literally feeling like I was having a panic attack.

I would feel like I was having a panic attack and it would be, It was just like an internal anxiety, just I would be standing in a parking lot and just suddenly feel kind of fearful and panicky and it was only during PMS that this was happening. So I thought, Oh, this is just PMS, but no, anxiety is a part of ADHD.

And when you're on your period. When you're in PMS, during those four stages of, of ovulating or whatever, or having your period, the follicular stage, the ovulating stage and all that, your [00:10:00] estrogen is going up and down and up and down and up and down throughout the month.

And then steadily with age, the closer you get to menopause, whatever age that is for you, estrogen is going down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down. And so your brain is your brain health is declining, right? It's, it's, it's crazy. It's crazy the things that happen to women, but that also people don't understand even other women.

We are often instead of being evaluated for and diagnosed with ADHD, we are often diagnosed with anxiety or depression

People who have ADHD usually have comorbidities and depression is one, PTSD is one, generalized anxiety is one, but ADHD has its, has specific testing that needs to be done that isn't always done, but, or that sometimes people do themselves and they figure out that they have this [00:11:00] disorder.

But. I was suffering, suffering bad, but I had been over the years with emotional dysregulation and rejection sensitive dysphoria and these are two hallmarks of ADHD and people just assume that's how I was. That's who I was. I was just this person who, um, I was just always crying. I was always, I was always emotional.

I was always losing my shit. If something went wrong, if I got criticized, if I got rejected, I couldn't recover. Like some people can pivot and be fine within a couple of days, whereas it would take me weeks, months to get over things. If I did poorly on a test, if I did, , if I didn't have the best outcome in a relationship, if I was rejected by a job or a man or even in a small way or by a friend or something, I would be tore up and, and it was abnormal.

And my therapist would tell me all the time what what's happening to you is not [00:12:00] normal. The way you are is not normal. You're having these emotional reactions that you're and you're turning them inward on yourself. And it's not normal. And she is someone who treats a lot of people who have ADHD. And, She kept saying to me, it seems like You have executive dysfunction because I became absent minded Like I have been absent minded for years though and absent mindedness the the brain fog or whatever is also a part of hypothyroidism But my my hypothyroidism is controlled.

So why am I still having these symptoms, right? And I would, you know, I would put something down and not remember at all where I put it. And I would spend hours looking for it. There's that absent minded is where you walk into a room and you forget why you're there. I would walk into a room and just start doing something else.

My brain was always searching for new adventures. Always, all the time. It's not that I forgot why I was there. I would just find something else [00:13:00] to do. I would plum find something else. And eventually I get to doing what I had set out to do. But I always add steps and I didn't know that that was part of executive dysfunction. Poor working memory, being distracted. can't concentrate, can't focus. Sometimes you're inattentive. There are three types of ADHD.

There's Inattentive, hyperactive, and then there's combined type and I have the combined type, lucky me. And how I came to the diagnosis, like I said, my therapist treats ADHD and she was like, you have emotional dysregulation. You've got executive dysfunction. I think you need to be tested for ADHD. And I'm like, uh, I guess.

but I really did need to figure this out because I was also suffering at work. Like paying [00:14:00] attention at work, focusing was just not, I wasn't doing it. I was, I was, I had gone from being a high producer to a very low, low producer. And my boss came to me and he was like, what is going on? And I said, I don't know, but my therapist thinks that I have ADHD and I should be tested for ADHD.

And. He said, well, you know, you don't, you don't seem like someone who would have ADHD and this is what the, the person who administered the test and he said the same thing, you're a lawyer, you finished law school, how could you possibly have ADHD? And this is something that women go through all the time.

Women are supposed to be high functioning, right? And if you're successful, there's no way you could possibly have ADHD because successful people don't have ADHD, which is bullshit. People who are successful. There are a lot of celebrities and a lot of famous people, you know, walking around who have ADHD, [00:15:00] who lived with ADHD.

The success has nothing to do with it. Success in your career field, in your education is not a measure of how well or how badly you are doing with ADHD. It simply isn't. It could be a symptom, but the fact that we are high performing could also be a symptom because a lot of people with ADHD are perfectionists, they're people pleasers.

They figure that this is the way that they have to act in order for people to think that they're normal to please people. And so. People like me, work until you're burned out at the age of 30 because you have been high performing, high functioning this whole time.

And like I said, the older you get. The harder it is to maintain all of that. ESPECIALLY, if you add children into that mix. If you're a woman who has children, [00:16:00] your ADHD is off the charts, off the fucking charts. And it also affects how you parent.

And so by the time I was 30 years old, I had two kids who I was raising alone and I was burned out, burned at the boat, at both ends, burned in the middle, burned on the outside, burned on the inside. But I still didn't know that I w I had ADHD. I was just suffering. I was just suffering all these years.

I have been suffering and trying to maintain and doing not so well at it. Um, I, I was always forgetting things. And when you're a woman who has kids, people call that mommy brain, it's not mommy brain, right? The, like I said, the, the highs and lows of estrogen, especially when you're pregnant. So it's not mommy brain. Mommy has so much on her plate that she forgets. No, mommy's forgetting because she literally can't fucking remember. [00:17:00] I couldn't remember. The working memory of a person with ADHD is virtually non existent. We go to the store and we buy something and we forget that we bought it and so we buy it again.

And then we forget that we bought that one and so we buy it again. And we forget that we bought that one and we buy it again. Like, I have, What was I buying? I kept buying these eyebrow pencils because I had forgotten that I had already bought some.

And so now in my drawer, my, my makeup drawers, I have 10 eyebrow pencils because I couldn't find, I would buy them and then put them somewhere. I have like this place where I stash overflow of like body products, like lotions and, and hair products. And so I, I put things in there and I forget that I put them in there.

I have bath products. I forget that I put them in there and so I buy more bath products. And so now I have, you know, my closet is overflowing with things because I forget that I buy things and I just buy them again. [00:18:00] I literally forget. And at some point I'm thinking, okay, I need to make a shelf. that doesn't have a door or anything that every time I walk past, I can see that I have these things so that I'm not purchasing them again.

But if I have a, if I see a sale, forget it, I'm buying it anyway. But. I just forget. I forget that I buy socks. I forget that I buy new underwear. I forget that I buy hijabs. I have bought the same color hijab. I don't know how many times, cause I just literally forget. It's not that I want to have so many things.

I forget that I have bought these things. Food products. My daughter loves to eat oatmeal. I buy oatmeal when I go to the grocery store, but then I forget that we already have oatmeal that has been stored in the pantry or in another storage cabinet. And so now we have like 10 boxes of oatmeal[00:19:00]

and I'm like, what, what is happening? So you can, you can look at yourself and go, wow, maybe there is something wrong. Maybe there is something wrong. And you know, you, how you plug in all of the symptoms that you're having into to Google and now they have AI populating things and probably AI will spit out something.

But I was looking at like, um, oh, it wasn't a web MD. It was like a psychology today website or something. And it's like, you might have ADHD. And I got tested. Now, Amanda Seals made the point when she talked about her testing for autism, that it is expensive and not widely available. Especially if you're an adult.

Especially if you're a woman, an adult woman who wants to be tested for autism. I mean, come on. I'm a, I'm an adult woman who wanted to be tested for ADHD and my insurance did not cover the testing [00:20:00] part. They cover the treatment, but they don't cover the testing. I had to pay for that. I think it was, it wasn't terribly expensive, but I still had to come up out of my pocket for it.

And I didn't necessarily have the money for it, but I did it anyway because I needed to know. I needed to know definitively. And so I could get medication. I'm not a person who's opposed to taking medication. But if you want to take medication for this disorder, you have to be evaluated or you have to be tested.

Like, I know there's a wave of people just going to their doctor and saying, I have these symptoms. I think I have ADHD. And the doctor going, yeah, reviewing the symptoms and going, yeah, you know what? I think you have it. Here's a prescription for, , Ritalin and,

adderall. I didn't want a stimulant, I didn't want something that I would become dependent on and stimulants are something you can become dependent on. Absolutely. And, um, so anyway, I [00:21:00] went for the testing. The testing was about two hours, and it was a series of different tests, and it was an intelligence test, and it was this other test, and literally, within 30 minutes, I wanted to cry.

I wanted to cry. And I am an intelligent person. I'm a well read person. I can analyze the hell out of some information. I'm, you know, I do legal analyzing, I do, I write, uh, appeals decisions. I can do this, I thought, and I'm sitting down and doing this test and I'm like, God, I have no fucking idea. I don't know.

I feel like I gave a lot of, I don't know, responses to the questions that, um, this psychologist was asking me. And she is a, she's a doctor rather. And I, I, and I'm just, I'm about to cry. Not only am I about to cry because I'm getting frustrated, I'm, I'm getting hot because I'm anxious and I'm, I'm, I'm [00:22:00] inattentive also, but I'm also hyper and I'm sitting here and I'm like tapping on the table and I'm singing to myself and I'm rocking back and forth because when it's easy, I don't really have to pay attention when it's easy and I don't.

But then the harder it gets, the more energy that I have to put into it, the more that I have to sit there and really think and really put my brain to it. It's like, I can't, I can't do it. I can't do it. I can put a whole Ikea dresser together just by reading the book with pictures. But this test for ADHD, I'm like, Oh shit, I don't remember.

