Translating ADHD

By Asher Collins and Dusty ChipuraHealth & Fitness Mental Health Education Self-Improvement

Translating ADHD episodes

September 11, 2023 Rebroadcast: Identifying Unique Needs for Your Unique ADHD Lived Experience
This episode is a rebroadcast. Cam and Asher have handpicked episodes from the archive to air while they are on their annual summer break. New episodes resume September 18th!
This week we turn our attention to the role of needs with respect to our own unique lived experience. Needs often are overlooked when it comes to ADHD primarily because of the very nature of needs. They operate often quietly in the background, and when they do make their presence known they show up as stressors. Needs are those things that make functioning sustainable. When needs go unattended they turn into stressors.
Those of us with ADHD use stressors to get things done, and we often walk a fine line between stimulation and stress. Cam brings his Hierarchy of ADHD Needs model to illustrate what they are and how needs depend on one’s own unique lived experience. Based on Maslow’s work, the hosts discuss how the model is more of a prompt than something to be taken literally.
Ash and Cam use multiple examples to discuss how needs intertwine with values and how recognizing and honoring needs is at the root of living authentically. Cam shares a client story of how the client can only generate hope when he addresses three specific needs. And with ADHD, the dilemma is remembering our own recipe of specific needs.
Episode links + resources:
Join the Community | Become a Patron
Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate.
About Cam and Asher
Cam Gott’s Hierarchy of ADHD NeedsThe model and specific ADHD distinctions:Physiological ADHD Needs - brain awareness leads to better brain managementSafety ADHD Needs - identifying relief from daily stressorsBelongingness and Love ADHD Needs - positive environments that honor your authentic selfEsteem ADHD Needs - the need for self compassion and creative action and completionSelf-Actualization ADHD Needs - creative expression and connecting to something bigger than yourself.
For more of the Translating ADHD podcast:
Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode
Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD
Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com
28 min
September 04, 2023 Rebroadcast: ADHD and Relationships: Emotional Regulation and the Big Signal of Drama
This episode is a rebroadcast. Cam and Asher have handpicked episodes from the archive to air while they are on their annual summer break. New episodes resume September 18th!
Asher and Cam launch a new episode arc on relationships and ADHD. Relationships have already been covered in episodes 83-86 but the cohosts revisit relationships to explore specific ADHD challenges when we interact with the people around us. Today’s episode centers on drama.
The hosts orient listeners to different factors that contribute to drama - that drama is a big signal (episodes 109-110) that can elicit a strong emotional response and challenges with emotional dysregualtion. When we explore those emotions and look at the stories associated with those emotions, we can start to find traction to change dramatic outcomes.
The hosts share a number of tools from the emotional pool (episode 92) to the Karpman Drama Triangle. With ADHD we can assume all roles of the triangle moving quickly from victim to prosecutor to rescuer or easily jump into someone else’s emotional pool. Both Ash and Cam share stories of how roles, environments and internal one-down stories can trigger an over-sized emotional response.
Episode links + resources:
Join the Community | Become a Patron
Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate.
About Cam and Asher
Karpman Drama Triangle
For more of the Translating ADHD podcast:
Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode
Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD
Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com
28 min
August 28, 2023 Rebroadcast: The First Barrier of ADHD
This episode is a rebroadcast. Cam and Asher have handpicked episodes from the archive to air while they are on their annual summer break. New episodes resume September 18th!
Why is it that we stray off the path we know - of best practices, best strategies and best resources? Why is it we struggle to recognize we have left the path and additionally, struggle to relocate the path once we have realized this? This challenge with generating valuable awareness at the right time is a signature ADHD dilemma and creates the biggest obstacle to meaningful change and even addressing our ADHD, including pursuing a diagnosis. This is the first barrier of ADHD - The barrier to new awareness.
Shelly and Cam discuss the first barrier and how it can manifest. Shelly recalls a story of Cam recently struggling with the first barrier and what he did to overcome it. This illustrates that the first barrier never goes away, but when we can anticipate the barrier with the 'pause, disrupt and pivot' process, we can navigate around it.
Episode links + resources:
Join the Community | Become a Patron
Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate.
About Cam and Shelly
For more of the Translating ADHD podcast:
Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode
Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD
Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com
32 min
August 21, 2023 Rebroadcast: Emotional Modes with ADHD: Empathy
This episode is a rebroadcast. Cam and Asher have handpicked episodes from the archive to air while they are on their annual summer break. New episodes resume September 18th!
Shelly and Cam continue to explore emotions beyond ‘emotional dysregulation’ looking at a phenomenon they call emotional modes. Because of emotional variability and volatility, those with ADHD can be prone to ‘lock’ into a preferred emotional stance. They illustrate this autopilot approach by looking at how empathy tends to present in their own client population.
Cam shares how he sees two distinct polar presentations of empathy - too much empathy for others with zero empathy for self or zero empathy for others resulting in isolation and lack of connection. Shelly brings in a metaphor of a swinging pendulum to describe this empathy imbalance and how listeners can start to loosen the emotional lock down and let the pendulum swing to allow for empathy for self and empathy for others. The hosts pull concepts from earlier shows like ‘seeing oneself in the picture’ and the importance of developing a curious practice to further explore the dilemma.
Episode links + resources:
Join the Community | Become a Patron
Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate.
About Cam and Shelly
For more of the Translating ADHD podcast:
Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode
Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD
Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com
27 min
August 14, 2023 Rebroadcast: Ignorance: The Common Enemy of ADHD
This episode is a rebroadcast. Cam and Asher have handpicked episodes from the archive to air while they are on their annual summer break. New episodes resume September 18th!
It’s a very human behavior to look for an easy and convenient enemy when we struggle to move forward. We see it in our current political landscape and we see it in the world of ADHD management. When ADHD is discovered in a relationship it can become an easy scapegoat for the dynamic that is not working. On a broader scale, we can point to neurotypicals as the source of our neurodivergent woes and vice versa. In this episode, Shelly and Cam continue to discuss the challenge of exploring one’s ADHD when one doesn't have the support of their partner.
