Something Shiny: ADHD!

How do you survive holiday travel with ADHD? What about traveling with children, particularly small children? And what happens when you find yourself rushing, leaving things until the last minute, and forgetting your charger once again? David and Isabelle swap stories and share specific tips to traveling and also discuss WHY ARE THERE SOCK NUBBINS AND TAGS. Seriously.
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There can be so much pressure to have a Hallmark, picture-postcard perfect holiday and it’s so important to revise those expectations and think about what you actually want to do, for example, maybe it’s “we go to the this house, tolerate everyone for 45 minutes, you grab the turkey, I grab the mashed potatoes, and we leave.” And what about the uncomfortable holiday clothes? Isabelle laughs and mentions a brilliant SNL fake ad for Macy’s that’s all about children’s clothing and how uncomfortable it is. David describes this might be where task meets emotionality (for definition, see below)—is the task of the holidays spending time with family? David remembers the holidays being hard, everyone fighting on the way there and then fine when they got home, and wearing uncomfortable clothes, and just wanting to leave and it being awful. Isabelle remembers coming home so late and it was freezing and trying to sleep in the back seat, freezing. David had the experience going to his partner’s holiday celebrations and—they don’t have ADHD—everyone got along, hung out, sang songs, played piano—and this is real? Friendsgiving is a thing, and you can make choices, what you do for holidays is a choice: like winter is a choice. Anytime you feel trapped or caught in something, changing the language to “I’m choosing to do blank because blank…” with what needs your meeting with it, changes it from you “have to go see Meemaw” You can take the shoulds, musts, and have-to and change it to choices. And maybe Meemaw doesn’t care what you wear, she just wants to see you. WHY ARE THERE TAGS IN CLOTHING? And NUBBINS ON SOCKS? We have evolved so many incredible things, we have AI, we have genome sequencing, and we have sock nubbins, and who invented pantyhose and shapewear. David likes shape wear because the underarmour stuff he wears is nice and tight. Isabelle describes that it’s more designed to smush you in and sometimes it’s great—this is maybe Isabelle’s trauma after being a 6 ft woman at 14 year old, so she was fitting into shape wear and pantyhose as a kid and hated it so much and it was so uncomfortable. David always got all these hand-me-down socks that were in a constant state of yawn—now David gets the really tight socks that stay up all day, “look at you sock, staying up all day!” And transitioning back to travel—and sometimes travel is really hard because we’re pushing ourselves harder than we should. Having the toolbox is just as important on the airplane or airport, or knowing how long you’re waiting with a toolbox. Whoever’s doing the traveling, your self care is the most important: you can’t control your kids being miserable, they will be, you have to put your oxygen mask, go at your pace, go at your tolerance. Kids will fall apart. You need to be there for them when they do. So what do you need to be there for them? Maybe it’s a treat, maybe it’s slowing down—take care of you. Pack the day before. And always include an extra day back at home before transitioning back. You can change the day back—the end is always going to be the end of the vacation, but you being able to have a different re-entry ritual into your day to day can be game changing. Isabelle shares some tips from her own front line experiences, such as when driving from Indianapolis from Nashville as part of moving, when she forgot the iPad…and everything else, and her kid was stuck in the way back for hours bored out of their mind. Needless to say, iPads are last steps, so it’s a plan B, but it forces them to have lots of plan A—and on this trip, she forgot all the plan B’s and A’s. And everyone is going to have a meltdown—Isabelle, as mom, will also have a breakdown. It doesn’t matter how prepared you are, travel will break you at some point. Travel with kids is courting brilliant memories of chaos, so she anticipates and plans on her having a breakdown. So she tells herself that “I’m a good mom who’s reached her limit.” You’re trained from babyhood to meet their needs all the time, but it’s a set up, the game is rigged, and part of the rigging is us thinking we’re never going to lose it ourselves. Maybe it’s the rule, not the exception. What about outsourcing, like checking your bags curbside, strapping your kid into the carseat on the plane (because they’re used to it and airplane seatbelts do nothing). Be kind to yourself. There’s also this idea that a vacation and a trip with kids are two separate things. The labor does not change, but increases, but the expectation for fun and frivolity is also increased, but maybe change the expectations inside. Also okay if it’s extra hard because it actually really is. Take the wins. David names that it’s very hard to hold dialectics, to opposing truths: you can love your kids and they can be too much, really hard, really frustrating. You need to find yourself a support group that can validate all the truths. For David, being a child who had ADHD, and seeing people with kids travel, and typically things feel better when there isn’t as much pressure, when you’re not rushing at the last minute, and have everything you need. Accepting that all of those things are going to be harder with ADHD and smiling when those things don't happen is the key. Accept that win, when you actually remember the charger. We can also flip the shame spiral into gratitude because you can maybe get the thing when you arrive, and David has needed to buy pretty much everything on arrival. Anything important, the things you can’t live without, phone stuff, medication, certain items, should be carry-ons. If ever possible, don’t check a bag, have a very compacted carry on. 

SNL Fake Macy’s commercial for children’s uncomfortable clothing

DAVID'S DEFINITIONS

TASK V. EMOTIONALITY

• Task: what you’re trying to do - the ‘work’ of a group or a person. 
  • for example: I am finishing my project this weekend.
• Emotionality: what you do to prepare to do a task - beliefs/fears/assumptions about what you’re doing
  • for example: I’m doing it wrong/right, I always procrastinate, big fear you’ll never get it done, dream that someone will come and save you from having to do it, etc. 

Traveling survival tips

• Prep your go-bag, tool kit (and consider several plans, not just one, like the ipad, because batteries die)
• Kids will fall apart. They will fall apart when they travel. Be there when they do. What do you need to do to be there for them? Go at your pace. Pick up a treat. Do things to make it easier on you. 
• Get ready to leave the night before. Have things packed. 
• Plan to have a day off once you return. The last day of vacation will always suck, but you can make your return to your day to day so much better.
• Plan on your own breakdown. You’re a good parent/partner and you can reach a limit. It’s the rule, not the exception with travel.