And you, and, the doctor was observing me. how I reacted, how I acted, how I talked to myself

and all of these observations, and I'm looking at the end when she gave me the results. Um, it was like two weeks later when she gave me the results. I'm like, fuck, there it is on the paper. I have ADHD [00:23:00] combined type right there. So ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is a neurological disorder that impacts the parts of the brain that help us to plan, focus, , that helps us to plan, focus on and execute tasks. And I'm taking this information from attitude mag. com attitude. That's a DD get it attitude mag.

com and it says ADHD symptoms vary by subtype. And I mentioned the subtypes, the inattentive hyperactive or combined and are more often difficult to diagnose in girls and adults, which I have seen, obviously ADHD can be developmental. It can happen in the developmental stages of life. It can happen because of the environment.

It can happen in the embryonic stages of development of a fetus.

And I'm finally seeing this, diagnosis, that's a relief I was [00:24:00] relieved. But I was also sad because I know that I've been dealing with this since I was at least, since I was at least four years old, but there was no help for me at all, at all whatsoever.

Now this ADHD diagnosis is a relief, but it's also a pain because now I have to take medication. There are people who have ADHD and people who have ADD, which is now just ADHD inattentive type who do not take medication at all.

I don't know how they do it. I don't know why they do it, but they do it me personally. I needed it because internally I was so hyperactive, and anxious and the executive dysfunction had taken over my brain and the emotional dysregulation had taken over and I needed to be calmed. down and [00:25:00] helped to center my focus. And so I take a non stimulant medication I am calm, so calm. I'm not saying that things don't bother me, but I am so calm. I get over things quite easily, . Like I get upset about something within a few hours, even the next day, I'm onto something else..

It has forced me to not dwell long in a particular state. like in sadness, even laughter. Like I'm not, I don't find everything hilarious. Like I used to find thing. Always laughing, always looking for laughs, always chasing dopamine. That's one of the things about having HD ADHD. You're constantly chasing dopamine

your brain wants to be stimulated all the fucking time in everything that it does, or it won't want to do them. And [00:26:00] that was part of my problem with ADHD is that there were things that I had to do that I didn't want to do because my brain did not find stimulating and so I would fall asleep. I'd fall asleep everywhere.

In class, at work, fall asleep. I would have to take naps at home. I rarely nap now. Rarely. I would have to be like a Sunday and it's raining and there's nothing else to do, nowhere to go. And I I'm watching TV and I'm laying down on the couch. Like all of these factors have to be aligned.

Whereas before I could just sit down and fall asleep.

If my brain is not being stimulated and it's not that I'm tired at all. My brain is not being stimulated, so it does not want to be bothered and that, that makes me sound like an asshole, right?

That makes people with ADHD sound like assholes. Oh, you're just not paying attention because you don't want to be here. Or, maybe you need some coffee. And I'm like, I don't need coffee. I need stimulation. So, I mean, make [00:27:00] it fun for me.,

but many people forego being tested for mental health disorders because It can be expensive, it can be time consuming, and it might leave you feeling a little lost. And not only that, people don't like being told that there's something wrong with them mentally. People can accept most physical diagnoses, like, a broken finger. A UTI. Or you have a sprained shoulder. When you have depression, or anxiety, or ADHD, you want to call yourself a derogatory name. You start to think of yourself as being broken. Like people who have mental health disorders think of themselves as broken.

They don't see who they really are. Because mental disorders, because they affect your brain, They have you lying to yourself. They have you believing lies about yourself. They have you seeing. something that is [00:28:00] not there, but you, but that's what you see. And so seeing is believing. And so you feel like you're outside of yourself looking in, you don't feel normal, but then you think the people around you also look at you like you're abnormal too.

And people react to you differently, when they find out that you have this disease or disorder or people go, Oh, everybody's being diagnosed with that. Okay. My kid was diagnosed with that. That's the other thing about ADHD. It's not just a kid disorder. You know, kids with ADHD grow up to be adults with ADHD.

It doesn't go away. Some of the executive dysfunctions can be repaired, but it does not go away entirely. And as I said, for women, when we are moving into perimenopause and menopause, it worsens. So when you found that it was under control in your thirties, now you're in your forties and shit is going [00:29:00] crazy.

 And then if you're, when you're a child and you're diagnosed, you're dependent on the adults in your life to get you therapy or medication. And when I talked to my friends, Victoria and Jarrett, they described what it was like being a child with these disorder, these disorders and knowing that they had them.

I didn't know, some of the, the symptoms that I noticed in myself of ADHD were overanalyzing, hyper focus, procrastination. Memory loss, depression, anxiety, choice paralysis.

Don't give me a choice of 20 different things that are in the same category, 20 different types of, of toilet tissue. I'm not, I don't know. I'm going to make a choice and then I'm going to feel guilty that I chose this thing and think that I chose the wrong thing. And when ADHD is undiagnosed and untreated, it becomes Paralyzing. Now, you picture yourself [00:30:00] doing all the things you should be doing and living your life to the fullest, but you can't move.

You're paralyzed. There's no desire, no drive, no motivation. Sure, it'd be nice to have clean dishes and clean clothes, clean floors, but who's going to clean them? You? Sure. In your dreams. It's boring, but sometimes it can be fulfilling. Some people are fulfilled by having a clean house, by seeing the dishes cleared in the sink, seeing the laundry washed and folded and put away.

I am one of those people. I love, I love having a clean house. I love it. mainly because clean house doesn't attract bugs. And I hate bugs. If I see a bug, I probably will take everything in my house and throw it away.

There are so many ways that ADHD can come about that it, you can't really pinpoint it for a particular person. I believe strongly that my ADHD was caused by [00:31:00] toxic stress and trauma. And yes, these things, remember environmental, these things can cause a brain to not develop typically.

if they happen in the earliest stages of a child's development. Mine began, I would say, around age three or four. Age four is really when it got bad, bad. My life got horrible and the horrible things didn't end until I was, um, I want to say into my late teens. And so I really didn't have a chance. I had no chance of developing normally.

I just didn't. Uh, MashaAllah. MashaAllah. I'm so happy to even be here because of the things that I experienced in my childhood. I could easily be a raging alcoholic, drug addict, prostitute,. I could be dead. I could be dead. And I've talked about some [00:32:00] of the things that I experienced in my childhood on the podcast in the past.

If you want to go back and listen to these episodes, I do a lot of episodes on emotional health and wellbeing and mental health, but studies indicate that toxic stress can have an adverse impact on brain development in children. So regions of the brain involved in fear, anxiety, and impulsivity, that was another symptom.

That I noticed in myself, I was very impulsive

 so regions of the brain involved in fear, anxiety, and impulsivity may overproduce neural connections.

And this is going to get technical. So

while areas dedicated to reasoning planning and behavioral control may actually produce fewer neural connections. So regions of the brain involved in fear, anxiety, and impulsivity may overproduce neural connections. Neural connections, while areas dedicated to reasoning, [00:33:00] planning, and behavioral control may actually produce fewer Neural connections.

And this is because of toxic stress affecting brain development in children. So this may lead to what scientists term as maladaptive behavioral responses. They include ADHD, a maladaptive behavioral response. included is ADHD and other conditions like anxiety and mood disorders, toxic, toxic levels of stress hormones can even cause neuronal cell death, especially in the prefrontal cortex.

And that is the region associated with executive Function, self regulation, and attention, and the limbic systems, which is, which are associated with learning, memory, emotional regulation, and reactivity. Scientists have looked at adverse childhood [00:34:00] events, which are stressful or traumatic events or traumatic events occurring before the age of 18, and that have negative effects on physical health.

Physical, social, and emotional wellbeing and how they lead to the development of ADHD in children and young adults. For instance, abuse, neglect, household dysfunction, children with ADHD have a much higher rate of these adverse events than children who do not have ADHD and the severity of ADHD increases with the number of adverse events.

and increases with the number of adverse events. And again, I'm taking this information from www. additudemag. com and I'm. I don't want to tell y'all my business, but I experienced abuse, household dysfunction, but it was abuse of several different kinds and the household dysfunction was just, it was [00:35:00] off the chain.

It was in my house, but it was also in my extended family. It was just all dysfunction. And like I said, I never had a chance, never had a chance to develop normally. And I'm not saying that, you know, I'm not being flippant, but, You can't put children in these environments and expect that everything is going to be okay when, as they get older.

You just can't. And this is why we have to provide stable, loving, supportive, safe environments for children. Because as they get older, you don't want them to be, you don't want them to develop a disorder. It doesn't mean they're broken, but you want to give them a fighting chance in the world. You don't want them to have to be struggling to survive, struggling to keep it together, struggling to make it.

But that is what happens when their brains don't develop typically. And sometimes it is because of the environment they live in. So ADHD may be the result of the developmental [00:36:00] process in the womb, or it can be the result of early childhood trauma or pervasive severe stress that causes the brain to not develop as it should.

But also trauma worsens ADHD. and trauma related disorders can mimic the symptoms of ADHD. So children who have PTSD, for instance, may be misdiagnosed as having ADHD and vice versa. It is the reason so many women and girls are diagnosed with depression and anxiety versus ADHD because the fail safe for mental unwellness in women is Anxiety disorder or depressive disorder, period.

