Transcript: Episode 2
Sam: Hi everyone, this is Sam. Today Alyssa and I wanted to talk to you about anxiety and ADHD. If you listened to our last episode, you might realize that this is a different topic than the one we said we are going to talk
about on this episode, and I wanted to say a little bit about why that is.
So firstly, since our last episode Covid-19 has kicked off in most of the world, and that was not the case when we recorded our last episode.
And anxiety seems particularly relevant these days. Also, Alyssa and I both have a personal connection, a deeply personal connection to this particular
topic.
1:43 Aly: Yes, we do, yeah I'll just jump in and talk about my personal experience with anxiety. I was diagnosed. Well, my pediatrician should have recognized this when I was younger, but she didn't. And then in high school, it just became really apparent that I had anxiety. I'd just be sitting in class and I would be so uncomfortable every time I would have to maybe talk. It was awful, my face was like permanently red, I was always sweating. It was not fun.
Yeah, so I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety and given no help for it. It was just this normal thing that people experience in every day life -apparently.
Sam: And this was long before your ADHD diagnosis if I recall, right Alyssa?
Aly: Yes, so I was like 12.
Sam: okay, yeah. So somewhat similar story with me where I was diagnosed with depression and generalized anxiety disorder, when I was a teenager, and then later I was diagnosed also with PTSD and quite a bit later with OCD, right before my ADHD diagnosis, so I somewhat recently heard I can't remember where, but I heard ADHD referenced as the party disorder. Because ADHD is almost never alone since it’s accompanied by at least one other disorder. So I like to think of my ADHD as kind of an extreme extrovert given the other mix of diagnosis I have, despite the fact that I'm quite an introvert, anyway, so…
Aly: Yeah, your ADHD is throwing a heck of a party.
Sam: Right? Yeah, I totally... It's super fun.
So yeah, I referenced this a bit... Just a minute ago but there is a significant co-existence of anxiety disorders in the ADHD population. 80% of people who have ADHD will have at least one of their psychiatric disorder, during their lifetime. That's from the magazine ADDitude.
Aly: I know it's like A-D-D-itude..
Sam: yeah, right, yeah.
The two most common psychiatric disorders alongside ADHD are depression and anxiety disorder such as generalized anxiety disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder OCD, where is about 30% of people
who have ADHD will have a depressive episode at some point during their life. So anxiety seems to be probably the most common disorder that's co-morbid with ADHD given that
half of ADHD folks seem to have an anxiety disorder.
Aly: Yeah, and in my case, my ADHD went undetected, because of my anxiety. “No, it's just anxiety” when really I would say that a lot of my anxious tendencies were because of my ADHD. I was trying to cope with my ADHD symptoms and my anxiety rose to support it.
Sam: So, supportive - love that!
But yeah, there's also the fact that some symptoms of anxiety and ADHD look a lot alike. So, feeling restless, having trouble concentrating and that kind of thing. So the presence of anxiety can magnify existing ADHD
symptoms and/or exacerbate them and the fact that there's so much overlap in ADHD and anxiety symptoms can lead to either misdiagnosis or and/or a late diagnosis of one or both of those conditions.
Aly: So what about useful and not useful anxiety?
Sam: Yeah, that is an excellent question, Alyssa. I think we were talking a bit before we started recording; about how there is this dichotomy and also kind of a stereotype or a belief rather that anxiety is all bad, that it's just negative but it can be helpful in some ways.
Alyssa, maybe you could talk a little bit about a more useful side of anxiety.
6:02 Aly: Yeah, yeah, anxiety could be useful for problem solving. It can be excellent for our safety, it protects us from that lion, the bear.
Sam: The tiger
Aly: The tiger. When I'm excited, I feel all of my anxiety symptoms, but I'm excited about this new opportunity. So it's really important to recognize that excitement as what it is - excitement rather than negative or not useful, anxiety. There's also, it could be useful as energy towards forward planning. We could use all that anxious energy to do the things that we
want to do. And I think that you had an example of how useful anxiety could be motivating?
