626- The Lies We Were Told About ADHD: An ADHD Awareness Month Conversation

0:03Welcome to the Attention Deficit Disorder Expert Podcast Series by Attitude Magazine.

0:13Jessica McCabe: Hey buddy, I'm Annie Rogers and on behalf of the Attitude team, I am truly delighted to welcome you to today's special presentation titled The Lies We Were Told About ADHD. an ADHD Awareness Month conversation. And today, the Attitude community, all of us, will be engaging in a conversation and Q &A with our very special guest, Jessica McCabe. Jessica McCabe is the creator, writer, and star of the wildly popular and insightful YouTube channel, How to ADHD. Since its founding in 2015, the award-winning channel, which is widely respected by treatment providers, ADHD researchers, and especially the ADHD community, has provided scientifically backed and experientially affirming information on how people with ADHD might work with their brains.

1:11Jessica McCabe: She is also the author of the New York Times best-selling book, How to ADHD, an insider's guide to working with your ADHD brain, not against it. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Attitude Magazine, of course, Today Online, Upworthy, and so many more. And I'm very excited to report that Jessica is hard at work now on a second book, tentatively titled This Wasn't the Plan, all about life's transitions and how to ease them. Okay, before we dive into our conversation with Jessica, I have just a few housekeeping items. And I hope by now you know that Attitude is a quarterly print magazine that can be delivered to your mailbox or the mailbox of your in-laws, your child's teacher, or your medical providers, etc.

2:08Jessica McCabe: Okay, with all that out of the way, I'm so pleased to welcome Jessica McCabe. Jessica, thank you so much for joining us and helping us kick off ADHD Awareness Month. I'm so happy to be there. Happy ADHD Awareness Month, everybody. Which, I don't know, should we rename it ADHD Understanding Month? We are aware of it now. That's not bad. A while back, we thought about like ADHD, you know, Pride Month or something. But as we realize more and more how much we don't know about ADHD, I kind of, I do think that understanding might be the way to go. We are still becoming aware of many, many truths about ADHD in real time, which is going to be a big basis of our conversation today.

2:56Jessica McCabe: That's fair. Yes. Yeah. Now, of course, Jessica, you have been talking about ADHD for at least 11 years since you posted your very first How to ADHD video on YouTube. At that time, there was no ADHD YouTube channel, right? Like TikTok didn't exist. Outside the pages maybe of Attitude Magazine, few people were talking candidly about ADHD. Reflecting on all the change from then to now, like what jumps out at you? Well, it's interesting because there's the change that I experienced personally going from not having any understanding of my ADHD despite having been diagnosed with it for 20 years. and then the the societal shift and the societal shift is really interesting because the biggest difference I think is that we're talking about it now publicly in a way that we weren't then like you said there was no ADHD talk there was no TikTok at all there was no YouTube channel with somebody with ADHD experience you know talking about their experience there was no there were there were articles is what there was I googled stuff and then I basically shared what I googled is how I started my channel um because here's the thing I had been diagnosed and this is the personal side, I've been diagnosed with ADHD for 20 years since I was 12.

4:14And I was 31, 32 when I started my channel. And not one doctor had ever explained executive challenges. They had not explained emotion dysregulation. They had not explained memory deficits. They hadn't explained any of that. And so I thought that the, and this is part of the societal stuff, right? The treatment of ADHD, if you were lucky enough to be caught and treated as a woman with ADHD, as a girl with ADHD, the treatment was, okay, you have trouble focusing. Here are some meds. They will help you focus. End of story. And so I thought that all this time my ADHD had been treated and everything else that I was struggling with was like a moral failing, right?

4:54It was just me being bad at stuff or being lazy or being stupid. The number of times I thought that I was stupid because I, I, you know, a teacher would ask a question and by the time she got to the third possible answer, I would have forgotten the question. So she calls me and I'm like, I don't know. I felt so stupid, even though I was smart, because I didn't know that this was a working memory thing. I didn't know that I'm smart. I just need to write some stuff down, get it out of my head, and then I can give the right answer. It didn't understand that, right? And so the understanding, my personal understanding has evolved along with societal understanding.

5:27And I hope I accelerated that process a little bit because I took these research papers. There were research papers I read with tears streaming down my cheeks because these researchers knew things that I didn't. As the person walking around with this brain, needing to understand it, needing to use it on a daily basis, they knew things that I didn't. And so I tried to take, with my channel, tried to take everything that I learned, put it into an accessible format and put it out there in case it was helpful for anybody else. but also so that so that I wouldn't forget it because I had put so much effort into self-help books and trying to be better and do better and all of that and like every once in a while I'd come across something that would work for me as someone with ADHD but then I would forget to do it or I'd forget about it and by the time I remembered and went back I couldn't find the article again right and so I put all these things on on how to ADHD with the intention of just putting it somewhere that I could find it again making it available for other people but what actually ended up happening is it gave people a place to talk about their experience because they couldn't talk to their friends.

6:30They couldn't talk to their partners. They couldn't talk to their boss. And I'm not saying everybody, but generally speaking, it wasn't something that was talked about. And last week I went out to dinner and somebody was having a conversation about ADHD openly and not even their own ADHD. They were talking about their partner's ADHD struggles as this matter of fact thing that was not shameful. That was just, yeah, he struggles with this. And so we're trying to figure it out. And it just like, it actually made me cry because that is such a far cry from where we were.

6:59Jessica McCabe: Yeah. It, you know, and we were talking about this a bit before we joined, but, um, change doesn't happen in darkness. And the fact that you brought ADHD out of the shadows on your YouTube channel, um, did, I think help a lot of people overcome that shame, similar to what you experienced as a child to understand that, that it is a neurological difference and not a personal failing. Um, and you also, sorry, go ahead. Um, yeah, that's the other part of it is like, the more we talk about it, I think the more that shame dissipates, right? If it's like, Oh, this is not, this is something I can't say.

