Podcast Episode #44: ADHD + Time Blindness

This episode is sponsored by Cure Hydration. You know that moment for me, it’s around like 2 or 3pm when my ADHD brain just decides we’re done for the day. We’re done here. The afternoon slump hits, the lights go off upstairs and suddenly answering an email or doing basically anything feels like climbing a mountain. That’s when I reach for Cure Energy. It’s a clean plant based energy drink mix made with 100 milligrams of natural caffeine and electrolytes so I get the focus and hydration boost I need without jitters, without a crash and without that like I drink battery acid. Vi vibe that some of the energy drinks have. The peach tea and akai berry flavors are my current go to’s crisp, refreshing and they don’t taste fake, y’. All. They don’t taste fake. I’ll drink one before recording a session or when I need to get help through like that afternoon drag. And honestly I. I drink it anytime. My brain just needs to cooperate. What’s wild is that Cure Energy is only 25 calories and has zero added sugar. It actually helps me stay hydrated while giving me energy. Okay, I love coffee, but coffee could never Staying hydrated isn’t just about water. You also need electrolytes. And that’s why I love Cure. It’s clean, it tastes great and it actually works. And remember, Cure is FSA HSA approved which is amazing. You can use that money to pay for cure and for I have ADHD listeners, you can get 20% off your first order@curehydration.com I have ADHD with the code I have ADHD. And if you do get a post purchase survey, make sure to tell them that you heard about CURE right here on the podcast. It really helps to support the show. Don’t just drink more, upgrade it with cure. Welcome to the I have ADHD Podcast where it’s all about education, encouragement and coaching for adults with adhd. I’m your host Kristin 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? You are listening to the I have ADHD podcast. I’m not sure what episode this is, but I am so glad that you decided to tune in today. My name is Kristen Carter. I am your host. I am medicated, I am caffeinated, I have a cold But I’m ready to rumble. So excited to be with you today. It is a gorgeous February day. I have positioned myself to be able to look out the window because for the first time in what feels like forever, the sun is shining in Pennsylvania. And I am so happy. I am so happy. I am watching the sunshine come into my home and bounce off of my plants. And for those of you who don’t know, I love houseplants. My house is basically a jungle. It’s a little overboard, but I am fine with it. It makes me very happy. Once I discovered that, number one, I could keep them alive if they were indoors. And number two, they really do help me to get through the winter when I have green life inside of my home. Now I’m obsessed and I am surrounded. I’m counting. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. I can currently see 12 plants, one of which is legitimately a palm tree. Like there is a tree inside of my home. It is taller than me. Highly recommend, highly recommend. The plants. You know what’s great about plants? They sometimes die and it’s totally fine. And that just means that you can go get a new one. That’s what’s great about plants. Before we get started today, I wanted to share one of the wins from the focus group. I have this channel in our community called Share youe Wins. And here is an awesome celebration from one of our members, Beth. So she says. I just wanted to check in and say I haven’t been able to get on the calls lately. But thanks to the coaching call last Wednesday, I’ve been doing great with my workouts and started back at Weight Watchers. Had my first weigh in since October 2nd and I lost a pound and a half. Not a lot, but better than nothing. Thank you, Kristen and the rest of the group for the motivation. Awesome job, Beth. I love, love that you restarted your goal and I’m so proud of you. So fun, you guys. Love it. Love it. So today we’re going to talk about time blindness, and it’s going to be a doozy. I can’t even imagine how many of you are listening with anticipation because you struggle, just like I do, to organize your life in the confines of time. And it’s a very annoying that this is something that we struggle with. I want to tell you a little story. A little story. What the heck? I don’t even know what that means. Okay, so I want to tell you a story. A couple weeks ago, my one on one clients who I love looked at me very skeptically kind of like the side eye. She gave me the side eye. And she was like, are you sure you have adhd? Because it doesn’t seem like you do. And I laughed. I mean, yes, I absolutely have adhd. But I’ve been thinking about that ever since she mentioned it, because I know that I have changed and improved so much over the last 10 years. I don’t even recognize myself. And sometimes I don’t even think that ADHD is a factor in. In my life anymore. However, as soon as I start thinking that, that’s when. That’s when the stuff hits the fan. And I’m reminded once again that, yes, I for sure do have adhd. It is something that affects my life on a daily basis. And even though I have grown and changed and evolved, and thanks to the way that our brains were created and neuroplasticity, I am able to make those improvements and so are you. But yes, ADHD is still a factor in my life. So I want to bring you back about 15 years and tell you about how excruciating it was for me to plan my wedding. So I was 22 years old when I was planning my wedding. First of all, I was like a tiny little fetus. Like, 22 is so young. When I think about being 22 and planning a wedding, I’m like, I cannot believe that I actually did that. But I did. With the help, of course, of my lovely mom. Shout out to my mom, I love you, Mom. It was the most difficult thing ever. And here’s why. First of