How do you survive family dinners? Sitting at a table until everyone is done? Overstimulation? Sticky conversations and setting boundaries?  David and Isabelle talk concrete tips for getting through family dinners, and even enjoying them—and the truth behind ear worm songs’ lyrics that may pop your Thanksgiving Day Parade Spiderman balloons.
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David and Isabelle name that any time you’re meeting with family, traveling, disrupting routine, and then you throw in kids—how do we do this? Let’s start with dinner, and then work our way back to how you get there. Whenever you’re going out to eat with family…family is a tricky word. Family describes ritual—people who get together at different times, don’t have to be related. Whoever is in your network, where you go. Kids really need help knowing the story behind people, understanding the story behind Uncle Jack and Aunt Sue—it can help create connecting moments by throwing in novelty. Kids can be really honest and if it’s boring, they may ask: “Why are you boring?” Also, we love Aunt Sue. Partners might use this, too, not just kids. Let alone how family stuff can be so loaded, you may not want to share the same room with some people, there can be anxiety, and anticipatory dread. Part when you’re going to go visit v. hosting—how do we cope with the different layers of anxiety. With a heavier family situation—bring the toolbox, especially with kids. Before you leave, have a backpack, help your child pick toys (even if they’re 14), headphones, and talk about where you can use your phone or play games. What about the interesting power struggle of having kids sit at the table until everyone is finished eating—let’s think about that differently, because sitting for that long is so hard for kids, and adults, with ADHD—and why is hosting so FUN, because you’re always translating your restlessness into effective hosting. Most people with ADHD fall into really good host and amazing networker, and we can also know how to help people feel connected and welcome because we know how hard it can be to be isolated. Take breaks with your child. Be honest about how long it’s going to be (like 3.5 hours, not "just 15 more minutes"), and be realistic about what battles you’re going to pick with your child.  Sometimes when we think about social norms we’re trying to show and build the frustration tolerance in our children—we place such a load and raise the stakes so much for the holidays, and we forget that that is a set up with kids. The more you raise the expectations and raise the stakes, the more it’s asking for disaster. For the parents who feel that pressure, judgment, and family rules—really hard to have an unreasonable expectations and have them passed on. Can be helped to know that expectations are resentments waiting to happen—and let the table know the expectation we’re actually dealing with (eg. We’re trying to help kid finish food, as opposed to sit quietly for an hour). Have a wonderful moment with your family, knowing that the most unconventional moments are the memory makers. Also can be really overstimulating, and have a plan for what to do then ahead of time, and how to manage that. How do we recognize we are overstimulated? Isabelle went to Costco and only realized 3 hours later how she was overstimulated. We’re all going to feel things differently, but certain things will always be overstimulating: loud noise (increases heart rate) and triggers your fear response. Think about that moment you left a loud concert or house party and that moment when you walk into the cold night air and then you take a breath—knowing that we’re overstimulated is really hard to notice (want to work on with a therapist or close friend)—we can tolerate the heat getting turned up really high and we don’t notice it until it’s at a certain point. David knows he’s overstimulated when he’s worried about breaking things or bumping into people. When Isabelle starts to feel she’s obstacle coursing it, that’s when she’s overstimulated. Sometimes being overstimulated is really good, or really bad—it’s not necessarily one thing or another: it's what’s appropriate for the moment. David will sometimes look at his partner where she’s like “we don’t have time for that.” Getting signs and knowing these things, like with your kid—“I noticed that you were walking around with your hands balled up”—“can I check in on you at Meemaw’s house when you’re hands are clenched, maybe we can go on a walk with me?” Walks are important intervention: changes environment, smells open up, visual stimulation, movement. Or have a place in Dodge—a weighted blanket in the basement, watch a couple of TikTok’s. Isabelle describes the giant mega Christmas party they’d attend that included all these pockets of peace and respite—like smoke breaks (side note: folx with ADHD being drawn to the stimulant with nicotine, but also the habit of taking breaks with a few different people). How valuable it might be not only notice your kid’s cues and give them prompting, but also how it might feel for your kid “I’m getting overstimulated, you know I notice my jaw is tight, and I feel like I’m going to bump into things a lot, I need to go for a walk, want to come with me?” We want to make “Calm Down!” not a swear word. It’s usually the opposite effect—we’re often not saying this to ourselves, we’re telling other people to do it. Do it with a partner, the more premeditated it is—you can be predictable and take a break. Boundaries are not personal, even though they almost always feel that way. David uses the example of the briefcase where he keeps his notes—if he saw anyone going near it, he’d freak out, because it has to do with his boundary around client confidentiality, but it’s not about who is doing it (whether it’s a stranger or a partner). You can set the boundary just by changing the subject. We take boundaries personally, we also think boundaries are about what we’re asking the other person to do, when actually—(pause for effect)—the boundary is what you’re going to do. For example, Isabelle will find herself being asked for therapeutic advice at family functions, but the boundary when she doesn’t want someone to talk about the thing, but it’s the moment she changes the subject, walks away, etc. it’s the moment where I actually set the boundary for myself. It’s not about getting the person to stop talking, it’s giving them something to chew on, like a sandwich, so they can’t talk about it. And another caveat: as inveterate people pleaser, Isabelle’s discomfort shoots up, and it doesn’t feel better to her to set a boundary, but it’s a short term huge burst of discomfort that she’s trading for a long haul sense of self-betrayal, or being worn down, or all the bigger consequences that come from not having a boundary. You tend to have to set boundaries again and again, and it rarely gets easier, you just get more well versed at how you do it. This reminds David of putting on sunscreen—it’s so gross, he hates the greasy stuff, but it’s better than getting the sunburn. The boundary setting can be announced or not announced. And one of the powers of ADHD: engage ADHD distraction mode when someone starts talking about something you’re not about. Like do Delorians need special garages so the doors would still open? Like moths to a flame, we might pay more attention to someone when you’re annoying you, or you’re preparing to debate them. David’s method is singing George of the Jungle to get rid of the earworm. Isabelle thinks about the muzak track in the elevator of your brain, and her’s, since childhood, has b...

What do you do when people are openly judging your food sensitivities (or the food sensitivities of your kid)? What's the difference between a soft and hot response to commentary? Why do we go to town over certain foods we love and then have such particular things we dislike and how much the Thanksgiving feast of it all can be about winning the feeling and vibe, rather than 'winning' at some carbon copy idea or expectation of what the holiday (and meal) should be. Filled chock full of food facts, favorite foods, and alternate ways to celebrate, this episode has David and Isabelle so grateful for you, Team Shiny!

