Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Sasha Hamdani (on ADHD)

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

Sasha Hamdani (Too Sensitive: Rejection, Resilience, and the Science of Feeling Deeply) is a board-certified psychiatrist and ADHD clinical specialist. Sasha joins the Armchair Expert to discuss the classroom insurrection she started which led to her ADHD diagnosis, how her residency rebuilt the confidence that medical school degraded, and that symptoms known today as ADHD first showed up in the 1700s. Sasha and Dax talk about her beef with diagnostic labels and how often trauma is misdiagnosed as ADHD, how liberating it was to understand the way her brain functions, and neurological reasons why grief is so destabilizing for someone with ADHD. Sasha explains the importance of being able to emotionally regulate before conflict, her hot take on self-diagnosis, and non-stimulant, skills-based approaches that work well to treat ADHD.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert experts on expert. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Monica Mouse. Hi. Today we have Sasha Hamdani on a long time coming. We've been talking about ADHD ad nauseum. I think we've maybe lost listeners over it. But we finally have brought in an expert to either correct, confirm, who knows? Just explore this topic that we are obsessed with.

That's the fun thing about this show. we get to talk about something that we know very little about and then get real answers. It is awesome. Sasha is an MD. She's a board certified psychiatrist, specializing in ADHD, RSD, and emotional regulation. Her books include self-care for people with ADHD. And an upcoming book that comes out in October, look forward to when people start serving pumpkin spice lattes and dressing in Halloween costumes.

PSL. Too sensitive. rejection, resilience, and the science of feeling deeply. Boy, I love this. This is a great episode. Yeah. Please enjoy Sasha Hamdani. This episode of Armchair Expert is presented by Apple TV, the new U.S. home of Formula One.

Starting March 7th, you can watch complete all-access live coverage of every Grand Prix, including practice, qualifying, and sprints all in one place. Watch every race live only on Apple TV. I'm nervous I'm nervous to be too optimistic. I know. But we had a microbiome expert on who has a probiotic that actually is real. Okay.

And I've been on it for like, I think, two weeks. Probably not even. Probably like a week or something. And I was in Detroit and I cheated on my diet. Sure. And I had gluten and sugar. And I didn't have any rash. and my joints didn't hurt.

And I'm like, did it fix my leaky gut and mizolev? That fast? Maybe. I mean, also. It's good. Like, maybe that with that exclusionary diet? Yes. Because I've been gluten for five years because of this.

You have sorry? I don't you think it's the sexiest autoimmune? Oh, it's so good. Like, I'm walking around. I'm like, oh, I can feel like it's cold outside. My husband's like good. Oh, no. How long have you had it or been diagnosed?

with it. So I was diagnosed with psoriasis in fifth grade. Oh, my goodness. Okay. Long time. But it didn't affect my joints until I got out of medical school and I was like, what is this? Why am I elderly? I did my residency in Phoenix and it was warm and nice and I didn't really notice things. And then I moved back to Kansas City where it was cold. I was like, something is wrong with me. It was horrific. And then I was like, okay, well, let me just up Pilates or up something else that's going to help me with this. Right, I must need to do more. Okay. And then I went, I got the full workup.

I also have horrible rashes all over my actual joints. Oh. And then they were like, well, I was like, okay. Yeah. I have to point out, we're all wearing blue. Yeah. And that's really nice. We're wearing basically the same outfit, black pants and a blue top.

And you also both have the most beautiful skin tone and hair tone. We're the same here. Wow. Oh, my God. long-lost twins? You could bridge the divide between Pakistan and India. That's what I'm doing. That's what we're here to do.

When we leave here, that'll be solved. But I am curious because you must experience this bit of dissonance, right, where you've gone to medical school and then things are happening to you, but you're somehow not using the same criteria or it's hard to apply to yourself what you already know, right? And also, I'm a psychiatrist. So anything with the body and like, He like, beats me. Okay, you're from Santa Barbara.