How many women who are listening to this podcast or do you know have been diagnosed with depression or anxiety? I see it. Listen, I'm a disability lawyer. I work in disability and administrative law. I see it every day. [00:37:00] Every day. Every day. And I'm thinking to myself, wow, there are a lot of people who have depression and anxiety.

There are a lot of people with this disorder. But then I look at some of the symptoms and I think to myself, no, that sounds more like something else, but I'm not a doctor. I'm certainly not their doctor, but I see it a lot. Women are just readily diagnosed with anxiety and depression. There's no way a woman can have a brain development disorder, right?

The prejudice in medicine continues, but it's more likely to be diagnosed in men and boys than women and girls. And scientists have studied the ADHD brain versus the non ADHD brain and learn that they are structured differently.

The executive functioning that a neurotypical finds easy, the neurodivergent finds difficult. Executive function is the cognitive process that [00:38:00] organizes thoughts and activities, prioritizes tasks, manages time efficiently, and makes decisions.

Executive function skills are the skills that help us establish structures and strategies for managing projects and determine the actions required to move each project forward. Individuals with executive dysfunction often struggle to analyze, plan, organize, schedule, and complete tasks at all or on deadline.

They misplace materials, prioritize the wrong things, and get overwhelmed by big projects. Adults and children with ADHD tend to have dysfunction in the following seven executive skills. Number one, Self awareness. Huge. Number two. Inhibition. Number three. Non [00:39:00] verbal working memory. Number four.

Verbal working memory. Number five. Emotional self regulation. Number six. Self motivation. And number seven. Planning And problem solving, anyone who exhibits the classic symptoms of ADHD will have difficulty with all or most of these seven executive functions. And yes, that leads to the hyperactivity that leads to the angry outbursts, the sleep problems, the disorganization, the daydreaming, poor listening skills, the lack of fear.

So you engage in self injurious behavior, you're excitable, you have trouble starting a task. You have something called Alex. Alexithymia, which is emotional blindness that makes it hard to feel or express emotions. You might be hypersexual. I know one problem I was having was I couldn't sleep at all. I could not sleep at night.

I could not, I couldn't fall [00:40:00] asleep. And. I was staying up till 1, 3, 4 o'clock in the morning and getting four hours of sleep, you cannot exist on four hours of sleep. Like, you will become depressed, you will become, um, short tempered, all of these things, but mostly your physical health will suffer as well.

You might gain weight. Your body needs to rest. It needs proper sleep to regulate itself. I could not. And people say, you can't shut off your brain. Well, you don't shut off your brain, but your brain relaxes. All of these thoughts that have been firing off throughout the day.

These things relax. Your body temperature comes down. You start to get a little bit cold. That's why we're sleeping with blankets. Mostly. And you relax and you drift off to sleep. Now most people can stay asleep for 6 or 7 [00:41:00] hours. Not only could I not fall asleep, but I could not stay asleep when I would eventually fall asleep.

And so yes, I do take a sleep aid. I take it and it works. I need to be able to sleep. I'm a lawyer. I'm a mommy. I'm a person who is health conscious. I need sleep

I fall asleep almost immediately and I get a good eight hours of sleep.

I I'm all for anything that works, anything that helps.

Help yourself.

If we see the brain, for instance, as divided into four circuits, the what circuit, which is linked to working memory, the when circuit, which is linked to time management, the who, who are you circuit linked to self awareness and the why circuit that's linked to our emotions, then you understand that each circuit is [00:42:00] affected differently.

differently. And depending upon which circuits are most impaired and least impaired, you can see variation in the kinds of symptoms that any individual is going to have. So yes, a lawyer can have ADHD. Yes, a person who lives with their parents in the, in their basement and plays video games can also have ADHD.

There is not. A thing, one thing that defines a person with ADHD. Some of them are hyperactive. Some of them are inattentive. Some of them are both. Some of them have poor memory. Others have, you know, what is it that didactic memory and they can remember anything, but. These circuits are affected differently, and that's why you see variations in the kinds of symptoms that any individual has.

Some people have more of a working memory deficit. Some people have more emotion regulation problems. Some people have more difficulties with timing, but less [00:43:00] difficulty with all others. But, They all involve these circuits somehow. And personally, I have impairment in the where, what, when circuits, but less so in the who circuit.

I am very self aware. But emotional regulation, working memory, and time management are significantly impaired, and they have been since I was a very little girl. Very little girl. I experienced trauma early in my life, as I mentioned. And I was called all kinds of names as a child. And I was treated. not the best as a child.

And, Jared and Victoria, in their interviews, they will talk about the same thing, how they were treated as children, but how you're treated because of how your brain works. When you're a child, that's, that becomes what you believe about yourself. That becomes what you think about yourself. So people [00:44:00] would call me Eveline, you know, Eveline from, uh, what was it?

The Wiz. And so I believed that I was evil. I believed that I was a mean, evil child. I believed that I was an unhappy, miserable person who didn't smile because I never smiled. According to everybody, I never smiled, which I know is a lie because I did smile, but I didn't smile when they wanted me to smile.

So I was a child who didn't smile. So I believe that I wasn't a person who smiled. I believed that I was ugly and dumb and stupid, even though I was at the top of my class in high school, even though I was always getting A's,

 How I was treated as a child, though, that became how I thought about myself and the things that I thought about myself were not good at all. And having to undo 40 years, 40, 41, 42 years of negative self talk, negative beliefs, [00:45:00] critical judgment of myself has been heavy, heavy, heavy work.

And I spent most of my life mimicking others or acting in a way that I thought other people would find acceptable. because I did not want to be judged for being weird or different or awkward or, you know, well, things that did, or goofy, even things didn't make sense to me and I didn't want people to know I was not my true self for the longest time, decades.

Masking is something that plagues people with ADHD because our behaviors can be sometimes rough. Like I said, when you don't remember things and people expect you to remember birthdays, anniversaries, what you, what things you have in a pantry.

So that when they're at the store, they're not buying things again. They expect you to do these things. And when you don't remember, it makes you look like you don't give a fuck [00:46:00] when you don't show up to something because it, it really just doesn't interest you. It makes you look like you don't give a fuck when you have an angry outburst.

Because your emotions, you know, you have not learned to regulate your emotions. It makes you look like a jerk. It makes you look like an asshole. Especially if you're a kid and you're having these angry outbursts. Are people gonna, are other kids gonna want to play with you? No. No. So you may not have any friends either.

Because, oh, we know how Ayana can be. I used to hear that a lot. You know how Ayana can be. You can't tell her anything. You can't criticize her. You can't, because I would fall apart. It's not because I'm not someone you can't talk to. I would just literally fall apart or I would explode. And so these things that we learn as children become what we think about ourselves.

And when we're not treated properly, when these things go untreated, [00:47:00] it essentially becomes who you are. And you have to spend a lot of time undoing, undoing, unlearning what you've learned. On hearing what you've heard, on seeing what you think you've seen about yourself, and it's hard work. It's hard work, hard grueling work.

And so once you get an ADHD diagnosis, you have ADHD centered focus therapy. You have ADHD medication. And so yes, those things help, but also you have to help yourself. You have to do the studying and the learning, and I'm studying and I'm learning about this, but you also have to be self aware.

You have to be self aware. You have to notice when something is wrong, when something is off. You have to notice when things are not going how you think they should go. You have to notice that you have to [00:48:00] notice when you're not focused, when you're not paying attention, you have to know when you go into a situation, okay, this is probably not going to be very stimulating for me, so I'm going to have to find some way to get through it.

You're going to have to do that for yourself without judgment. Without judgment. We can be our harshest critics, but this is where you cannot judge yourself because I mean just There's nothing you could do. Why are you judging yourself for something? That is you You cannot change that this is you.

You cannot change that you have this disorder. So what are you going to do about it? Are you going to judge yourself every day for something that is beyond your control? No, no, don't do that. Will other people do it? Yes. Fuck those people. And I don't care who it is. Fuck them. But, uh, executive functions can improve if you're treated.

They can [00:49:00] improve. The brain is a muscle and the muscle can be repaired and strengthened. If you receive therapy and medication and compassion and encouragement, if you're able to thrive in a healthy environment, but if you don't and you're like me and every environment you move to is unhealthy and you're always experiencing trauma and you're undiagnosed until you're well into your forties, you spend most of your life falling apart while looking like you're together.

Your, you know, your executive functions are going to be stale. Your executive functions are going to stall. They're going to fail. They're going to die, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so I'm on my way to improving my executive functions. Am I, where I would like to be new, but I am a lot better. I'm a lot better.

And this has all been since I was diagnosed last year. This was in, uh, September. September of [00:50:00] 2023. So it hasn't been that long, but. Understanding through therapy and through all of the reading that I've been doing and being mindful and again, taking my medication as prescribed has helped me a great deal.

I'm doing a lot better at work. I'm doing a lot better in my home. I'm doing a lot better in my projects. But there are still some times where I would rather focus on one thing than something else. And that's just the way it is, honey.