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Isabelle wonders if her experience would have been different if her food sensitivities, then cast as being ‘too picky,’ ‘too sensitive’, had been more the norm in her family friend group growing up. She was the odd one out and that left room for so much judgment and commentary. Meanwhile, she sees her partner Bobby’s family and notes that pretty much everyone has food sensitivities, their yucks and yums, so they accept it and roll with it and stock up on what people like and seem to not be phased by it at all. David relates this to his experience being vegetarian for years and how he would feel when people would immediately show him the vegetarian dish on the menu—but he knows now that this was them looking out for him, verifying that this was a place he could eat. He couldn’t hear it then, but as he got older, he would just say “thank you.” The difference when you’re trying to advocate for your kid as a parent v. Others outside of that. David has his soft response—“if there’s ever a night to eat what you like, it’s with family” and his hot response is “should I follow you and talk about what you eat?” Isabelle noticed that she could change the texture of vegetables and thus reinvent her ability to eat vegetables, including the bitter ones she couldn’t handle for so long. There was so much labor put into the food of her Polish Christmas eve celebrations growing up, like pierogi, and there’s this sense of wanting to pass on food pushing and abundance and scarcity. David’s mouth is watering about pocket foods—pierogi, samosas, tamales—delicious. Which links up Isabelle’s fun fact about fried chicken—that frying preserves the food! And then, isn’t it technically a pocket food, too? But, as David points out—the bone! But, Isabelle counters, what about tenders? So is a chicken tender a pocket food with no other filling but chicken? And also foods on sticks. Isabelle likes the risk involved and also chewing on the stick. David doesn’t understand how to eat the food off the stick, but there’s a big difference between impulsive behavior and well thought out behavior. David and Isabelle are now very hungry. Isabelle asks if traditions really aren’t about transmitting memories, and if so, kids won’t remember the meal you served, but they will remember the feeling that someone stood up for them and their needs?  David reframes this: are you trying to win an argument (about food) or win a feeling? Are you aiming for togetherness and connection—it’s not the day to argue about the food, or the screen, or the phone—give yourself that day. This brings Isabelle to asking David about jello with chunks in it, if he likes that kind of texture, and he doesn’t, he likes hard jello. Isabelle is confused by what he means and describes aspic served for Polish Easter, and furthermore, one of the most neurodivergent ways of relating to food, which can include eating copious amounts of the things we love repeatedly. For her, on another holiday with another food profile, she ate 27 eggs. In one day. Gave herself hives from the eggs. And that’s not including the mayonnaise. David meant hard jello like jello made with apple juice. Also as a former bartender, David cautions everyone about drinking and driving around Thanksgiving, a holiday notorious for stress and overindulging, and also about the dangers of alcohol soaked foods like jello shots. And he is grateful to Isabelle and to Team Shiny (we love you, Team Shiny!) For all we have made together, for all the people who now know more about ADHD or have new diagnoses: we’re sad you had to get a diagnosis and happy you had to get a diagnosis? We’re here for all of it. Have a great holiday!

The backstory behind Nashville hot chicken

Frying as a way to preserve food - "Since fried chicken traveled well in hot weather before refrigeration was commonplace and industry growth reduced its cost, it gained further favor across the South." (Source: Wikipedia)

Fascinating rabbithole of a site that makes industrial fryers -- most processed foods are fried!

Recipe for ‘hard jello’ aka Jell-o jigglers (which sadly does not mention apple juice, but does specify the water to gelatin ratio)

And bonus: how to make gelatin out of any fruit juice (like apple juice)

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Cover Art by: Sol Vázquez

Technical Support by: Bobby Richards

This week we're revisiting what happens when you show up at a holiday meal and immediately realize with a sinking feeling- "Not again…I can't eat anything here…" From honoring the cook's efforts while not betraying your own needs, to recognizing the joys of chewing on pens and ice, join David and Isabelle as we embrace our sensory sensitivities and make our own neurodivergent-friendly and inclusive traditions. Check out our Holiday Survival Guide! Part of a holiday prep series designed to help take some pressure off the holiday season.

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David and Isabelle stare down the fast moving train of holidays and expectations that is barreling toward us right now. As we approach Thanksgiving we have a bunch of "shoulds" coming at us--we should be like everyone else and even though we have sensory issues with cars, and sounds, and people, and all that stuff. Everything from sitting still from being held hostage on a plane or in the car, or being stuck in a service or sit at a table, or eating - the sound, the food, the overstimulation, while simultaneously coupled with frustration and your routine being destroyed, and all of this at the same time. This explains why Isabelle has a lurching sense of dread approaching this time of year. The holiday dread is real. David and Isabelle have covered other aspects of holidays, like speaking with family, and the glories and pains of holiday travel, and here they are focusing on food and sensory sensitivities. Isabelle remembers how growing up she was known as a picky eater but actually there were a lot of sensory sensitivities going on. She had memories of celebrating “wigilia” (Polish Christmas Eve celebration) and sitting at a much larger table, with much more eyes on her, and as someone who only ate pretty much chicken and white rice and potatoes, she was facing down a traditional non-meat meal of 12 mostly fish-based dishes (such as pickled herring). You fast before this evening meal, and then you commence the eating. She would be lightheaded and nauseous because she’d be so hungry and would fill up on dinner rolls with butter, everyone is judging and commenting, then she lives on the high of opening presents, and then they’d go to midnight mass at midnight, and then they’d light candles and means the oxygen is rapidly leaving the area in an enclosed place and so she’d either pass out and throw up. Everyone can look back in time and find the holiday memories of “we can’t believe we did that on purpose.” We don’t make time any other time of year to have these rituals, and see each other, and it's really about connections, yet we get caught up in following these rules that don’t always work. Isabelle thinks about how for years she carried the shame around this being her fault, she’s the picky eater that would end up passing out or throwing up, but then thinks about how easy it would’ve been to provide some kind of option for her. That there are traditions and ways of keeping the meaning behind the traditions, but also making even small accommodations that can make all the difference to us. How we can always make new traditions. There’s a really hard part with food: there are people that work really hard for hours in the kitchen and they want you to try and see what you like about it and not like about it—how can we try certain things that work for us, and how can we bring our own food—like here’s my tub of Mac and cheese, there has to be a middle path. The way to be a gracious guest and host, and how as neurodivergent folks we can prefer to host because it gives us structure, she can stay on her feet, it helps her mask less. What is this about ADHD and food sensitivities? There’s a lot around taste aversion, what happens when we associate a food item with a thought in our head—like “eww, this tastes like sand” and we don’t eat sand…or boogers. To make the eating experience a lot more about the flavors they’re experiencing rather than the thought in the brain. Is it salty? Sweet? Savory? Textures? David is a texture person, there is a fine line between “this is edible” and “this makes me gag”—like bananas, one day to the next changes. Isabelle and David firmly agree on bananas being this type of thing, and Isabelle does not do overripe bananas, you make it a cooking liquid and you put it in banana bread. David also likes drinkable yogurt and he doesn’t mind it because he’s drinking it. If he’s moving his mouth hole up and down there needs to be something there to fight my mouth.” And crunching is stimulating and stress reducing. Whether we’re chewing ice or almost-cutting-the-top-of-your-mouth bread crust. Is it the act of chewing that’s stress reducing, or something crunchy is stress reducing? Isabelle notices chewy things, like gum, gummy chews, and chip crunch, or a cold crunch, she does not like it—there are special ice cubes that collapse in your mouth that shrink in your mouth. Tiny ball ices at Sonic or certain places have that. David knows chewing gum is a stimulation, and David is hazarding guesses with the crunching thing (like it’s objectively dominating something in your mouth, or you’re making progress, or it’s the sound itself)—there are a lot of parts of that that is soothing. If it’s paired with dopamine, your chocolate chip cookie crunch is paired with delight and celery crunch is a HORROR to Isabelle. David’s favorite crunch is an apple-pear crunch, or a jicama crunch. What is an apple-pear? What is it exactly? This links us to grapples (apples that taste like grapes), and cotton-candy grapes (it’s too much) and champagne grapes and boba. Isabelle loves it, and David describes how he never got boba, he just thought they were fun to launch and make stick to the things, and then years later, it was cold, and he got the boba and then he had a moment when all of a sudden, he chewed it up and was like boba. “Boba, you’re delicious!” And now he’s a full boba fan. There was a challenge to himself to experience it again. Isabelle wants to go on 800 food related tangents and realizes it might be a food related special interest. The sound of the crunch is a tiny sonic boom in your mouth. And David leans on a couch with his hand on his chin and his finger got in and he accidentally came down on his finger absentmindedly, and you can’t even pretend to bite yourself, oh my goodness, it is so painful and powerful. Every time Isabelle bites her tongue or cheek it feels like she severs her tongue. But also, why did David put his finger in his mouth accidentally? And if he put his finger in his mouth and chew it. Isabelle loved chewing pen cap (old school pic pen caps), and she’d chew on everything. She’d also chew on lollipop sticks, she chews on the cupcake wrapper, she doesn’t ingest these things and doesn’t like chewing, but she loves chewing paper and the pen cap, and it got vertical in her mouth and it sliced a line in the center of the tongue, and she still has a divet. Every single person who is listening has done something like that, or has eaten too many sour patch kids, or has eaten hot pizza too fast and burned their mouth open. This connects to masking and needing stimulation, and a little bit of clumsiness, oral gratification, and it’s important. Switching and making new fantasies for the holidays: if you have a picky eater, why don’t you make that with them and bring that with them? Don’t let the family shame you and make you thing you’re doing anything wrong. Take care of your family. Including yourself. So many of us will give kids the room to offer them to...