I once lived there. And what part of Santa Barbara did you live in? In Montecito. Okay, so what did Mom and Dad do? You feel guilty, right? We just had a guess who currently lives in Montecito, and he said, Santa Barbara, and I said, Monacito, and he said, yeah. Do you go to that amazing bookstore, godmothers?

Do you know about it? No. What? Maybe it's after your time. I've been gone for a while, though. I've been gone for, like, 18. years. I've moved out. So it's changed a lot. But my mom still lives there. So we're, and I was able to, like, come to the podcast and then we had a sleepover last night. That's how it was hoping.

Like, hoping you got to go to Santa Barbara. And there's a huge ice storm in Kansas City. My flight has already been canceled. Oh, no. Okay, I guess I'll have to go be in Montecina for a couple of days. Oh, my God. Well, go to Godmothers. It's very, very cute. Wait, how do I not? Where is it? It's on a really cute street. There's only that one main street. A parallel to The train tracks? There's State Street. State Street. It's not there.

It's on Lily Avenue. Lily. It's on Lily? Ding to Bing. I know. Lily. It's her middle name. I know.

It's as close to Summerland Beach. That doesn't count. It doesn't. That's not Montecito. Okay. I think it is because we went to lunch in Montecito and it was like 10 minutes away or nine. 10 minutes away could be Carpenteria. Oh, wow.

It could be. Montecito is like. Three blocks long. Yeah. It's like 14 blocks. You guys are so picky. We lived there, I think, is what it is. I guess so.

I think I know. Okay, that's fine. So drive the 10 minutes. We'll see. What did mom and dad do in Santa Barbara? It's a funny story because my mom and dad got married and they were from Pakistan. My dad applies all over the U.S. for a job. Doesn't get anywhere.

The first job that gave him an opening as an engineer was in Santa Barbara. And he's like, sweet. And so we go there. My mom's in training because she is. a pediatrician, so she's still going through a residency, and then... I came out. Yeah. And then we just kind of lived and grew up there.

You didn't grow up there. Nope. It's a weird vortex. Oh, it was weird when I got there from Detroit. I was like, this is a very weird. It's a weird microtty. Please pinpoint the things that you thought were weird, because I have my own specific. So growing up there, it is this weird mix of people that have been there for a million

generations and are just trickled down and they're on level 1,000 of their trust fund. Right. Yeah. They're not really engaged. Yes, and humanity or like it. No concept of work or motivation. So like some people in my high school currently right now, they have the same jobs that they had in high school.

But they're just working until their parent dies and that they can move upstairs. Yeah. Yeah. I'm delighted that we have the same observation because I got there and I said. started meeting. I remember I met this girl at a coffee shop and she was shooting math and she was also very interesting and pretty. And I went to her house and it was this very nice house in Montecito and there were other children of rich kids that were just completely neglected. There's like this whole cadre of rich neglected kids there that I thought was so freaky and weird. It's weird.

I'm so curious. How old you're? I'm 39. I can cut it out. Okay, 39. We're very close in age. Yeah, very, very close. We're the same. Basically the same. But I am 38. I just, I'm sorry. Don't. Yes.

You have to be honest. I have to be honest. I have to be honest. I have to be honest. I have to be honest. I am. I have had a very similar trajectory in that you two were trying to very much hide from your culture. I happen to know this from a post of yours.

I had purple contacts for a while. Oh, I wanted them. I wanted them. You got the violent ones, the color blends. Yes. Yes. Yes. I wanted them. The irony, you guys are both such babes. It's incredible that you would be trying to become.

You're going through that. in your formative years, and you're already feeling othered. Yes. And so you really do whatever. And when I'm saying othered, I mean, from a physical, like in ninth grade, I show up to public school coming from private school. So I didn't really know anybody. And my violent contacts, I have head gear during the day.

Oh, boy. Yeah. Not even nocturnal. We could have taken a fucking break for six hours. Oh, I did. Two periods into that school, I was like, this goes. Yes. You're a survivor if you went to high school with head gear.

No, you can't. You don't make it out. You don't make it out. And I was like, wrong. Let me deal with the palate issues and the overbite. I'll deal with it. Yeah. Yeah.