Sam: Yeah, well, I guess my example..
Aly: Is with actually the opposite, right?
Sam: So my example is more about how a complete lack of anxiety can have a nugget of impact. So when I was 19, which is quite a long time ago now, a doctor put me on Wellbutrin - a low dose of Wellbutrin to treat my anxiety and it worked way too well, it got rid of all of my anxiety. To the point that I was totally indifferent and stopped going to my classes in college because I was like “oh, it doesn't really matter, it'll be fine, I
don't need to show up.”
Aly: Everything is okayyy.
Sam: And I know when I was going through this, I was aware enough of the difference there that I was like yeah...there's this part of me that's totally different and that's also not good. Yeah, that's gonna have a negative outcome just as much as my sort of negative anxiety symptoms
were having. So yeah, that's when I was like, okay maybe having a little bit of anxiety is motivating. It makes me realize that it's important to go to class, for me to learn and do things that I wanna do with my life.
Aly: It's useful. You were able to see the consequences because of your anxiety. Without your anxiety it’s like, “I don't know, I don't have to do anything”.
Sam: right, right, but yeah, I think the fact that I was still able to be aware enough of the fact that I was feeling totally different, and that that would
have negative consequences - it was the awareness that was super important there, and kind of resolving that issue for me.
So not useful anxiety, is kind of when worrying becomes disruptive to our daily functioning, and this can take the form of rumination. I can speak a little bit to this because I have OCD. It's often characterized by
rumination which is sort of like an obsessive fixation on a particular problem. Maybe not so much a problem as a potential problem or a thing that might happen but hasn't. - or a thing that has happened and we can't go back and change it, so it's not in our control per se.
Aly: And you describe it to me the other day as almost like a thought. A thought (Sam: an intrusive thought) that’s given weight
Sam: Yeah, thanks for that reminder. Yeah, like the thing with OCD is you have... like everyone has intrusive thoughts and if someone who has OCD has an intrusive thought, it can turn into rumination when we give that intrusive thought weight and meaning...like we attribute a particular meaning to it. Like I am having this particular thought, that's really weird, thus that says something about me as a person, or it means that I'm likely to do that thing or it's likely that that thing will happen. Rather than like, “oh, what a weird thought. all brains have weird thoughts from time to time and... Okay, I'm just gonna watch that thought fade away because I'm not attributing meaning to it”.
10:01 Aly: I would be willing to bet that ADHD brains have extra weird thoughts!
Sam: Totally. I mean, mine does. Hard to say exactly which disorder that stems from... But yeah.
Aly: You got a party!
Sam: I do, such a party. And then, also worrying without a purpose is not particularly useful, but kind of have to be careful with this one because I know for me with OCD, I could be convinced in that moment that I did, that my rumination, did have a purpose because I had this sort of belief, that because I'm having this thought it is actually likely to happen, therefore, me thinking about it means I'll be able to anticipate it, and problem solve and/or prevent it or avoid it happening. But Alyssa, I think at some point we've talked a lot previously about our mutual experiences with rumination and you had an interesting example about what happened when you were worrying, or ruminating once. Would you mind saying a little bit...
Aly: Yeah... So you and I have this cool ability to coach ourselves.
And there was this one day when I was just ruminating and I was just thinking this thing over and over again, and I was basically, trying to fix this situation. So I was just thinking about it over and over. How can I fix this? How can I solve this? And I just told myself, “you're processing the
situation that just happened.” And as soon as I told myself that I was processing the rumination lifted...and I think it was because I was just like, Oh, well, if what you're doing is processing then you're done because you've more than processed!
Sam: You maybe over-processed.
Aly: Yes, you overprocessed. Yeah, no it was really, really cool. So at least in my case, I know this might not be the case for everyone, but if I can figure out what's underneath this rumination? What am I trying to do here? Am I trying to fix it, am I trying to solve a problem? Am I trying to process it? then I can figure out okay, well guess what Alyssa: You're done! You’re more than processed.