Is there a way to switch gears even when you're running late, overhwhelmed, and already past crispy? Isabelle and David explore how changing gears, especially during a transition--whether it's starting a conversation, leaving the house, beginning a work task--is up to us and how hard and real the struggle is and how important it can be to get your reps in. From potato sprouts and Carl Rogers, to neurodivergent trauma as culture, to all those half finished water bottles underneath your carseat, this conversation embraces what it means to share collective wounds as well as adaptations to a world not built for neurodivergent folx.

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Isabelle (speaking of a hard moment trying to get herself and her kids out the door when they're already running so late and then stopping, covering her eyes and ears, and just sitting on the couch)-- thought this "busy-ness" was a personality trait, moving on to the next, to the next, to the next—to always be busy, harried, running behind. And you can’t expect the environment to stop when things feel like too much. Pandemic was not a blessing in disguise (that’s BS), and Isabelle’s experience was that on top of the systemic and personal trauma and wanting to chew her own arm off, it was the first time the world did stop to a degree—it took a lot of demands and choices off the table for her. How often when she is burned out and crispy does she want the world to stop, for things to slow down, to quiet down on a sensory level.  And when the world stopped, that wasn’t the answer either, she actually found herself doing more—it’s a lot to realize that the world won’t stop for you and even when it does, it doesn’t address the overwhelm problem. David names that a lot of social expectations changed—doing laundry, doing hygiene. Finding out which things were effective and which weren’t was a lot then. In couples, there’s a big difference between a harsh versus a soft startup, taken from the work of the Gottmans (see links below). The harsh versus soft start up through transitions—are you giving yourself a harsh or a soft start up to a task? What do you need to transition to a particular activity—do you want to get there late, stressed, sweaty? Or do you want to get there and be bored for a bit, because you're about to read to kids in a library and need to come in with less energy? When Isabelle sits and asks for help, she interrupts and resets a harsh start up to a soft start up. She is doing for herself what she wishes another person would do. Sits her down, has her take a moment, helps take away the expectations and demands. Bobby can do that sometimes, but also she can’t expect someone to do that everyday. And it helps her get reps at switching from a soft to a harsh transition. She didn’t think she had a gear shift; she was on and off. It’s existential, you have to reset your own expectations and what it means to stop. Isabelle has to unmask, and reveal how vulnerable she is and ask for what she needs, she has to face trauma. A client of hers recently invented (she thinks?) This term “ADHD trauma.” Being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world that’s constructed to benefit and aid neurotypical ways of being generates trauma by virtue of the not having the right manual. And David calls this ADHD culture. We have different problems with friend groups or making purchases or being an imposter, the thing that makes this podcast fun to listen to. Culture is defined by how we dance with trauma. Every kind of culture—race, class, etc.—sets the standard of how you interact with the world. The feeling of going into a class and forgetting you had a test; all those empty water bottles under the seats, if you could clap your hands and the pile of laundry, the corner you forgot existed—and suddenly we feel better because you’re not the one who is like that. Does having ADHD make me allergic to rigid capitalist systems? There’s two people: the ADHD person is going to look down at the cliff and see apples and yells “apples!” And then the other person hears “oh, apples?” and makes an apple farm. We're not all the same but we do have something in common. Anything that overwhelms our capacity to cope or unable to change it—isn’t any identity the world wants you to change but you can’t going to set you up for overwhelming your capacity to cope (you can’t run from it, hide it, fight it, play dead…etc.) David has a thought: when he was getting kicked out of school, his brain coded that as bad. Fast forward, he ended up going to grad school at Northwestern. And not a lot of people at Northwestern got kicked out of high school. It’s definitely not something that you talked about. But then, he started working and advocating with Eye to Eye and other groups—suddenly, his story had worth. The amount of relief he started to see on kids faces that “oh, you can recover from every mistake” and he wasn’t proud when it happened, but now it’s an important part of his origin story. In community and connection, the very thing you’re hiding is what I'm hiding--whoa, we don't have to hide, how much energy we get from not hiding this thing? When David first went to Northwestern he would lie and tell people he went to a local “multidirectional school" —those people weren’t good people and he didn’t want to be branded with those people. Isabelle doesn't want to say where she went to college. Because people from our culture don’t go to schools like that (like Harvard?) David had no models, didn't know how to say it. Everyone ‘thinks they’re the mistake.” Pause for effect, Isabelle went back and looked through her old medical records and she got her records from counseling while at college. In those clinical notes she received an ADHD diagnosis; multiple sessions where she as a client thought she had ADHD, and as many listeners will remember, she didn’t know she had ADHD until 15 years later. Isn't that really interesting—isn't that interesting that she was never told she was diagnosed with ADHD, there was no affirmation or information, and in the notes it indicated even why she was even given the type of antidepressant or weaned off, she walked around telling everyone who knew her "I think I have ADHD because I can’t focus anymore.” She wasn’t told she had a diagnosis. Even when she asked point blank. The world 25 years ago was really different, how much they maybe saved her from a tougher road. When you’re "not supposed to" be there, the messages you get at each of these places, to hide, to shame, to silence, to minimize. "Everyone has some ADHD, right?" The masking component has more consequences to neurospicy culture. We don't have the same the care and feeding instructions as the people around us, we’ll still grow but it's not the same. A potato sprout is going to grow and develop no matter what situation you're in, whether the potato is in the root cellar or planted in the earth (as Carl Rogers states, see actual full quote below). Across animal groups, culture is modifying your environment in order to adapt, at least how Isabelle learned what culture was when studying archaeology and social anthropology in college. We started to cook as a form of survival, the culture we form is the things we try to do to survive and adapt. Because we have to survive and shelter in the same places. Isabelle feels way better being a potato in the root cellar around potatoes also in the root cellar. Or at least better than the shriveled magic spell potato you find behind the drawer—forgotten produce! Another feature of neurodivergent culture.