Have I talked about rejection sensitive dysphoria? This is probably one of the worst parts of having ADHD, but it's a brain based condition that causes people to experience intense emotional pain when they are rejected, criticize, or fail. RSD is not a medical diagnosis, but it is a manifestation of emotional dysregulation.

Rejection, teasing, negative self talk, [00:51:00] criticism, persistent self criticism, it's, I mean, people become addicted to this pain. And then because you've always been in this pain, you think that this is all there's ever going to be. So you look at life through this lens. And that was me. I looked at life through a lens of pain.

What I didn't get, this is life, Ayana. Sometimes things will work out for the best. Sometimes things will work out good.

Sometimes things will go in a different direction that may be bad. Things are not always going to be good. There will be suffering. There will be despair. But you have to persist. You have to persist and you can't internalize it. You can't turn that onto yourself and go, well, well, I guess that just means cause I'm a dummy cause I'm a fucking idiot or I'm just a fuck up.

I'm a screw up or nobody likes me. Nobody wants me. Nobody loves me. I'm not worthy of loving. [00:52:00] In all of this negative self talk and you're criticizing yourself and you're judging yourself, you're not able to coach yourself. You're not able to affirm yourself. And that is because you're not able to regulate your emotions.

You cannot regulate your emotions. And then you're just exhausted. Then you're just tired all the time. Having to pretend to be things, having to pretend to care, having to pretend to be happy. You don't even know if you're happy because you don't know what happiness is. And then our thoughts, you know, our thoughts can be our worst enemy.

You really do have to practice telling yourself good things, good thoughts. You have to practice positive thinking and affirmations. You have to say positive things to yourself. We have to practice self compassion. And loving ourselves fully, even on our worst day, when we are not at our best, we have to love ourselves [00:53:00] completely in our, as my therapist calls it, meat suit, your body.

You have to understand that the distress emotion is hard to regulate with ADHD. That anger, sadness, it's hard to regulate with ADHD. And so the neurodivergent brain can go from zero to 100 quickly. And it's not always our fault, but we are responsible for how we react to stress and how we regulate our emotions.

We're still responsible, even though it's not our fault. And so here are some ways that I have picked up from various sources across the internet about how to deal with our emotions and how to affirm ourselves and talk to ourselves nicely and be good to ourselves. And the first is mindful mindfulness meditation and Jarrett talks, talks about this in his interview, [00:54:00] but mindfulness meditation to increase awareness of emotional states and improve focus, schedule breaks to, to prevent sensory overload and manage stress.

That's one thing. Another thing that happens with people who have ADHD, you can get overstimulated and that overstimulation will cause you to withdraw. Like if their lights are too bright, if there are too many people, if there's too much noise, and sometimes people see this as a, um, a symptom of those with autism.

No, this happens with people who have a neurodivergent. who are neurodivergent. You get overstimulated and you just need quiet. I have to have quiet when I work. I have to, so I can focus so I can manage what I'm doing, what I'm thinking about when I'm writing about, But also exercise, exercising 20 minutes, at least of low impact exercise per day to boost your mood, [00:55:00] improve focus and reduce anxiety and depression. Sleep hygiene. I mentioned sleep before. You have to get adequate sleep every day. The less sleep you have, the more tense and prone to outbursts you may be.

Have a healthy diet, a diet rich in omega 3 fatty acids. Anything that's good for your brain health. I take in omega 3. I take magnesium also. What's that magnesium everyone talks about? Magnesium lysinate or whatever. I take that. I also take an iron supplement cause I have anemia and I take vitamin D. You got to get your vitamin levels up.

Got to make sure everything's balanced, well balanced. You got to have protein, a lot of protein, a lot of fiber. You got to cut out a lot of things that you probably enjoy. Because they don't have enough of these healthy fats and these healthy [00:56:00] vitamins and nutrients. Also, therapy. Get to a fucking therapist.

Get one who, who is good for you. There are thousands. Millions. You don't have to stay with one. Well, maybe you have to stay with one that's in your network. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to develop strategies for coping with emotional dysregulation and to enhance emotional resilience. It's highly necessary, highly, highly.

So probably one through five is something that costs you absolutely nothing. And then six might cost you a little something. And then seven medication that's going to cost you too. But it's worth it. It's worth it to invest in your good mental health. Another one, journaling. Writing through your negative experiences or your [00:57:00] positive experiences.

Writing them down, seeing them. Have a good support system. That's building a support network of others who understand the disorder and can provide encouragement and advice. Personally, most of my friends have ADHD. I don't know how it ended up being this way, but, Jarrett, Jarrett mentions that we are people with ADHD are attracted to each other.

And that is so true. We really feel comfortable with other people who are like us. But I didn't know that I had ADHD. And when I took the test and was diagnosed, all of my friends were like, yeah, that makes sense.

And I said, damn. But also, um, time management tools might work for you. Planners, alarms, schedulers. [00:58:00] I And not the best with planners and alarms and schedulers. I put everything into my, my phone calendar. And so on the day of I have alarms that go off an hour before the day before whatever I put reminders in my phone.

Those seem to work really well for me. I saw something else where it was, um, some kind of product on Amazon that lights up. I don't know. Whatever works for you. as far as time management tools, but you need something because your memory is shit. If you have ADHD, your memory is shit.

You're working memory, verbal, nonverbal is shit. And you need something. You have to write things down. There are people who have little sticky notes all over their offices in their homes, reminding them of a task they have to do at a particular time, reminding them to brush their teeth, take a shower, uh, put the clothes in the, in the, the washer, et cetera, et cetera.

Start dinner. Uh, For me, I have [00:59:00] alarms for when I have to pray. Otherwise I will just sit. That's the other thing about ADHD. You will sit in what we call the ADHD pit because you lack time awareness. Time just, it's like you walk into a casino and you don't see any clocks. That's what having ADHD is like.

There's all this noise and stuff going on and, and there's no clock. So you never know what time it is. You don't, you're not aware of time. You don't think about time at all. You become blind to it. You have time blindness. It is one of the worst on top of the emotional dysregulation, the time blindness.

And so you're, you're late for everything. You're late for everything. And it's not because it takes you a long time to get ready. It's because you, you fucking forgot that you had to do it in the first place. And then you forgot what time you had to do it. And then you misjudged how much time it takes to [01:00:00] get there.

And then you probably got lost getting there. And then when you get there, you probably can't find anywhere to park. And so you get flustered by that. And then you're like, you know what, fuck it, I'm just going home. But, when you're doing a lot of executive functioning, it helps to feed yourself a bit of sugar.

Like when you're taking a test, it helps to feed yourself a bit of sugar throughout the activity as glucose fuels the frontal lobe, but only have a small amount. Sometimes people with ADHD They carb load because that sugar fuels the frontal lobe and it makes you feel good and you want to feel good, so you give yourself a little bit of sugar when you're doing a lot of executive functioning. There's no need to eat the entire box of milk. But also show yourself compassion and if you're dealing with someone who has ADHD. Show them compassion [01:01:00] and understanding and a willingness to help them learn how to better regulate their emotions, how to perhaps use some of these tools I've talked about because we cannot change our brain, but we can change the way that we think.

 But you must, in this setting, stop trying to be other than you.

 I read this somewhere and it said perfectionism is self harm, but the greatest form of self harm. It leads to stress and feelings of inadequacy. We use perfectionism to hide the cracks. To people please, we must examine the reason we need something to be perfect and unravel that sweater.

Sometimes people expect us to be perfect. Other times we assume we need to be perfect to please people. When all we need to do is be ourselves.

Coach yourself, shift from self [01:02:00] criticism to self kindness.

Don't force yourself to live up to the expectation of perfectionism. And as I mentioned before, I have several friends who have ADHD, and I did interview two of them for this podcast episode. And I'm going to stitch those interviews at the end of this episode. But I just wanted to leave you all with a little bit of affirming advice.

Remember, don't expect yourself to live up to the expectation of perfectionism.

Find joy in the ordinary. Find joy in little ways, big ways, one of the things that I value more than anything now is joy. Finding joy in the ordinary and small things. I don't wait for big things. I don't wait for special occasions. I don't wait for big events to feel good, to find joy. Sometimes I find joy in just the leaves that are sprouting on my hydrangea [01:03:00] tree, uh, my little tree that I have in front of my house or seeing the roses bloom or smelling the flowers or seeing a butterfly land in one of the flowers.

In my garden like that brings me joy. I love seeing that. That's why I love to be outside I love to hear the birds and feel the wind on my face that for me that makes me feel good That's joy for me. Like maybe you need a party. I don't need a party I just need these little things and these help me these help to remind me that I can be fulfilled in many ways.

I don't have to wait for a perfect time or perfect opportunity. Nothing is going to be perfect. Everything is as it is. And we have to make the best of it. I know that there are people out there who are struggling, who are trying to figure out what's going on with them, and they have no idea and they're feeling awkward and different and weird.

And you should not feel any kind of way about yourself. But if you're [01:04:00] feeling that there's something wrong, then You should get tested. Get every test you possibly can. Everything you can afford, do it. Invest in yourself. Invest in your emotional well being. Invest in your good mental health.

And this has been Ayanna Explains It All brought to you by Facts, Figures, and Enlightenment. Take care.

