The Emotional Cost Of Undiagnosed ADHD & How To Reverse It | Dr Lalitaa Suglani (Psychologist)

23:28Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:way of them just expressing how they feel about themselves and what does broken mean like if you think of a plate and it's just shattered into like a million pieces because it's broken that's broken but people are with ADHD they're not broken they just don't understand themselves well the world's calibrated to accommodate for neurotypicals and there's tremendous strengths with having ADHD but when you don't understand that you're living in a neurotypical world and And you're swimming against the tide. It's no wonder that so many of us do feel broken. That's the devastating reality. Do you think there's a solid concrete reason why people with ADHD feel broken?

24:07Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:I feel like it's often, and a personal experience of mine as well, feeling very misunderstood. So you can feel very misunderstood because you feel like people just don't get you. And it could be a simple thing. I remember once trying to get out of this car park and it said exit, right? So I followed the arrow and I was like, okay, the exit's not here. And then I'm trying to follow the next arrow. and I'm like, the exit's not here. Then my car park ticket ran out because I couldn't find, like it had been 10 minutes. And then my friends that had gone out already, they're like, why are you not out?

24:32Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:And I'm like, because I can't find the exit. They're like, are you thick? Like what, follow the signs? I'm like, I'm following all the signs. And in my head, I'm like, this is the thing is I'm following all the signs, but the signs that I'm following, they're not taking me, like in my head, it makes sense to take the right here. But someone else is in their head. It's like, why would you take the right here? It's saying go straight and take a right. I'm like, but it's not saying that to me. so I feel like there is this idea of people we're seeing things in a very different way and the world around us like again it could be you go to the train station and it says right platform this you're going there but then it changed and you're like but why is it changing and it's confusing in your mind because you're just like I don't understand why it's changing and other people for them it's like it's so simple it's like it's just a change chill out and you're like but it's not just a change so you're trying to manage all of these different changes all of these different things that are happening in your mind to try and help and support you but for other people, it can be just so simple.

25:22Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:So you go in life believing there's something wrong with you. And if I like look back on my own life and I understand like clients I've worked with as well, this idea of feeling very misunderstood in the world around you, because people might say things and then you've taken it literally, or you've just understood it in a very different way. And you're just like, okay. And you're trying to hide the fact that you're, you've seen it in a different way because you don't want shame to come out. You don't want them to then judge you or a perceived judgment. Because then if they judge you, they might then think that you're not worthy or you're not good enough.

25:53Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:So you'll avoid that. And this is where the masking comes in. And there's so many layers that happen. And no one, again, sees all these different layers. They're just like, it's just a simple change in platform. But for you, it's not just that. There's so many layers to, no, but then this and then this and why did they do this and this? And it's just so overwhelming. A quick word from our sponsor. We've all had that nightmare. You're on that final warning from that friend. If you miss their birthday again, your friendship is over. Finito. And you do miss it. Even worse, you miss their wedding and you were giving the speech.

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27:04Timo offers an incredible new voice transcribing service, making it even easier to use. It's almost so simple that it feels like a cheat code to play life on easy mode. Give it a go and use the link in my bio for 30 % off. Just a note, though, this code is only applicable on the web browser, not on the smartphone. Back to the show. I feel like it's such a key principle for humans to feel understood. It's so soothing. And for many people with ADHD, like you've just said, we do feel misunderstood. And a whole generation now, luckily, have got resources to go to, podcasts, book, the internet, where they can find answers and go some way to finding understanding.

27:42but the generations that have gone like millions of people have went their entire life with no answers never getting that understanding what is the potential consequence of someone going their whole life perhaps with never getting that final piece of the jigsaw never finding that understanding

28:00Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:to their struggles it's interesting you say that because there's people that have been diagnosed with adhd but they will double check they're like i feel like the psychiatrist misdiagnosed me and I'm like, what makes you feel like that? And they're like, because I don't have ADHD and it can take several sessions to really work with someone to help them realize that they do have ADHD or how their ADHD is showing up because they just don't believe it. They are fully in denial of having ADHD and they feel like there's just something wrong with them because that's what they've always believed. And there's this idea of like, I can't let go of that and believe that this is what's going on for me because if I do that, what if this isn't true?