DEFINITIONS

Why do we push ourselves so hard, hyperfocus, are ready to do 80 things at once, then crash and run out of steam before we ever move the needle? How much does this boom/bust cycle harm us, our relationships, and our wellbeing? David and Isabelle discuss how, as neurodivergent folx, we can't see our own energy bars and how this gets us into trouble. They also describe a game changing idea, of making their energy bars observable, that has helped them both actually see and attend to their needs well for the first time--and why they were compelled to build this into a Something Shiny toolkit (coming soon!). 
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The things we use to help ourselves and reclaim our time doesn’t actually give us more resources, it can take resources away from us. David, for example, feels very successful when he avoids the YouTube video reel hole, scrolling from a sports ball thing to a weird deck someone built…he didn’t notice the spoons were going, he took up energy, he sat too long, he didn’t get something done. Sometimes the things and cycles we get into what we get into when we’re avoiding things, don’t help us. This connects to a big course launch coming soon from Something Shiny! A big aha between David and Isabelle has been recognizing that their energy bars are invisible to them, and with their shorter time horizons, Isabelle assumes that the energy she has is forever, and then halfway through taking on so many tasks sucks. She runs out of all her energy and momentum before she knows it, and it’s hyperfocus and intensity and crash. It hurts her relationships, her life, her health, so how can we actually see our energy bar? Especially in times like this where demands are many and slots are few. David points out that the way they check on their energy bar is odd; you see that your gas tank is full; “I got gas!” And half full “I got gas!” And quarter full “I got gas!” We ask if there’s gas, not if it’s enough, or if it matches what we’re trying to do. We push past this point without knowing it. David and Isabelle crisped themselves during recording this course without even knowing it. David lost the gas to eat, to observe the world. This is why David and Isabelle took time off this summer: a step by step guide to learn how to read and respond to your energy bar that makes it so your life gets easier. It’s fusing together what David and Isabelle know about how neurospicy brains work and then actually building the skills that help. It has deeply altered Isabelle’s sense of how she feels about herself on any given day. It’s the closest she’s coming to what she expects of herself day to day and responds to her needs. Picture the gas tank, but you’re in a car with your whole family, and your whole family has to get to the emergency room, she does not have time to get to the gas station and she needs to get the whole family there STAT. Isabelle’s self-neglect is real. The term “Burnout” is so interesting, coming from Industrial Revolution terms, that when a machine ran out of resources would run out of fuel, the machine destroys itself because it runs out of fuel. It’s not just that we’re running on fumes, it’s that when we’re running on fumes we have destroyed ourselves, our relationships. Isabelle, in her attempt to get to the emergency room, she gets angry, impatient, taking in any request, and then she is engaging in toxic behavior patterns, asking the world to STOP, but she’s hurting herself. David names that you’re not just hurting yourself, you’re hurting other people, you’re leaking out. When we’re done leaking, we don’t know what we’ve done to hurt other people and we’re hurting—both things are true. David thinks about his behavioral roots: the first thing you do to make change is you make your behavior observable. It’s really hard to actually observe energy, talking about the endings and beginnings we can't see, it makes different parts of back to school or our burnout observable. It’s observable so we can change some of these things: did you need a break? Would it have been better to be late to this? Where do we get those messages about what we’re supposed to do. Even as the term accountable (like “potential”) can make your spine curl, because it's been leveled at us anticipating mistakes we couldn’t, how can we be accountable for our own breaks because no one is going to give them to us. By the time Isabelle is running on fumes, that is not the time she has any bandwidth to think her way out of her feelings, and that's not a strength she has anyway, she can’t tell herself it’s going to be okay, by nervous system does not work this way, she has to take an action to change her internal state, but she’s so crispy to think that she needs a break—the idea of thinking she needs a break and then taking a break is 6 steps too far, and then she gets cranky, she gets grumpy, blaming everything around her, but it’s a set up when you expect others to snap you out of it; depending on others to help you just then breeds aggression, and you can't change it, and you can’t solve it once you’re there. There’s got to be another way, or if there isn’t another way, how can I make it pass quickly and respond accurately. It’s important for us to have people around us to take care of us, and it’s important to have skills and resources around us. When David is saying something about taking breaks yourself, that's not ‘put yourself in a room,’ it’s giving yourself the freedom to go get yourself the things you need. Everyone is going to be aware of what you can’t do. What is different right now that you can do right now for yourself. Big way that Isabelle does something differently, like those 2 out of 3 kitchen magnets, sometimes there’s a random cough from a kid and she has to decision, she is really reliant on routine to keep things moving, as if every day would be the same. Isabelle likes minty coffee and has a sequence, but then she has a perfectly planned routine, this is how we’re going to get out the door in time. The example could really apply to any big transition. But she has to constantly revisit the plan, which is that the environment has altered, the establishing operation has altered—the circumstances around you has been totally altered. But to pivot means disaster, she has no slots left to make new decisions, and so she’s crashing and burning every single day. She just decided that when in doubt, she is going to be late, whenever she hits that panic, it’s her signal that’s something’s up—her panicking is her racing around the house with no discernible direction, thinking she’s getting it done but she's lost the plot. So when she’s in that state, in order to change that state, she has to sit down. She forces herself to sit down. And the second she sits down, “oh, actually, I have to stop and think” and I need to stay in one place, covers her ears, closes her eyes, and asks for help. “I need your help.” And she tries to just think about what she needs help with, “I need help remembering” or “let go of being on time.” And she says it out loud, and she’s changing the establishing operation. She changes what the reinforcement looks like, we get there, as long as we survived, it’s a win—now, the question is "are you safe? Do you have everything?” David points out that all her decisions are lined up very differently right now. 

DEFINITIONS

Establishing operation.  The behavioral word for how a little rat, trained to run a maze, is rewarded by a drop of water. The rat loves the water and does lots of work for the water. But rats don’t naturally love water this much. So the establishing operation is to withold water from the rat for ...

Ep075: Does back to school season hit you hard, too?

Why is it so hard and triggering and exhausting to go back to school (even if you’re not a student or have a student in your life right now)? And what is this idea, “pervasive demand avoidance” (or a persistent drive to autonomy) and how can it crop up during massive transition times?  David and Isabelle come back from a summer spent working on exciting new Something Shiny resources and describe some of the demands that may be filling up your slots this time of year. Also included: tangential journeys involving the cinematic classic “Legend,” deep cut Disney songs a la Tim Curry, and Isabelle’s allergy medicine hallucination moment.