At a different time. Yeah. That's right. Okay, but you're kind of a vundercind. And you get diagnosed with ADHD at nine years old, which that's a beginning of these diagnoses. Yeah, maybe the uptick in these. That's early. Well, it depends.

Where you were at, probably. Also, gender. For boys, typical age of diagnosis is between five and seven. For women, do you know what it is? 40. 35 years old. 35. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

underage. Usually, they've had their own kids. They're like, this is weird. They go to the doctor, the kid gets diagnosed, and then the mom gets diagnosed. Interesting. Okay, so you do get a diagnosis, and then that's immediately helpful, yeah? In that you get medication that starts working? Yes. I'm hesitating because it's a weird story. Okay, great. Tell us. Okay, so fourth grade. I was pretty boisterous as a kid. Substitute teacher comes along. I create an insurrection in the classroom. I got everyone to stand up on their desk, start chanting. And like, that's horrible. I have kids. I can't imagine treating a teacher or a substitute teacher like that ever. But I was just the person who did that. Within an hour of that happening, the substitute teacher calls my teacher. My teacher calls from a doctor's appointment. She calls my parents and she's like, do something. And so then my parents got me. My mom was a pediatrician. So I got in with a physician. I got diagnosed and I got treated. But it was so stigmatized at that time. They didn't tell me my diagnosis. Oh, interesting.

That's why I feel like I was diagnosed twice because I was on medication, hugely helpful. My parents were like, okay, take this vitamin. And I was like, whoa, this vitamin is working so much. Beats the shit out of Flintstones. Well, I took those too. Oh, I love those. They were so chalky and disgusting.

So terrible. But it's so nostalgic. So I could sit through class. I could pay attention. I wasn't getting in trouble. And school wasn't painful for me. It was never hard for me before, but I was so. board. I was like, I can't sit here and do this. And so it became very manageable. And that kind of

propelled me through this stupid vitamin. And then I did well enough throughout my schooling through high school that I got into a combined undergrad graduate program. So I started medical school at 18. It's like I condensed to a six-year program, right? At University of Missouri, Kansas City? Oh, so my dad went there. He did? You shut up right now. Yes, he did. A shock. He did. He did. Some spooky's happening. Ashok's in the mix here. Really? Yeah, his Sim is in the mix right now.

Oh, the Sim. Okay. He's very proud of us. Yeah, he is. So I went there, and that was the first time I'd been away from my parents. That was the first time I'd been by myself. I'm like, there's so much stuff and freedom and also laundry and all of this other stuff that I've never had to worry about because my mom would do it.

I don't know how to feed myself. Oh, dang. Oh, sorry. Your mom waited on you hand and foot. I did my laundry starting from age like eight. Okay, okay. My mom tried. Could you scream make me a milkshake from the bottom of the stairs and she would make you one?

Now, that's nowadays. Now, you're thinking of the wrong story. I was making a milkshake in basically the middle of the night. Okay. And she was like calling from her room like, stop. There was a blender going and ever was asleep. And she was like, what are you doing? I'm making it.

So I was making it. Okay. So you have some things in a little place. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I probably could yell. Did my milk jacket? My mom would be like, yeah. Amazing.

She did try to instill skills. And I just was uninterested. In high school, I was playing sports and I was doing all this other stuff. And if you had told me, your laundry's not going to get done, I'd be like, okay, I'll just wear my park into school. It's fine. I don't care about that stuff. And I still kind of don't care about that stuff.

There was a lot going on. And I went from being one of the smart kids in my school to all of a sudden being quite literally the bottom of my class. When I realized something was wrong and I brought it up to my parents is I did this neuro test. So neuro anatomy. And I stayed up, really tried to focus. And I was like, I know this brain inside out.

It was really interesting to me and it was visual. And I was like, I got this. This is so easy. Go into the test. I'm like, this is amazing. He's like, I'm getting all of them. This is perfect. I'm the first one out of that test.

And then they had this thing where they would like post your grades with your ID number. So like the next day I'm like showing up. I'm still looking for my ID number. And you're looking at all of these grades and you're like 90, 80, whatever. And I was like, there is some loser who got a 32. And I was like, well, that's me. What happened? Yeah.