28:38Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:and that's what I find with a lot of people that are late diagnosed with ADHD but going back to the question that you originally asked which is how is it that people are affected with being late, late, late diagnosed is that they will go through their life believing that they know that something different they just don't quite understand what and they have created a life around what they feel they should be or how they should be not understanding that there is this idea of this is how ADHD is showing up. And it's only when you get to that space and you start to realize how ADHD is showing up in your life, you're like, this makes so much sense.

29:13Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:Like it all makes sense. And you can finally like close the loops that you've had opened that you know that there's been something different in your life. And there is a disconnect because you're trying to talk to people, but do people really truly see you? And people that are neurotypical, they might understand like, they might try and ask the question, what do you mean see you? And people with neuro or who are neurodiverse, they will say like there's so many layers. It's not just a simple one to two. It's 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5 until you get to that 2.0. But for some other people that are maybe neurotypical, they see it as one to two and that's the way that it is.

29:52Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:So I feel like you have to really understand the way your brain works and understand that no one's better, no one's worse off than being neurodiverse, being neurotypical. It's understanding the way you show up so you can feel good enough in yourself and you can feel at peace with who you are. Do you think having ADHD for many people can be quite a polarizing experience? Can people have a love-hate relationship with it? On the one hand, on one day you could be feeling very hyper-focused and creative and you could start a project and you could be having a great time with it and then the next day you could forget yet another reusable shopping bag or find yourself trapped inside a car park because you can't find the exit can people have a love-hate relationship with adhd yeah definitely definitely definitely so i i see this a lot where people will say again using it as the analogy of this is a superpower i can if i'm hyper focused i can do x y and z and i can get all these things and i can set up a business i can then create a website i can then create an insert i can do all of these different things but then we also have to look at the other side because once you've hit hyper focus you might have like um even you're thirsty and the water's there, but your executive functioning is like kicking off.

31:02Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:And it's like, I know I need to drink water, but you won't pick up the water because you're so focused on, no, I can't, I can't get distracted. I need to just keep continuing. But then comes the exhaustion. Then comes the part where you might be feeling low within yourself because you've given so much energy to this. And that's why when you understand the way that your brain works and being hyper focused, and you know that this is the way that I know that if I have had this space where I have being hyper-focused I now may need some downtime also I may need some time staring at a wall just like being disconnected from from everyone else that's important so I feel like there is um the part of people having this love-hate relationship because sometimes it can be great and sometimes it can't but I also feel the more you understand it the more you can navigate it and it's not ADHD sitting in your driving seat and driving you through life it's almost like it's a passenger and you're the driver and you're using it as and when and you know and understand how it shows up so you can then tap into it when you need it and not just feel like it's taking you through life and you're being impulsive and you're making decisions and you're being having these big emotional reactions it's like nope I know what's going on here so you're using foundations to try and support you but you're tapping in as and when you need it I feel like we can we can do amazing things hyper focus can kick in we can be very productive in bursts but then something small could happen like a text message could come in and then suddenly the overwhelm creeps in because you're suddenly thinking right that's now something i've got to do and that could be quite a combative text message it could be something you need to think about a lot and it can really pull you away from your main hyper focus overwhelm is quite complicated how do you see it turning up how do you see it looking like in people with adhd well the way that i would give it an analogy is a bit like a cup and water.

32:49Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:So we just keep adding water into it. And it's like, okay, I need to get this done. And you know, it could be a 10 minute like message that you need to send someone, an email that you need to respond back to, but your brain's just like, it's too big. I don't want to deal with it. And the deadline's like next week, I don't need to deal with it. So that goes into your cup. Then there's something else, which is like someone's sent you a text message and you're like, okay, I know I need to get back to that. Again, that goes into your cup. Then something else happens and it's like, okay, I know I need to get back to that.