all, adhd. Second of all, I was working full time. I was going to school. I was finishing up my music degree. I was double majoring in music and theology. And for those of you who know about people who get music degrees, we have to do recitals. A junior recital and a senior recital. And I was planning my senior recital, which meant a ton of practice, a ton of extra work on top of my already difficult college courses, lots of stress. And the thing with ADHD is that we struggle to organize our behavior across time in anticipation of the future. Right? We are controlled by the now. It’s all we care about. It’s all we care about. Hear me. All we care about is the now. That’s our default programming. It’s how we came out of the box. It’s how we were created. It’s how our brain’s default programming is. So when you are going to college, planning a senior recital, practicing, preparing and planning a wedding that is like six months away, which do you think falls into the most important category. It’s just really putting out fires one after the other, right? And so planning my wedding was the last thing that I cared about. Even though I loved my fiance, even though I was very much looking forward to getting married and establishing a life with him, I could not care less about the actual wedding, the actual ceremony. My default answer to my mom when she would ask me a question is, I don’t care. I don’t care. And honestly, that was the truth. I did not care about the flowers because I was working on preparing for my senior recital. Did not care about the music that was going to be played at my ceremony because I was too concerned with the Rahman and a focalise that I was preparing and learning for my senior recital. Did not care about the dresses. I did not care about anything. The food. Who cares what food we have? I have to get this assignment done. And so if you can relate to this where it’s like the things in the future don’t matter at all, all as compared to the fires that I am putting out right now in my real life. This is exactly why you and I struggle to reach our long term goals. Because everything that’s right in front of us seems so much more important. The things that we have to do for our kids, the things that we have to do for our job, the things that we have to do around the house, the bills that we have to pay, the, the just the mundane everyday things that we have to keep up with that are just so taxing and so draining and so difficult. That’s what we’re controlled with. And those are the fires that we’re continually putting out. And so the long term goals of I want to write that book, I want to run that marathon, I want to create that course, I want to create that app, I want to do that other thing. I want to reach this other goal someday in my life that is constantly pushed off because we are automatically, without realizing it, without really even being able to choose, controlled by now my voice just got like really scary and deep. This is not intended to be a horror show, but oh my goodness, my voice is so crazy today. So here’s the deal. Yes, we are time blind. The reason for this is that our frontal lobes are underdeveloped. They do not function as well as a neurotypical frontal lobe. And the frontal lobe is what allows us to organize our behavior and organize small tasks toward an overarching purpose. Okay, so Dr. Barkley, who I love or whom I love, I’m not sure you can let Me know who. Or whom. Who’s to say? Okay, wow. I digress. Dr. Barkley, whom I adore, he says that the frontal lobe is what helps humans to organize small tasks toward a single overarching purpose. So, looking back at the wedding planning, my single overarching purpose was create a beautiful wedding day experience for myself, my husband, and my guests. Okay. But because of adhd, I had the inability to organize my behavior across time in anticipation of what was coming. The future. Instead, I was completely controlled by the now. Now I have assignments due. Now I have prepare for my senior recital. Now I have to learn this Italian aria. Now I have to do the things that will help me to not fail out of college, right? And because of that, my wedding was a little disorganized. I’m not gonna lie. It really was. It was beautiful. I loved the day. But I will tell you that for about a year after my wedding, I laid in bed every single night and had major anxiety over what could have been different, what I wish I had done differently, what went, quote unquote, wrong. And it plagued me probably for more than a year, if we’re being honest. Maybe two or three. I really had to work on letting all of that go because I was not 100% happy with how it turned out. And I knew that that was on me. I knew that it was my fault that it didn’t go the way that it could have gone. And it was because I did not have the ability to plan it consistently, methodically, perfectly. Instead, it was disjointed. I put everything off to the last minute. I, of course, waited until the wedding. Things were the new now, right? So when I was done with school, when I was done with my recital, then I was like, okay, now I can focus on the wedding. Unfortunately, that meant I had, like, two and a half months to plan. That’s not very long in wedding planning time. It is not very long at all. So ADHD is a disorder of having a nearsightedness to the future. We are nearsighted when it comes to our futures. I really want you to hear that. It’s not that we don’t care about the future. We do. But we have this deficiency in our ability to really be able to see the future clearly and then organize our behavior methodically, systematically, across time in an effort to make that future that we want appear, make that future reality. That is time blindness. What we are compelled to do is go wherever the now goes. This is why, in my last episode, we talked about how to avoid things