Kristen Carder 0:05
Kristen, welcome to the I have ADHD podcast, where it’s all about education, encouragement and coaching for adults. With ADHD, I’m your host, Kristen Carter and I have ADHD. Let’s chat about the frustrations, humor and challenges of adulting, relationships, working and achieving with this neurodevelopmental disorder, I’ll help you understand your unique brain, unlock your potential and move from point A to point B. Hey, what’s up? This is Kristen Carter, and you’ve tuned into the I have ADHD podcast. I am medicated, caffeinated, regulated and ready to roll. Come in. Come in. How are you great to be with you today. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping. There are leaves on the trees. It is a beautiful world out there. I actually think I’m recording today on Earth Day, which, like is a beautiful thing. I don’t know about you, but as the world gets warmer and the trees come back on the leaves, and everything comes back to life, I feel like I come back to life. I feel like, like all of the seasonal depression just kind of melts off of my body, and I just feel like myself again. I am solar powered. I run so much better when there is sunshine and warmth. I grew up on a tropical island. You might not know that about me, but I grew up on a tropical island, the island of Guam and ever since, listen, I can’t handle the Northeast winters, and so the weather is turning and my heart is also turning. The weather is warming and my heart is warming. We are doing much better up in here.

I’m so glad to be with you today. We I got a solo show for you, and it’s gonna be a ride. We’re gonna do all the things today. I am following the rules. We are following the pattern. We’re going to talk about something that’s been on my mind and my heart. I’m going to share a resource with you. I’m going to take a couple voice mails, and I love taking your calls. Please reach out to me with your questions. I’ve gotten a couple new questions recently. It’s been really fun to hear from you, and so make sure to call the number. It’s in the show notes, and leave leave me a leave me a question, leave me a little story, anything you want to talk about. I love to hear from you. We’re also going to talk about me being racist and sexist, apparently, and a new article that came out in the New York Times, which we’re going to discuss. So can’t wait to get into it with you, and let’s go. The first thing that I’m going to talk about is a concept that I learned from Dr Becky Kennedy. She wrote the book good inside, which I read in preparation for the parenting course that I taught recently in my focused ADHD coaching program, which you should totally join if you haven’t already go to I have adhd.com/focus to learn more about that, but Dr, Becca Kennedy, in her book good inside, talks about the concept of two things being true, and it has changed my Life, my perspective.

And it’s such an easy, tangible concept that I think is so applicable to us ADHD ers. And here’s why, those of us with ADHD struggle so much with black and white thinking. We struggle so much with seeing the gray area, or, as one of my clients, Karen talks about, she’s like, I don’t want to see in gray. I want to see in color, which I love, that like all of the colors of the rainbow. But for those of us with ADHD, we tend to really, really lean into black and white, thinking only one thing can be true. It is either black or it is white. It is either right or it is wrong, and that can really get us into trouble, because that’s not really a very generous interpretation of the world, and it can especially make relationships really, really hard. How many of you grew up in a one thing can be true households. I did. I did. There was one thing that could be true, that was it. And if you didn’t agree with that one thing, or the way that the family system was working, then you were in trouble, or then you were rejected, or then you were you were just like, not connected to the people who were closest to you, and so in a family like mine, and I wonder, if you relate to this, in order to be connected, you had to be on board with the one thing being true, whatever the case made, like, whatever it was about, it wasn’t, it didn’t matter, right? It was just like, it could be like. Which ice cream we’re gonna eat tonight? I was like, one, there’s only one right way. There’s only one right answer.

That was a stupid example, but you get what I am saying in an argument. It was like, only one person could be right, and so you had to make your case. You had to be like the lawyer making the case, like convincing everyone around that, like, your perspective was valid, your perspective was right. It’s because so many of us grew up in these environments where only one thing was allowed to be true, it was right or it was wrong, it was good or it was bad. You were either lazy or you were productive. You were either, you know, working hard, or you were a piece of trash, like there was no middle ground. There was no colorful rainbow in between. It was only one thing can be true. So this is black and white thinking. This is very indicative of ADHD. It’s a very common ADHD experience, and since ADHD travels in families, it makes sense that this is kind of how our families operated. But it’s so limiting, it’s so difficult to navigate the world when only one thing can be true, okay, and so what I learned from her book, good inside Dr Becky Kennedy talks about two things can be true, and the idea of multiplicity, the idea that we can allow for more than one thing to be true, and it gives us emotional flexibility. So for example, I’m doing my best, and I need support.