7:44I can't tell my boss that I'm struggling. This is, you know, I just have to like try harder. I just have to keep trying to do better somehow in this silo without support, right? The more we talk about it, the more shame gets dropped. And the more we hear about other experiences, right? It's a lot easier sometimes to be gentle with other people than it is with ourselves. And so hearing from the community and hearing other people struggling with the same things, I was like, oh, first of all, it validates it because this isn't just me as a failed human. This is me struggling with something that of course I'm struggling with as someone with ADHD Look at all these other people who are also struggling with it, you know, who have ADHD.

8:20But also just having those little safe spaces where everybody's kind of accepting and supportive made it so that people could venture out and have these more difficult conversations with people who might not understand. It gave them the courage to do that because they understood their own brain a little bit better. They understood this wasn't their fault, that they were struggling. And they were able to venture out and talk to other people, too. And the ripple effects have been phenomenal to watch.

8:49Jessica McCabe: As you were setting out, were you conscious of striking a balance between presenting real life with ADHD, but in a way that wasn't depressing? Yeah, actually, it all was. In a way that also showcased the benefits, yeah. The benefits, not as much. And I have a very early video that's very, I don't know, it's a little bit naive now where I'm like, 10 ways ADHD is awesome. And it's a very like early stage. I'm beginning to understand my brain thing to be like, oh, deficit, deficit, deficit, but we're great, right? And so like I had this, you know, 10 ways ADHD years are awesome. And a lot of people in the comments were like, it is not, it has ruined my life.

9:31Like stop it, right? And it was a little Pollyanna, but now I try and balance it a little bit more. I try and talk about it as if, hey, there's this matter of fact thing. these are traits and in the right environments, in the right situations, with the right supports, these traits can be strengths. And in the wrong situations with the wrong supports or no support, they can be liabilities, right? And so I think a lot of the people who are going around saying ADHD is a superpower and ADHD is awesome have a lot of privilege. They have people around them supporting them, compensating for maybe the deficits.

10:04I do try and take a balanced approach And I do try and, I try and be, and this is very, very important to me, especially in the early videos that I did where I was still actively learning this stuff. I tried to translate the research in a way that was authentic while, while adjusting the language so that it would make sense to somebody living it and not make them want to crawl into a hole and die, right? Like there were, there were times I softened it a little bit, um, and, and presented it, but I, I think I'm mostly just trying to get at the truth. I'm trying to get at the truth. And I don't think the truth is hyperbolic.

10:38I don't think it's, ADHD is awesome and sunshine and rainbows. And I also don't think it needs to be. Because here's the other thing. Ableism still very much exists, right? It existed then. It existed now. It might change shapes and forms. But this idea that we should be better than we are, that there's like, oh, you have ADHD. That means you are now on this lifelong project and essentially not have ADHD anymore. To not struggle with the things that you're struggling with. I forgot my sentence. But, uh, but that, oh, um, oh, so that's, that's a form of ableism is like, you shouldn't have ADHD.

11:11You're bad if you have ADHD, you're bad if you struggle with these things. But I think that ADHD is a superpower is also a little bit ableist because it says you are not allowed to struggle unless you are awesome, right? You almost have to be incredible to make up for the fact that you struggle in these other areas. And I've, I've kind of moved to a place where I don't, I don't think that's true. I think we can look honestly at the challenges, at the strengths, what, you know, if ADHD is, you know, it's two sides of the same coin in this situation, I'm like super fun. And, you know, everybody's glad that I'm there.

11:41And in these other situations, people are like, oh my God, please like get your together. Right. Like how do we make sure that that coin flips to the positive more than the negative? And I think some of that's on us, some of that's on society, some of it's on the people that we're interacting with, but I don't even remember the question. I'm just very excited. I'm very, very excited at how much has shifted and that we can even have these conversations as openly as we are. I'm really grateful that the research is starting to move in the direction of let's understand ADHD strengths as well and how to, how to set people up for success.

12:15Right. Cause I think that the goal shouldn't be, let's get them neurotypical. It should be, okay, this is the way that their brain is given the way that their brain is, how can they best function in the world?

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14:00Jessica McCabe: No code needed. Try it risk-free with Ella Ola's 45-day money-back guarantee. Go to ellaola.com slash attitude for 20 % off your first purchase. We had a comment I wanted to share from someone in our live audience. I can definitely say that your videos helped me reshape my understanding of my own ADHD and how to research it in a neuroaffirming way. I also appreciate that you allow for your emotions to show, to model that it is professional too. And I think that that's part of it is, is modeling, right? You're in your videos, you are very much yourself. And so people can see like, here's someone who is so serious about understanding this condition that she has literally dedicated years of her life to this research.

14:57And also she's dynamic and well-spoken and fun and all these other things.

15:03Jessica McCabe: And so both sides of the coin, both sides of the coin, right? Thank you. And I just want to give a shout out to attitude for a second. A lot of the early things that I was putting out were because of attitude. I was able to find articles because of attitude, because of, um, of the, you know, the articles that coaches were putting out online, um, the experts were putting out, um, and that is what ended up leading me to, okay, where did this come from? Oh, there's, there's citations. Now I can read these research papers and understand it a little bit more deeply. So if it weren't for the research that had already been done, if it weren't for the outlets that were already amplifying this understanding, I wouldn't have had a channel, right?

15:41So thank you.

15:43Jessica McCabe: Oh, well, you're welcome. And we, you know, this is obviously a labor of love over here at the Attitude Team, and we benefit from the expertise of so many advisors. And I think we share the common purpose of education without shame. And so I'm very happy that we're having this conversation today. And in reflecting on just how this landscape has changed, I wonder what your thoughts are on where we are today in terms of social media specifically, and how ADHD is much more spoken about openly, but not always accurately. So again, like another coin, right? We're finding more validation, more people whose stories sound like our own, but there are less than credible sources out there.

