Is AI making your ADHD worse? Mine was — and the scary part is, I was the one making it worse with how I used it.

I'm an ADHD creator who actually likes AI — but I've been noticing a pattern: I asked AI for a plan, it gives me back 20,000 steps. I find myself accepting plans I don’t actually agree with. I feel worse than when I started. Plus, I keep outsourcing the critical thinking part.

In this episode of AuDHentic Agents, I unpack cognitive debt, cognitive surrender, and the middle ground between all in and quitting cold turkey. Plus the tiny, four-word reflection I'm trying instead of building another system around the problem.

Mentioned in this episode:

- Nick Milo on cognitive debt, isolation, and surrender: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24t04HzoIXY&t=5140s

- Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff (plus / minus / next) : https://nesslabs.com/book

If this resonates, you'll probably also like → AI information overload

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Chapters:

00:00 The plan that should have helped

00:53 The advice I refused to take

02:42 The signal I keep missing

04:01 The gap nobody warned me about

04:48 Two kinds of tired

06:46 What was supposed to be temporary

07:42 Cognitive debt — and how I noticed it in myself

09:25 Why I'm not stopping

11:53 The third option

13:45 The trap I keep falling into

14:24 What I'm trying instead

16:00 One last thing

#ADHD #AIburnout #neurodivergentcreator

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit audhenticagents.substack.com

You were excited all day. You planned it, looked forward to it. Then the moment arrived and your body just… didn't move. This episode is about what's actually happening in that freeze.

What you'll hear:

Real stories about the gap between wanting to start and actually starting

Why the most common advice for getting started might be the worst advice for your brain

The hidden assumptions baked into productivity tips nobody talks about

Where AI helps open the gate — and where it quietly makes things worse

One low-activation thing you can try when you're stuck

This episode is for you if:

You save tutorials and open none of them

You've spent more time picking the tool than using it

You know "just start small" doesn't work but can't explain why

You've ever felt like a broken robot repeating the same loop

Mentioned: Notion AI · Obsidian · Capacities · Claude Code

Previous episode: Episode 2 — AI Information Overload

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit audhenticagents.substack.com

Most AI advice assumes your brain works a certain way. What if it doesn't?

Every AI tutorial promises the same thing: save time, make money, change your workflow. But if you're neurodivergent, that advice often lands flat — exciting for a second, then irrelevant. In this episode, Jae breaks down why AI information overload hits differently for ADHD and autistic brains, why overwhelm is a signal worth listening to, and what it actually looks like to find your own way in.

In this episode:

Why the excitement-to-exhaustion loop happens with AI content

What neurotypical AI tutorials assume that your brain doesn't have

The "fast fashion of information" problem — and why most AI creators are really just running ads

How to tell the difference between being behind and being misaligned

Why you don't need the perfect starting point to start experimenting

The one question that changes everything: does it have to be this hard?

This episode is for you if you've saved hundreds of AI videos you'll never watch, felt guilty about not keeping up, or wondered why everyone else seems to know where to start.

💬 Quote from the episode:

"Overwhelm doesn't mean I'm behind. It just means the action I'm taking isn't aligned with who I am."

About AuDHentic Agents

AI and AI agents through the lens of neurodivergence. Hosted by Jae Creates — exploring what it actually looks like to learn, build, and create with AI when your brain works differently.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit audhenticagents.substack.com

I went to AI asking what agents I should build — and it told me I didn't need any of that. What I needed was fewer things, clearly separated, with my executive function accounted for in the design. This is me documenting what it felt like to find that out.

Key Takeaways / TL;DR

I started asking AI what agents to build — it told me I didn't need any of them yet

Low-grade overwhelm is real: "an inner bruise that causes pain, but never enough pain to go to the doctor"

Building systems is a coping layer, not a solution — it processes the chaos without fixing it

The real block isn't the tasks: "It's not about knowing what to do. It's about my own self-doubts and insecurities"

The actual answer: "Fewer things, clearly separated, with my executive function accounted for in the design — not treated as something to overcome"

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit audhenticagents.substack.com