I forgot something important, and I still care deeply about it. I love my kid, and I need space right now, two things can be true. I want to read from her book a little bit. This is page 14 from the book. Good inside, and she talks about finding understanding through the two things can be true concept, because when two things can be true in a relationship, I can have my perspective and it can be valid, and you can have your perspective, and your perspective can be valid as well, and we can find connection in that we don’t have to convince each other to get on the same page necessarily. When we seek to understand, she says, we attempt to see and learn more about another person’s perspective, feelings and experience, we essentially say to the person, I am having one experience, and you are having a different experience. I want to get to know what’s happening for you, because two things can be true at the same time. It doesn’t mean that you agree or comply. These would imply a one thing is true perspective or it doesn’t. It doesn’t mean that we are wrong or our truth doesn’t hold.

It means that we are willing to put our own experience aside for a moment, just for a moment, to get to know someone else’s when we approach someone with the goal of understanding, we accept that there isn’t one correct interpretation of a set of facts. This has been huge in my life. I’m going to read that again. When we approach someone with the goal of understanding we accept that there isn’t one correct interpretation of a set of facts, but rather multiple experiences and viewpoints. I just I encourage you to think about the people in your life right now who you are disagreeing with about politics. Can we just say that like maybe we could apply a tiny bit of this to those relationships, understanding someone else’s experience, understanding that there isn’t necessarily only one correct interpretation of facts.

Understanding, she continues, has one goal connection. Understanding has one goal connection and because, and she’s talking the cons in the context of kids, because connecting to our kids is how they learn to regulate their emotions and feel good inside. Understanding will come up over and over as a goal of communication. I find this to be so important right now in the world that we live in, seeking connection through understanding. It doesn’t mean that you agree with someone and I love that she says. This doesn’t mean that we’re agreeing or complying. It just means that we’re taking a moment to seek understanding and to connect and with the people that you love the most in the world. You don’t have to connect with strangers on the internet. That doesn’t necessarily matter, but with the people that you love the most in the world, with your partner, with your kids. With your parents, with the with your extended family, with the people that you work with. Maybe you don’t love them the most in the world, but you do have to see them every single day and be involved in their lives every single day. Can we find some sort of understanding and connection? Point? She continues, what’s the opposite of understanding for this argument’s sake, it’s convincing.

This really spoke to me personally, because I grew up in a family like I said, where I had to really convince somebody that I was right in order to get my perspective validated, so if the person did not agree with my perspective, they did not consider it to be valid, and so I had to hop into convincing energy so much. And I wonder if you relate to this feeling like you have to convince someone to see your perspective in order for it to be valid, in order for it to be seen as reasonable, in order for it to be there, to be understanding and connection and and that’s truly the opposite of understanding. Convincing is the attempt to prove a singular reality, to prove that only one thing is true. Convincing is an attempt to be right, and as a result, to make the other person wrong. And this, the reason why I’m talking about this on an ADHD podcast is because we we lean so much into black and white thinking, and I really believe it limits us. I really believe it makes our world smaller. I really believe it’s a barrier to connection. When we feel like we have to make one person right and one person wrong, and there’s only one thing that can be true.

It’s so limiting to us and so ADHD, or I encourage you this week, can we expand a little bit and allow for two things to be true? I think it kind of isn’t an opening to connection. It’s an opening to understanding, and it’s an opening for ourselves to understand that, like, we can still love people and connect with them even when we think they’re wrong. Like, I’m not asking you to change your political views. I think that you probably hold them for very good reason. But can we open up to, and I’m using politics as a very like, spicy topic right now. Can we open up to, you know what? There may be multiple ways to look at this one issue. You know what there may be more than one way to interpret this data. You know what there may be reasonable people on both sides approaching this with different perspectives. If we can whether it’s politics or just like anything that you’re talking to someone about, it’s so connecting to be able to offer in generosity. You know what? It’s okay for two things to be true right now. So I challenge you, whether you’re with your kids, and I did use this so much in the parenting course that I just taught, because you know, when we hold boundaries with our kids. They get mad. They get real they get real mad. I just had to do this recently with one of my children, where a line was crossed and we gave a consequence for that line being crossed, and he was not pleased. He was not pleased with the consequence.

And fair enough, of course, you’re not pleased with the consequence. Of course, you don’t want to have a consequence for for crossing a line. Like, what teenager is going to be like? Thank you so much for this consequence. I totally see your perspective, and I fully understand why. Like, no, he’s like, this is trash. And I’m like, It’s okay that he feels that way, two things can be true at once. He can be upset about this boundary being held or this consequence being enforced, and I can still know that it’s the right decision. Two things can be true. I can, I can walk this path of parenting him and enforcing this consequence. He can be really mad and upset about it, and I don’t have to convince him to love this consequence. I don’t have to get him on the same page and be like, you, how dare you not? Think this is a good idea, right? Like it just like, Yeah, of course. You’re you’re a teenager, you you’re pissed about this. That makes sense. Two things can be true.