coming up and like messing with our schedules. What is so hard for us and is that when things come up, we feel like, oh, this is important. Like the thing that I’m doing right now, working toward my goal. Let’s say you want to write a book. Like, I can put off writing these 10 pages in the book, but I can’t really put off having coffee with my mom because my mom is standing right in front of me and it doesn’t feel like I can put that off. Right. Even though I planned to write 10 pages in my book. That is a goal that I have for like the future for, in five years. But my mom is standing in front of me right now and she wants to have coffee and I love her. So I better just go and I can put off the goal for the future. Dr. Barclay says, Wherever the now goes, we go. And I wonder if that is true for you. If you have ADHD and you’re listening to this podcast, I’m going to assume that it is true for you. Wherever the now goes, we go. Now. This is not helpful. If you are someone who wants to improve your life, it is not helpful to be controlled by the now. Even though this is your default programming as a human with adhd, I want to offer to you that it can be changed, it can be improved to the point where people look at you skeptically and they say, are you sure you have adhd? Because it doesn’t seem like you do. The reason why it doesn’t seem like I have ADHD is because I have worked very, very hard at learning how to organize my behavior across time to reach a long term goal. And because this is something that I have tried and failed and tried and failed and tried and failed and begun to master, I’ve been able to create the results in my life that I’ve always wanted. I always wanted to get married. I got married. I’ve always wanted to have three kids. I have three kids. I’ve always wanted to be a worship leader at a church. I’m a worship leader at a church. I. I wanted to start a podcast. I started a podcast. I wanted to start coaching. I now have a full practice with a waiting list. I wanted to start a membership. I worked my butt off and I started a membership. And I’m still working on that because every month I’m writing a workbook and I’m showing up and it’s so awesome. And I don’t say this to be like, look at how amazing I am. Not at all. What I’m saying is If I can do it, you can do it. If the girl who couldn’t plan her wedding can now create the results that she wants in her life, you can do it too. If I can evolve into the human who is able to decide what I’m going to do and then do it and make it happen, you can too. Thanks to a little concept called neuroplasticity, our brains can change. If you’re a nerd like me and want to read more about neuroplasticity and neuroscience, I highly recommend any book, any YouTube video, any article by Norman Doidge. He is one of the foremost experts on neuroplasticity and his work is very user friendly, very public friendly. It’s not all medical jargon, scientific jargon. It is very accessible. That’s the word that I’ve been looking for. It’s very accessible. I love the book the Brain that Changes Itself. It’s incredible. And I am a firm believer that we can make all sorts of amazing changes in our brains. We can create new neural pathways, we can create new ways of thinking. We can create a new reality for ourselves. I know that sounds a little woo, but it’s true. And that rhymed and I’m not going to change it. I love sounds woo, but it’s true. Okay. We can create a new way of operating in the world. Our default programming is time blindness. If you are a human with adhd, that is your default and that’s okay. That’s the way you were made, it’s the way you were born, it’s the way that you’ve probably been showing up in the world. Just because it’s the default, no problem. We can make changes. So today what I want to talk about is first of all, validate and acknowledge the fact that time is a struggle. It totally is. When I’ve been talking about scheduling and in March we’re going to be setting scheduling and focused. I’m not coming from a position of like, just get it together. This should be easy. Totally do not think that at all. However, if we think of ourselves as a victim of our ADHD or a victim of time, we will be very unlikely to make changes. Because if you identify as a victim, if you’re like, well, I’m just time blind, can’t help it, I was born with adhd, just is what it is, then you will not try and fail and try and fail and try and fail until you make a new reality for yourself. So I want to invite you to come from a place of knowing that changes can be Made come from a place of knowing that that improvements can be attained. It is possible for sure. All right, so how do we combat time blindness? Number one, you must be treated for your adhd. You got to do it, okay? Most people can tolerate medication and it works wonders. Most humans with ADHD make huge improvements on medication. I want to invite you to, to talk to your doctor, your psychiatrist about the possibility of medication to treat your adhd. If you are not someone who can tolerate medication, and I know you are out there, I know there are people out there who have tried a bunch of medications and that your body just does not react well to it, then find a supplement regimen, find a diet, find a way to improve your brain’s capacity to pay attention, your dopamine, your ability to relax, your ability to think clearly. Okay? So of course, number one is always take your ADHD seriously and treat it. Secondly, make sure that you really do identify as someone who struggles with time. The reason why I say this is if we don’t actually acknowledge that time is an issue for us, then we likely will not take it seriously. And a very important component here is taking this seriously. What I mean by that is spend some money buying timers to put all over your house. Spend some money on a planner or use Google Calendar