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David and Isabelle welcome fall and the new school year, complete with the way germs start circulating and sick days shoot up once the school year kicks in, and then histamine levels and allergy medicines. There may be some links between antihistamines and psychiatric symptoms (see link below!). Isabelle describes a hallucination she had when taking a commonly prescribed allergy medicine, referencing the Tom Cruise movie, Legend. This brings up how intense children’s movies were back in the day, where kids were in real mortal danger a lot and awful things happened a lot. David recalls how intense Willy Wonka was, with the kids getting killed and then the tunnel sequence, which leads to Isabelle remembering how she shopped a class in college about children’s literature and it was all about Roald Dahl and how he hated childhood and was bullied and just dealt with a lot of things that made him hate kids. So, returning to Isabelle’s hallucination, she wakes up from a sleep, she sees Tim Curry in Legend demon costume asking if she has anything to eat, and she knows she’s hallucinating, but it was in the room. She hears him working in the kitchen. She then sees a pig walk in with human hands for feet, she wakes up, she is fully awake, the pig fades away, and she walks into the kitchen, and I say “You’re not real, I’m hallucinating” and he says “of course.” Also, it was almost morning, light was in the space, this wasn’t sleep paralysis or lucid dream, she fixed breakfast, called the doctor, and stopped taking this medicine immediately. Of course she told the whole story to the doctor because of course these details would be important. David names how strange the brain is and all the connections are. And this links up to an amazing CD put out by Disney where Tim Curry sings a Davy Crockett song. David was tormented by this song in elementary school, and they would make fun of him by singing this song at him, but why did this bother him actually? Isabelle recalls that back to school season as more triggering than she realized, she would use the relationship with her teacher to accommodate her, to do the hard things and ask for extensions and try and be. The teacher at her kids’ school was not picking up on her big hand gestures and quirk and charm, so two questions: 1) back to school season being triggering? And 2) when there is a vacuum, she becomes a cartoon character, as their previous guest Ren, brought up. Going back to school is so complicated; David notices that when he sees the back to school supplies on sale, it was a “gulp,” it always meant more work for him, the break being over. Now that he is not in school anymore, it has become a bit more of a “haha, I don’t have to do that anymore.” But regardless he wants to point out that neurotypical or neurodivergent alike, this is a time of intense transitions, beginnings and endings, and routine changes, and waking up earlier (for parents and kids and even fellow commuters who suddenly have to notice when school is in session on their traffic routes), it is a hard, hard time. It’s highly activating on a nervous system level, and germ load aside, kids will need down time and fatiguing and the adjustment period. This brings up the idea of cognitive demands on us—hold up ten fingers, and each slot is taken up with a task or a load: “buying school supplies,” “I’m sad my kid and I won’t have the same together,” and “I gotta change my morning routine” — in the face of so many demands, things become a can’t, not a won’t. In the face of so many demands, I actually can’t do any more, even a pleasant thing, everything is one ask too many or one step too much. And some people don't have ten slots, they have two—for example, a kid being ushered into a transition, even like three requests of a parent is actually too many demands, and they respond with “I don’t wanna” but also what’s in there is they cannot. They can do more, but with help. They’re going to get crispy and ragey, you become oppositional, pick fights, it looks like a sensory overload, or a shutdown, I am going to avoid anything that I perceive as a demand. David not sure how he feels about this diagnostic label because when we’re overwhelmed, we SHOULD react this way. Video of how it felt for a person who is autistic went into a grocery store, the screen started to pixelate the farther into the store they got, it was like a satellite’s images during a storm. David gets into a place where he goes “NOPE” and it comes from a place where he has nothing left. Is he pathologically demand avoidant, but aren’t we all? Actually isn’t this a common thing we share across. Isabelle is going into neuropsychological testing with her family to update things, and carries a lot of curiosity going into it about sensory stuff, and wants to welcome it. You see it reflected in people around you, and ton of people around her identify as being on the autism spectrum and oh, that is where she finds her tribe. For her learning about PDA is the closest she’s come to for resetting her expectations for herself, and “oh, I’m not just trying to avoid hard work,” it’s “oh, I ran out of spoons and slots, I had no bandwidth.” David names that this is a thing that connects with neurodiversity and not being resourced. Power struggles are going to be activating all the time, and just because a power struggle is happening is not PDA—but on the autism spectrum, sound, texture, movement is filling the slots, too. It can help illustrate that it’s important to lower the demands and help your kid (or yourself) by meeting yourself with compassion. David and Isabelle also mention that they are working on a energy bar idea…more to come!

Antihistamines connecting to psychiatric side effects, like hallucinations

Legend (1985, starring Tom Cruise) trailer- Tim Curry is the voice...and shows up around 0:48. YES THIS IS A KID'S MOVIE.  

Intense kids movies

Stand by Me (1986) trailer (PS. this is based on a Stephen King short story, "The Body") YES THIS IS A KID'S COMING OF AGE MOVIE.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Tunnel Scene Clip— Again, kid's movie. 

Roald Dahl book: Boy 

Disney Parks CD track list

Tim Curry sings the Davy Crockett song  (side note, Isabelle really did a great impression of this) 