You can feel disappointed or upset or angry for the privileges that you’ve lost, and I can still know that this is the right thing with my parenting. I think this applies to us in our own lives, so much like with our self care and our own. Like self parenting, where it’s like, sometimes I forget things that are really important to me, and just because I forget them does not mean I don’t care that. That’s like, a such a neurotypical, ableist view of of an ADHD or like, well, you must not care that much about it if you’re not doing it, or you must not care that much about it if you’re putting it off. What’s so wild about that is like, No, I’m procrastinating the most on the on the things that I care about the most. Hello, I procrastinate the most on the things that I care about the most, because I I care so deeply about them, I want them to be perfect, and so I’m putting it off. I know you will understand me, and I think any neurotypical listening to this is like, what the effing F is she talking about?

But I know you, ADHD, are gonna get that like we’re going to. We’re gonna procrastinate on the things that we care about the most, so understanding for yourself, just in your relationship with yourself that two things can be true. You don’t have to beat yourself out up or call yourself lazy or or shame yourself for not doing certain things. Two things can be true. You can be you can really care about something and struggle to accomplish it. You can be independent and working toward a goal and need a lot of support. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. So I really encourage you to implement some two things can be true thinking. And just stop yourself this week, ask yourself, I wonder if this is a two things can be true situation when you are beating yourself up, I wonder if this is a two things can be true situation when you’re mad at a family member for for something that they’ve said or a belief that they hold. I wonder if this is a two things can be true situation. Just open up to the idea that two things can be true. It doesn’t necessarily have to be black or white, right or wrong. We can see in color. We can see multiple perspectives. We can see multiple views, and that will breed connection and understanding in our relationships with other people and our relationship with ourselves. I know it. I know it. Everyone with ADHD knows what to do to improve their lives.

You go to bed at a reasonable time, you wake up early, you make a list, you cross things off the list in order, blah, blah, blah. Like, yeah, we know what to do, but ADHD is not a disorder of not knowing what to do. It’s a disorder of knowing exactly what to do but not being able to get yourself to do it. That’s why I created focused it’s an ADHD coaching membership for adults with ADHD. I’m a life coach with multiple certifications, and since 2019 I’ve coached over 4000 adults with ADHD from all over the world, I know what it takes to help an adult with ADHD go from Hot Mess express to grounded and thriving. I’ll teach you how to understand your ADHD brain, regulate your emotions and your behavior and accept yourself, flaws and all. And with this foundation, we’ll build the skills to improve your life with ADHD, and not only do you get skills and tools and focus, but you’re surrounded by a huge community of adults with ADHD who are also doing the work of self development right alongside of you. Dr Ned Hallowell says healing happens in community, and I have absolutely found this to be true. So if you’re an adult with ADHD who wants to figure out how to be motivated from the inside out and make real lasting changes in your life, join hundreds of others from around the world in focused go to I have adhd.com/focused to learn more. That’s I have adhd.com/focused to check it out. All right, let’s move on to the resource of the week. I am so excited to tell you about this app. It’s called The how we feel app, and a bunch of people in my community have been talking about it. That’s the focused ADHD coaching program, and this app has been shared many times. You know that I’m on a mission to help ADHD ers build emotional intelligence. This is something that we’ve talked about over the last six years of this podcast, because our emotional dysregulation is one of the main things that hinders us in our lives with ADHD. This is one of the main things that makes life with ADHD really, really hard, really debilitating. Makes us feel alone, lonely, disconnected, but also it is the main. Reason why we we procrastinate is because of the way that we feel. It’s one of the main reasons why we can’t sleep at night is because the way that we feel so like our emotions play a huge role in our experience as adults. With ADHD, and this app is kind of like a cheat code. It’s it’s really cool. Let me tell you about it. So it was developed by scientists, designers, engineers and therapists to help people name and understand their emotions. Raise your hand if you struggle to name and understand your emotions like this is very common with adults with ADHD, with kids with ADHD, we have very low emotional intelligence, many of us meaning we struggle to understand what we’re feeling. Name the emotion, self soothe process.

Get it through our body, move on to a better feeling, emotion. We struggle with that so much we get stuck in our emotions. I’ve said this many times in the podcast before I developed an emotional vocabulary, I would either be like, I’m fine, or I’m not fine. Like, how are you I’m fine. How are you feeling today? Not great. I don’t know what it is. I just kind of feel like I’m in a cloud. It wasn’t until very, very recently that I learned about my emotions, and I began to develop an emotional vocabulary, and that’s exactly what this app does. It was inspired by emotion science from the Yale Center for emotional intelligence.

And what you do is you log how you feel throughout the day using a really simple interface. And it can, it can just be, like, really general, like, pleasant, unpleasant, high energy, low energy. And then it offers suggestions for why you might feel that way and what to do about it based on science. So it includes, like, journaling, prompts and reflections and patterns over time. And it can, kind of like, help you get deeper than just, like, I feel fine or I’m angry or like, kind of, like, very basic emotions. It can help you identify your emotions in real time instead of exploding or numbing out, and it can help you to respond instead of react. And it’s the kind of thing where, like, you can play with it, and maybe you log a couple days in a row, and then you totally forget about it, but then maybe you have a really intense emotional experience, and said that you go back to it.