16:41Jessica McCabe: Just your thoughts on where we stand today. Yeah. It's, it's really interesting because the issue used to be the dissemination of the information, right? And now dissemination is not really the issue. If you go on ADHD, TikTok, if you go on YouTube, you can look up more videos on ADHD than you could ever possibly hope to watch. But now it's, okay, which of those are true? Because the ones that are validating and make you go, yeah, that's me, are not necessarily the ones that are accurate, because the ones that like make you really feel good, and you're like, yes, you know, that intuitively makes sense.

17:20we don't necessarily think about like, is that accurate, right? So the experience of object permanence, if you've seen that go around, the idea that like we don't have object permanence as people with ADHD, because like we forget that things exist. We do have that experience. It's a real experience, but it's not object permanence, right? We're giving the wrong name to it. Object permanence is understanding that when somebody leaves the room, they continue to exist. forgetting that they exist is not the same thing right it's the you know out of sight out of mind phenomenon but object permanence is such like a great validating thing that it's it's something that gets repeated and repeated and repeated and if you hear it from lots of different sources you're like that must be true so one of the things that I recommend if you are concerned about the information you're getting and if it's valid is go back to the source um object permanence instead of just taking this person's word for it google scholar it right be like what is object permanence Okay.

18:15And then after that, if you're like, for me personally, I want to keep calling it object permanence, cool. But don't make a YouTube video about it, educating other people, because they might not have time to Google it. They might not have time to look into it and be like, is this what this person is actually talking about? Somebody sent me a study. It was actually a very early angel investor in my channel, the only angel investor, but he helped me get to do this full time. And he ended up sending me a study, this was years ago, about how 52, I think it was 52 % of TikToks about ADHD are wrong.

18:47And I was like, oh no, that's terrible. Because my worst nightmare was putting out information as someone with ADHD and getting it wrong. Because I think misinformation is worse than no information. But he was like, no, it's great. And I was like, why is this great? And he goes, because that means 48 % of the time it's correct. And he was so excited because before that, and fair play to him, all of the conversations we were having about ADHD, most of them were wrong. Most of them were ignorant. Most of them were rooted in shame and ableism and complete misunderstandings of ADHD. Like you're drugging your kid and like, don't drug your kids.

19:23They just need to play. Or, you know, there were just so many myths and misconceptions floating around and now there aren't as many. So that's a positive thing, but it is just good to be aware of that a lot of the information online is something that somebody heard, felt validated by, repeated, or it was something that was personally true for them. And so they extrapolated that and they went, well, everybody should just take these vitamins and then they won't have ADHD anymore, right? Like whatever worked personally for them, they're trying to apply to everybody or they're oversimplifying, right?

19:52And I struggle with this with shorts. I'm really, really trying to actually put out shorts, short form content, because that's now the most accessible form for people to consume this, right? But it's really hard to have nuance in a short. It is really, really hard to get the story correct in a short form video. and so you have videos like how to know if you have ADHD and it's like seven symptoms that could also be true if you have anxiety and depression right and so like people are self-diagnosing themselves with a TikTok that it even if it's not inaccurate it's it's not the whole story and it's not enough and so a lot of people are going to seek a diagnosis and then doctors are like you don't have it and they're like but I felt so validated right and so I don't know there's it's it's a mixed bag.

20:36There's, there's great stuff about it and there's hard stuff about it, but I'm overall really happy about it because if I had come across that when I was 15, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have struggled as hard as I did for as long as I did.

20:54Jessica McCabe: And I think you're absolutely right. I mean, we, we, we, you may have noticed attitude. Um, We are not super strong TikTokers because in part, nothing is as simple as it appears with ADHD and it all deserves explanation and it all deserves lots of gray in between that black and white. And I think, I mean, really you have dedicated the last decade to explaining the gray, digging into the gray. Um, and of course, as I mentioned, you released, um, in early 2024, I believe, um, your how to ADHD book, which became a New York times bestseller. And then within, if I'm not mistaken, like eight weeks or less, um, you became a mother.

21:47Jessica McCabe: Yeah. The book came out in January. The baby came out in February. Um, and now, and now, uh, now I've, I've got a paperback version of the book that just came out yesterday, the day before yesterday. What is time? September 29th. I think that was two days ago. So the paperback version is out now, which is so funny because it feels like an absolute lifetime ago that I wrote this. And I'm like, this is a pretty cool book. I don't even associate myself with having written it. I'm just like, oh, this is nice. Like, what a great, easy to read resource. But yeah, the book came out in January, the baby came out in February and, um, I was not even prepared.

22:22Like I, I was sort of prepared. Um, ADHD coach, Dusty Chapura had taught me a lot about postpartum in women with ADHD and stuff like that. So I was like, I was bracing for it, but I was, I was like, how do I not have it? Right. That was, that was my goal going in. How do I not have postpartum depression? And so I knew some of the protective factors and I was like, okay, I'm down on my meds while I'm pregnant. Like, let me go up on my meds right away after I have the baby to kind of counterbalance that estrogen crash. And like, I did what I could, but I didn't plan for like, what if I actually do have it?

22:52And what if, what if it's awful? And it was, I was not prepared for that. Um, so immediately after writing this book and publishing this book about understanding how your brain works when you have ADHD and working with it, not against it, my brain changed. And I felt so betrayed because a lot of this while helpful was not accessible to me at that time. I was like, great. Yeah. Sleep, get sleep. I can't, right? I have a baby and that's not a thing that's happening right now anymore. Um, there were so many, there were so many supports that I had during pregnancy that just completely vanished after pregnancy.

23:29And this I think is really interesting because the same way we weren't really talking about the struggles with ADHD 11 years ago openly. Um, but now we do, I feel like where we're at with women and hormones and postpartum experience and all that. Like we're just at the beginning of that conversation where it's like, yeah, my doctor didn't tell me anything about this. My doctor did not prepare me for this. My doctor did not help me put like a safety plan in place, like nothing. Right. I was on my own. And now, um, especially with what's going on in the media, we are starting to have this conversation.