like I use because it is cheap and easy and you can create like a million calendars and they can all sync with each other and you can share it with your spouse and your community. But whatever, use whatever works for you. I don’t think there is like the perfect Planner. Whatever you use is the perfect Planner. Just use something, okay? Spend some money on whatever it is that you need to. Take this time blindness seriously. If you Google time timers on Amazon or Google, which is what I just said, I’m sorry about that. Those clocks are awesome because they show the passage of time visually and that is really, really helpful. So you need to make time visible. I said this in the last podcast, I believe, but John Acuff says time is fictional unless you can see it. And that is a especially true of those of us with adhd. Okay, so you need to invest in timers, planners, whatever it is alarms Siri. Like I use Siri all the time. I am constantly having Siri remind me to do things because I just do not remember. The first thing she reminds me to do in the morning is take my medication. And now I’ve pretty much gotten into a habit. But there are times when I’m sitting at my computer at 8:30 after the the kids have Left for school and I’m starting work, and Siri’s like, hey, take your medication. I’m like, oh, my gosh, I forgot. And then I take it. Okay, so make sure that you are taking your time blindness seriously and that you have alarms, you have timers, you have your planner. You are scheduling things very clearly for yourself. Take it seriously. Okay, so next up, I want to introduce you to the concept of the executive brain versus the toddler brain. So the executive brain is the part of your brain that knows exactly what to do. It’s the part of your brain that when you’re quiet, when you’re still, you know the steps that you need to take, you wish that you could write that book. You know that tomorrow you’re going to need to pick up your kid from soccer. You know that tonight you’re going to have to make dinner, right? It’s the part of your brain that stores the knowledge and that, given the opportunity, can make very good decisions. All right? So that’s your executive brain. Now, your toddler brain is the brain that’s controlled by the. Now, your toddler brain is the brain that’s impulsive. It’s the part of your brain that just does whatever it feels like doing. It’s the part of your brain that. That doesn’t like to follow the rules and listen to the executive brain. So those of us who have adhd, we are naturally, by default, controlled by our toddler brain. And it’s very fun and helpful to think of our two brains in this way. This is why oftentimes you can say to yourself, I know exactly what I should be doing. I know what I should be doing. But I just. Because it’s like you are controlled by two different brains. The executive brain knows what to do, and the toddler brain is kind of just bouncing around doing whatever it wants to do. So the goal here is to rely more on the executive brain than you do on the toddler brain. And the way that you do that is first, recognize the difference between the two. Recognize that there are two facets of yourself, two facets of your brain. Okay? There is the part of you that knows what to do, that can make great plans, that can be dazzle a schedule like nobody else. But then there’s the toddler brain, the part of you that is controlled by the now, the part of you that cannot organize your behavior across time to plan for the the future. Right now, one of the things that I have implemented in my life that has been very helpful is spending time planning with my Executive brain. What do I want out of my life? What are my values? What are the things that I want to accomplish? Who do I want to be? Now, I’m not saying that I have spent hours and hours and hours. You know, every Monday, I sit down for three hours and I play plan. It’s not like that. But I do take intentional time to sit down and use my executive brain to think. I channel it. I access it intentionally, and I say, what do I want? What are my values? What is my vision? What do I want to create in my life? Who do I want to be? So this is why I have several vision podcasts for you. We’ve studied vision in focused. I am all about channeling the executive brain to decide what you want. Now, the next step is making sure that the executive brain is also planning your calendar. Okay? The toddler brain should not be in charge of your calendar. The executive brain should be in charge of your calendar. So the executive brain is the brain that you channel when things are quiet, when you are really sitting down to think. And it can also be a time when you are relying on maybe a partner or a coach or a therapist to help you access it. Right? So if you are not accustomed to accessing your executive brain to make decisions, it might be helpful for you to employ a coach or a therapist to help you access that decision, making that, considering that future thinking part of your brain. Okay, so if that’s not something that you’re used to doing, then reach out for help. If you can’t afford a therapist or a coach, then reach out to a parent, a trusted friend, someone at your church, a mentor, someone that you can sit down with and say, hey, I really need to make some good decisions, and I need help channeling that part of my brain. I need help accessing the part of my brain that’s good at making decisions. Can you sit with me and help me to stay focused on this? Okay, so once the executive brain comes into play, then what you can do is use your executive brain to plan your calendar. And this is huge. So I try to sit down with my calendar once a week and really plan out my time. And I’m going to talk about this in future podcasts. But what I mean by planning out my time is I literally break everything down into the smallest steps possible, and