It’s really cool. It’s simple and visual. There’s quick check ins, and it builds emotional granularity, which helps to reduce shame and builds emotional regulation muscles over time. So I highly recommend this app to you again. It’s called how we feel, and it’s free. There’s no in app ads or anything like that. It’s there’s no like purchases or anything like that. It’s just completely free resource to you, to help you build your emotional intelligence, your emotional resilience, your ability to name, feel, process self, soothe your own emotions, and just understand your own experience as a human in the world. I feel like for the first 35 years of my life, I was walking around without an emotional compass. I didn’t have the vocabulary, the understanding, the ability to self soothe. I had no compass. It was just like, you get what you get, and you don’t get upset, like, except you do get upset, really upset all the time. So that’s a really terrible like, analogy, but it was very much like I would wake up one day and I would just feel a certain way, and I would be like, I’m not sure why I feel this way, and I had no skills to be able to interpret my own emotions and guide me through, like, feeling better, and that’s exactly what this app does. So again, it’s called how we feel, and I highly, highly recommend

All right, let’s move on to a voicemail. We’re going to hear from Dana. I am looking forward to this. So Dana, what’s up?

Caller 24:15
Hi Kristen. My name is Dana young. I am a newly diagnosed with ADHD adults. I am 46 years old, and found out very recently, in the last couple of months, that I have ADHD and I have started medicating, and it’s been a game changer. My question for you is, for people who are diagnosed as adults so late in life, how do you move past the regrets or the looking back at your life and feeling like you missed all these opportunities because you didn’t know that you had this disorder until you were older? Um. And I feel myself pretty frequently, like looking backward in my life and kind of having moments of frustration after the fact, because I understanding my situation now, I feel like I could have handled those things so much better if I had been medicated earlier in my life. Yeah. Anyway, I love what you do. I appreciate the podcast very much. I’m pretty new to it, but the information you provided has already been extremely helpful. So thank you so much for what you do. And yeah, look forward to hearing from you. Thanks. Bye, bye. Dana,

Kristen Carder 25:35
what’s up? Thank you so much for calling in. I really love hearing from you, and I just want to say like, I’m so glad that you received a diagnosis. I’m so glad and I’m so sorry that it was in your 40s. I’m so sorry that you had to live four and a half decades without knowing it’s really devastating, and I’m really, really sorry about that, and I know a lot of listeners are going to relate to you and to your story and just to your experience of regret. And what I’m hearing a lot of is grief, and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Dana, I think that one of the main ways that adults diagnosed later in life need to like, process and understand and make sense of their lives is allowing for grief. There is so much grief connected to the what ifs there’s so much grief connected to all of the misunderstanding that you endured. There’s so much grief connected to the decisions that you made that you know you would not have made had you been diagnosed, medicated and supported for your ADHD and and so I just want to encourage you to allow yourself to go through a couple weeks or A couple months or a couple years of grieving. This is the best advice that I can give. It’s not very fun or sexy, and I’m sorry about that, but this is the pathway to acceptance. I promise, promise. Promise you the grief of being so misunderstood, misunderstanding yourself even, and the way that you probably treated yourself over the last four and a half decades, the way that you were treated by others, the way that you had to struggle in school, the way that you had to struggle in the workplace, and the things that were so much harder for you than they needed To be, if that makes sense, because if you had just been diagnosed, if you had just had that understanding of your brain, if you had just had the resources and the support and the treatment and the medication and all of the things that you’re now leaning on to thrive, which I’m so glad about. I’m so so happy for you that this is your life story.

Now that you you’ve like, had that turning point, and you have this understanding, and you have the medication, and you have the resources like that is such a beautiful, beautiful turn of events, right? But it doesn’t negate the fact that you suffered. There’s a great amount of suffering that you went through in the first 40 plus years of your life, and there’s grief to be felt there. And so I just really want to invite you on a grief journey again. It’s not sexy, it’s not fun, it’s not something that we normally even talk about in our American society, we rarely talk about grief. But I would encourage you to begin to allow those deep, deep emotions of sadness, those deep, deep emotions of regret, the well of just maybe even some despair about the choices that you made that you know you wouldn’t have made, and allow yourself to feel those big feelings. So a couple ways that you can do that. Journaling is a great way to get the ball rolling. A lot of us don’t feel like we have access to emotions unless they’re like, really overwhelming us in the moment. And so you might hear me say like, I invite you into a grief journey, which, by the way, sounds so woo, woo. But you might hear me say that and be like, Okay. Like, how do I even access grief? Like, maybe there’s grief there, but I don’t know how to access it. So what you’re going to want to do, I think, is experiment to see how you can kind of bring up those feelings in a controlled environment.