What a disconnect? I didn't flip over the test. Oh, oh. Oh, you just did half of the test. I got 100%. I didn't flip it over. Okay, you'd think the professor. Oh, you would think.

I went and I was like, please, this is going to break my self-esteem. And I was like, I'll be on the other side of the room. You can give it to me orally. Just read me the questions. I will tell you the answers. The guy was like, you're either going to learn from this or you're not. And I was like, okay, well, I guess I'm not. So I remember telling my parents, they're like, well, are you taking your vitamin?

I was like, respectfully, I don't even know where that is. I don't know what you're talking about. I mean, you still thought it was a vitamin and you're in college. It was a vitamin. Okay, so I have a little beef with your parents. There's an ongoing beef. You also could have been told at nine years old. This notion that there's all these things we can't tell kids is so silly.

I don't understand why. It was a different time, though. So maybe. It was terribly different. I mean, you guys are pretty young. No, no, no. Even like when my brother was little, which is eight years below me, ADD was if you have that, you're problematic. Sure, but there's no reason that the child couldn't understand that they have ADHD and explain what limitations and what other things.

things are going to be coming their way so they have an expectation and some tolerance. They can understand that. I think that could have happened. But I also think, I'd have thought about this a ton since I'm a parent now. How would I have handled that differently? In that time, it was so stigmatized. There was a kid who had ADHD a couple grades above me in that private school. And that kid got expelled for putting fireworks in a toilet.

And they were like, this kid is nothing. He's broke. We don't know what to do with him. He can't be at school anymore. and all the room parents were talking about it. I was just very highly aware of this. And then I was also the only brown kid in this sea of white children. I already felt weird.

So I think my parents probably were doing at that point what they thought was about they were trying to intervene. They think they're protecting you. Yes. But I don't think lack of information is ever protection personally. Not wrong. They redeem themselves big because I'll tell you what they did that was correct. So after that, so I'm like, yeah, I don't know where my vitamin is. Next topic.

And they're like, okay, heads up. This vitamin is actually ADHD medication. You have ADHD. I was like, no, I don't. I've been medicated against my will. I feel really angry about deceived. Yes. And so I was like, let's just start over.

So then I really tried to apply myself in school. I would wake up at 5.30 in the morning. I would start studying. I would study for like 12 hours a day. I'd be so into it that I would get into periods where I was like, I should probably go eat. And I was like, no, no, no, I got to finish this chapter. I was just trashing my body to get those results. And I took another exam. And after my best efforts, I still got a 60%. Why? Because I was so tired the day before the test and so run down that I was

foggy. And I couldn't think at that time. And I was like, previously, when I was on this vitamin, I never had those problems. I don't understand what's happening. And so then my dad was like, Listen, you might make it through medical school. Just come home. Who cares? Let's learn about your brain. He brings me back to California and we go to library, straight up old school library, pulling out textbooks.

Both of us were just sitting on the floor. He is reading textbooks about ADHD and he's like, this sounds like you. I'm like, that does sound like me. And so we learned so much and I thought it was handled in such a curious and open way. Him and my mom both were like, we wish that we had that verbiage to tell you. We didn't know.

And you were under our care for so long. We didn't know what a fracturing there would be when you left and you were out of that environment. So then, truly, I had to like scrape and clawed to get out of that hole. But eventually I tried a bunch of different medications and some of them wouldn't let me eat and some of them wouldn't let me sleep. There were some. There were a disaster.

But then it was a combination of finding a good medication and finding the right therapeutic things. And I don't think I truly figured it out until I got into residency. So after med school, I was just surrounded by psychiatrists and therapists. This is my happy place. Yeah. This is great. Because med school, it was so hard.

The entirety of med school, it was like all of my attendings. I don't know whether I was already pegged as a problem. But I had an episode where there was an attending who came to my office. I didn't do very well on a test. And he had been kind of rough on me the whole time. But he's like, don't worry about it. you know what we're going to do? And we have these little cubicle offices.