24:01The research exists and now it's trickling down and we're starting to talk about it. So, um, I'm glad I'm really glad because the support that I got during pregnancy just completely vanished after pregnancy. Like I put so many supports in place and like, I put the wrong supports in place. Like some of them bailed on me, um, in postpartum and the medical system was just like, okay, you had your baby. Bye. Um, and I, so I started like furiously justice writing. I wasn't sleeping anyway. So I started furiously justice writing a book called, um, postpartum, how, how new parents are dropped off a care cliff and what we can do about it.

24:36And I was like, yeah, yeah. Like I can't, I can't do this for my channel. This isn't anything about ADHD, but like, I'll just get it done real quick before my postpartum ends in six weeks. Um, and then publish it like personally, because this needs to exist. And, um, my partner was like slightly worried about psychosis at some point. And my doctor was like, this is not psychosis. This is passion fueled hyper-focus. And I couldn't control it. I could not regulate my attention. Um, I couldn't because I like the estrogen crash postpartum was horrible. Um, the, like the way that a baby just hijacked my brain was completely unexpected.

25:12Like I, I'm used to being able to focus on what I need to focus on because I have the tools, but I couldn't, it was like, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby. The world is terrifying. Don't let her die. Baby, baby, baby. Like it was, it was that like, what does the baby need? What does the baby need? What does the baby need? And so like, I wasn't able to take care of myself, even with the tools that I have, even with the understanding that I have and not taking care of myself and not getting sleep and not taking showers and all of that, like everything spiraled downward pretty fast for me.

25:40And it got to a really dark place. And what it kind of got to a place where I, at one point was so overwhelmed and so exhausted. And so, and, and everything felt like it was shifting, right? Like everything was chaos. I'm used to living in chaos. I'm used to my life being chaos because I have ADHD, right? And I can live in a certain amount of chaos, but it felt like the chaos was internal, external, other people. Like there was no stability at all. I felt like I was at sea or drowning actually. And so I, it was so destabilizing, so destabilizing. And everybody kept saying, oh, enjoy every moment.

26:17It goes by so fast. And I took that assignment and I ran with it. I was like, enjoy every moment. So I invited people over to see the baby. And like, I was up in the middle of the night staring at her tiny cute face. And I just soaked it all in. I was like trying to soak up all the joy to try and maybe combat the postpartum depression that I was devolving into, but, but I wish the advice that I wish somebody had actually given me is stable first. The joy will come that you'll have plenty of moments of joy, but get stable first because it is the most destabilized I have ever been in my life. And at the same time, I was having to take care of this tiny human and be there for her.

26:57So there was a moment where I came home from being diagnosed with postpartum depression early, like a week after having this baby, I came home and there were people in my house unexpectedly. It was my, my partner's mom and his sister were there and I didn't know they were going to be there. And he was like, he was acting erratically because he, his PTSD was triggered by something. And then I was scared of him. I was scared of the world. I came in and there were people in my house that had been sick. And that's why they hadn't seen the baby yet. And not like, I almost fell down the stairs because I had had this surgery.

27:29Right. And so like, I couldn't support myself and everything was so terrifying. And I just raced my daughter's, like without her, like my partner had her in the car seat in the car. I raced up to my room, uh, to my daughter's nursery and I locked myself in there and I just texted him. And I was like, I, I don't want to see anybody. I don't want to talk to anybody. I don't want to see anybody. And then I realized not even my daughter, I didn't even want to see her. And that was such a profound shift for me because I wanted to stare at her tiny face and, and hold her all of the time. And I didn't want anything to do with her.

28:01I didn't want anything to do with this? And I was like, that's not a good thought. And it got a little bit worse because I was like, I don't want anything to, I don't want anything to do with her. And then I started thinking what would happen, right? I've been taking care of her 24 seven. I'm, I'm a nursing mom. She's used to like being inside me and on me and, and right next to me 24 seven. What would happen if I even take like six hours to myself? Like if I just for a day or two days, just go, I'm not going to. And I was like, nothing good. That can't possibly be good. And in that moment, I said, I don't care.

28:37I didn't care. And I was like, okay, I need help. I need help. And importantly, I had this understanding of how my brain worked. I had this understanding that it's not your fault if you're struggling, right? And so I kind of took that and ran with it. And I talked to my doctors and I was open with them. And I was terrified because I was like, surely they're not going to let me leave with my child if I tell them the thoughts in my head, if I tell them what going on. Um, I was so scared that they'd be like, you, you just don't get to be a mom anymore. Like you're failing, right? You're failing at this.

29:07And, um, and it was so hard, but I had to do it because I knew if I wasn't okay, she wouldn't be. And so it was nice to have like already lost the shame around how my brain works and the fact that I'm struggling and be able to carry that over to this new situation where I'm like, it is not my fault that these thoughts are happening. This is postpartum depression. This is normal. Not for everybody, but for a lot of people, they go through this, right? And knowing that allowed me to go and seek the help that I needed. I ended up in a partial hospitalization program where I could bring my baby and learn.

29:41And it felt so silly because I'm like, I wrote a book about this, right? But I'm learning coping mechanisms and I'm learning about CBT and DBT and like all this stuff that I know. But I'm learning an environment with other new moms. and as it applies to you as a mom, as a new mom, I'm learning what my kid actually needs from me because it's not this like, take care of them 24 seven all of the time. And, you know, otherwise you fail as a human and as a parent, like 30%, 30 % of the time, your kids actually need you to respond to their bids, right? That's great. It's not 100 % of the time. You don't have to be perfect at this.