The true enemy to positive change is ignorance and a propensity for all parties to jump to assumptions about confusing behavior. ADHD is invisible and inconsistent in its presentation. Cam and Shelly talk about the need to create space to explore our own ADHD experience so we can ultimately get to a place of trusting our own brain. They talk about the importance of bringing curiosity and compassion into the mix to locate and clarify a common base of knowledge - how one is experiencing their ADHD and how it impacts the relationship. One example is the ADHD behavior of the defensive/dismissive one two punch.
Shelly shares an excellent story about her own relationship and what she and her partner did to overcome a challenge and move forward recognizing each other’s needs. Finally, Cam discusses the importance of locating a community that supports and challenges and does not just echo one’s deepest fears and assumptions.
Episode links + resources:
Join the Community | Become a Patron
Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate.
About Cam and Shelly
For more of the Translating ADHD podcast:
Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode
Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD
Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com
27 min
August 07, 2023 Rebroadcast: When your Partner isn’t Supporting your ADHD Journey
This episode is a rebroadcast. Cam and Asher have handpicked episodes from the archive to air while they are on their annual summer break. New episodes resume September 18th!
It’s really nice when a partner is supportive and understanding as you begin your own ADHD journey of discovery. But this is not always the case. This week Cam and Shelly discuss the not so uncommon scenario when we embark on our ADHD journey without the support of our primary relationship. Years of misinformation, fear and shame can build to where the non-ADHD partner throws up their hands and says “Enough!”. It's hard to play a game when everyone is playing Texas Hold’em and we are dealt a hand of Uno but this is the case often when we are struggling to understand our own ADHD experience and when we try to translate our experience to our partners. Frustration abounds!
Once ADHD is identified as a primary factor in the challenges of a relationship it can sometimes be identified as the sole dilemma. This is never the case in any relationship, yet anger, frustration and resentment build to a point where the non-ADHD partner withdraws support and vulnerability often with an ultimatum of “fix your ADHD!”. Our partners are not immune from making their own meaning and years of undiagnosed ADHD behavior - the missed events, the forgotten tasks - can build to a convincing story of “They must not care about me”.
The hosts introduce their BEANS acronym with a focus on safety, needs and agreements. A partner can’t support if their sense of safety has eroded too much. The invisibility and inconsistency of ADHD can create a sense of uncertainty and lack of safety in the relationship. Cam and Shelly discuss ways to proceed to start to dismantle the parent/child dynamic that so often happens. Shelly discusses how detaching from outcome and distinguishing ‘my stuff, their stuff, our stuff’ can be a place to start when the ADHD partner has to proceed by themselves. Ultimately through effective communication and setting independent expectations, the partners can reintroduce safety and start to rebuild trust, but there may be a moment when in fact we have to push ahead and go it alone for a spell.
Episode links + resources:
Join the Community | Become a Patron
Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate.
About Cam and Shelly
For more of the Translating ADHD podcast:
Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode
Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD
Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com
26 min
July 31, 2023 Rebroadcast: ADHD and Your Lived Experience: Personal Narrative
This episode is a rebroadcast. Cam and Asher have handpicked episodes from the archive to air while they are on their annual summer break. New episodes resume September 18th!
Shelly and Cam continue to explore the lived experience theme for the new season with a deep dive into personal narratives. Our personal narrative is the narrative we tell ourselves to explain a situation or rationalize a behavior - ours or someone else’s. ADHD can make it really hard to distinguish our inner dialogue from our experiences in the world. The brain works hard to ‘tell a story’ to make sense of our experiences. Sometimes it gets it right, but often it omits or adds pieces to make the information more palatable, to fit a certain story.
Shelly and Cam share numerous client examples of how one’s own lived experience or context informs their narrative. They go on to share how coaching and therapy can help with seeing these statements for what they are - a perspective - and if this thinking is serving the client and who they are and what they are trying to achieve.
Episode links + resources:
Join the Community | Become a Patron
Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate.
About Cam and Shelly
For more of the Translating ADHD podcast:
Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode
Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD
Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com
28 min
July 24, 2023 Rebroadcast: Is ADHD a Superpower?
This episode is a rebroadcast. Cam and Asher have handpicked episodes from the archive to air while they are on their annual summer break. New episodes resume September 18th!
Cam and Shelly kick off the third season of the Translating ADHD podcast entertaining an often-asked question in ADHD circles - Is ADHD a Superpower?
It turns out that one’s own experience or context informs how people will answer this question. Many are emphatic one way or the other - that it is totally a superpower! or that it is not at all a superpower! Shelly and Cam, in usual form, explore the nuanced middle ground and discuss superpowers in the form of strengths and how ADHD can get in the way of distinguishing, owning and stepping into one’s strengths. Shelly and Cam point to research that proves that one’s context such as race, gender and marital and economic status influence one’s outlook on their ADHD (links below). The hosts share a number of client examples and examples from their own lives to look at framing one’s ADHD experience by exploring concepts like personal preferences and identities. Most significant, the hosts introduce the theme for the start of Season 3 - Your own context matters.
Episode links + resources:
Join the Community | Become a Patron
Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate.
About Cam and Shelly
Flourishing Despite ADHD ArticlePositive Aspects of ADHD Article
For more of the Translating ADHD podcast:
Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode
Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD
Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com
33 min
July 17, 2023Translating ADHD: Season Four Recap
Ash and Cam discuss their upcoming summer break and reflect on the topics covered in the fourth season of their podcast, Translating ADHD. They mention the importance of taking breaks and planning for the future. They recap the various themes explored throughout the season, such as the complexity of ADHD, lived experiences, race and culture, hierarchy of needs, purpose, relationships, the adrenaline response cycle, being misunderstood, advocating for oneself, and wrapping up the season with disruption.