Hey everybody. Joining me tonight is my buddy, Victoria. Victoria is someone I met. I don't even know how long ago I met Victoria, but I met her through a mutual friend and it's been smooth sailing, bosom buddies, besties every since. And turns out Victoria [01:05:00] is like me, she has special needs. Damn straight.

But no, Victoria is like me. It's been over 10 years. Because I have been friends. Yes. Because I recently reached that 10 year milestone friendship with mutual friend. Are you serious? Yeah. Thanks to meta tracking my life. What the hell have we done in 10 years? Chat shit. Oh my gosh. I don't even think I can remember.

What the hell was I doing 10 years ago? I don't even know. That's one of the crazy things about ADHD and depression. They really rob you of your memories. Like if you don't place significance on something on an event, you will never remember it again ever. But that's why, how I said, meta tracked that for [01:06:00] me in my life because I would have never remembered.

I Victoria has the benefit. Unlike myself, I've having been a lifelong diagnosed ADHD person, as they like to call us. When were you initially diagnosed and how, what was your treatment like? If you had any? If anyone gave a fuck. Well, as I say, yes and no, because I was tested around 10, 11 years old, give or take, and the person who performed the testing was like, she definitely has ADHD,

but my mom at the time was like, no, of course, deniability. She didn't want you to be sick? What? I don't know. I, I mean, I was adopted. So this like. That could go off on a whole tangent. I will try not to let the ADHD kick in, but yeah, so, [01:07:00] yes, so, so literally that's the thing though. Like she didn't believe that I had it and now that I'm older, cause I realized I was struggling so much and I actually, I knew I was struggling for all these years.

And it was terrible. I struggled through college. What were your, your, your symptoms or your limitations that you were like, this is just, this is something I have to get, have to get help. I need help. I need therapy. I need medicine. Like, what were the things that you were doing that your parents were concerned or your teachers were concerned about?

So, like, focus wise, so I was never like a hyperactive kid, never chatty Cathy, any of that kind of stuff. But this was more of, I could not focus for the life of me. But I could hyperfixate on things, which some people think automatically, like, oh, autism. No, no, no, no, no. That's [01:08:00] totally different. It, it's along the same lines, but it's also very different.

But along with that,

it, it was just like the rollercoaster wave because it turns out I was also dealing with PTSD of childhood experiences that no child should go through and anxiety. So it's kind of like it was all rolled into one. And, you know, here I am, but, you know, when I was growing up, the, the term was, Oh, you're a martyr for your cause.

One of the things that I'm, I'm in this episode. So, is how toxic stress and trauma in very early childhood causes the brain, the circuits in the brain to not develop typically normally. Oh, for sure. That leads to ADHD, ADD, or any kind [01:09:00] of neurodevelopment neurodivergent disorder. It's not necessarily something that happened in the womb, but the environment.

When the, when you're like three, four years old, if there's abuse, neglect, uh, sexual abuse, trauma of any kind. If there's yelling and screaming in the house all the time, or you're moving all the time and it's always, it's just stress on this very little newly forming brain that things go haywire.

Right. So like, whereas, yeah. So forgetting things. misplacing things. I constantly would forget things that people would tell me, which kind of falls in the same thing. And like two big things that I've always had was like fidgeting, sitting still in a meeting still to this day is very tough for me.[01:10:00]

Like I'll have to move my legs or flip a piece of paper or take notes or doodle or something. And, yeah. Something I've had to learn how to do, which you and I have talked at length about this, is like self restraint in conversations with people. Yes. And so like, either people are going to be like, looking at me and think, Oh, she's such a bitch.

But really, it's me fighting myself from like, explaining the most inane topic to you that you don't care about. I always heard growing up, even as an adult, like once someone would get to know me, Oh my God, she's one of the nicest people I've ever met. I will pat myself on the back. You are by the way. Thank you. Thank you.

But most people think I'm an absolute raging, cold hearted, anal retentive bitch when they first meet me. Because I have to put that mask on. Cause [01:11:00] otherwise Ooh, wee child. Masking. Ugh. Forget it. Shit. Masking. I've been doing masking since I was four years old. That is the most, that's one of the reasons why I probably developed depression because you know, you have to act a certain way.

You have to talk a certain way. You will even try to mimic what you see other people doing because you think those behaviors are normal. And if you act normal, then people won't think that you're weird and awkward. You don't want to be seen as weird and awkward. You want to be seen as normal, perfect even.

Right. So. You won't say certain things or you'll laugh only when other people laugh or you'll, you know, use the language they use when you just want to be yourself and you want to be weird and awkward. It's okay. It's fine, but you're not allowed to, but you know what the worst word is? Is when you wait to laugh when everyone else is laughing and then you're still [01:12:00] laughing like a fucking moron Because you thought it was hilarious And they're looking at you like Oh my gosh.

Why is she laughing? Yeah. And then they start picking on your laugh and you're like, why the fuck did I even come here? Exactly. Exactly. It spirals very quickly. Exactly. And I would be the one who would show up to an event and just kind of go stand on the wall or in a corner and just look. First of all, it's too many people anyway.

Too many lights, too many people. I start sweating immediately in the parking lot, but having to mask, I just, I can't do it anymore. And I've decided as an adult that I am no longer going to do it. I, I talk fast, I overshare, I interrupt, I apologize, I make mistakes, I apologize. But I'm not gonna try not to do those things because it's painful.

I [01:13:00] stopped apologizing. Why should I keep apologizing? No, you don't like it? Don't talk to me. Like, go away. I don't need you in my life. Please. Life is short. That's true. That is true. You know, as long as I'm not pissing off the people who give me the bread to pay my bills, then the rest is irrelevant.

I don't need you. That is true. So, what, what did you, were you on medication as a kid or? No, because my parents denied it. No. They denied it that hard? Yeah, they denied it that hard. No therapy for it. Instead, they were getting me therapy for my childhood trauma. Which, you know, I guess you could say, like, good on them.

Good job guys. Um, but yeah, but ADHD needs focus specific therapy. You can't just do regular therapy for ADHD because right, which is there was no cognitive behavioral therapy. I don't even think that existed when we were kids. [01:14:00] Not for girls. No, I don't even, not for girls. Don't think it existed for boys. I don't think CBT was a thing.

I think it was just kind of like, you know, especially for the boys, I just let 'em go outside and play. You know, like it was like Right. Stupid crap like that, like. I will say that in high school, a big outlet for me. Now that you mentioned that and like, let's see ADHD brain. So let's, let's just go with it. I did NJROTC. all four years. And in doing that, I was really hyper focused because it was something that provided me strict structure in my day.

So like, I had to get up in the morning and be to school by 6. 15 because back when I was in high school, it started at 7. 20 in the [01:15:00] morning. So I would have to go for a drill team practice in the morning, and then, you know, so you have to get up an hour early, because when you do it after school, you have sports practice, or you might have another practice, so had to get up, go, then you had to go to class, and you had to maintain a certain GPA to stay in the program, so it kind of, and when I say strict structure, I mean it.

 There was accountability for everything. And I actually ended up doing so well at it, at it, that I was the executive officer of the company my senior year. And so, you know, that was a huge outlet for me.

So when you finally got medication? So what was that like? I did not start taking medication until after my [01:16:00] oldest was born. And actually, it was a couple of years after that. Yeah, I think, I think I'd actually talked to you about it.

And I didn't even go on a full ADHD medication, which I had talked to my provider recently, and we decided that I probably need like an actual one after this next little one comes. Mm hmm. Um, but I was on Wellbutrin, which is generally used for depression, but can also be used for ADHD. But I wasn't finding that it was helping much.

Um, I need them to stop prescribing that to people first of all. Well, but I think it's because of the Lexapro. That's like putting a sprig of mint in your water. It doesn't really do much, it just gives it a little, a little kick, a little, a little something if you have no taste buds, but

yeah, yeah. I had the Lexapro, so I don't know if she was trying to weigh the [01:17:00] benefits versus the disadvantages of a different medication mixing with Lexapro. So when you, when you finally drop this load, , do you think that you'll want a stimulant or a non stimulant?

To be honest, probably a non stimulant. The only reason I say that is because I have severe anxiety and I've been taking anxiety medication for quite some time now, and I think I need something to dampen things a little bit, if that makes sense. Ah, yes. Like, allow me to hyperfixate, but not, like, freak out when I hyperfixate.

And I feel like a stimulant might cause me to freak out when I hyperstimulate, which then Cause it's just, it's meth. It's, it's, it's meth. Yeah. And I don't really, I mean, [01:18:00] I can go down that road, but I don't think my family would be thrilled. I don't want to be Like, bouncing off the walls. That was my problem. I'm internally hyperactive. I need to be calmed down. And so, I take a non stimulant and it calms the fuck out of me. So well, yeah, like yesterday I was laughing at, at something, you know what I was laughing at? But yes, I do , and it, and I said, I know this is funny because I'm actually laughing.

I don't us, I don't laugh anymore really. I can find something funny. But I got a belly laugh out of that so bad I was crying and I was like, Oh, this feels so good. This feels good because I never get to do that. But I feel like it's more authentic for us though now because before we were so used to laughing just for shits and giggles, for lack of a better term.

And now we're not [01:19:00] worried about that so much. So Now it's like, it's legit when we actually have that belly laugh. Yes.