So the the grief that you’re experiencing, or maybe potentially will experience, is what we would call probably complex grief, where it’s not this acute grief, like somebody passed away, and you’re feeling that loss immediately, but it’s more complex because it’s it’s the losses over time that have accumulated that you’ve kind of half dealt with, but not really dealt with, and now you’re looking through those memories with a different lens, because you have different information. And so I would encourage you to journal. I would encourage you to however you like to move your body. Maybe you like to run or walk or bike or kayak, I don’t know, but kind of try to access those emotions as you’re moving your body and get them out in those ways. If you have access to tears, I think you should cry. I think this is definitely worth crying about. Not all of us have access to our tears. If you know, you know I am not a crier. And so I feel like a lot of times when I’ve been in grief, I actually have not had access to my own tears. It just hasn’t shown up in in the way of crying.

But if I could have, I would have okay. And so I invite you to access those deep emotions however you can. And I just want to, like, circle back to the two things can be true concept, because I really think it applies here Dana and anybody else who is who’s resonating with this, like two things can be true. You can regret a decision and understand why you made that decision, knowing what you know now, you can be sad about a lifetime of not knowing about ADHD and grateful for your diagnosis now. So I really encourage you, as you’re in this journey of kind of processing all of this and going through your memories with a new lens, I also invite you to employ the two things can be true concept and really try to find where two things are true in your story. Because I think that might give you a lot of relief. I think that will give you a deeper connection to yourself and the decisions that you made in the past. The last thing that I want to say so grief, two things can be true.

And then lastly, I encourage you, as you kind of complete your grief journey to pardon yourself for your past mistakes, and issue forgiveness issue pardons like kind of like drop the gavel, like this case is closed, and and really forgive yourself for the decisions that you made when You didn’t know any better, or you did know better, but you didn’t have access to the fullest, like, comprehensive resources or understanding of your brain or medication that will help you now, right? So, like, maybe in the moment, so many of our decisions, like, we know better, but we don’t really fully have access to our entire frontal lobe, or we don’t have access to the support that will help us do better. So even though we know better, we don’t have the ability to do better. So I just want to encourage you to begin a process of forgiving yourself for the things, for the decisions, for the kind of like the journey that you’ve been on for the way that things have worked out. So I don’t know your story, Dana, but I have sat with so many late, diagnosed clients who are processing kind of the way that their lives have turned out and the way that things have shaped up for them.

And I’ve heard from so many people, like, if I had only known, maybe I wouldn’t have gotten divorced, if I’ve only known, maybe I wouldn’t have been fired seven times in a row, if I had only known, maybe my relationship with my kids would be better. And so I totally, totally understand, and I still think you’re a good person who’s had a really hard time. You’ve had a hard go of it, and now you have all of this understanding it’s not really fair to go back to those different situations and like judge yourself with what you know now it’s it’s much better to just apply compassion and. Standing and like I would have done it differently, but I didn’t have the ability to different, do it differently at the time, I’m just sending you so much support, compassion, love, a huge hug. I really I know that the next 40 years of your life are gonna look really different, and I’m excited for you about that. I really, really am. So thanks so much for calling in. I really appreciate you. All right. Thank you so much, Dana, I’m so glad that you called in.

This was such a beautiful conversation, and if you want me to answer your question on the podcast, call 833-281-2343, that’s 833-281-2343, I would love to hear from you, of course, that is in the show notes, so don’t worry. Go find it. Give me a call. I want to answer your question.

If you’ve been listening to this podcast for really any length of time, you know that I am so so so particular and who I allow to sponsor this podcast, and I am so excited to introduce a brand new sponsor, cozy Earth. Oh my gosh. I cannot wait to tell you about these products. They’re changing my life. I’m not I’m not saying that lightly cozy. Earth’s mission is to transform your five to nine, you know, the time that you’re home, the time that matters most, into the most comfortable part of your day. They were so kind to send me a set of sheets and a pair of pajamas, and I cannot, I cannot communicate clearly enough how freaking soft, comfortable and cooling these items are every time I wake up in the middle of the night, which you know, it happens, I am literally wrapped in coziness, in comfort. I am not sweating through my pajamas. I know this is way too much information, but if you are of a certain age, you understand what I’m saying. I have loved using cozy Earth sheets, cozy Earth pajamas, and I’m about to go buy a bathrobe with my own money because I’m obsessed. Again, there’s going to be way too much information about Kristen Carter and my sleep habits and what happens to me at night while I talk about cozy Earth, because it is relevant. At the age of what am I 43 I am sweating through every single t shirt every single night that I sleep in, except I have not done that with these cozy Earth pajamas. They are so cooling, they are so comfortable, and I don’t have to wake up feeling sticky. I’m so sorry that I’m saying this, but it is relevant. I wake up feeling clean and dry, the pajama and sheet set combo, I’m telling you, life changing for me, my husband, he is really enjoying the sheets. They’re so comfortable, they’re so soft. And those of us with ADHD, those of you who struggle to sleep, those of you who just feel like you’re hot, then you’re cold, then you’re hot, then you’re cold, those of you who are of a certain age, who are maybe sweating through your pjs every night and waking up in hot flashes and feeling uncomfortable. I’m telling you, these are going to change your life. I am very stingy with who I allow to be a sponsor on this podcast. You know that if you’ve been listening to this podcast for any length of time, you know I’ve said no to a ton of sponsors, and I am so excited to have cozy Earth as a supporter of the podcast, because I truly have been transformed by their products.

