Transcript
Kristen Carder
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 are listening to Episode 14 of the I have ADHD podcast. I am medicated, I am caffeinated, and I am so, so ready to roll today. I’m extra caffeinated. I just had a second cup of coffee, so I’m ready to rumble. My phone is currently in phone jail so I can focus long enough to write and record this episode. Oh, my word, that phone jail that I bought a few weeks ago has really made a huge difference in my life. It’s allowed me to be intentional when I want to be intentional, and literally, there is no override, you guys, I cannot break in unless I use power tools. It is amazing because girlfriend knows how to override, you know, like I’ve set time limits on all of my social media apps. I have set limits for my screen time. I have set my phone to go dark at 10pm I mean, all the things, all the things, but I know how to override stuff. You know what I’m saying, and so I am constantly just dismissing the screen time monitors. And so this phone jail has been a lifesaver for me. Love it. Love it when we figure out things that make our lives more productive, and when we figure out ways to kind of hack our ADHD, I love it so much. I am super pumped to be with you today. It’s going to be an awesome episode where I over share to the max.
So I hope you’re ready for that. But first, I want to read the review of the week, which I forgot to include last week because I have ADHD and my memory sucks, which I’m totally fine with. I refuse to feel badly about. So let’s just pick it back up today with a review from quince 9011, or if this friend is Spanish, then we’re actually going to pronounce it quince, 9011, not sure which one they prefer, but in any case, here is what they say, thank you for all you do. Kristen, I feel so much better listening to your podcast. And you do a great job being realistic, honest and comforting. Very helpful. Thanks for making your listeners feel like they aren’t totally alone. Ah, this makes me so happy, and I wanted to read one This one specifically, because I just want the opportunity to take a second and let you know that you are not alone if you’re out there listening and feeling totally misunderstood by everyone around you, just know that you’re in good company here. You’re not alone. We all struggle with these obnoxious ADHD symptoms and impairments, and there is hope for you to reach your potential.
I believe that with all of my heart so quince, 9011, thank you so much for your awesome review. You guys have been really kind. I read every single review over and over because it really gives me that dopamine hit that my brain craves, and just really helps me to see that this podcast is making a difference, and that’s so helpful to me. So thank you. Okay, so one of my biggest goals with this podcast and my website and one on one, coaching and all the things, one of the biggest goals that I have is to be an example of what is possible for the ADHD community. So I’ve spent the last 10 ish years doing cognitive training and therapy and diet nutrition and supplements and naturopath appointments and medical doctor appointments, and taking ADHD medication, improving my executive functioning, and now life coaching, all of this to make sure that I am utilizing my amazing brain and becoming The person who I’m meant to become, and now I’m a really, really, really happily married mom of three, and someone who started my own company from the ground up, which is now Grossing over six figures. And I might add, I’m so pumped about this. We are completely debt free. The company is completely debt. Free as of this month, I’m so pumped about that, you guys. So anyway, all of this to say that I believe, down deep in my bones that if I can set and achieve these big, huge goals, I know that you can too. And so what I’m finding is that one of my favorite parts of all of this is that I get to be an example of what’s possible that you can see someone like me who is diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, the hyperactive type, which I know is pretty rare for females. You can see me with ADHD, living a happy and fulfilled and successful life, and know that it’s possible for you too. I’m really proud of all that I’ve accomplished and the ways that I’ve grown and how much I’ve allowed God to change me.
But, and this is a very big, round, curvy butt, the kind of butt that I get jealous of every time I see it, since I have absolutely no meat on my rear end. Okay, but anyway, seriously, but I do not in any way want to project an image of perfection. I am not perfect at all. I struggle with all the same issues and frustrations and setbacks and symptoms that you do, and so today I’m going to expose some of my warts. Literally, okay, we’re exposing them. Now I’ve been reading this book called atomic habits, by James clear, and by reading, I mean, I’m listening to it on Audible. It is such a good book, you guys. I highly recommend it. The entire premise is just totally blowing my mind, and that is that it’s not the big, huge things that we do that change our lives, it’s the little, tiny, atomic sized habits that we do regularly that completely alter the trajectory of our paths. Now, I don’t know if this is just my personality or if it’s an ADHD trait in general, but I’ve always been an all or nothing kind of person, all in or all out, go big or go home.