When you think about your entire life having ADHD, you're 38, right?

37? Going to be. Okay. It's going to be 38. How has this impacted your personal relationships? Because they, there's a statistic now that says that people with ADHD versus people without ADHD, they have a 66 percent chance of getting divorced if there's at least one person in the marriage who has ADHD.

Okay. Okay. 66 percent and I was like, Oh, yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense because I've been married and divorced a few times. Well, unfortunately for my husband, I think he has it too. So you're stuck with me.[01:20:00]

How two people with ADHD. This house is wild. This house is wild. Oh my god. Oh my god. Have you heard the story? This house is wild. But even being friends with someone who has ADHD, as a person with ADHD, it's wild. So I can't even imagine, like, husband and wife stuff. 24 7. Woo! I would have to live in a separate house.

I can point to something outside and he'll point to something completely different and both of us will miss it.

So, like, I briefly mentioned before, I've adopted, I was adopted at an older age, so, like, birth parents, there's not really much of a relationship there, not until Lisa is much, much older, but with my adoptive family, like, yeah, it was so hard because everything, though, it's like, The Martyr Act or oh, this or oh, that.

And they didn't understand that there was [01:21:00] masking and coping mechanisms from trauma when I was younger and how ADHD affects all of that, because also, you know, they would just call me like a liar all the time, but a lot of the time I'm not lying. They just perceive it that way because I have bad memory.

Period. And they don't understand that bad memory comes along with this. So then, because you have ADHD, you also become a people pleaser. So then you'll give someone any answer you can to make the questioning stop. Yes. And so that'll be different from your first answer, but you don't remember what your first answer is because you told the truth.

And so then you just forgot about it because it wasn't necessary to you for you to keep in your head to survive because that's literally what your brain is doing at that point. And then the next time you say something, well, now you're a liar and naming me and whatever else. So [01:22:00] it was really tough from a parent, child dynamic, my siblings.

Much better now.

 And I never really held on to a lot of friends growing up either. Like I couldn't,

I couldn't keep friends. Yeah, I was, I was too, like you were saying too weird for people or, you know, I would hyper fixate on things and friendships or the emotional, the emotional dysregulation, you know, right. For some people you have those, those angry outbursts and, you know, You're, you're fine one minute and then the next minute you're being really mean to your friends and they don't know why and they don't want to hang out with you, right?

But and I can't which is not the same for everybody. All everyone knows ADHD has different symptoms We all experience the disorder differently, but the [01:23:00] emotional dysregulation is a big part of it and the rejection What is it? Rejection sensitive dysphoria where you literally can't take criticism You And if somebody says they don't want to be with you or be your friend, or, you know, you get fired from a job or something, it, it paralyzes you, right?

You don't understand why it takes you months to get over it. I've experienced a lot of that recently. Like. But being on, being aware of it, being aware of why this is happening and like talking through it with my therapist, I'm able to get over things easier, quicker. Whereas before it would take me months, years, even now.

I'm just like, whatever. That's why I said earlier, I stopped apologizing because I found I was apologizing to people more for who I was than just being like, it is what it is. Cause I wasn't. I was looking to deal with it within myself. I was more [01:24:00] so, again, people pleasing. And now I'm at a point where I'm like, I don't care.

You don't like it. Well, go scratch. Basically. So it, and I know that having, um, having this disorder. And having the limitations from it, you can sometimes feel, um, sometimes put yourself down. Like, I would call myself dummy all the time. Dummy, airhead, stupid. Like, what is wrong with you? Why can't you figure this out?

Why are you getting so upset? Like, I'm, I'm really, I was really hard on myself. And I say was because I'm getting better every day. I have my moments, you know this, but I'm getting better. Try not to be hard on myself. So what do you do to combat? negative thinking. Are you into affirmations? Are you meditation?

I know prayer works for me as [01:25:00] well. What are you doing? Prayer works. And this kind of goes into like a trauma response for me too. Cause working in a good relationship with prayer and with Allah is important. But the thing I struggle with is I have a lot of trauma growing up in a Catholic household. So the idea of ritualized prayer really triggers things in me because it was forced on me.

Yeah. And so, yes, I chose Islam, so a lot of people would be like, Oh, so then you should be able to do it, like whatever. And it's like, it's not that easy. It's not that easy. It really isn't. When you're in, when your entire life, even since you were a small child, you were pushed one way or another with religion.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there was never anything concrete. Um, [01:26:00] so prayer is turning out to be good for me in terms of like being able to take that brief moment that five times a day and just, you know, and like focus for a second and shut everything off and just focus on Allah and my relationship with, um, the other thing I do.

Which I guess feeds into the boomer stereotype. I play video games and kill things in pixels because it makes them happy. Yeah, because it, it's, well, but it is, like I always say, it's only pixel death. And it's satisfying because it's a chance for me to turn my brain off. Completely girl. Yes. Oh, and just be like, Oh, look at all those [01:27:00] colorful images on the screen.

I'm doing a quest. I'm in a story. I can get lost. I can disassociate just for a little while. Listen, thank God the brain is a muscle because we work these fucking things. If you have a disordered brain, a neurodivergent brain, your brain is all ways on working. There are multiple thoughts in your head.

There's a dialogue in your head, questions going through your head, songs, like I'm always fucking singing. I don't even know why. I'm at the store singing. I'm waiting. If I'm waiting in line somewhere, I'm singing. I noticed they got some boppers on in the stores. They do. So I get it. They say that it, it keeps people in the store shopping and I believe it.

But I'm, I noticed things that people don't notice because I'm always looking around the room, looking at the ceiling, doing the, it's, and it's, the brain just never, it [01:28:00] doesn't relax. It does not shut down. Medicine helps somewhat to get you to focus, but it doesn't tell you what to focus on. And so you have to pick the thing and then you have to channel your energy there.

And then at the end of the night, when you want to sleep, this shit is still happening. Right. It's still going on. Well, but then that goes back to like, so I, I don't, I, you know, I mean, I can't say this without with, with absolute statistical backup or scientific accuracy, but I would say women who become mothers.

Actually have it even worse. Yes. Because our brains literally do not shut down. And they have to be filled with sleeping. Yep. They have to be filled with the needs and wants of, uh, the children that depend on them, which I'm sure there are some people out there that are like, well, then why did you have kids?

Okay, Todd, why don't we just [01:29:00] delete them then? Yeah. Like it's, it's one of those, I wouldn't trade this for the world. But at the same time, I also acknowledge there are limitations to me as a human being where sometimes I just have to shut off from people I need quiet. But unfortunately, that's including our kids. Yes. And unfortunately, our children are so often affected by it, which is makes you feel guilty, which is why for me that decompression at night of playing video games. is crucial because it lets me reset my nervous system. Yes. Go to bed, and I can, I have always said since he was born, when he wakes up in the morning, I want him to wake up seeing mama with a smile.

And I have, and I, cause I think that's really important. That does make a difference.

But at the [01:30:00] same time, there are times when I will check myself and realize like you just want to spend time with mama and mama's just feeling overstimulated and I, and I will tell him like, I'm sorry I snapped at you. You know, explaining to him I'm overstimulated means nothing. He's fine.

Do you ever think to yourself? Wow, I wonder what my life would have been like if I had had proper treatment for my ADHD as a kid. No. No. Because

I think a lot of it was just supposed to be this way anyway. Yeah, it's all, you know, yeah, Allah knows best. Absolutely. Right, like, and, and not even just like from a religious point of view, like, I don't know how much would have changed. Like, maybe my college grades would have been better. Like, [01:31:00] I wasn't a bad student, but was I a valedictorian of a college graduating class?

No. Um, did I struggle a little? Yeah, but I don't, maybe I would have made more meaningful lifelong friendships, but I like the ones that I have now, so it's kind of hard because it's like, why would I now sit here? And have remorse for that. Thanks for putting that turd in my brain because you don't want me to think about that all night now.

No, I'm sorry because my, my therapist suggested that one of the things I do is, is go back to that little girl and say, you know, everything's fine. Everything's okay. Everything turned out okay. And while that's true, it took a long time. To get to the everything's okay part. So if I go back, if I reach back and go, you're going to be 45 before everything is okay.

Yeah, [01:32:00] yeah. Get trucking, bitch.

Put on them hiking shoes, ho. Good fucking grief. Thanks. But you have to, you have to, you have to make peace with, uh, you have to make peace with not having the mom and dad that you needed. You have to make peace with not having the childhood that you deserved. You have to make peace with the relationships that didn't work out, the friendships that didn't last.

You have to make peace with all of it. You can't change any of it, but. You also know that a lot of it was not your fault. Shit. Right. And I think that's kind of the hard part because it makes you reminisce on it more and it makes you more remorseful because you couldn't control that. And then you start feeling different feelings of [01:33:00] anger and other things because guilt.

Right, because that was not your fault. You know, if, if I could tell myself when I was young, I would tell myself, yeah, She made it. It was hard, but she did. Yeah. And I think that's something that, you know, I'm thinking on it now, like that I think is the most important part is telling yourself that you did make it.

Because I know where I could have ended up based on where I came from. I could have ended up with kids at a wedlock, drug addict, running with the wrong crowds, because that's what my original life was. And I very easily could have went back to it. There were many chances and I chose not to. So I would say, yeah, she did make it.[01:34:00]

You made it.