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I have heard cozy Earth ads on other people’s pods, and I’ve been like, yeah, right. Literally, that has been my response when I’ve heard the ads about temperature regulation, I have not believed them, and then I started using the sheets, using the pajamas. And I’m not kidding, it works. The sheets are so breathable, you’ll sleep several degrees cooler, and I’ve only been using them for a little while. So I can’t speak to this personally, but they pride themselves in durability. They do have that 100 night sleep trial and a 10 year warranty. So they really believe in their products. Like I said. I can’t speak to that quite yet, but I believe them, because everything else that they’ve said about them is true. So go to cozy earth.com use the code. I have ADHD for 40% off. A best selling sheets, pajamas and more. I will be going to buy a bathrobe shortly and enjoy. Don’t forget, Mother’s Day is coming up. So use code I have ADHD for 40% off.

All right, next up, we’re going to just spend a couple minutes talking about the New York Times article that came out recently. It was called, have we been thinking about ADHD? All wrong? And I just want to like mention the article i i am of two minds again. This is the theme of this podcast. Is two things can be true. Okay, that’s the theme of the pod. The premise of the article is that diagnosis and prescriptions are skyrocketing, but supposedly Our understanding is getting blurrier, not clearer. Our understanding of ADHD is getting blurrier, not clear. According to, according to this author, it’s, it’s interesting. You know, I expected to read the article and be super triggered. I paid for a New York Times subscription so that I could read the article, so that I could talk to you about it, and I was like, I was ready. I was like, I’m gonna be so mad. I just, I felt like I was gonna have such a visceral reaction to it. And I was just kind of like, I don’t know. I just, I’m not upset about people asking questions.

I think that, you know, we can continue to research, we can continue to broaden our understanding. The article didn’t really do it for me, either way. I wasn’t like, oh my gosh, this is uncover so much. I was just like, I feel like this has all been debunked before. And then also, I’m not mad about us talking about ADHD. I’m not mad about it being in the news. I’m not mad about questions being raised. I always want us to be doing more research. I always want us to be deepening our understanding.

What is super annoying is that people are using this article to be like, See, I told you so ADHD is not a real thing, and that pisses me off. That makes me angry. That does trigger me. The article itself didn’t necessarily trigger me. I was just kind of like, okay, what are you even saying? It didn’t really seem to, I don’t know. It just it was fine. It was like, whatever. But people’s response to it is what made me mad. Like, when I see people posting, See, I knew ADHD was all made up. It is like, Okay, you’re the same person that was saying the New York Times is like sham journalism. So like, now you think the New York Times is like excellent journalism, because it supports a narrative that you that you want to perpetuate. So like, I just roll my eyes. Like, I feel like there’s very little consistency in the world. There’s very little people actually standing on principle.

Like, either again, I’m just referring to one person. I’m not going to name them. They’re too annoying. I’m not going to give them any credit. But this person is the the person who’s like, The New York Times is Sham, Sham journalism. You can’t trust it. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then this article comes out, and they’re like, I knew, I see. I knew ADHD was a fake diagnosis. And I’m like, What are you. You even saying so? I just, I encourage you to be on the lookout for that kind of BS. I encourage you to be on the lookout for the people who are eager to say that ADHD is not a quote, unquote real diagnosis. What? What are you even talking about?

It’s so that part is like, what are you even saying, as if we need more research to back up the validity of this diagnosis, get out of here a couple of things that they point out that I think they support with, like anecdotal evidence, and it’s not really founded in research, the idea that ADHD symptoms fluctuate, the idea that ADHD isn’t necessarily a lifelong fixed condition, and I think that the point that they’re making in some regard is valid where different symptoms kind of present themselves in different seasons of your life, absolutely, and that makes sense. I was diagnosed at 21 I my ADHD, right now looks very different.