30:15And so I went to this partial hospitalization program and what was really interesting to me is everyone else there, every other new mom also had ADHD. Oh, wow. So this is really common. If you have ADHD and you are a new mom, or you're going to have a baby, or you know, somebody who's struggling, your daughter just had a baby and you're wondering like, what, what happened to my child? And like, why is she, I mean, I was acting like a, like a teenager, right? I was like slamming my door and going, keep out and like, get out of my room. And I was out of control in the same way that I was out of control during puberty.

30:53And it took me a while to learn this term, but it was really important to me when I did. There's something called matricence. And it's very similar to puberty. Like the hormonal shifts are so profound. And it's not just for your hormones. Your life has changed. Your identity is shifting. Your brain is literally rewiring itself to take care of a tiny human. There are so many things that are going on. And it's such a destabilizing situation that, yeah, I just ended up in a really bad place. But when I thought about it, I realized this wasn't the first time, right? I looked back to puberty and shifting schools at the same time I was going through puberty was horrible.

31:30And I was suddenly a monster, right? Like my mom was like, where did my sweet daughter go? I was, you know, I was mouthing off and like getting, I was doing so many things. And I was like, every time I've really, really struggled in my life and it's looked to other of people, like I'm a bad person or a bad employee or, or like just a failure of a human. I'm like, it's all been related to a big transition. And so that's why I decided for my next book, I, I actually want to write a book called This Wasn't the Plan, How to Navigate Big Transitions with an ADHD Brain.

32:03Jessica McCabe: So I want to underscore like why this conversation is so important for us to have it at this point in time, it being ADHD Awareness Month and all that is happening in the world today, that what Jessica said is 100 % true, that we are at the infancy of understanding how hormonal shifts impact ADHD. There is very little research, more than there was five years ago, probably five years ago, we could have said there was no research. And this is true for really all stages of life. It is particularly true for postpartum. And just a few statistics to put this into perspective, like within the general population, postpartum depression impacts like three to four percent of women.

32:59Jessica McCabe: Among ADHD women, it is 17 percent. And those experiencing postpartum anxiety is a quarter of women. You don't have to be a woman to care about this issue. Okay. We should all care about women's health. It impacts everyone in society, whether you're related to that woman or not this is critical health care and research has failed up until now for a large degree and as Jessica said like had you not known so much about your ADHD brain and been able to recognize what was happening and access care um the outcome could have been different and there are a lot of women out there who were not diagnosed as girls because adhd was so misunderstood who don't understand their brains or are recently diagnosed we have someone here today who said she was diagnosed at 73 um which is not uncommon now right like thank goodness um but there's so much catching up to do and And having conversations like this is one way that we can start to break down those barriers.

34:22Jessica McCabe: So I just, you know, we at Attitude feel so strongly about all that still remains to be done to support all members of the ADHD community. And so I just want to thank you for sharing your story. And I think, you know, you're helping. I know we have a listener out there today who's here who lost her mother due to postpartum depression and others who have daughters that they're worried about. And our whole community is to support these people. And validation is just step one. So that was a really long-winded way of saying thank you and why this is so important to talk about. It is important. And it's important to talk about and normalize, I think, especially because if I hadn't had the privilege of having understood my ADHD already and having access to care and having a supportive network of people around me, I think the outcome would have been different.

35:21I think it would have been different if I didn't understand that this wasn't my fault, that I was struggling in this way. Because the idea of what a mom is supposed to look like and what I was looking like were so different that I could have piled so much shame on myself. And I think that shame would have made it so much worse. Because A, I wouldn't have reached out for help because I wouldn't have wanted to tell anybody that I was having these thoughts or struggling with these things. But two, I would have been not only not wanting to take care of my baby, I would have been ashamed of the fact that I didn't want to take care of my baby.

35:53And that would have made me maybe avoid it even more. And you know what I mean? Like it would have been this really downward spiral. And so that's one of the reasons why, even though I'm still recovering from that experience, I am writing this book because I did have privilege and I want to support those who wouldn't have had it. Those who wouldn't have this support, who wouldn't have access to this. I want to support them through it because I think that whatever supports are being offered in our society today for ADHD women postpartum are just not enough. And it doesn't just affect them. It affects their partners.

36:27It affects their families. It affects their kids, right? I think in retrospect that my own mom had postpartum depression. The first night I came home from the hospital and she told me this story. I don't know why she told me this story, but she said she put me in a crib in my, you know, that's what it was. the first day that my mom brought me home from the hospital, she looked at my dad and said, get this child out of my room. And they put me in a crib in another room. And she said that she would shut the door and be like, please God, don't die. She couldn't, she couldn't be there for me in the way that she should have been there for me as a mom.

37:04So, and I think, you know,

37:08Jessica McCabe: um and all of this uh is kind of tying back to the to the title for today's um discussion and that's the lies we were told about adhd or it could be the lies and omissions um about adhd you know the impact of hormones um being being one of those um and you talk about other on your YouTube channel, other, um, lies that you believed about ADHD, about productivity, about creativity, about self-care. Um, you have a series of videos about this on your, on your channel. And you've said that you're working to actively unlearn, um, the things you were told about ADHD. We've touched on some of those, but I wonder if there are, are others, um, that you are, you find yourself actively working on now?

38:02Well, there's what I was actively working on, you know, 10 years ago, which is that if you have ADHD, like you're lazy or stupid, or it's a moral defect, or, you know, we talked about some of that. The ones I'm working to undo now are a little bit more sophisticated, I want to say. It's a little more insidious maybe, which is this idea that like your entire your life mission if you have ADHD is to not have ADHD. And no, no, it's okay if you have ADHD. It's okay if you have all the strengths, but like, don't struggle, right? Don't be late. Don't show up to a meeting, you know, right on time because that's how your brain works.

38:40And then realize that your mic is not working and don't have time to fix it, right? Like I'm still undoing a little bit of the, not shame around having ADHD, but the shame of struggling in the ways that I struggle, especially because I know so much now that I'm like, well, I clearly shouldn't be struggling anymore. Or this idea that like our, our worth is measured in productivity, which is really hard when you have a condition that impacts productivity, right? Or this idea that like, we don't get to enjoy our lives until, until we are places on time, until we keep our house clean and our car clean or whatever.