What happens when the rewards for doing something don't show up until way later? Or if it's harder to tell you're making progress on something, like saving money, applying for jobs, buying a house? David and Isabelle are joined by Isabelle's husband, Bobby, who also has ADHD, swapping stories about delaying gratification, shame spirals, and how we ruminate and distract AND hyperfocus for the win.
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 The only thing that’s reinforced are tasks toward goal completion. What could I do today that would move me toward that goal? The  only question: is it moving toward my goal? If so, it’s effective (or if not, not effective), rather than good or bad. For example, David venting about his paper to his friend helped him be on task, rather than not being on task and going out to eat at Burger King—it’s still about the paper (it’s still on task). How effective is it toward the task? More effective than going to Burger King and not talking or thinking about the paper at all. Long term goals are specifically hard for folx with ADHD because of the delay of gratification. The more you wait, the more you feel like you’re failing. Neurotypical folx will read that waiting as normal or to be expected. Bobby names things like saving for retirement, saving for a house, paying off debt—the progress is so slow it feels so boring. David relies on his awesome neurotypical partner to save for a house by taking what they would pay for a mortgage every month and saving whatever that was on top of their rent (so if their Lego House rent was $10, and they wanted a $30 mortgage, they saved the extra $20 every month). Isabelle wonders if neurotypical shame spirals go as deep as neurodivergent ones—for example, David’s goes to homelessness, and she notices that neurotypical folx notice how close they got the finish (like getting the brick at the bottom of the pool during swimming lessons), and factor that in, whereas for her it’s the outcome that matters and she goes straight to everyone she loves is going to abandon her and ditch her. David names that he has a few shame spirals—for work, it’s homelessness, for relationships—it’s abandonment. This leads to black and white thinking, which is more than just worth mentioning, it’s the difference between “not getting a snack” to “failure begets failure begets FAILURE…” And this extreme is dismissed so often, people don’t get it. As a therapist you’d never say “it’s not a big deal,” you’re invalidating those feelings. What we ADHD folx feel, our level of intensity, is REAL—instead of “it shouldn’t hurt that much,” it’s “that’s extremely frustrating.” Bobby is slurping all this data up, and taking the feels, and feeling them…and that’s what you do. You acknowledge how intensely you’re feeling them. Bobby sits in the role of “Novice EveryDay-er…Every Day Dude” (which is what it says on his nameplate). And not just acknowledging your feels, but acknowledging the intensity of how strongly you feel them. Feel the feeling, know it’s more intense, or it might not be felt by other people. And do what you need to do to regulate—-as opposed to let it go. It’s like telling someone with ADHD not to look at the ceiling (we all looked at the ceiling). Telling someone to fight something is not effective, it can go on forever in a power struggle. Isabelle describes that she prefers the phrase self-soothe to self-regulate, because it can be a pressure to return to masking and appearing as though you are neurotypical or ‘regular.’ David is wondering if self-soothing is the task, actually—you might not be able to soothe or make the injury out of the way, and instead get grounded again. It’s not about getting out of your ADHD mindstate, it’s about lowering your hyper focus and lowering the pressure to act. David does this intermittent fast now and just got distracted about the food he wants to eat (schwarma)—he’s not pretending he’s going back to the point and instead is focusing on food and saying “Schwarma.” The group decides they will say “Schwarma” any time this happens, if they can remember, which Bobby reassures them he will. Isabelle then describes that she thinks Bobby circumvents working memory problems by using some of the rules of comedy, like callbacks, and then…she also loses the plot and goes back to telling her story. Isabelle describes fixations on movies or things across many genres and seems to do with what the movie makes her feel. She is reminded of one of her roommates in college who was a lovely person, but would fixate on one or two somewhat depressing emo songs and for Isabelle, she didn’t like the emotional state it would generate. So she recognizes that she goes through fasts almost, of media that stirs up feelings because she gets so sucked in, so she avoids fiction and movies and music for a while. Then, it’s like a switch flips, and she gets sucked in and rewatches things over and over again. Like the Netflix film “Tall Girl.” Because she is tall. And it hooked her (despite not being the best movie maybe, but she liked it). And she found time, when she has no time, to watch it four times in the span of a week. What is this? David’s like: it’s the definition of hyperfocus. It’s that you fall into it intensely. It’s that you do the same thing over and over again, or a genre—like David only watched shows that only made it one season. Isabelle can daydream for five hours straight while driving, she can rewatch things in her head. David is naming that this is not the safest driving technique, but David is wondering if there were any changes in this span that changes your capacity to move around? Were there things that gave you more unstructured time? Were there things you were avoiding or wanting distraction from on an emotional level? When all of those things happen, hyperfocus can kick in for preservation, like you’re going to get sucked into the Full Metal Alchemist because you don’t want to think about life after graduation. And in another way, rumination can kick in when you don’t move around during the day, which turns into a type of thinking at the end of the day, those thoughts can be a way to get out that energy. Everyone is going to kick into hyperfocus for different reasons and it will vary based on types and on the environment that they’re in. Isabelle connects very much to preservation idea of hyperfocus, how survival-related it feels and  the times she was in a fandom over a particular show or movie that relate to major life transitions, like graduation, or career changes, or life changes. David names that it’s probably much easier to remember the relationship she had with those things than the transitions themselves. David names that this is a superpower. It usually happens when you’re sitting in helplessness. Are you sitting in your helplessness, or are you sitting in “these amazing actors and actresses are nailing it?” Isabelle insists Bobby will watch it and grow to love it. It can happen when you don’t have structure or your routine changes, and it provides structure—the reality is, for David, it’s important to go wild if you really are in a state of helplessness—then go to town watching all the shows. But if you’re using it to avoid a task, that’s a whole other story. 

Things Isabelle, David, and Bobby have hyper focused on (that are mentioned in the episode):

The Matrix

New Girl

Tall Girl

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Full Metal Alchemist

Schwarma

DAVID’S DEFINITIONS:

Black and White Thinking: Believing or acting as if there are only two ways of thinking right or wrong. This includ...

Why are some of us anxious and some of us excited (or a combo platter of both)? And is it possible to turn anxiety, or anger, or shame spirals, into something else?  David and Isabelle swap stories, talk transgenerational trauma, and get curious about how we are socialized to mask and behave...and that perhaps the solution for being overly apologetic lies in the midwestern gem: "ope.”
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Isabelle starts by expanding on the idea of how you think about things, how that inner landscape can connect into tapping into norepinephrine—if you’re practicing going “I see you anxiety, I see what you’re trying to do, and I’m so grateful I have you because it helps me…” what it means to not shame or blame yourself for having an instinct to worry versus what you do know to be true. Short of someone giving you direct feedback, you don’t have data either way, so saying hi to your anxiety or feeling, and taking a few breaths to be grateful. Then when you do have a tough moment, like a hard meeting at work, you won’t beat yourself up about it as much. David even says: you can skip the shame spiral. Norepinephrine is so much about the inertia and movement of something. People with kids who have ADHD either have a very very clean room, or very very messy room. For those with a messy room, they’re like “where to start? Do I burn it and start over again?” Then you give them one specific thing to do, they earn dopamine from that one thing. So you build momentum by building a feedback loop between dopamine and norepinephrine, because you judge yourself on a very reasonable scale. If you make a broad request, it’s like “whaaa?” If you say “pick up your legos” or “Hunt for all the legos you can, you have 7 minutes, you earn 3 snarf points? What’s a snarf point? I’ll tell you in 7 minutes”—you now have specificity, and time pressure, and reward. Isabelle describes that she lives in the anxious side of the spectrum, and David lives in the excitement of it. If anxiety and excitement are the same physiological symptoms, how can you replace the two things? Isabelle wonders at her anxiety, which she is not bummed about, but knows that it’s a part of her, and also knows that it has served her and her people across the generations—like she feels less anxious when she has a very stocked pantry or fridge. How can that be turned into excitement? We’re talking about the interplay of epigenetics, and the interplay of how you lean into the anxiety. If you’re in the United States, you’d be hard pressed to not have a transgenerational history of trauma, and as men and women (and non-binary folx), we are treated differently and are rewarded for going to anger or anxiety.  Men are traditionally reinforced for getting angry in the U.S.—it’s reinforcing for them, and it’s not great, and in the same way anxiety may be reinforced for women. Not that it’s so cut and dry and binary-based. David elaborates that his impulsivity has been viewed as confidence, whereas for women, it can be viewed as overemotionality, and can be shamed, or put in corners. David had to work really hard to find excitement, he was way more in that angry place, fighting any system, any person he could. When you get angry, you feel yucky afterwards for like two hours, and he met really good friends, had an amazing brother, and had good supports, and a lot of people don’t have that. And he had a choice in that moment whether to get anxious or excited. Isabelle is so grateful David shared that about himself and felt so seen, really resonating with the idea that whereas David’s impulsivity was viewed as confidence, hers was read as overreacting, or overdramatic. She describes how she makes big gestures and shrieks and has big reactions to things and how often she has to blunt them or try to mask them in her daily life. She also recognizes the layers of privilege she carries as a white, cisgendered woman, that she has gotten a lot of reinforcement for her anxiety. Her asking, let’s say, her kid’s teacher a detail-oriented question seems almost assumed, that she would be the one who needs to be vigilant about the details of things, whereas her husband, Bobby, is seen as winning the day if he gets the kids to school, even though he is more effective at this. How we’re socially viewed impacts how we think about it—perhaps Bobby running late is viewed as he was busy doing important things, whereas Isabelle names she has been conditioned to be extra apologetic and nervous and take it on as some awful thing that she’s running late. David goes into Tavistock group dynamics stuff (see show notes below)—based around the work of Wilfred Bion—where people learn how they are in a group. David was in a group and someone came in late and were overly explaining it, the group ended up attacking her about all her apologies—David named there is an art to being late, and it is this: acknowledging the inconvenience, being very small, and apologizing at the end. Don’t talk too much or give too many specifics, just say “my bad” and be quiet and wait to figure out what’s happening. David and Isabelle both agree that they are habitually late, and hate being late, but will be late because of who they are. They just will be. Isabelle names an old meme: “Sorry I was late, it’s because of who I am as a person.” She mentions connecting with her friends, one of whom says instead of saying “I’m so sorry” for being late, reserve sorries for deep relational healing moments where you feel harm was caused, intentionally or not. For example, being late, or accidentally bumping into someone, or dropping something off late—is not always the context for an “I’m sorry,” but instead, you could use the phrase “thank you for your patience.” David agrees, except for the bumping into someone else part—he has to say he’s sorry. Isabelle thinks a simple midwestern “ope!” Will suffice, which David recently witnessed himself doing in the wild. 