Small has just never really seemed to be good enough for me. Are you like that too? I don’t know. So I set huge goals, but the problem with huge goals is that they’re often too big. There’s not a clear and easy path to get to that huge goal. And so what happens is our brains literally check out, so we forget the goal, and we never live up to our potential. We never become who we want to become. Now, the author James clear asserts that if we just change things in our lives by a small margin, even just 10% that eventually we’ll look back and see that we’ve become different people. Those small changes will have a compounding effect and eventually lead to a metamorphosis, a huge change. This has been such a huge, crazy life changing concept for me, because I’ve always thought that if I’m not going to make a big change, then I might as well just do nothing. I bet that your brain works a lot like mine. So if I don’t have time to clean the whole kitchen, I’m not going to bother start or if I don’t have time to get a full workout in, it’s not worth it. Speaking of workouts, you may remember a few episodes ago. I think it was in Episode Seven, I set a goal of moving my body every single day, which is awesome, before I even open Instagram. That was like the qualifier, right? Come on, people. If any of you know me at all, you know that I’m totally addicted to Instagram, which is why my phone is in jail right now, right? I mean, come on, what in the world was I thinking? This is just an example of how we ADHD er set impulsive and lofty goals that are super unrealistic.
And then, guess what? Many times since I didn’t work out before I opened Instagram, I just chose not to work out at all predictable, probably, but I didn’t realize what was happening when I set that huge, lofty goal in the moment. So if I were to change it up and take an approach from atomic habits, I would just try to alter my workout Mindset by 10 to 20% maybe work out once a week or twice a week. In my mind, that’s not enough, right? Once a week. Come on, why would I even bother? But the thing is, setting a realistic goal is better than setting an overwhelming goal. Your brain knows what to do with realistic goals. There’s a clear. Path, your brain will avoid overwhelming goals because they’re too confusing, they’re hard. There’s not a clear path, and so we just avoid Okay, so here’s where the over sharing is going to come in. Are you ready? I have needed to go to the dermatologist for so so long, it’s felt like an overwhelming and scary, scary, scary goal, and I’ve also felt like it’s not really going to be helpful, because I’ve had negative past experiences with dermatologists.
So I’ve been like, why bother? I’ve been dealing with a specific type of wart on my foot for the better part of eight years. Eight years, you guys, and I’ve seen four different doctors about it, and it just hasn’t gone away. So I just started to believe that it will never go away, and that’s just what it is. It is what it is right? And so for the last like, four years, I’ve just been avoiding it. I’ve been putting it out of my mind. I’ve been pretending like it doesn’t exist. It isn’t a problem. We all know that this avoidance is a specialty for those of us with ADHD, right? So I know I’m sorry I’m letting it all hang out today, but I think it’s important, because I know you are all living with something that you’re ashamed of, that you need to get taken care of, that you just can’t quite bring yourself to make changes about. And if I can inspire you to take action, if I can push you to change your thinking by over sharing and revealing my embarrassing stuff, I’m cool with it. Totally cool with it. I’ll be so happy. And also, I’m really not scared for you to know that I’m human. I think a lot of people want to put on a fake persona, but I’d rather you just see my flaws. I think it’s better to show the flaws and how we’re overcoming them. That’s what’s inspiring, right? I mean, perfectionism isn’t inspiring. It’s unrealistic.