33:14Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:Then I need to order this. then I need to go to the post office and return this and then I need to do this and before you know it this cup is like it's about to overflow and it could be a simple thing that someone just says hey how are you haven't heard from you when are we going to meet and you're just like oh my god and you just feel so overwhelmed and it feels like the cup's just overflowing but it's because all of these things have built up built up built up and we haven't been able to do them because they feel so big and that's why I always say to people break down the things that you're doing but also give yourself like in the day know that these are going to be the boring admin things like going to the post office, waiting in a queue, having to find your QR code, having to like go and speak to someone.

33:48Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:And even just that for someone else, it might be, you're just going to the post office, return things. It's not, you have to print out the label. You have to find out is the label Royal Mail or is it part of somewhere else? And is it the right post office I'm going to? So there's so many like layers in that. So it's not just going to the post office. So sometimes it's about breaking that down further. So if you've got a presentation you need to do, it's not just the presentation that you have to do. You have to break it down to be able to understand. It's not just a presentation. What's the presentation about?

34:17Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:What's the intention of it? What's this? And you break it down to help yourself rather than thinking, I need to get to this, the top of the mountain. It's like, let's just take one stage, one stage, one stage, one stage, break it down to help yourself make sense of it. Because with an ADHD brain, you having one task like that is just too much. So you have to break it down to help yourself to make sense of what you need to do. such a big fan of that yeah breaking big tasks into from icebergs into ice cubes yeah um sometimes sending an email can be really daunting but if you just break it down into okay tasks what number one turn on the laptop yeah task number two open the email browser slowly task by task then hopefully you get over the overwhelm and the momentum goes this is really interesting and you specialize in eye movement as well do you do you think you can tell if someone's got adhd by their eye movement so with um so it's something called emdr and emdr is a way of supporting people that have been through trauma and for me it's not just noticing someone because you might be sat in front of me and i might notice something but for me it's also about going back into background history going back into understanding more about the person what they've experienced what they've been through because I feel like you can't just look at someone and know what someone might be going through because there might be a reason why someone's looking in a certain way or someone's eyes are moving in a certain way so you have to really try to understand the person before making a judgment or a conclusion of what this person might be going through and why they're going through what or how they're presenting for me because I've noticed this a lot I certainly do when I'm speaking my eye contact is very poor not very good my eyes are all over the place but when I'm being spoken to my eye contact is like laser sharp it's unbroken probably because I feel like that's the polite thing to do and it's rude if I don't but when it's my turn to speak my eye contact is very broken yeah I feel like I'm like that I feel like it's you getting in your creative space because you're thinking about something and you're trying to make sense of it and you're like imagining thinking and and talking about it but then when you're listening to someone you're really engaging because if you're looking again at something else or looking over there you'll get distracted so you know that you need to be like laser focused and like have this awareness because even like clients that come in and they have their smart watches on I'm like you need to take your watch off we're not having your watch here because every now and again they'll keep watching and then their brain's gone into the message that someone's just sent and then they've lost the connection here so I feel like with ADHD it's a very similar thing is you don't want to get lost in the distractions of life because there's distractions everywhere and it's like how do I just stay focused but also you know how important space is and how I'm holding a safe space for someone is important because of what things that you've witnessed and things that you've experienced someone said to me to maintain eye contact I should focus on one eye say the right one and then move to the left then go to the forehead and then repeat so make like a triangle but then I just thought why am I making a triangle around your face I must look really weird but to be fair do you notice it I don't know are you doing that here no I've stopped it I thought I think it was really noticeable.

37:23My eyes just went around in a triangle.