Sam: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Alyssa and I both recently took a psychometric test for anxiety called “Why Worry II”. I guess there was “Why Worry I” or something, I'm not sure. But “Why Worry II”... And I thought it was really interesting that this particular test instead of using the word anxiety, given that it was for anxiety, used the word worry instead. Yeah, just got me thinking about what is the difference between worry and anxiety.
Aly: Yeah, I mean this is my opinion, but I think that worry is a state of mind, and anxiety is a full body experience which involves the autonomic nervous system. So, fight-flight freeze. And I actually heard of this one to add to it, which is feign...
13:01 Sam: Hmm… Interesting. I've heard “fawn”. Feign and fawn.
Aly: Wait, how do you...f-e-i-g-n? It’s fawn?
Sam: No, no, no, fawn. F-a-w-n. So apparently now there’s been feign and fawn.
Aly: I thought you were just pronouncing it in a different way and I was pronouncing it wrong the whole time, okay.
Sam: Or we discovered that there's a different pronunciation between
Canada and the US like that would be kinda hilarious.
Aly: ...And I also think that worry is a product of anxiety and also anxiety is
a product of worry. Did that make sense?
Sam: Yeah, yeah, I think so.
I think that's a really useful distinction. The “why worry II test that we took talks about how... Sorry, let me step back a bit, when I was looking at the why worry II questionnaire, I found an article that spoke about it that's said:
13:59 Positive beliefs about worry you are theorized to maintain excessive
and uncontrollable worry, the hallmark of generalized anxiety disorder. And the why worry II questionnaire measures five positive beliefs about worry, positive beliefs about worrry.
Aly: Also, it's beliefs... it doesn't necessarily mean that it's true.
Sam: It's not like five positive facts about worry or five positive beliefs. And so, those are:
One: that worry aids in problem solving, which I think Alyssa and I
both scored very highly on.
2. Two: Worry helps to motivate. Which is one of my higher ones.
3. Three: Worrying protects the individual from difficult emotions in the event of a negative outcome. Which was one of my higher ones as well.
4. Four: The act of worrying itself prevents negative outcomes, which
I think that we actually both had a relatively low score on that one. Meaning we didn't strongly believe it. And the
5. Fifth one: Worrying is a positive personality trait. Which is like, wait, what?! 'cause that wasn't the lowest one for me, but I still had a relatively high score even though it was like I think the second lowest one for me
Aly: We actually scored the same on that one.
Sam: Oh, that's right, yeah, we both got a 12. And yeah, we spoke a little bit about this previously, about worry as a positive personality trait. I was shocked that I had this belief in anyway, and then I looked at the questions that were attributed to that particular belief and I realize that I see worry as a positive personality trait for me, because it means that I'm more likely to be able to somehow manage my ADHD symptoms if I can sort of anticipate negative outcomes, then that means I'm forward planning, or something which ADHD-ers are not, it's not necessarily our forte all the time to
forward-plan depending on what kind of ADHD-er you are. But I know for me it's not really been my forte. But I don't actually have this belief about other people, I don't think that any other person in the world is necessarily like “that worrying that means that... what do I want to say?
Aly: I think I know what you wanna say.
Sam: Okay, can you tell me?
16:22 Aly: Do you wanna say that if somebody else in the world
worries about you that - or is a worrier then that's a positive personality trait and that - that person who is worrying is caring and loving, and conscientious?
Sam: Actually no, I think that... Yeah, that worrying... another person worrying does not necessarily have anything to do with whether they are a conscientious person who is caring about other people, it's just not related. But for me it feels like it is related, because in order to be caring and conscientious, I have to worry, “have to” worry.
So yeah, that's my belief about myself but I don't have that belief about other people per se.
Aly: Yes, yeah, interesting… I would definitely say that I'm a worrier, but without the worrying - and this is why this is one of my beliefs.
Without the worrying would I remember to care? Would I remember to be loving? Would I remember to be conscientious? I'm not sure...
Sam: Yeah, that's totally it for me as well. I was like “oh, I have ADHD,I am just gonna forget things all the time, aren’t I? So, if I worry about it, then I won't forget it.