Ope: (according to Urban Dictionary) - a midwestern U.S. way of acknowledging another person or thing they have encountered. Ope! Sorry I bumped into you, Jim. Ope, there’s my wallet. Ope! I missed my bus! 

(added by us): Also known as an interjection of surprise and implied apology.

DAVID’S DEFINITIONS 

Epigenetics - from CDC “Epigenetics is the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible and do not change your DNA sequence, but they can change how your body reads a DNA sequence.” (source: CDC)

Transgenerational trauma: from wikipedia
“is the psychological and physiological effects that the trauma experienced by people has on subsequent generations in that group.” (source: Wikipedia) Imagine the collective trauma experienced by groups of people surviving slavery, wars, famine, natural disasters, etc. and the ways in which epigenetic (see definition above) may alter the way even our genes can express themselves and how we adapt and respond to stressors. For more on this, check out the pioneering work of Yehuda and Lehrner (Article on intergenerational transmission of trauma)

Dopamine deficiency? ADHD is often understood as neurobiological (brain) difference, that includes lower levels of dopamine, the neurotransmitter (messenger chemical) in our br...

Why do some of us minimize and reduce the number of choices while others seek excitement and novelty? Why do some of us need everything listed out while others need to just try something blindly? The secret? Different types of ADHD and different ways our ADHD shows up in different environments! David and Isabelle are joined by Bobby and Noah, who also have ADHD, and talk about things like trying to leave the house, deciding what to eat, and why their accommodations all look so different.
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Transitions and choices are hard. Isabelle and David are joined by Isabelle’s husband, Bobby, and David’s friend and fellow clinician, Noah, both of whom also have ADHD to talk about different types of ADHD. We don’t remember all the stuff we have to do to leave the house. Isabelle describes a detailed whiteboard and just how long it took to get into the habit of not forgetting things like lip balm. David puts everything into his bag at night. Isabelle has to do a one-touch rule. Noah’s and Bobby’s work bag are empty. Bobby’s really into minimizing things, which David points out is a wonderful intervention, especially for inattentive type— decision fatigue. Noah does this for going out, always ordering a blackened chicken sandwich. How exhausting it is to make decisions all the time. Noah’s experience in a blind restaurant. Bobby’s picky eating is connected to something ADHD-related—hypersensitivity around texture. David’s experience of this is big after decades of vegetarianism, experiencing the texture of meat for the first time (bacon and hot dogs are great. Other meat for him? Not so much). Isabelle references the Paradox of Choice book (TLDR) and describes the phenomena of randomly remembering facts she’s read, but struggling to remember what she read on command. Recognizing that when there is an overabundance of choice, we think we made the wrong one (or are left more disatisfied) because we always think we could’ve picked better. This relates to Isabelle’s reaction to Tinder as something that makes her nauseous thinking about it: too many choices. Same with old school diner menus. Or Cheesecake Factory menus. David agrees. Isabelle describes novelty seeking with food, whereas Bobby wants the same thing. David went to Superdawg and got everything on the menu he wanted because he couldn’t make a decision. Noah would go there, deliberate what to get for 20 minutes, and leave with nothing. Why do we all sound so different and yet similar? We’re talking about the distinctions between inattentive and impulsive ADHD types. What about combined type? Depends on the mastery of the environment: the more mastery, the more impulsive we can be, the less mastery, the more inattentive.

What is Superdawg? If you’re in and around Chicago, you’re welcome to check it out. If you’re not, it’s still a fun place to look into.  From the bottom of our pure beefy hearts. 

Paradox of Choice - book by Barry Schwartz (TLDR for Isabelle but an interesting summary appears on wikipedia). 

DEFINITIONS

ADHD types explained through how we order at a restaurant:

• inattentive type: struggles to figure out what to order, stares at menu (accommodations: always orders the same thing or same type of thing, asking the server for their choice/having the chef or someone else choose for you)
• impulsive type: orders three different entrees (to try them all), or the novel/strange seeming thing on the menu (accommodations: finding new places to eat or food bars where you can throw on whatever you want in that moment)
• combination type: see above and experience BOTH, often depending on your level of mastery/comfort (more mastery in the environment, the more your impulsivity shows up). 

Decision fatigue: the more decisions we make, the more our quality of decisions (or ability to do so well) deteriorates. Too many decisions can lead to an overwhelming feeling, burnout and poor decisions. Avoiding the complexity of decisions, can be an adaptive tool for individuals to preserve brain power for more important decisions, especially when the inattentive-type ADHD experience is loud. Here's an article on how to notice when it's happening to you.

Hypersensitivity around texture: some textures are going to make people feel more yucky inside than you would think they could. Often times it can be really helpful to honor these sensitivities, and not try to push through them unless there's serious impact on food and nutrition.

Here's a quick article on how to cope with hypersensitivities to sound, texture, taste, smell, etc. 

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Cover Art by: Sol Vázquez

Technical Support by: Bobby Richards