39:15Like we don't get to have fun because we're not done yet. We're like, we've got so much that we should be doing that we shouldn't go have fun, that we shouldn't enjoy our life. Um, so I'm working to change that too. I'm starting, um, a podcast actually, uh, talking about, okay, great. Like we're putting all this effort into learning about how our brains work and how to work with them, not against them and be more effective in the world and be more functional in the world. But like to what end, because I, and a lot of people I know with ADHD are like at that point where we've done that, we've done that work.

39:49And we're looking around I'm going, I don't know that I'm enjoying my life all that much. Like this is like, I got really good at time management, but now I have to manage my time all the time. And like, I don't get to like wander and fall down rabbit holes like I used to. And I don't, I don't, I don't know. I can't just like get into hyper-focus on something and like be like, well, that's my life for the next three days. Like I've got a meeting to go to. Right. So like the things that I did to be functional and successful and all of that, I think on some level cost me something too. I don't know if this is making any sense.

40:17You know, I'm just going to play. I have the intro. Is it okay if I play the intro? It's like 30 seconds long.

40:22Jessica McCabe: Oh yeah, let's go multimedia here, yeah. Unless my phone just died, which it may have. No, I turned it off for this. That was good planning. But yeah, I mean, for so long, we've been asking how do we get people with ADHD functional? And now I think that we can ask a new question, which is how do we get them happy? How do we make it so they can live a good life? What does a good life with ADHD even look like? And is it the same as what a good life for somebody who's neurotypical would look like. Because all these tools, and this is where like my own ableism in starting the channel of like, well, I just, I'm going to work with my brain, not against it.

40:56Like, it's okay that I have ADHD, but like, I'm going to make it so I don't have to struggle in those ways anymore so that I can like achieve my very neurotypical goals. I can achieve what I want to achieve and live this like very neurotypical life. It's what I thought I was supposed to live. And now I'm like, well, is that what we should be using our toolbox for? Or can we use our toolbox to build a life that is a good fit for us? So instead of like getting good at time management for the sake of like being good at time management, like what does it afford us? Like what, like, can we get good at time management in a way that allows us to have the time that we want to do the things that we want?

41:32I don't know if this is making any sense.

41:35Jessica McCabe: It is. It is. It's, yeah. I was going to use a terrible analogy. I'm not going to use it. But living. No, no, I'm curious. Well, you know, it's just about pegs and like, it's less about, you know, shaving off the corners of your square peg. And more like figuring out how to reshape the whole so you can be your whole self. And yeah, I mean, what is life without joy? That's it. Yeah. Joy. And that's, and that's part of it. Like, so I want to explore what, what makes for a good life when you have ADHD. um so this is this is the trailer to my trailer no the intro to my podcast i just got it back from the producers this morning so i'm excited i'll play it oh it's used to be first to hear it hello brains i'm jessica mccabe and welcome to how to adhd if you know me from my youtube channel or my new york times best-selling book you know i'm all about learning to work with your brain not against it now i'm asking to what end with this podcast i'll follow leads wherever they take to investigate what makes for a good life when you have ADHD.

42:47Together, we'll learn how to build a life you love with the brain you've got.

42:53Jessica McCabe: Very nice. Yeah, I mean, I'm curious, just for our audience members, we'll circle back to this, you know, what's your metric, you know, for a good life? And maybe how has it changed as well with time and understanding of your brain and your family? Yeah, that I enter your comments and we'll circle back to them. Gosh, I'm really struck with how, you know, this, a lot of this comes back to productivity, right? And, and it is only within the last decade, probably less, that we actually understand that ADHD impacts executive function and what that means. I mean, that executive function is not in the name ADHD, right?

43:51Jessica McCabe: To me, that jumps out as, I mean, not necessarily a lie per se, but a huge shift in our understanding of ADHD. and alongside that, this idea of ADHD as being wrapped up with emotional dysregulation. Those two really jump out to me. Yeah. That was a big one. I grew up thinking I was too sensitive and my feelings were a problem. Objectively, they were a problem. Everybody would tell me that my feelings were being a problem. They were disrupting class or I don't know, I was like like impulsively doing a lot of things that I maybe shouldn't have been doing. There were, you know, and it was all my emotions, right?

44:38It was like anger and I would lose my, right? Or it was excitement and then I would impulse buy things or whatever it was. Like I grew up learning that my emotions were a problem. And so I did what a lot of us, I think, do and tried not to have them because we didn't want to be a problem, right? And people pleasing and like, let me stuff this down and let me not be too excited. And let me, let me not, I don't know, like crack up at the dinner table and get sent to my room. Let me not cry because like, don't cry or I'll give you something to cry about. Like I grew up in this environment where it was like, no, big emotions are a problem.

45:11Emotions might be a problem, but big emotions, your level of emotions, definitely a problem. And so like, I tried not to have them. And the problem is when I tried not to have them, I would stuff them down and I would try to not have them. And then eventually they would build up and build up and build up and explode out of me and become a problem. Right. And so it just kind of reinforced this idea that my emotions were a problem. And it was something I had to unlearn along the way. But I did a whole chapter about in my book. And I was going to say it's in the paperback too. I don't know why it wouldn't have been, but it's in the paperback also.

45:44But I had a chapter called How to Feel. And I called it that because, you know, all the other chapters, like how to remember stuff, how to motivate your brain. This was How to Feel. And I was like, is that the right title? And I realized it is because I think some of us have forgotten that it's okay to feel. It's okay to have emotions when you have ADHD and the emotions are not actually the problem. What you do with those emotions might be problematic, but by trying not to feel things, that actually creates other issues, right? And so I learned, oh, you can catch your feelings early and then they aren't as huge by the time you start listening to them.