Aly: Right.
Sam: Like, I know, intellectually, t's not really true - that the reasons that I remember things now are that I have a system set up that works for me, and it has nothing to do with me worrying about it. In fact, having
a system set up means that I don't have to worry about that then anymore, because I've got reminders set up that work for me so I don't forget.
So something that's coming to mind right now is that one of the contradictions for those of us who have both ADHD and anxiety is that we often don't learn from our mistakes and we aren't motivated by negative consequences. Yet we worry in order to hopefully prevent negative outcomes. Alyssa, what are your thoughts on that?
Aly: Yeah, so for the ADHD side of that, I can see why sometimes we don't understand our role in the situation, we don't know that we have an impact on what's going on or we don't have a role in what's going on. This is kind of something that I've been learning a lot about recently, and this is
called theory of mind. Theory of mind is understanding your thoughts and your feelings and the feelings of others and their thoughts in any situation.
So a lack of theory of mind would be that we don't understand what role we play in the situation and how our behaviors are affecting our communication and what output we have in the world. To put it a little bit simpler. It's when you take birds eye view - if you're looking as like a bird say above a crowd, of people. And we're looking at one specific person (which is ourselves in this situation) and this bird is looking at the role that let's go to me, Alyssa, is adding in a certain situation. So, am I talking too loudly? Am I too close to someone? - especially now, am I two meters away from somebody ... And that's basically what theory of mind is. And those of us with ADHD don't necessarily have this theory of mind so we may not even know that, in this situation, we have an input. Does that make sense?
Sam: Yeah,what I’m wondering is: does that mean that somebody who has a solid theory of mind or however you say that grammatically, would be somebody who can take the birds eye view, who can sort of distance
themselves in some way from the situation in order to have the perspective to understand how they fit in, and impact the situation that they are in?
Aly: Yeah, yeah, and to give an example to sort of ground this... So let's say you see this kid and this kid is not really getting along with their peers, but the kid thinks that they're getting along and really,
their bossy and they're telling everybody else what to do and the kid doesn't see anything wrong with that, but nobody wants to play with him, because he's bossy. That is lack of theory of mind. But then once he can shift and he can know that when he's bossing people around, people don't like that. The other kids don't like it, and they don't wanna play with him. That is theory of mind.
20:48 Sam: Okay, so this is a sort of perspective that an individual can actually learn. It's a learned skill. Maybe?
Aly: Yeah, exactly and it doesn't come natural for those with us, who have ADHD, because we don't even know to focus on those things - like to pick up that somebody is annoyed with you is a skill.
Sam: Yeah, absolutely.
Aly: I can see you nodding and smiling.
Sam: Yeah, but I'm also just thinking that sometimes maybe this is more of a rejection sensitivity thing, but we might pick up or think that we are perceiving that someone is annoyed with us when actually
it's not about us at all. It's something else entirely. Does that make sense?
Aly: Yeah, no, it does make sense. And I've been thinking about that a lot in this context, because this also has a lot to do with mind reading, the ability to know what somebody else is feeling or thinking, and, you know, that's helpful in certain circumstances, but also if you misread the other person, it could be very negative.
Sam: Mmm... right, if we're... You're not particularly skilled at mind reading or you just happen to not have acurate interpretation at that point then it doesn't serve us.
Aly: Yeah, no, exactly, it kind of reminds me of this other term that Sam & I have been talking a lot about which is locus of control. And, just so you guys know both the definitions, like theory of mind and locus of control will be on our podcast notes, which is on our resources page, so you guys can head over there and find our resources and find our definitions and that sort of thing.
So, locus of control is when we feel or... We don't feel that we have control and impact on our circumstances and on our situations in our environment. And there's an internal locus of control and there's an external locus of control and when somebody has an internal locus of control, they think
that they have control over their experiences and their circumstances and when someone does not, when they have an external locus of control they don't feel like they do.Does that sound right, Sam?