Okay, so all of this to say that I have been ignoring this skin issue, which is what I’m going to call it from now on, for so long. But then something terrible happened. I got a wart on my finger, and then I got one on my knee, and basically I’m turning into an ogre, and I should just go live under a bridge or something. But I finally decided to reach out for help. Okay? And so a few weeks ago, I called a nurse friend of mine. I was like, Dude, you gotta give me the name of a good dermatologist in the area who is not going to screw me over like the last four did, and she did give me the name. And guess what I did. I forgot to call, and then I avoided it, and then I put it off. But finally I summoned the courage to call, and I made an appointment. Oh my gosh, I made an appointment. There is just so much shame wrapped around these things that we want to hide. You know, the things that we want to cover up. Maybe you experience this in your own life, like with your finances or with your marriage issues, or maybe yours is health related, like mine. Anyway, I made the appointment and I went a month ago, and it was a lovely experience. I am so thankful they were kind and nice, and the office had their stuff together, and I was just really happy with the experience. Overall, they did what they needed to do, and now the one thing that I had to do is put medication on my skin issues methodically every single day. I
‘ll just pause a second here while you just chuckle at that. You just go ahead and laugh because you know, we’re not so great with the methodical things. Are we? No, we’re really not. So this is where we tie into atomic habits every day, day and night, repeatedly, I have to put this special medicine on the affected areas for someone with ADHD. This is so difficult, remembering to do it, and making myself do it, and even just believing that it’s actually going to make a difference, that’s part of our problem, right? We convince ourselves that the small things that we do don’t actually matter or make a difference, and so we don’t do them, and then we walk out our own flawed thinking, and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. It doesn’t make a difference because we don’t believe that it will make a difference, and we don’t do anything about it. Now, one of the things that has been really helpful with treating my skin condition and just making small changes in general is that I wrote out a very short morning routine and also a really short evening routine. Now I know that morning routines are like a cool fad and stuff, but I didn’t do mine in a cool way. At all. There’s nothing cool about my morning routine because it includes things that normal humans do, like they just do them without thinking. But apparently I have to remind myself to eat breakfast and take my medication, drink my green juice, move my body, pack my lunch and now apply my skin medication. Like these are not big things.
I’m not, like, whatever, doing research or anything cool like that. My morning routine is like, just, could you please survive as a human? If it’s if it’s like, okay with you, just don’t die. That’s basically what my morning routine is. But I wrote these all out, and I taped into my kitchen wall where I can see them every morning. And my evening routine is on there for the evenings as well. In the evenings, what I tried to do is after we put the kids to bed, but before I go downstairs to relax, I want to wash my face, put on my blue blocker glasses, do yoga for five to 10 minutes and also apply the skin medication. Now I’m kind of shocked about this, but it’s been pretty life changing for me. I haven’t been 100% successful, but I’m fine with that, and I’d say I’m pretty close. So if there are little things like those tiny, atomic habits that would make a big difference in your life, I really highly encourage you to write them down and post them where you can see them, even the normal like, don’t forget to survive type things, those need to be written down. I didn’t realize that previously I wasn’t writing down like, eat breakfast, because who thinks to write that down like normal humans, just eat breakfast. But I was constantly forgetting. Your brain is not meant to be a storage locker for remembering the stuff that you have to do. Your brain is meant for ideas and for dreams and for problem solving. I’m going to do a whole episode on working memory sometime soon, but suffice it to say that I’m a firm believer that your brain is not a place to store things that you need to remember to do.
If you want to remember something, you need to get it out on paper and put it where you can see it, even the stupid things like eat breakfast, which I swear I was forgetting to do almost on a daily basis, and then I would get to work and be famished and distracted and angry about how starving I was. So I had a follow up appointment today with my dermatologist, and she was really happy with all the improvements. She has high hopes that we are on the right path to take care of these obnoxious issues once and for all, and I am so so thrilled about it, not just because I am starting to not feel like such a troll, but also because the small, seemingly meaningless things that I have been doing over the last 30 days to treat the issue have actually really made a huge difference proving atomic habits 1,000% correct. I haven’t been perfect at it. No, not at all. There have been nights, especially where I’ve forgotten and I just couldn’t make myself get up off the couch to take care of it. But even 90% accuracy is good.
You know, none of us are going to be perfect. Not even typical brains can live up to perfection, you guys. So I want to leave you with two takeaways. Number one, you can be successful at your life. I know this because I look at my life and the changes and successes that I that have occurred over the last five years, and I think about you, and I know that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if I can do it, you can too. There’s nothing special about me at all, other than I’ve never stopped reaching out for support for my ADHD, never, ever. I’ve gone through seasons where I have not been supported, and then I realize in that season that I’m just not functioning the way I want to function, and so I’ve reached out for support, and it’s looked different in every season of my life, it’s looked different. First I was on a stimulant medication, then I was off medication and doing diet therapy, diet comma therapy. That sounded like the same thing, but no diet comma therapy, naturopath appointments and supplements. Now I’m back on medication and I’m doing therapy and life coaching. It’s amazing. It’s absolutely amazing. The more support that you get, and the more varied Your support is, the happier and more successful you are going to become. You will become the version of yourself that you’ve always wanted to be. But you cannot do that if you’re stuck in a place of not, oh gosh, I’m on my rant again here.