46:18They don't explode out of you. If I notice when I'm angry, when I'm irritated and I'm communicating that and I'm setting some boundaries and I'm doing whatever I need to do that's going to appropriately address that, then I'm not going to get to the point where I blow up at my partner. And so, yeah, that's how to feel. So that was a big one. And in fact, by recognizing your emotions and accepting them, that in and of itself can be helpful. There's a concept of name it to tame it. I'm sure you've heard. Yeah. Or if you can name the emotion. Like, it's not as intense. It's not as overwhelming. It doesn't like run the show in the same way.

46:53And so I'm a really big fan of that. Like you're not too sensitive. It's okay to feel. It's okay to have big feelings even. But especially if you have big feelings, it's really important to understand them, to be able to name them and to know what to do with them when they come up. Mm-hmm, absolutely.

47:12Jessica McCabe: Yeah, and I think that conversation is beginning in earnest now as well in the ADHD world. And I know that one of the larger scientific organizations around ADHD is actually addressing this maybe for the first time in its upcoming conference, the APSARD conference, is going to be really focusing on emotional regulation in ADHD. and you know we absolutely welcome that conversation because the better clinicians and healthcare providers understand it the more as you said the more resources and help they can give yeah and Ari Tuckman just um just emailed me about a book that somebody wrote that seems really cool where you um you don't have to know what it is you're feeling you go by the intensity of the emotion and then it walks you through what to do which I think is great because sometimes we don't know what we're feeling, especially those of us who have spent so much time like shutting down our emotions and trying not to feel them and talking ourselves out of them.

48:14We might not know what we're feeling, but usually we know with what intensity we're feeling it. Right. And so I think that's a really clever approach. Um, yeah, I forgot what you called it.

48:21Jessica McCabe: I can send it to you afterward, but yeah, the, the emotion regulation is a big piece. The other piece that you mentioned is the executive function. Yeah. I didn't, I knew I had trouble focusing. I, in the moment, like I thought ADHD was an in the moment problem. Right. Um, but like there were so many times I started something and didn't finish it, or I don't know, I would drop out of college. I would, I would have trouble delaying gratification. Like there's a lot of stuff that's, that's long-term that, that can be problematic when you have ADHD. And I didn't know that, but ADHD, yeah, executive function, like basically the ability to plan and prioritize and sustain effort toward long-term goals.

48:57I didn't know that that was a thing. So I thought I was self-sabotaging. I thought I was giving up. I thought I was being lazy. I thought, you know, I had all of these like messages of what, what it meant because when you don't have the explanation, you accept the ones that are handed to you by society. It looked like I was flaky. It looked like I was, you know, uncommitted. It looked like I, I don't know, like I didn't actually care about things. Um, as opposed to like understanding the internal workings of my brain and like, oh, this is legitimately difficult for me. And even something like cleaning my house, right.

49:33I would judge myself so much for not being able to keep my house clean. Um, and I didn't, I, I would judge myself especially hard because my mom had a physical disability. She was on crutches. And so my mom who like, she got in an accident where her back broke so badly would never heal. And she was on a lot of painkillers and she was on crutches. She would come to my house when I was a teenager or not teenager, when I was in my early twenties and later twenties, she would come to my house and help me clean it. And I would feel horrible because I knew what this must look like from the outside. Like I'm perfectly able-bodied and my mom's on crutches helping me clean my house.

50:11And I didn't accept, and this is, I guess, another thing that I'm trying to undo this idea that like, because we look capable that we are Like I, I knew my mom had a disability and I was very accepting of that disability and supportive of her doing what she needed to do to accommodate her disability. But I didn't think that I could call what I was struggling with a disability. Because it, first of all, you can't see it. And second of all, it's not always true. There were times I could clean. There were also times that I couldn't, like, I couldn't consistently keep my house clean. I've never been able to consistently keep my house clean by myself without an excessive amount of help.

50:49It's never happened in my life. but I kept feeling like I should be able to because I don't have a disability, right? Like I, there's what is stopping me. And it's because there's these invisible obstacles that we keep tripping over and these, um, these challenges that we have. Right. But I'm like, I can't see it. I can't point to it. I can't be like, well, I am not actually capable of cleaning my house because like you pay a million, you pay me a million dollars. I'll probably figure it out. Right. Right. But, but ADHD is not like you can never do the thing. Like I'm short. Okay. This is a slight tangent, but I promise it makes sense.

51:24I'm short. If I'm going to reach a tall shelf, I need a step stool. I can understand that. I'm never going to expect myself to be able to reach a tall shelf without a step stool. That's ridiculous for me to expect that of myself. But having ADHD is a little bit like, sometimes you can reach the top shelf and sometimes you can't. And when you can't, you're like, what's wrong with you? You can totally reach the top shelf. And other people chime in and like, what's wrong with you? Why are you not getting the thing off the top shelf? Don't you know that it's important? And I'm like, I do. I don't know why I can't do it, right?

51:52So understanding that executive function piece is helpful and understanding that there are a lot of factors that can make ADHD easier or harder to manage. Whether or not I can reach that top shelf that day depends on how well did I sleep, which in postpartum? Nope, not at all. Right. It depends on how interested am I in this thing. It depends on how much support am I getting? It depends on so many things, but a lot of those things are invisible. And so unless you kind of pick it apart and look at it, you don't know why you're struggling. You're just like, I shouldn't be. So that's something that I watch now too.

52:27I actively try and get out of my, like, anytime I'm like, I should be able to do this. Like, what's the evidence for that? Have you ever in your life been able to do this without help consistently? No, then you shouldn't. Like, you shouldn't be able to. And it's not weird that you're struggling with this thing when you have ADHD. It would be weird if you didn't.