22:55 Sam: Yeah, it definitely sounds like that fits my understanding of locus of control. I was just wondering if I could read a brief excerpt from one of the websites I found about this, or actually I think it's, it's a PDF
that was available for me university. It says that “within psychology, locus of control is considered to be an important aspect of personality. The concept was developed originally by Jillian router in the 1950s. It refers to an individual's perception about the underlying main causes of events in their life. Or, more simply... Do you believe that your destiny is controlled by yourself or by external forces, such as fate, God or powerful others?”
Aly: Yeah, sorry my brain is like racing about that definition, but it's so true.
Sam: And I think that this is definitely something that I've had to work on personally, and I think it comes with time and life experience as well. I think as children we are so out of control of our environment and what happens that we're starting with this footing of having a very external locus of control and it's justified for the most part, because when we're very small, we're completely or mostly dependent on our adult caregivers and they decide
what happens to us, and when it's all about this is where that internal power struggle comes from, between children and parents, and that power struggle starts very early.
Aly: Right yeah, it actually reminds me of how our parents are our executive functions.
Sam: Totally, yeah, exactly. That’s a really interesting point.
Aly: Yeah, because our executive functions are
externalized in that our parents are our executive functions and then as we're older people expect us to internalize those executive functions, but we don't... We aren't necessarily able to do that. And wouldn't it make sense to say that results in an external locus of control?
Sam: Yeah, I so that makes perfect sense when you frame it that way, Alyssa. I'm thinking about how we haven't covered this yet and I'd like to cover it on another episode in a bit more detail but basically ADHD is considered by some people to be a, quote, “developmental delay” and
that means that certain parts of our brain, don't develop on the same timeline, as neurotypical people and that really impacts our executive function. So, often we won't be able to... Often our brains are not developed enough in terms of our executive function. Like, we don't catch up with other people in a lot of these things until we're in our mid-30s, even late 30s. And so that also seems to be linked potentially to me, at least to this internal versus external locus of control and our ability to discern how much influence we have, and how much control we have
on the outcomes of our actions and the situation that we find ourselves in in our lives.
26:03 Aly: Absolutely, yeah, and I just wanna say we just threw out the word executive function without explaining what it is. So if you don't know what it is, please look it up. And we will also have a definition and resources on our website for that too.
Sam: Yeah, it's a really important component of our challenges, our specific challenges when it comes to a ADHD. So, we will definitely cover that in more detail in the future as well.
Aly: yeah, definitely.
So we didn't really answer the anxiety side of that question. The locus of control and the theory of mind was sort of the explanation to the ADHD side of that question. And for the anxiety side, I would say that worry is almost my automatic fall back state. It's like my brain is constantly looking for stimulation and my simulation is worrying.
Does that make sense?
Sam: Yeah, it makes sense, it's like, it's like your anxiety is stimulation for your ADHD brain.
Aly: Yeah, I didn't even think of that but yeah, the worry is the stimulation.
Sam: That's really interesting. I know for me, boredom is a big part of my ADHD, probably for most ADHD-ers, and the default state for a lot of ADHD-ers, the default brain state is to be bored and that
means that our brains are under-stimulated and so our brains are going to seek out stimulation wherever they can get it. And so boredom actually fuels my anxiety, it also fuels my impulsivity and hyperactivity, rather
than my more inattentive symptoms of ADHD and perhaps not surprisingly, my impulsivity can fuel my anxiety as well.
Aly: Impulsivity can fuel your anxiety. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
28:07 Sam: If I'm impulsive and I take actions impulsively then I will then later have anxiety about it.
I’ll be reflecting back on like, “oh I did that thing, I said that thing at that time what was I thinking? I'm gonna really ruminate on it now.” When I can't actually control that anymore. I did that thing and it's in the past, all I can do is learn from it and try to do things differently in the future.
28:37 Sam: But yeah, again, often when we have ADHD we don't... necessarily learn from our mistakes as I alluded to earlier.