I’ve done a lot of healing, a lot of growth, I’ve had a lot of support. I am well medicated, like everything is in place for me right now to succeed, and yet, like I’m still hella ADHD, but the symptoms do look different than when I was, let’s say, parenting three young children and unmedicated. So like, yeah, my experience of ADHD 15 years ago very different from my experience of ADHD today. But talk to any adult with ADHD and they will tell you that they have experienced the symptoms persistently over time in multiple areas of their lives. I think that one of the other things that was interesting about the article is talking about like the power of the environment on ADHD symptoms, and so if we can set up environments to support ADHD, then ADHD doesn’t seem to present itself as, what is the word I’m looking for, like, acutely, like, we’re not seeing as many symptoms when an environment is very ADHD friendly. Well, like, Yeah, no shit, I don’t understand.

Like, that’s not rocket science. That’s just like, No kidding, ADHD, in the article, in one point, is portrayed as like a Mitch mismatch between the brain and the setting. And I think it’s interesting to to think about like, the mismatch of like a child being born into a family that doesn’t accept it. I think that’s an interesting thing to think about. I think it’s an interesting think thing to think through the mismatch of like a deeply feeling kid and a very unsensitive, insensitive, excuse me, insensitive, family or school system or social relationships. So I understand a little bit about that, and I think that we can, for sure, broaden our thinking of ADHD to to include that type of thinking. But I just there was nothing really in the article that was like, Oh my gosh. This is blowing me away.

I don’t understand why we have, like, why ADHD is one of those things that people want to question the validity of. I don’t I truly, like, I’m sitting here really thinking about, why are there so many people that want to say it’s a fake diagnosis? I am happy with questions being asked. I’m happy with more research being done. I’m super happy with us broadening our understanding, and I hope that, like over time, we’re continuing to deepen our understanding, but to say that we’re thinking about it all wrong, to say or to imply that it’s not a legitimate diagnosis, it’s just kind of, I feel like it’s kind of boring old news by Now, like this has been done. This is nothing groundbreaking or new. These are questions that have been asked for years and years, and these are claims that have been made for decades. So to have this article in The New York Times come out like, oh my gosh, are we thinking about ADHD all wrong? It was like, this has already been it’s like, asked and answered. This is already this has already been done. We’ve been there, done that we don’t like ask questions. Questions are great, but why are we questioning the actual diagnosis? Like, we’re not going to depression and saying, like, is depression a real. Diagnosis, we’re not going to bipolar. And saying, is bipolar a real diagnosis? We’re not going to these other mental health disorders.

And saying, like, have we been thinking about this? All wrong? Why is it ADHD? That’s always the one it’s I just feel like it’s so fake. It’s so stupid. Like, why are we doing this? It’s kind of a well worn, like already been done thing. So anyway, I’m not impressed. I wouldn’t recommend paying for the subscription. I have to remember to cancel it now. I wouldn’t recommend paying for it in order to read the article. I do want to say Russell Barkley has created a four part video series debunking the article, which I think is awesome. I listened to the first two videos. I love it. I just love it. He’s just like, nope, nope. You guys are dumb. And I love it so much, because I love it when the goat just like, swoops in and he’s like, Excuse me, let the grown ups take over here. Let me tell you how it is done. It just makes me so happy again. I am. I’m fine with ADHD being in the news. I think that we should continue our scientific study of it. I say our I’m not doing scientific studies, but I think that scientific studies should continue to be done. I hope we gain understanding. I hope questions continue to be asked, but I feel like we need to ask better questions. Like, why are we asking the question, if the diagnosis is valid, that’s a stupid question. Why can’t we ask better questions. And I just really want also to be cautious of like, is this an effort to make medication more of a barrier, to dismiss the diagnosis and say that, like, we shouldn’t have access to medication, because that sucks. Why are we doing that That’s so stupid, so dumb. Every adult with ADHD that I know that has been able to be on a medication journey and tweak their medication to like a good level, is so grateful for the medication that they have. Why would we ever and I don’t know of anyone who’s trying to take it away. I’m just saying, Is this part of an effort to do that, and if so, cut it out. That’s so stupid. That’s so dumb.

I think that the article does raise some important questions. It challenges some of the ways that ADHD has been traditionally understood, but I just It doesn’t invalidate a diagnosis. It doesn’t invalidate your experience. It doesn’t mean that our struggles aren’t real or that treatment isn’t valid. I just think that the science behind it is a little shoddy, like they are bringing up studies that when I was listening to Russ Barkley talk about it, it was like he was debunking every single thing they were saying. I’m gonna link that in the show notes for you so you can go watch his video. Because obviously I’m not a scientist, obviously I’m not a doctor. I’m approaching this as just like a lay person with ADHD, as someone who has like I read the articles, I read the research, but I have not been trained to interpret it the way that Russ Barkley has, and so go listen to him for the nitty gritty of the debunking of this article. I would never want ADHD medication to become less accessible, and so I’m not hopping on any bandwagon that’s going to allow for medication to be less accessible. However That being said, Can we broaden our understanding of ADHD? Can we understand that the environment matters so much? Can we understand that society is set up in a really effed up way for one type of brain?