then I put those steps on my calendar as events. Okay, so let’s say you want to write a book. You’re not going to put write a book on your calendar. You’re going to put write 10 pages or research for two hours or, you know, whatever it is that you want to produce in that amount of time. So you want to make sure that you can break down your goal into very small steps. And then those tiny, tiny steps are what go on your calendar. And then from there, you do not allow the toddler brain to take over. So you look at your calendar and you say, the calendar says, I need to write 10 pages. I don’t feel like writing 10 pages. I don’t want to do it. It feels terrible. I want to do something else. I want to call my friend. I want to go on Instagram. I want to go grocery shopping. I should probably fold the laundry. I need to go work out all of those things that your brain tells you that you should do. And instead you say, wait a second. My executive brain decided that this was a good idea for me. And so I’m going to listen to my executive brain. You’re going to notice when the toddler brain shows up and you’re just going to say, toddler brain, you’re super cute. I love you. You’re a lot of fun at parties. But right now, we don’t need you here. We need to listen to the executive brain. So really, you need to recognize that you do have those two different parts of your brain that are working honestly against each other. Okay? They’re working against each other. And what happens is that you’re just running around in circles and totally spinning out, right? You don’t feel like you’re accomplishing much. You are going from task to task to task. Things are not getting finished. Goals are not being accomplished. Laundry’s not being folded and put in a way. Putted. I just said putted. There we go, people. There’s my mess up for today. Laundry is not being folded and put away. It’s like everything is stopped short of finished. And what I want to invite you to do is to access your executive brain, to plan. And then in the moment when the, you know, the time comes, the calendar, the schedule says, At 11 o’ clock, I’m going to write 10 pages of my book. And then 11 o’ clock comes and you’re like, I don’t want to do it. I should do something else. This feels terrible. I should be doing something else. I’ve really had to work on my brain with that one. I shouldn’t be doing this right now. I should be doing something else. And the trick around that is to acknowledge your toddler brain. Hey, toddler brain. You’re cute. Love you. But it’s A no. Just like you wouldn’t let a toddler determine your schedule, don’t let your toddler brain determine how you live your life. So I have a toddler. Actually, he’s probably not a toddler anymore. He turns 6 in a couple weeks and he is still throwing fits once in a while. He’s still having meltdowns once in a while. And when he does, I don’t like cancel our plans. I pick him up while he’s throwing his fit and I gently carry him to the car and I buckle him into his car seat, his like booster seat, and we continue on our way. Whether or not my toddler is throwing a fit, I want you to do the same with your brain. Notice that when the time comes to do what you’ve planned, your toddler brain is going to throw a fit. That’s totally fine. Gently pick it up, buckle it into its car seat, and take it with you while you do the thing. This is the key to accomplishing what you want to accomplish. Yes, you are time blind. It is a real thing that you should for sure take seriously. Make sure that you are treating your adhd. Make sure that you are investing in the things, whatever those things are, that will help you to pay attention to time. But also know that your brain has the ability to change. You can create new neural pathways, you can teach an old dog new tricks. You can change and grow no matter how old you are. So understand that you can make improvements. This is huge. A lot of us feel stuck. A lot of us feel like it’s never going to change. And I’m here to tell you that you can make improvements. Okay? So the way to do that is to notice that the two parts of your brain, the executive brain, who is great at planning, who knows what you want out of life, who knows what you need to do. And then the toddler brain, who is controlled by the now, who only wants to do the fun thing, who doesn’t like to feel uncomfortable, who only wants to enjoy life and be concerned with whatever is right in front of your nose. And when you channel your executive brain to plan, to prioritize, to calendar and schedule, do not allow your toddler brain to come in and sabotage everything. That’s what we normally do. We let that toddler brain sabotage our dreams. We let the toddler brain sabotage our goals. And so what I want to invite you to do is to notice the toddler brain. Acknowledge the toddler brain, but don’t listen to the toddler brain. Instead, gently pick it up, buckle it into its booster seat while it’s thrown a fit and take it along with you while you do the thing, you will be totally shocked at how much you will get done if you trust in your executive brain’s wisdom. If in the moment when you don’t want to do the thing, you say, hey, I planned this with my executive brain and my executive brain is freaking amazing and freaking smart and so I’m going to do what it says even though the toddler brain in the moment doesn’t feel like it. Listen, you got this. I know it’s hard. I know that it feels like too much, but it’s not too much. You can do this. Make sure that you are getting the support that you need. If you would like coaching from me, I would love for you to join Focused. You can go to ihaveadht.com focused to learn more, but whether it’s with me or someone else, make sure that you are reaching out for the help and support that you deserve. I hope you have an awesome week. I’m going to see you next time. Bye. Bye.