They also mention the potential changes coming to the show, including a possible soft reboot and a focus on sharing more of the coaching process. They express their gratitude to their listeners and discuss the power of language and connection in understanding and navigating the ADHD experience. Cam shares his interest in revisiting and reworking models, particularly the Mount Rainier model, and exploring the nexus of neurodiversity, emotion and leadership. They encourage listeners to embrace curiosity and continue to advocate for themselves. They express their gratitude for the podcast and their ongoing collaboration with each other, and they look forward to their return on the 18th of September for season five.

Episode links + resources:
Join the Community | Become a Patron
Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate.
About Cam and Asher

For more of the Translating ADHD podcast:
Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode
Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD
Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com
31 min
July 10, 2023When Your Relationship with Your ADHD Changes
The hosts culminate the current theme of disruption and ADHD by exploring how change and disruption can fundamentally change one’s relationship with their ADHD. We often think that once we learn about our ADHD and lock into effective tools, practices and perspectives that our relationship with our ADHD will become fairly immutable. Just like any relationship, though, life events both planned and unplanned will change the dynamic of a relationship, including our relationship with our ADHD.

Ash and Cam discuss the challenges Ash is currently facing with his executive functioning and challenges of managing his ADHD. Ash acknowledges his struggle and the recent discovery of this significant change. Cam points out how Ash had to get both vulnerable and curious to make this observation. Even seasoned ADHD coaches like Ash have to re-navigate their own Understand, Own, Translate process.

Ash reflects on his recent experiences and major life events, including the pandemic, divorce, moving to a new home, his father's passing, his child coming out and his own transition. Ash discusses how these events have led him to reevaluate his relationships, especially with his mother and her family, and how these events allowed him to prioritize authenticity and integrity.

Asher shares the emotional and physical changes he has experienced, as well as the challenges of navigating his ADHD alongside hormonal changes. The discussion touches on the need to let go of expectations of returning to a previous "normal" and embracing the journey of self-discovery and adaptation. Cam highlights the dynamic nature of change and the challenges of pinning down and understanding evolving situations. They discuss the importance of shifting from binary thinking to journey thinking, accepting that change is a continuous process. Ash shares his personal journey of self-acceptance and finding new ways to navigate his ADHD and gender transition.

The episode concludes with Ash expressing gratitude for the support and love he has received from listeners and the greater community. Ash is grateful for the platform to share his story as a trans person and continue their work on the podcast.

Episode links + resources:
Join the Community | Become a Patron
Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate.
About Cam and Asher

For more of the Translating ADHD podcast:
Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode
Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD
Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com
34 min

About Translating ADHD

From the publisher's feed

We believe that success with ADHD is possible... with a little translation. Hosts Asher Collins and Dusty Chipura, both ADHD coaches who have plenty of insight to share navigating their own ADHD…