And he just brings like a box with them. And he starts packing up my office. And he's like, you could just go home. You came here for a reason. Maybe you'll meet your husband here. And I was like, oh, my God. And I was so, especially now as a mom of a girl, I was like, if anyone spoke to my girl like that, I would be feral.

In that moment, you're so embarrassed and you're so confused. Like, why is someone who's supposed to be helping me through my educational steps doing this? You just don't do anything. And so I just carried that. Yeah. But then I feel like residency just reversed all of that because I felt traumatized in med school. And then in residency, all those pieces got rebuilt.

And they were like, this is what you're good at. Lead with that. And then we'll work on the back end. Okay. So you've become specialized in ADHD. I'm taking off my shoes. Oh, please. Yeah, do it.

You can dump the socks too, whatever you want. No one's ready for that. Okay. I would love to know the historical understanding. of ADHD as a condition. I'd love to start with when maybe first enters the DSM or when does it appear. And what did we think it was then? And how would we now define it today?

So the problem with that is it has had such an evolving course and it has had so many different names. When it was first notice, it was in the 1700s. We had a patient who was extremely restless. And that's what we're describing now as fidgeting or a sign of like that physical impulsivity. And then as it moved on, it got the name. a hyperkinetic condition. That was an interesting kind of segue

because it really dialed down on the hyperactive component. Then as we progressed, we didn't get into formal ADD territory, which is not called anymore, until the 80s, I believe. That's when I was introduced to this concept. It was ADD.

ADD, yeah, and that's what I was diagnosed with initially. That came later. And then just recently in the DSM-5, I got beef with the DSM-5, by the way. There was a lot of beef to be had with the DSM-O. in general. So now what our standing diagnosis is, is ADHD is a tension deficit hyperactivity disorder. It's broken into three subtypes. So if you have ADHD, it's always called ADHD, but you can have the inattentive presentation, you can have the hyperactive presentation, or you can have the

combined type, which is kind of like a combination of both. A huge problem is people sometimes are like, I can't have ADHD because I'm not hyperactive because it's in the name. Right. Yeah, I don't like that. It's too wide of an umbrella, we would say, maybe. It's too wide, but it's also. too narrow. It focuses so, so, so stringently on just the focus components and it doesn't touch at all on other areas of regulation. Because I think ADHD at its base, it's a dopamine dysregulation error. So you have dopamine dysregulation when it comes to attention. You have dopamine dysregulation when it comes to impulsivity. You have dopamine dysregulation with sleep, with appetite, with emotions. All of that is so huge. But we never really touch on it. With the

emotional side of things in particular, if we don't change that with ADHD, this is why people are going to get misdiagnosed with anxiety and depression for a million billion years. Yeah. I guess currently, though, it is diagnosed through symptoms. Yeah? You're reporting symptoms. Yeah. It fulfills enough criteria, we would say you have it.

My curiosity is, are we approaching or do you believe we'll get to a point where there will be different diagnostic tools, DNA markers where we'll go, oh, we see this clung. pumping of this here? Would it be fMRI brain scam where we would see something that would let us know? Is there going to be a day where we can read the actual percentages of neurotransmitters and say, oh, you have this exact cocktail that ends up to this? Like, are we approaching any kind of diagnostic tool that's not just symptom related? No. Okay. Let me tell you why on all of those fronts. I think about that all the time. If there was something tangible, we could grab onto and check a level of something, that would be amazing. So with the levels of dopamine, dopamine,

serotonin, you can usually check those. There are a lot of things floating around with like a urine test where you pee and then they check your levels. The reason why those are incredibly unreliable is because sometimes it's not truly that you don't have enough dopamine. It's just not present in the spot where you needed to be at the right time. It's a dysregulation. So what happens if I come to you and I'm like, okay, I think I have it. What do you ask? So there's a couple of things. The thing that makes a good ADHD diagnostic interview is that not only are you checking for symptoms, but you are simultaneously ruling out other things. And I think that's what makes it such a complicated thing to do. Because I have patients who have come in and they're like,