37:26Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:But also then, how present are you? Because you're so focused on trying to be aware of like, I need to be doing this. And I think that's the thing as well. Sometimes where we get messages from other people, behave like this and do this and you should be doing this. But if it doesn't align with you and it doesn't feel right for you, then don't do it. Like follow what is true for you, not what like people are expecting you to do. And I love the fact that you're just like, yeah, I used to do it, but I gave it a go and it just didn't align with me. and now I just I'm just me well yeah it was my turn to speak and I realized I hadn't remembered anything they had said because I was too focused on doing the triangle like apart from eye contact are there any key giveaways do you think from your experience of somebody has ADHD the way they look the way they speak I feel like it's more through experience you just gauge you just have a natural awareness of people that are neurodiverse because you you just get it and they get you and the way they might be talking the way they might be acting again simple things might be around their time management their the way of like um like for example i had a podcast earlier today and she messaged me a couple of times like oh um just to make sure are you here and i'm like okay so there's something around trust here that might be going on or there's something with this um and then when we got um speaking with one another um yeah there was a there was a label of like ADHD and I was like, ah, okay, this makes sense now because of this, this, this.

38:50Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:So I just feel like you can't go around diagnosing people based on certain behaviors, but you just have this, like, you just, you just know. I feel like I've spoken to so many people that have been diagnosed later and they have huge amounts of resentment towards the years that they have lost through feeling misunderstood. Do you think that's a common reaction post-diagnosis, perhaps a little later in life? Yeah, I feel like people feel let down. They feel angry towards teachers, towards parents, because they've had to be a certain way. And they've also realized that that way of them being isn't really or wasn't truly themselves.

39:33Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:And they felt like they had to be that because of how other people would validate them or how they would receive love. So there would be a lot of anger, rage, frustration because they also, once you understand how your ADHD works, you realize your potential, you realize all the things that you can do and you're not scattered. You're not like doing a little bit here, a shiny object here, another shiny object here. You get to learn to understand, okay, there's a shiny object here. I'm not going to mess with that because this is where my focus is right now. So the more you're understanding, the more intentional, the more focused you can become And the more that you get to really follow your own true path.

40:10Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:So people do, they go through a grief stage, stages. They have like denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance. They might feel like real frustration with the things that they've been through. So I do see that happen. And that's just people feeling let down from people around them not seeing them. And once someone gets a diagnosis and they start working on their self-work, they start working on their inner child, what advice would you give to someone? what relationship should they have with their inner child? I feel like with your inner child, it's going back to that version of you that perhaps once upon a time you thought you were too much, you thought that you were too sensitive, you may have thought that you were weak, you may have thought that there was something wrong with you.

40:52Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:And it's creating or allowing yourself to have that inner peace of there was never anything wrong with me. I was this way because of how my ADHD was showing up, but I didn't understand that. So you're not just shaming yourself. you're not telling yourself that you're a bad person because you have big emotions. If you want to look at something and something makes you cry, embrace it rather than thinking, I shouldn't cry because other people around me are going to think that I'm weak or I'm this. It's like you're really learning to show up being who you are and not worrying about how people will see you or how they might judge you.

41:25Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:It's like, I don't need to keep relying and focusing on that because I feel enough as I am. And if I want to cry in this moment, I'm allowed to. And I don't carry that shame with me because I can notice other people's reactions and they're uncomfortable. I realize that that's their stuff, but I'm where I am right now. How important do you think therapy is in someone's journey towards ADHD? What can a good therapist do to help someone with ADHD who might be in turmoil better understand their past? Yeah. So it's interesting because you can have a diagnosis of ADHD and often people, they come into therapy and they're like, oh, I have a diagnosis of ADHD.

42:02Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:And I'm like, okay, have you delved deeper into that? Because you have a diagnosis, but now what? Like, how does it show up in your life? How is it that it's presenting itself? And the more you're understanding that, the more then the awareness that you get. And I remember a few months ago, I was doing a C-talk. It was a summit that we were doing with ADHD. And people came up to me after and they were like, but I've had therapy in the past, but I haven't gone deeper into my inner child. I haven't worked on things like this. And as I was having these conversations, what I noticed was there's therapists out there that may work more on a surface level where they focus on these are your symptoms.

