![]() Telling someone to fight something is not effective, it can go on forever in a power struggle. ![]() It’s like telling someone with ADHD not to look at the ceiling (we all looked at the ceiling). And do what you need to do to regulate-as opposed to let it go. Feel the feeling, know it’s more intense, or it might not be felt by other people. And not just acknowledging your feels, but acknowledging the intensity of how strongly you feel them. Bobby sits in the role of “Novice EveryDay-er…Every Day Dude” (which is what it says on his nameplate). You acknowledge how intensely you’re feeling them. What we ADHD folx feel, our level of intensity, is REAL-instead of “it shouldn’t hurt that much,” it’s “that’s extremely frustrating.” Bobby is slurping all this data up, and taking the feels, and feeling them…and that’s what you do. As a therapist you’d never say “it’s not a big deal,” you’re invalidating those feelings. This leads to black and white thinking, which is more than just worth mentioning, it’s the difference between “not getting a snack” to “failure begets failure begets FAILURE…” And this extreme is dismissed so often, people don’t get it. David names that he has a few shame spirals-for work, it’s homelessness, for relationships-it’s abandonment. Isabelle wonders if neurotypical shame spirals go as deep as neurodivergent ones-for example, David’s goes to homelessness, and she notices that neurotypical folx notice how close they got the finish (like getting the brick at the bottom of the pool during swimming lessons), and factor that in, whereas for her it’s the outcome that matters and she goes straight to everyone she loves is going to abandon her and ditch her. ![]() David relies on his awesome neurotypical partner to save for a house by taking what they would pay for a mortgage every month and saving whatever that was on top of their rent (so if their Lego House rent was $10, and they wanted a $30 mortgage, they saved the extra $20 every month). Bobby names things like saving for retirement, saving for a house, paying off debt-the progress is so slow it feels so boring. Neurotypical folx will read that waiting as normal or to be expected. The more you wait, the more you feel like you’re failing. Long term goals are specifically hard for folx with ADHD because of the delay of gratification. How effective is it toward the task? More effective than going to Burger King and not talking or thinking about the paper at all. For example, David venting about his paper to his friend helped him be on task, rather than not being on task and going out to eat at Burger King-it’s still about the paper (it’s still on task). What could I do today that would move me toward that goal? The only question: is it moving toward my goal? If so, it’s effective (or if not, not effective), rather than good or bad. What about a task that doesn’t have a sense of doing it well? You do it or you don’t do it, like earning money, or getting that job, or buying a house? The only thing that’s reinforced are tasks toward goal completion. Episode 032: When can hyperfocus be your friend?
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