Aly: Yeah, and that kind of reminds me... So, I just spent $80.00 on shampoo and conditioner. And in my head... I even thought about this for a week! And I was like, you know what - this makes sense, I need to, I
don't wanna use as much, uh, I don't want to use a straightener on my hair anymore, I wanna do natural curly hair and this shampoo and conditioner is gonna solve everything! So, I impulsively spent $80.00. It didn't feel impulsive but now it feels impulsive.
29:12 Sam: I was going to say...it was impulsive but you thought about it for a while?
Aly: Yeah, but I don't even know if it's impulse then, but it just feels like it because it was a mistake. The shampoo didn't work, it didn't do what I wanted it to do and now I have this $80.00 shampoo and conditioner
sitting in my shower, that didn't work. So is that impulsive, I’m not sure?
Sam: But what if it did work? What if it worked? Would you then say that you impulsively made the decision?
Aly: No, so yeah, so it’s not…..
*laughter*
Aly: It's giving me that same anxiety, that same anxious feeling that you’re talking about.
29:46 Sam: I just wanted to point that out. When we have ADHD we often assume when things don't work out that we are the problem somehow. We have that anxiety afterwards, we assume, “Oh this must be because of something I did or said, or I was so impulsive, or whatever”, but in fact, it sounds like you spent a lot of time thinking about it and it's not really your fault that the shampoo didn't work, right?
Aly: Thanks for that! It’s true. It wasn't impulsivity... But I definitely have that anxious feeling now. Okay, so sorry for that tangent. So basically I'll bring us back. So we've said all this stuff about anxiety. And so what does this have to do with COVID-19?
30:35 Sam: Excellent question. So I've been hearing from all directions recently, about people’s heightened anxiety during this period where we are all... If we can, staying at home as much as we are able... And being around our loved ones or being by ourselves, if we live alone, A LOT and so we don't have our unusual support system in place and we don't have our usual sources of stimulation. So there's a lot of rumination, and not useful anxiety happening or people are experiencing it as well as having their fear fueled by the 24 hour news cycle and by social media and by all of the contradictory advice about Corona virus that exists out there. I just wanna say that I acknowledge that more than ever, unplugging is not really, like unplugging completely is not really possible, and that's because it's important to keep up with the news, especially on COVID 19, because the fact is that we don't know that much about this disease, and we are learning new things about it all the time and people are interpreting this new things all the time, to mean certain things that they are may or may not mean which is often why the advice is contradictory. And a lot of the
anxiety that people are feeling, people especially with ADHD are feeling in this current age of COVID-19 seems to be linked to not trusting ourselves to remember to do the things that are necessary to keep ourselves and our
loved ones safe. So worrying that we won't remember to do or not do certain things to protect ourselves from the disease and also from the economic fallout. So what can we do about this?
Aly: Yeah, and before I jump to discuss that with you, I just... Can I add something about what I do for the news and that sort of thing?
Sam: Sure, yeah,
32:34 Aly: Yeah. So I just realized that I could fall down this rabbit hole. My News Feed, my iPhone front page and all that stuff, is just... Coronavirus news Coronavirus news, and it's usually negative… “There’s this one hospital that has this many deaths” and it's really depressing and it's really sad and I choose not to read that stuff and what I've decided to do, because that's something that I can't do anything about and it's just gonna make me sad. What I decided to do is watch one hour a day of this conference, that's related to the province that I live in and that way I can stay informed, I can know what's going on in my area, and I don't have to
get overly - I’ll admit, I still get sad - but I don't have to get overly sad and completely sucked into it. So I've chosen this one hour a day to dedicate. And sometimes I don't do it, sometimes I skip a day, but that's what I try and do.
Sam: Yeah, that's really smart, and a great way to look after yourself during this time. Relatedly, I don't watch an hour of news a day but I do get a daily Coronavirus email from a particular news site that I trust and so I can read that once a day or sometimes I don't read them every single day, and I'll go back and read them or something. But that means that the amount of information that I am consuming is more contained and I don't have to do so actively try to filter out what's not relevant or irrelevant per se, but what information it should be, or can affect my behaviors in a useful way during this time, and what is just information about what's happening that I can't do anything about and I can't take action on...