 And people don't understand that people don't understand a lot about ADHD. It really is a gift. It's like, it's, it's, I don't want to call it a curse. It's, it's a gift and a curse. It's a gift and a curse. It is. And the, the, the thing is you, you have to unwrap the gifts while getting over the hurdles, getting over the, the, the curse of it, dealing with the hard parts of it.

But then you have to think about how you're much better at things because you have ADHD or how you're able to figure things out that people can't figure out. You have to think about why it makes you not necessarily better than other people, but why you're. You know, perhaps more talented in a certain area than other people and it's because of this disease, this, this [01:35:00] disorder.

So that makes it a good thing, right? Yeah. Well, it also allows you to think outside the box, which a lot of people can't do, cannot do at all. They can't observe beyond what's right in front of them. You know, one of the funniest things is that, um, I used to hear all the time before I ever shopped at the, the Ikea store, I used to hear all the time from people about how hard it was to put their furniture together.

And so I was so intimidated by it. And I'm thinking, well, if I went there and bought something, I'm not going to be able to put it together. I'm going to have to hire somebody to put it together. Cause it's so hard, right? I bought a dresser for my daughter. And I'm looking at the directions, like, what the fuck are people talking about?

This shit looks easy. And it was, but that's one of the things the ADHD has done for me. I've always been able to disassemble something, put something back together, fix something, install something. Same. I've always [01:36:00] been the go to person for that, whereas other people are like, I don't get it. I don't understand.

I'm like, move. That's why I'm the friendly neighborhood IT girl for my entire family.

Yes. Ah. Yeah. No, I, I, I don't miss it. It, it, but that's, but that's the thing, like, it's a blessing and a curse all at the same time. Yes, because you're the one everybody always calls to do something. Right, right. And then I keep a mule for the family. I don't, I, I don't wish that on anybody. Well, but also it's a curse because people abuse your kindness.

Yes. But they also abuse your emotional protection that you provide for yourself. Yes. Cause they don't understand it. They don't understand that you have limits. Everyone should have limits by [01:37:00] the way. If you're listening to this, you should have limits. There shouldn't be, I'm going to do anything and everything possible to please people.

I'm going to do anything and everything possible to please myself. Right. Right. No. There have to be limits. There have to be limits with your children, with your partner, with your job. There have to be limits, things you will not do, things that you won't do because you're trying to protect yourself or your health or because you just need some fucking time off.

 and I guess the one thing that I've had to learn though, being neurodivergent you and I can figure that out.

Yes. But I've also had to realize that there are people that are not like me, that I would have to tell them, hey, just feelin a little bleh. I'll get back to you in a couple of days. Because not everyone is like us. Not everyone else [01:38:00] understands,

well Victoria Yes, my dear. This has been wonderful.

I appreciate you so much. I appreciate you.

And because you're my friend, um, I'm not going to have to pay you for this, which is wonderful. Thank you.

I pay you with hugs and kisses. No, thanks. I don't know. I'm good. Thanks. I don't like people touching me. But thanks. Bye. Ha!

Another neurodivergent quality. Don't touch me. No, thanks for having me. I mean, I know we talked about it for a while. So it is good to be able to get on and chit chat about it. Yes. . I'll talk to you later, dear. Sounds like a plan. Have a good one. You too. Bye. Bye.

 [01:39:00]

So, hey, Jared, how you doing? so Jarrett, you are one of my Facebook friends. I met you, I don't remember how, but we shared some similar opinions on politics and whatnot and we became friends and I have used you extensively to help with my podcast. Okay. I need to stop and. Okay, like ADD moment right here. I'm driving, I'm like on the highway now, I'm driving and I'm noticing that my bottle of soda that I brought with me is still on the hood of the car and it's barely hanging on so I have to pull over and grab my soda after.

What kind of [01:40:00] soda are you drinking these days? Uh, just Coca Cola. Oh, okay. Okay. I haven't had a Coke in a long time. I like the Coke Zero. I haven't had it in a while.

Oh, okay. Okay. So, I wanted to talk to you particularly about your ADHD, because you have ADD, or is now.

ADHD inattentive type, right? It's like ADHD and then ADD in parentheses where it used to be the other way around. It was like ADD and then ADHD in parentheses, but I didn't have the ADHD. When was your initial diagnosis?

What led your parents to go to say, Hey, this kid needs to be tested. Somebody needs to test this kid. Well, I think it was, I think [01:41:00] it was just my grades really, they were just steadily going downhill, I don't really recall. I just remember I had a bunch of problems, and I think add was for my parents. A simple thing that they could. Felt like they could fix, so they thought okay, ADD, that's his problem.

And so we've given it a name now and there it is, now that's not to say I didn't have ADD because I'm, I'm sure with all my, every fiber of my being that I am a classic example of attention deficit disorder. But there was other stuff going on too. And so it was all just a big haze for me. Like I had this, I have this weird feeling about puberty and junior high and high school, and it was all just such a blur.

The whole thing was just like, on one hand I was getting bullied. So there was all this like fear of being tormented and stuff,? And then there was, Even the teachers were out to get me, and then there's all the [01:42:00] hormones from your, your body is changing, and for me, I was gay.

So I really felt like I was the only one because, when I was 12, We moved here to Kankakee, Illinois

You went and you got tested. Do you remember what that was like? I don't remember the exact questions on the test, but I remember it was long. Oh, my God. It was, it took forever. And I felt like I was going to die because like, you know, if you want to.

Yeah. Find out if somebody has ADD, if they can't complete that test, they have it. That's gotta be your answer right there.

I remember you said that you did not take medication. Well, I don't take correct medication. I don't take prescribed medication. Here's the thing. Like I'm a drug addict. I have a long history with drug addiction and, and also a long history with recovery and sobriety [01:43:00] and stuff. So it wasn't all bad. It wasn't Like chemicals and drugs and stuff, they're like my Kryptonite and my superpower all in one, I love Adderall like it does everything for me.

In fact, I love it a little too much, you know So it's like I could go off on some Adderall, and so like it's a struggle to Use it the way it's intended to be used and only to be used That much, so I really have to be conscious of what I'm doing with Adderall and have to not abuse it and stuff.

And I don't have a prescription for Adderall. And one of the reasons I don't have a prescription, I'm sure I could get one if I tried. But the reason I don't get one is because that would be easy access. And then there would be too much of it, and. I've seen some people that have Adderall prescriptions and yeah, they get a little too much with it sometimes, and I don't want to ruin it for myself either. Yeah, I like the stimulants. There's like this sweet spot. [01:44:00] Like it's like where you are completely focused. You have this like Zen moment, like this just, and it's only, it's a fleeting moment, but it's just like a little while.

And it's like, you're thinking all the thoughts. You're doing all the things. so much. You've got your whole to do list done. You've got your house clean everything like, and everything is just Running along smoothing. It's just chugging along and it's great and it's like oh my god this I am like a super god right now. I'm doing all the things, and then you're a mess. You're a complete frickin mess, and then your house is a mess. Somehow, it just instantly corrupts. It's like everything instantly goes haywire but there is that sweet spot, and that's so worth it,

 There was this article in, I don't know if it was Mother Jones or Vanity Fair or whatever, some news magazine . And the whole article, the point of this article was that America has higher rates of ADD and ADHD than any other nation on earth.

And by a lot, like a lot, and [01:45:00] they're saying that we are That one argument says that we are over prescribing for ADD, we're over, diagnosing that, and saying that everybody's ADD even when they're not, so there's that argument. But then this author came up with another argument that I found very compelling, and he said that there's a reason that Americans are more prone to ADD than the rest of the world, and that's because of how our country was founded.

Like we are the escapees. We are the people who couldn't hack it in their world and we had to come and make ours., It's not like that for everybody 'cause there was slavery right? For people like me who are the descendants of slaves, you are inheriting the trauma.

Yeah, that stuck to the genes in the DNA. You're inheriting that and it gets passed down and passed down and passed [01:46:00] down and passed down. Yeah, because ADD is like, it's partly, you know, how there's the whole nature versus nurture thing. It's partly both, ADD is like also kind of cultural too put things together. We can take something apart and put it back together. We can fix something. I'm speaking, you know, about technical stuff, but right. Emotional stuff, too.

 We can think of solutions that no one's thought of, shortcuts, solutions, et cetera, et cetera, like you said before. And we love to do it because we're a dog that is always learning new tricks.

We can't wait to show the human our newest trick because we're so proud of ourselves, you know, like. But then when we're falling apart, people are like, Oh, right.

You have to end up having to heal yourself too. Because you listen to other people's advice. Because you think, Oh, that's what I need to do now. I'm grieving. And so I need to listen to other people. To know how to grieve, but then you realize, okay, these people don't know what the fuck they're [01:47:00] talking about.

No, I have to do this myself. I'm going to have to heal myself here. And it's, it is tough. It's tough. Really tough when you lost your partner, that was like your, that was your person. Yeah. And when that person is gone for seven years, every single day, every waking hour, we were together side by side, which is not healthy.