I’m doing it again, guys, if you’re stuck in a place. Place of refusing to take your ADHD seriously and refusing to support it. So I got a DM this week from a sweet, sweet, sweet woman who reached out to me. She had just been diagnosed with ADHD, and she just, you know, went to pick up the prescription, and it was $200 and she was like, so floored, you know, that it would be $200 and her brain began to make excuses, because our brain always wants to tell us No, right? It always wants to see danger and like, get us out of the danger zone. And so her brain started to say to her, you don’t have the money to do this, and so she reached out to me and said, I don’t have the money. I don’t have the money to take this medication. And you know, if you’ve been around here for a little while, you know that I’m not someone who will co sign excuses. Oh, sorry. I’m a really nice person, I promise. But I’m not going to co sign an excuse for you. I’m not going to sign that little waiver that says, you know, go ahead and make an excuse for not treating your ADHD. And I basically, I mean, I tried to be very, very sweet, but I basically said, like, Honey, you can’t afford not to treat your ADHD $200 like if you don’t have $200 in your bank, it’s because of your ADHD, I will guarantee it. It’s because you have not thought about the future. It’s because of your impulse of spending. It’s because you have not gotten out of debt. You know, it’s because you’re not able to think long term. So if you don’t have $200 in your bank account, you can blame that on ADHD, and I will say, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, you cannot afford not to treat it. You just can’t like if you want to make any kind of change, any kind of movement in your life, you have to take it seriously and treat it. And she was really sweet about it. I think, I think you guys know me well enough, like listening to these podcasts, to know that, like, I am such a straight shooter and I’m not gonna beat around the bush. And you know, if she didn’t like that approach, she probably wouldn’t have reached out to me in the first place. So, you know, she received it really well. It was wonderful. And then she came back today and said, hey, you know, they prescribed this certain medication, and I’ve been reading up on the sim, like side effects of it, and now I’m afraid to take it.
And I just it’s so interesting how our brains try to tell us, no, like you should not be doing this. Try to get us out of a what our brain would say is like a potentially dangerous situation. But the thing is, like our brain doesn’t have all of the information. So she is saying like, Well, what about these symptoms? And I just wrote back like, Honey, what about the symptoms of ADHD? We are far more likely to be in car accidents, to get in trouble with the law, to be in debt, to be unemployed, to be unhappy and underachievers, to be divorced and addicted to drugs and alcohol. Those are severe, severe side effects of ADHD. So in general, the ADHD medications are very well researched. They are very readily prescribed, like they’re commonly prescribed, I mean, and in general, most people do not have trouble with them. So of course, there are exceptions to the rule. Of course, if you find ways to not be on medication, and you can still find success with your life. That’s amazing. I am all about that. I think it’s wonderful. But for someone who just kind of needs to have a reset, get their life back on track, medication is a great way to go. It doesn’t mean that it’s a permanent solution. It doesn’t mean that you have to be on it forever. So anyway, Wow, talk about a tangent. You can be successful with your life. There’s nothing special about me, except that I don’t make excuses. I do not allow myself to make excuses. So I reach out for support. I don’t let my brain tell me that I’m not worth spending money on. I don’t let my brain tell me that I can’t afford it. I don’t let my brain tell me that I don’t need it. I just refuse to let those thoughts control me. Because, of course, they come into my brain. Of course they come into my mind. I mean, I’m human, right? But I don’t entertain them. I know they are not the truth, okay? The next small takeaway that I want you to have is that the little things that we do matter, the tiny things that we do every day, like eating breakfast or putting our phones in phone jail like mine is right now, or applying medication that doesn’t even seem like it’s working. Those. Small things are what are going to add up to a completely transformed and changed life.
So when you think about where you are in your life and what you want to be, what are the small, tiny, little tweaks that you can make, even a 5% difference is going to set you on a new course. And like I said last week, if you want some help along the way, I would love to work with you one on one. I hope you guys have a great week. I will see you back here next time. Bye, Hey, you made it to the end. I’m so proud of you. I want to let you know that this episode is brought to you by my website. I have adhd.com you should definitely go check it out on it, you’ll find a psychologist approved list of symptoms and lots of resources for adults with ADHD, including a brand new page that details what it will be like to work with me, one on one. If you are someone who is looking for support, I want to encourage you not to let your brain tell you that you don’t deserve it. You totally do, whether you are male or female. I would absolutely love to coach you so make sure to visit I have adhd.com for more information. Thanks so much. Bye, bye, you.
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