34:26 Aly: Yeah, it's just information that's over - at least in my case, it's just information that's overloading me and [Sam: absolutely] we have a choice to take that in or not.
Yeah, and I actually think this fits in quite well with the...What can we do about this?
Aly: No, it's true, it's true. Yeah, so what can we do? We can
make a checklist... I am crazy about checklists.
Sam: You’re the checklist queen
34:51 Aly: Yeah, I kinda... So my thoughts and Sam & I’s thoughts are you sit down with somebody in well, whoever you're living with and you have a discussion about what do you guys wanna do to protect yourself? And maybe that's okay: “every time we go to the grocery store, we disinfect our groceries.” To me, that's like a high-level, you're going all out. Or you come home and you wipe down your door knob, you wipe down the surfaces that you've touched and you wash your hands. Actually, probably in the reverse order. You wash your hands and then you disinfect everything that you've touched. Those are just little examples of what could be on your checklist and you as a family as a unit, or whoever you're staying with decides this so that you're all on the same page and then you're not anxious about what other people are or aren't doing
35:46: Sam: right and you've got this checklist, this physical
checklist, that maybe you post somewhere, next to your front door that you can reference. So if you're in a state where you're like “Oh I don't actually remember the exact order in which these things go or I don't trust myself to remember” (if you ADHD)... Then you can go and reference the list... it's just right there and you don't have to spend time worrying about it, you just know that those are the answers right there on the wall.
36:13 Aly: Yeah, and I think it's also really important to mention that these are all habits and these are all habits that are not natural to us. Maybe by - maybe some of us are adopting those right now and it's starting
to get natural but these aren't habitual, these aren't a part of our routines yet... So it's really, it's not an automatic response. Like, “okay, I walk in, my front door and I wash my hands.”So we kind of, need to acknowledge that and come up with systems and supports so that we can remember. “Okay, I walk in the front door and I wash my hands.” So maybe it's like as you are leaving your house, you leave a huge obstacle that signals to you: “hey, you gotta go wash your hands”, and then you just create this thought in your head, okay: wash my hands, wash my hands, wash my hands. Until you actually do wash your hands.
Sam: Yeah, I love that. So it doesn't actually have to be a checklist, you can find other ways to remind yourself to engage in the specific chain of behavior that you want to engage in when you first enter your house from being out in the outside world.
37:10 Aly: Yeah, I think though that the key is to decide in advance what it's going to be. Because if you wait ‘till you come home it's kind of too late you're thinking too much, like you're overthinking it.
Sam: Yeah, and I know for me personally, when I'm over thinking I can often feel upset that I don't remember, that I don't quite understand how it all fits together, and I feel distressed by that. And so for me it's super important to do that in advance when I am not in some sort of active distress mode and or/in an argument with the person I live with, about how we do things in what order and what’s safe and what isn't, right?
37:43 Aly: I know, I feel so naggy. Like “did you wash your hands, are you going to wash your hands? Please wash your hands”.
Sam: So yeah, aside from checklists, I think another important thing we can do right now is to keep - to find ways to keep our brains engaged so that we aren't pulled into boredom and because there in boredom, in boredom lies rumination and anxiety. So, engaging your senses and finding creative ways to focus your brain and making sure that you take time to do small things every day that you enjoy, or get pleasure from, get exercise or whatever you need to do, whatever works well for you to stay connected to your body in order to manage the anxiety that's often fueled by our ADHD-related hyperactivity. Whether the hyperactivity is physical or mental in its manifestation.
38:40 Aly: And you know what this is reminding me of... our last podcast that we did on intentional laziness. This is a perfect time to be intentionally lazy.
Sam: Absolutely wow! I didn’t even think about that, Alyssa! I love that connection! Yeah, and related to that, make sure that you're taking time and space to emotionally process 'cause there is some serious stuff happening to all of us right now, and there's gonna be a lot of processing for us as individuals and as a collective, once this period has passed and we can move forward with our lives, in a different way, but there's also serious emotional processing to do while we're going through it, too.