I went online for an assessment and it says I definitely have it. And I'm like, what? And I understand the thing about ADHD that I know because I have it, when you are right in the middle of trying to navigate a brain that feels so overly chaotic for you. You are willing to point yourself in any direction to fix it. Yes, that's right. You're desperate. That population is a vulnerable population because they are the people desperate to want help. So I understand why people are taking tests online. It's just not a super valid test because it's capturing you in a very subjective manner. It's not giving good timelines. It's not ruling out any other things. So it's giving this very skewed kind of thing with ADHD. When you're looking at the criteria,

you're screening for both the inattentive symptoms, the hyperactive symptoms, and then obviously you'll get if it's combined from both of those. You want to check timeline, see if these symptoms presented before 12. When you're assessing for an adult, that can get tricky because if you're asking them to recall retroactive data, that's hard. A lot of people don't remember. And a lot of people have spent so much time during their childhood where their parents have masked, covered up, fixed kind of symptomology, that's hard to assess. So that's difficult. You have to really dig back to get good criteria.

And then when you're asking questions, like for example, with the inattentiveness, you're asking, is it hard to stay engaged with a task? Do you feel like it's difficulty to organize things? Do you feel like you get distracted halfway through the conversation? You're asking things about focus and focus adjacent topics, but you also have to ask, is this present during a depressive episode? Is this present when there's some... substances involved. Did you notice this before or after you got on thyroid medication? You're asking all of these things while you're doing a simultaneous screening for other things. So it becomes

pretty complicated. It's so dynamic. You're doing a comprehensive medical rule out. It's confusing from a psychiatric perspective. Like, is this bipolar? Is this ADHD? Is this depression? Is this anxiety? Is this trauma? There are all things that overlap really beautifully and can mimic it. you need to be able to kind of pull from the diagnosis, what the patient is saying, ask the right questions to get to where you're going. And I'll tell you, a lot of people come to me, a hundred percent dead set. I have ADHD. And by the time we're done with the interview, it's like, no, you didn't. I mean, this was trauma. This is what was causing it. Yeah. And so it takes someone who's been trained to be able to discern that. Over a protracted period of time as well, I would imagine. This isn't something you're doing in five

minutes. You really need to learn quite a bit before you're there. And then we probably get into the other issue, which is, I'm sure it is a spectrum condition. So what do we say that 79% of these symptoms equals it or 71% or whatever? You know, when is it a disorder? When are you one deviation below a disorder? You could still be suffering a lot of the symptoms before you're chronically in this. Yeah, formally or pathologically in this condition. And it doesn't mean that's irrelevant that you're just a step before it. So my great curiosity is, so what are the inattentive symptoms? And I also want to talk about how it manifests differently in men and women and boys and girls. To your point, my hunch is the DSM was originally just assembled with the boy symptoms. And so I imagine they

really present differently in males and females. So how do they? And what are those symptoms? So with inattentive, you're looking at difficulty with starting a task, staying engaged in a task completing tasks, having difficulty with disorganization. You're looking at issues with executive function, the skills that are required for processing and getting a goal done, goal-oriented behaviors done. Those are kind of more the inattentive symptomology. Hyperactive, you're thinking more like physical and verbal impulsivity. These are the kids and adults who have difficulty staying in their chair. They're constantly fidgeting. They're blurting out things. They're Interrupting.

Interrupting. Ding, ding, ding. Also, we should say Dax is looking for a diagnosis by the end of this. Can I just say you one second how I got interested? You must know Gabor Mote.

Yeah. I'm walking him to his car. And he says to me, have you ever been diagnosed with ADHD? And I just went, that's a weird thing for him to say and he's an expert on it. So I just went like,

oh, that's really interesting. He said that. And then I too, my algorithm became like everyone else's and I start seeing these different things. I interview a friend who's been diagnosed since he was a kid and he tells me that ADHD folks have an outsized sense of justice.

And I'm like, if that, in fact, is one, I definitely suffer. So, you know, I'm just not oblivious to a lot of these things do sound a lot like me. Here's the deal. I am not going to diagnose you. Yeah, I don't want you to. I'm actually not looking for that. I don't care if I do or I don't have it. Well, you should.