Can we understand that ADHD travels in families, and that if one person in the family has ADHD, we should probably be giving support and counseling and behavioral help to the whole family. Can we broaden our understanding so that we can really know how much emotional regulation plays a part in this disorder. And can we teach families how to be connected to each other so that ADHD ers don’t feel rejected within their own families? Can we teach parents how to co regulate and attune with their children, so that the brains of these little babies are developing in a really typical, wonderful way because of all of the CO regulation and all of the attunement, what if we can broaden those types of understandings? I’m for it. Let’s do that, but to just like question the diagnosis again. And to say, See, I know ADHD wasn’t real, like, That’s old news. I’m over it. It’s not interesting to me. Sorry, over it. Okay, let’s move on. That’s not even in the what triggered me this week. So I think you should be very proud, because I was not triggered by this at all. But let us move on to what triggered me this week. You’re gonna love it.

Okay. Moving on to the most exciting part of the episode, where I am called not just sexist, but also racist. I got a podcast review this week. Listen, y’all, if you like me, I could use, I would love for you to leave a positive podcast review, because recently, here’s what has been said. Enough with the war on white males already. That’s just the title. This is from T money. What’s up? T money, how you doing? Okay, here’s what T money says. The host is racist and sexist. Every time she gets to take a jab at a white male, she does, so my gosh, racist and sexist. Team money. Are you sure? Are you sure that I am racist and sexist? Those are big words. Those are big accusations, my friend, my goodness, we’re going to be employing a lot of two things can be true logic throughout this segment. Okay, we’re going to be employing a lot of two things can be true. Team money can have their perspective, and I can have my perspective. And I hope this part gives you a chuckle. This is why most people don’t have podcasts. This is why most people aren’t on social media putting themselves out there, because you get you’re gonna say something that you think is innocuous, and then you’re gonna get reviews that say you’re sexist and racist. So here’s what we’re gonna do. I am pretty sure that I know what T money is referring to. So I’m just going to talk about it. A couple episodes ago, I did a whole episode on 10 things that I wish everybody knew about ADHD. It’s a great episode. You should go listen. It’s a great just a short, sweet, great episode. One of my points was calling ADHD a superpower or awesome does more harm than good. And in that episode, I say, okay, sure, if you are tall and white and male and rich and creative and you can quit your job and make YouTube videos, and you’ve been supported in your childhood and you married a supportive wife, then maybe for you, ADHD is awesome, and that’s great, but for the rest of us, for people living in poverty, for people of color, for people who are not having access to any care, for people who grew up in families that don’t support them, for people who are married now to people who don’t support them, it’s not super awesome. And just team money, just so you know, just between you and me, I was only talking about one white male in that in that rant, it was only one white male. It’s the author of the book, ADHD is awesome. That’s who was that was talking about. Because I don’t think ADHD is awesome. I don’t think it’s fair to call ADHD is awesome. Maybe it’s been awesome for you, but it’s not awesome for most people. So that’s what that was about. And apparently, trying to point that out was not just racist, but also sexist. And I just want to say white men, I love you. I’m married to a white man. I love all white men. White men are amazing. All people are amazing. All people are awesome. Let’s just say that two things can be true. You can be awesome, and your ADHD can be a huge pain in your ass, right? Like, that’s where the two things can be true can come in. You’re awesome. Your gifts are awesome, you’re amazing, and ADHD can be debilitating and annoying and not that fun, and really mess your life up. So understanding that two things can be true, that’s where we’re gonna employ here. So I’m I put this in the what triggered me this week, but I actually gave me a good chuckle, because some things are just so absurd that they make me laugh. And so this is going in the category of absurdity. Two things can be true here. Team money can have their perspective. I’m gonna have another perspective, if you would love to write a podcast review and give us your perspective. Hopefully something positive, hopefully something with a five star, hopefully something that is like, hey, Kristen, what’s up? I think you’re a nice person. That would be great. I would get so much dopamine from that. I hope you do it. I adore you. Employ the two things can be true, way of thinking, the multiplicity, way of thinking, the seeing in color, way of thinking. This week to your life, you’re gonna be better. Better for it. I just know it. I’m talking to you next week if you’re being treated for your ADHD, but you still don’t feel like you’re reaching your potential, you’ve got to join focus. It’s my monthly coaching membership where I teach you how to tame your wild thoughts and create the life that you’ve always wanted, no matter what season of life you’re in or where you are in the world, focus is for you. All materials and call recordings are stored in the site for you to access at your convenience. Go to Ihaveadhd.com/focused, for all the info you.