Aly: Mmhmm. Yeah, and I guess look out for that. Are you doing things to avoid processing the emotions? And sometimes emotions are really hard to deal with, so reach out to somebody for help, if you need that.
Sam: Yeah, absolutely. I know for me even maybe not even, but it's not like I’m immune to this at all, but I know that, kind of what feels like a potentially endless list of tedious tasks that we now have to engage in for coronavirus prevention of transmission or whatever is that has become a very effective way of avoiding processing my emotions. I can send all my time doing those things and then I realized I was avoiding sitting down and journaling, and meditating 'cause I'm like, those things don't “feel productive”. Me doing all of these super tedious tasks does feel really productive, but they don't necessarily need to be done right then when I am feeling the sort of pressure, the internal sort of pressure, I feel when I know that I need to be emotionally processing.
40:32 Aly: Mmm.. and it almost makes me think, you're protecting yourself in a different way.
Sam: Yeah,
Aly: by doing all those, tedious tasks.
Sam: Yeah, I'm protecting myself from the anticipated negative emotions I assume I will feel when I'm processing, but the thing is, I'm not gonna stop feeling those negative emotions until I process them…
Aly: Oh, I know and I hate those negative emotions so much that I always force myself to do it. I’m like “just do it, just rip off the band-aid. Just dump it out in your journal or I just have that really tough conversation that you don't wanna have”. 'cause it's gonna eat - well, it eats at me if I don't so..
Sam: Yeah, absolutely, I’m the same way and also just engaging in some sort of almost preventative emotional processing practice. It doesn't have to be daily necessarily, but daily, daily would be probably good for a lot of people, some kind of regular thing that you do or things that you do, so you don’t always have to meditate or journal or do yoga or whatever, but you can have a list and rotate between those things.
Aly: Absolutely yeah.
41:43 Sam: Oh, and the other thing. Sorry, one thing I thought of as well, is ADHD-ers thrive on connecting with others. So please do not forget to log at least, to find ways to connect with other people right now. I think it's really easy to get caught up in our own little worlds. And to not reach out and connect with others but we really - for most of us, that's a serious need and it's not met then we can go a little bonkers.
Aly: Yeah, yeah getting stuck in our heads isn't always the most fun.
Sam: Definitely not. Sorry Alyssa, what were you about to say?
Aly: I was just gonna say that we have a challenge for everybody.
Sam: Right.
Aly: Yeah, so our challenge is to come up with your own checklist or set of rules for your household (with those that you live with) and to share it with us on our Instagram page or you send this email or send us a message, we would love to see what your checklist, are. Or if you have any questions about making the checklist please send them to us.
Sam: Yeah, we'd love to see your checklist and get your questions about any of the things that we've mentioned in this podcast or if you have questions about ADHD and anxiety about things related to that that we did not address, we would love to read those questions and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. I just wanted to also remark that our website has a contact form on it, so that's also a great private way to get in touch with us.
Aly: Yeah, and if making the rules list or the checklist doesn't speak to you, you could also share with us what do you do to keep your brain engaged? Are there new tasks that - “new tasks”, new skills or hobbies that you wanna start? What gives you energy?
Sam: Oh, I love that question.
Aly: Yeah, it’s the best. I love that one, too, it...
Sam: Alright, well, thanks everyone for joining us this time and thank you, Alyssa for another sparkling conversation. I hope it was helpful for a lot of our listeners.
Aly: Yeah, thanks. I always have fun chating with you.
Sam: Okay, bye everyone... We’ll see you next time
*Outro*:
Aly: Thanks for joining us for this episode of The All Things ADHD Podcast. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone who you think could benefit - or you could leave us a review on Apple podcast, or whichever platform you have found us through. Your feedback will help others to find our content.
Sam: Check out our website at allthingsadhdpodcast.com, and use our contact form to get in touch. We deeply value your feedback and we do our best to reply to every message. See you next time for another episode of All Things ADHD. Oh, and if you don't already follow us on Instagram, check us out at @allthingsadhd.podcast. See you next time!