52:44Jessica McCabe: Right. And, you know, in the spirit of ADHD Awareness Month and all that we're understanding now, I think it bears repeating that we are now understanding that ADHD is not a deficit of attention. It is attention that is unpredictable and unstable. Yeah. It takes regulation issues. Yeah. It's, you can't regulate your attention. And so, um, there's somebody that just emailed me that's coming out with an app, I think called rhythm. I haven't looked into it yet. Um, that is specifically designed around the idea that your productivity, your capability is going to fluctuate. And that's especially true if you, uh, if you have a monthly cycle, right?

53:23Like, you know, or you're going through, you know, if you're going through big hormonal changes, like that's going to impact too, because now we understand that hormones impact how your ADHD presents too. So like symptoms will get worse at certain times of the month, potentially, if you have ADHD and maybe different symptoms at different times of the month. So, yeah, that's another thing to take into consideration. There's not only the normal fluctuations that anybody with ADHD experiences, there's also the hormonally related fluctuations in our productivity and our capability, too.

53:52Jessica McCabe: Yes. The interplay between dopamine and estrogen is only just being understood and it is part of the equation for sure. I wanted to circle back. There were a few comments posted from our live audience, some about this topic of finding happiness and others, but I really love this one. Success and happiness to me with my ADHD is like having this powerful stallion that I know how to take care of, ride, accomplish incredible things and have excitement and adventures. I can handle the stallion through rough and challenging moments while not getting bucked off or trampled or left behind in the dust.

54:36Jessica McCabe: And it's still now working to unlearn all the suppressive things that were taught through school and felt like they wanted to teach me to break the spirit of the stallion. I thought that was just a great analogy. Yeah. It's what I haven't heard. I have Dr. Carol Lynch Parcells, who's a great, great educator about ADHD and medications, has a great way that she explains it to parents where she's like, yeah, okay, ADHD, sure, is a superpower. But like Cyclops needs like a visor so that you can control it. Because if not, like he's destroying things and buildings and whatever, right? So he needs a visor so he can harness that.

55:17It reminds me a little bit of that, that idea of it's a stallion, it's powerful. Or Dr. Hallowell's race car engine and bicycle brakes, this idea that your brain can go fast and far and it's powerful and all of these things, but it can be powerful in the wrong direction sometimes. So I love that metaphor.

55:35Jessica McCabe: Yeah. Yeah. It was a beautiful one. Another person wrote in to say it's having close family and friends who understand ADHD so they can understand me and give me more grace, but it's also giving myself more grace, which is a lifelong pursuit, right? Yeah. And this is where I think peer support really comes in because it's a lot easier sometimes to give other people grace than to give yourself grace. But you don't want to be a hypocrite either. So you can only tell somebody, yeah, it makes sense that you keep having to restart your laundry so many times before you're like, I can now say that to myself.

56:13It makes sense that you're having to restart the laundry. You got distracted or you didn't set a timer, whatever it is. Oh, actually, I want to say this. This is the biggest, biggest one that I'm unlearning is this idea that like, because you have the tools to insert, not, you know, to not insert struggle here, you should be able to not struggle. And the thing is, the reason we need these tools to support us is also the reason why using these tools can be hard for us. using anything consistently is hard for somebody with ADHD. So it's okay that you know that setting a timer can help and you forget to set the timer and you're struggling with the thing that the timer can help with, right?

56:51Like that's also part of having ADHD and I'm having to learn that too. Yeah.

56:56Jessica McCabe: That consistency again. I'll share another one that I just really touched me. I would love to be comfortable and feel safe as myself, not just being functional because I've orchestrated my entire life to be functional. I would love to feel safe enough to be not functional and still feel okay. Isn't that just, right? It's absolutely beautiful. Yeah. Can you read that again? Be, feel safe enough to not, to be not functional and what? Um, okay. Now I have to, to be functional and still be okay. I will share, I'll share it with you because I, I zipped past now and we have so many comments that I'm putting this on the board because this is, this is what I'm excited about with this podcast is this is the kind of thing that I want to investigate.

57:52This person is saying what they need. They want to feel safe enough to be not functional and still be okay. Still know that they'll be okay. Like, great. Now I'm going to go find somebody that I can talk to about that because I think that is important. I think being able to have ADHD and struggle in the ways that people with ADHD struggle is maybe part of having a good life with ADHD. And so how can we feel safe enough to do that? And so maybe I talked to somebody about that. So thank you for that lead. I'm going to go put this in the word right now.

58:19Jessica McCabe: Yeah, look, and I'm putting a tool into action right here with the board. And someone, this is a little off, but someone was asking if there's a color-coded system that's going on with your Post-its. No, I just wanted more than one color. I thought about doing a color-coded system. Maybe eventually I'll do a color-coded system. I'm not that organized at the moment. Oh my goodness. I am sorry to say that here we are at the end of our time together, Jessica, But I've so enjoyed this discussion. And I think I would love to circle back on this idea that just came through in that last quote from our reader that feeling safe enough to not be functional and be okay.

59:11Jessica McCabe: I mean, that is really what this whole conversation is about. We are more okay when we know other people are also struggling and that we have each other. And so I think that's why we're here today. Sharing these challenges in discussions helps everyone be a little bit more okay. That's our hope. That's all good. Thank you. And so thank you again for sharing your story. And thank you for everyone who joined us today for sharing your comments and your stories. If you would like to access the resources and replay for today's webinar, you can visit attitudemag.com and search for podcast 626. the slides and recording will be available a few hours after we wrap and if you're listening in replay mode you can just click on the episode description i hope you know that the full library of attitude webinars is available as a podcast it's called the adhd experts podcast available on most streaming platforms okay make sure you don't miss anything by signing up at attitudemag.com slash newsletters.

1:00:30Jessica McCabe: We hope everyone has a very good ADHD awareness month. And we hope to see you again soon. For more Attitude podcast and information on living well with attention deficit, visit attitudemag.com. That's A-D-D-I-T-U-D-E-M-A-G.com.

1:00:58Thank you.