42:40Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:Let's work on the symptoms. So if there's, if you're feeling anxious, these are some of the things that you can do. Now, people that have ADHD, often their brain works in a way where they want to understand, like, why am I like this? And why do I present like this? So for me doing and having a therapist who gets you, who understands you, who can help you like almost like hold the mirror up and be like, this is why you're doing what you're doing. maybe try this or perhaps try this and it's not just intellectualizing and doing the work of talking about things you also have to have to somatically feel into things so that might be sitting in big emotions it might be learning to regulate your nervous system so when you see some like someone upset you don't feel like you have to go into overcompensate to people please to be a perfectionist with that person you're learning okay I'm feeling this emotion but what can I do So that pause is really important because it helps your prefrontal cortex, your amygdala to really just connect with one another and be on the same team rather than working against one another.

43:37Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:And your amygdala has had this big amount of reaction and then your prefrontal cortex catches up and is like, what did you just do? Why have you just behaved in that way? And then it carries the shame. So you just get caught in that cycle. But if you understand how your brain works, you can then help yourself. So therapy really, working with the right therapist can really allow and support you with that. I want to move on to my favourite part of the show, which is the ADHD item section. Your ADHD item is waiting patiently underneath that cloth, and I'm going to reveal it now. Ta-da! Right, that is a, looks like a notebook.

44:13Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:Yeah. Why does a notebook represent ADHD? So for me, I really thought long and hard about this. And the reason why I chose a notebook is because if I didn't have the notebook, I wouldn't be able to cope. Everything goes in the notebook. um my planning my organizing and where I'm going to be what's going to go on and it's also a paper journal that I have because if I don't if it doesn't go in the journal it's not happening basically and that's the thing that keeps me organized and it keeps me sane and it helps me to remember things so that's why I chose that but I also know my secondary thing was a bit it was a rubber duck and the reason why I wanted the rubber duck was because you see um from the at the top view you see that there's this elegance there's this gracefulness but actually underneath what people don't see under the water is like the flapping and people feeling like they're overthinking they're ruminating they're catastrophizing no one sees that bit everyone just sees that there's they're okay and they're fine love it a famous joke within the community with the notebooks is that people often buy one they buy many but then they lose interest in it they get bored of it so they buy another one yeah and the famous lie we tell ourselves is that a new notebook will solve all our problems but you've actually solved a problem with the notebook so that's only my diary so that's my diary for the year I always have like a yearly diary and everything goes into that so I have Monday to Friday Monday to Sunday on one side and on the other side I have all my notes and everything that I need to remember for that week so if I ever need to go back to anything I go back in there but I'm also someone who likes to collect nice diaries so I have them but I don't want to waste them so they sit there and then I collect them and I'm like when shall I use it?

45:49Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:Not yet because I don't want to waste it and I don't want to make a mistake in it. So they just sit looking nice. Amazing. Amazing. I want to move on to the audience questions. Just one question and it's in a washing machine and this section is called the washing machine of woes and an audience member sends in their ADHD woes and it goes in the washing machine. And it's a washing machine because for me, this represents memory loss because at the end of each cycle I forget my clothes in the machine and I ask all my guests to make me feel hopefully less alone do you relate to that I feel like not in the washing machine in the dryer so I hear the washing machine because my washing machine it makes a noise so it doesn't stop until I actually go there so I have to go there but then I will forget once they're in the dryer oh yeah it makes a noise too but then I get distracted and I don't but does it not keep making a noise until you actually go there.

46:41No, it does like a chime for like 30 seconds. Then it goes silent.