No relationship should be like that. Like people need breaks. They need to like, have some space, you know, they have to do their own thing once in a while. I don't mean to have like go and have relationships with other people or whatever, but they should just have their own life too, like everybody should be two individuals coming together as a couple, not a couple that doesn't know how to be individuals, so it was unhealthy what we had going, but it didn't feel that way to us. A lot of people probably looked at us for like, okay, you guys are really weird. We would finish each other's sentences. [01:48:00] We knew like, we had our own little like code language for things,

And people wouldn't know what we were talking about half the time, we were that close and so to lose that Like especially when you weren't ready when you weren't expecting it Yeah That's really hard like because I had to like I had to start over I don't I used to like my life is directionless now like for the first time in well at least eight years Like it's been like a year and a half since he died.

For the first time, it's like my life is completely directionless and I have no idea what I'm doing next, so. But the great thing is that you get to figure it out. I know it sucks that it, you want to be around and you wanted to do this thing together with him.

But you're still here. You still have to be here obviously until it's your time to go. So what [01:49:00] are you going to do for the next 50 years? You're not. You can't be. You have ADD. You can't be. You're going to pick up something, you're going to pick up something, your brain is going to want something, it's going to want some kind of something to focus on.

Yeah, I'm working on a novel. There's going to be something that you gotta do. I started a novel like 10 years ago, and I'm just now resuming it, you know? So, this is like a novel that will have taken like, maybe like a decade and a half by the time I'm finished with it. Oh wow! You also, you dabble in painting. Yeah. So I, I paint mandalas. Um, this actually started in Florida. Uh, my bachelor's degree is in graphic design and okay. I discovered painting, uh, while I was studying graphic design [01:50:00] and I actually kind of found that I like painting and it's, it's nice and it's relaxing for me.

So now when I'm painting mandalas, now these are static. They're not being swept away. They're going to stay on the canvas and they're going to stay permanent. And so I was struggling with how do I, Celebrate the law of impermanence in these mandalas, knowing full and well that I'm making these to stay and to, you know, be works of art through the ages, you know, and so I was like, you know, I was, I struggled with that for a little while.

I was like, am I being fake now? Am I like being like that kind of Buddhist that nobody really likes because I'm missing the point so I figured, okay, here's what I'll do. And so there's this thing called provenance in fine art, where it's like your history of the art, like where it's been, who's owned it, how much they paid for it, that kind of thing, and so I figured I'm going to write my own. Provenance, and I'm going to write a few paragraphs about the painting [01:51:00] and what its intention is and so basically what I suggest to the buyer or to the gift recipient or whatever, is to give it away at some point. Don't hold on to it forever.

Give it to someone, you could sell it, I, I'm not control of it once I don't own it anymore. It's your art too. You could give it away, you could donate it, but you shouldn't own the artwork forever.

You shouldn't covet it so that's my idea of how impermanence can come into play with that

 And there's this thing called the lotus flower meditation.

And, basically that's just like you picture a lotus flower and now you're breathing. You're taking a deep breath in. You picture this lotus flower, maybe you're at the bottom of the ocean or something, it's just whatever the fantasy scenario is, and you picture this beautiful lotus flower, and then the number one comes up out of it, and then you can exhale, and then number two, and then your second exhale, and you're, so you're training your breathing to watch these [01:52:00] numbers float up out of the lotus flower, and each number represents a breath, and you do this until you hit ten, And then you go back and you do it again, and you get to a point in this meditation where you're only thinking about your breath and number lotus flower, just your breath number, and you just get so calm and you get so empty, your head just empties and all of that stress everything from your life is just gone.

And you're just counting and breathing, and it's very pleasant and it's very relaxing, and it really stabilizes you. Sets you, now a lot of people have problems with this, right? I did when I first started I could not just focus on counting in the breath and the flower, you know I had all these intrusive thoughts coming, But my guy, yeah In this meditation said you know what?

Take it easy. Don't beat yourself up. [01:53:00] Don't be angry with yourself because you have this thought that's coming in, you will learn to just guide yourself gently back to the path and remember that now you're just counting breaths and you're breathing and you're fissuring in this flap. You're not in your homeroom class.

You're not in your situation with your roommate. You're not in a fight with your mother. You're just counting breaths and you're, Victorious flower, as you just guide yourself back every time you Find yourself trailing off and not then forgetting to count your breaths or whatever Just gently guide yourself back to the past

That is absolutely and I have that problem because the ADHD medication. It helps you focus, but it doesn't tell you what to focus on. And so you have to decide what you're going to give all of you this energy.

So, are you a dopamine chaser, Jarrett? [01:54:00] I can be. Yeah. That's the name of the game,, you have to have that dopamine to , have your focus I got myself into a position where I would learn how to say like when I was in the throes of addiction when I was really bad, this is why it was so hard to get back on the path to recovery was because I was managing my addiction so well. That it was almost like I could fake in, I could fake myself into thinking that it's not really the problem that it is, and so I would understand, for instance, that for every high there's a low, right? And so when I start getting irritable and mad and upset and I start yelling or whatever, no, it's not, that's what the situation that I'm yelling about, that's not what's really going on. What's going on is I'm sad because I want drugs.

And I can't have them. That's what's really going on, you know, or I have [01:55:00] drugs, but now they are not very effective anymore because I've done so much. So it's kind of like, you know, and that maybe that's why I'm mad, you know, so it's it becomes like where you always have to run it back to. Oh, yeah, I just want drugs.

I don't really have a problem here. I don't really have this issue. I just want drugs. That's that's what my real problem is, and so I would remind myself of that. And because I was able to do that, that prolonged the addiction and made it, much harder to get back to a place of, recovery and wellness,

 There's this thing called pipe dreaming, like when people are on drugs, the pipe dream is like the thing that you talk about doing, but you never actually do it, Like, Oh, I'm so creative.

This weed makes me so creative, man. Like, Oh yeah, I just want to smoke a big J and then paint this picture and write this book and all this stuff, but you don't actually do it because you're too busy with the fricking drug [01:56:00] and so that's called pipe dreaming. Cause you're talking about stuff, but you're not actually doing it so what you do when you're sober is you do the thing that you were talking about, you make the painting, you write the book, you take care of the cat I have a cat, Jaspie, she's lovely, she's such a princess, a queen and I just love her to pieces, and she provides me with a lot of dopamine.

 You have any final thoughts on the struggle, the lifelong struggle? Well, one of the questions that you asked before was, are you able to look at yourself honestly and without judgment? Right. Yes. Are you able to coach yourself, for instance, to evaluate your ability to complete tasks and plan activities and focus on tasks?

And my answer to that was, I feel like this is my superpower. It [01:57:00] shocked me how little mind body awareness there is in America. But every superman has his kryptonite. And I can become so narrow focused that it ends up being to the exclusion of really important shit in my life, I will forget a birthday or an anniversary because Trump said something bizarre and I went down to Wikipedia rabbit hole deciding how to frame this in my mind, and forgot all about my best friend's birthday

so Yes, I have the ability to focus and train my thoughts that's consuming my whole life but there just gets to be a point where it's just too much where just like where I'm too narrowly focused, and I forget to widen my focus to include the rest of life around me.

Okay, so when that happens, are you hurting yourself for missing your date? Are you, are you [01:58:00] forgiving? Do you forgive yourself? Well, I forgive myself. I don't know how well other people forgive me, though.

 I feel like that's very true of ADD people too as well. We end up hurting people's feelings without meaning to because, , we didn't mean it that way, whatever way they're taking it, it's not the way that we meant it, really, it comes down to a decision that we have to make. Do we want to live our lives for other people or do we want to live our lives for ourselves? We really have to make that choice because, if we're living our lives for other people, like for instance, okay, I have like about 18 cousins, and they all have 18 kids , and I don't remember any of their kids names.

Like any of them, I don't remember their birthdays. I've only met them like maybe some of them I've only met some of them. I've never met like Some of them i've only met like once or twice. I couldn't pick them out of a crowd on the street, you know so like I think that like I have to be forgiven for [01:59:00] that because I'm going to live my life for me.

If I'm going to live my life for other people, then I'm going to remember all those birthdays. I'm going to remember all those kids names and I know where their high school is. I'm going to know all that shit because I'm living my life for everybody else and not for me.

If I was going to give like some advice to people with ADD, I would say that, don't be afraid to, , carve out your own way of doing everything,

like, if I have a, Busy day of like deliveries or whatever and I just want to listen to my music and do all my deliveries and I have one Task that I'm supposed to do and everything. Yeah, I'll take Adderall for that because that's just you know That's a tool that i'm using for a very specific purpose, but uh, but ordinarily, I just I don't use the drugs because they just They kind of anesthetize you and the, I think the people who prescribed them, they're trying a little too hard to make you like everybody else.

And you're not like everybody else. [02:00:00] I think that it's better off to, it's hard at first to learn how to carve out your own way of doing things, and sometimes you just want to give up, because it'll be so hard, it'll feel impossible, but that's where you have to get to, you have to get through that, and learn how to, Find a new way of looking at things, how to start from scratch, start over, and just do it all over again and do it your way.

And you'll find that it works because your way is your way and nobody else can do it your way, but you can do it your way.

 I need to start over and find something new to do and, find a new way of doing things. And I'm not too afraid of that. I'm not, I don't have any fear of that at all.

 [02:01:00]