46:45Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:Yeah. And then you have to take over. No, mine goes off every like five minutes. So I have to go to it. It's like an alarm. Next time I buy a washing machine, I'm going to go for that setting. That's going to save me a fortune. I have been using the Timo app, which have helped me a lot actually to remember. This week, someone has written into the washing machine. I was diagnosed at 13 with an anxiety disorder by my doctor and I've never received an ADHD diagnosis. However, watching and reading so many things about ADHD, I really think it could be ADHD. Is there a chance my doctor was wrong? What I really hear there is, and again, it's really sad, is you've been diagnosed with a diagnosis of anxiety.

47:28Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:You're carrying that through thinking it's anxiety, but there might be something more going on. So then naturally you start to see maybe like videos or other things. But what I would say and what I would advise is there's questionnaires that you can complete online, which have, if you may have ADHD, fill out a questionnaire. And then if you do get a percentage or they say that you may have ADHD or you meet a lot of the criteria, go and speak to your GP about it and say, look, I've done this questionnaire online. Make sure it's with a legit website as well. So it's sponsored by a psychiatrist or a mental health organization.

48:04Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:And then take it to your GP because also GPs, they're general practitioners, so they may not know the full extent of ADHD or they might be just hearing certain symptoms and that for them falls under anxiety. So if you're doing some background work, take it to your GP and see what they say. Brilliant advice. Thank you very much. I've spoken to so many people. it seems to be a common trend or a common experience that people do get misdiagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Do you see that? Yeah, anxiety, depression, bipolar. So there's lots of different misdiagnoses that people can have because they don't fully understand how ADHD can show up.

48:44So for me, that's why it's looking at how someone's presenting, but also going back

48:48Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:into their background history and making sure that you're doing a thorough assessment with someone to help them make sense. Like if someone's feeling anxious, that might be part of like the rejection sensitivity. It might be part of them feeling very overstimulated when they're out in a social setting and they're trying to take in everything that someone's saying. And then the next time they're having, they know there's a social gathering, they have this anticipating anxiety that's coming up because they know what's going to come up for them. So for me, it's like the more you understand yourself, the more awareness you can gain and the more you can help yourself.

49:18Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:So there are in in short yes there are misdiagnoses that can happen truly fascinating thank you ever so much just finally i want to deliver to you a letter that was written by the previous guest where they wrote a letter to their younger self thank you if you could kindly read out the last guest's letter to their younger self okay so to my younger self hey girl i know you think nobody likes you and that friendships are just unfathomable but one day you will really care about so many people and be cared about in return it's hard to believe right now but there are many people out there who feel just like you and when you grow up you'll help them to understand and feel happier about themselves oh oh that is very nice really beautiful very touching end to the episode yeah on behalf of everyone grappling to understand their adhd brains thank you so much thank you Thank you for having me.

50:13Dr. Lalitaa Suglani:I really appreciate it. And I'm sure somewhere in the conversation, someone will hear something and resonate.

50:22The results from the focused survey are in. They asked you about your experience with ADHD and relationships and 400 of you responded, which is a great turnout. Thank you to everyone who took part. Some really interesting results came out of this. When asked about when they first told their partner about their ADHD diagnosis, 41.5 % of people, so nearly half, said they waited over a year to tell their partner, and 26.5 % of people said they've never told them. So, altogether, that's an astounding number. Over two-thirds, 68%, either waited more than a year or just didn't tell their partner. 70 % of people said that they'd had a breakup due to or partly because of ADHD, and 87.5 % said ADHD had caused tension or arguments with partners, which, just goes to show the kind of strain the condition can sometimes have on relationships.

51:12And 65.5%, again, roughly two-thirds of people said that ADHD had stopped them asking someone out on a date. So RSD, rejection-sensitive dysphoria, which we've talked about so much on the podcast, likely being a significant factor here. Focused will be publishing all the results and analysis on their channels over the coming weeks, so please do give them a follow for more insights on this. They're also running a survey all about ADHD and the workplace, which they'd love for ADHD chatter listeners to take part in again. People who take part will be entered into their prize draw to win up to£150 in Amazon vouchers.

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