I think that there is nothing more liberating than understanding your brain. You deserve to have a good diagnosis and to know how your brain works. When I went from not knowing what was going on and then I sat with my dad and then we actually went back to a physician and he explained like these are the things that are going on in your brain and this is why you might have difficulty with this. I gave myself so much, number one, grace about things that I beat myself up about for years and years. Right, right. The self-flagellation, which again is, again, is I understand one of the conditions. Emotional regulation needs to be as part of that. For example, so my dad asked last year. In April 20th. I'm sorry. We found out he had lung cancer.

We found out he had this spot. And they were like, it's annoying. But we'll get it treated, whatever. So we go, we get a treated. He goes through the chemo. He goes through radiation. He calls me one day and he's like, I just don't feel great. So I abort a flight.

I go over. I'm like, you look awful. I take him to the hospital. Everyone's like, no, we can't do a pet scan. It's too soon. I was like, do it. We don't care if insurance doesn't cover it. Something's wrong.

It was everywhere. And he died 13 days later. What? 13 days. Oh my God. 13 days. But what I noticed, I think this is probably why I feel so passionately about the emotional regulation part is that the colliding of grief and ADHD was so destabilizing for me. It was like my brain exploded.

The brain fog was so bad. And grief horrific for everybody. But I think for someone with ADHD who's experiencing that emotional dysregulation already, I had no idea how I was ever going to get through coping with those big emotions. I was like, this is too much for my brain. I can't parent. I can't get through a workday and see these patients without just losing it. So when I was going through all of that and I had a really tough time with that, because I knew I had ADHD. I mean, it was hard because I was like, this is tremendous.

I felt like I was completely broken down and starting from scratch. I was like, because I know how my brain works, I need to create systems that are very low lift for me right now and find a way to rebuild that way. If I didn't have a diagnosis or an understanding of my brain like, this actually makes sense to me or this is what I believe is going on, I think I would have just kept trying to do what everyone else told me to do, which didn't work. Yeah. Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare. Thank you to our presenting sponsor, Apple TV, the new U.S. home of Formula One. You can now watch complete all-access, live coverage of every Grand Prix, including practice, qualifying, and sprints all in one place. I will be consuming all of those things, Monica.

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I was just like, my brain is so loud. I wanted to be quiet right now. Yeah, it's in soft purple. I wanted to be quiet. Yes. And I was just like, what can I do? I knew at that point it was my emotional regulation. And I was looking for a way to medicate this.

Yes. Yes. You needed relief. Yeah. And I was like, that isn't something that I can medicate. My brain is having a really hard time with things that are really big. And so I need to find safety to get through these kind of moments. And my husband, his mom passed because of brain cancer years before.

So he was really well first and supported all of us through it. He kind of saw what I needed and helped me through that moment. But I think if I didn't know about ADHD, I would have ended up in a really weird spot. Yeah. Yeah. I believe that. That makes a lot of sense. Okay, now back to the male-female differences.

And my hunch was that the original criteria was probably just addressing the boy issues. Yeah. And you thought you agreed. So how did they express differently? Going back to like boys getting diagnosed way earlier than females. Typically, boys present with more of the hyperactive symptomology. So they're the ones who are causing problems in the classroom. They are disruptive.

They're getting up in the class. They're bothering others. Which is probably why you got diagnosed early because you were behaving like that. Because of the coup. Like a boy. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think about that a lot and I'm like, I'm actually pretty grateful for that presentation because it got picked up. But girls, on the other hand, are mostly inattentive. They're like the daydreamers that are spacing out in class and they're doodling. So those girls are pleasures to have in class. They're not bothering anybody. They're getting passed along. And then what happens is as the external pressures rise and as they're doing harder things, as they're doing more adult things, like getting into relationships. or starting families, your needs exponentially increase and what is demanded of you increases

and you just aren't able to cope anymore. And then it feels very much like a breaking point. Two other reasons that people assign female at birth don't get diagnosed. Number one is the hormonal part of all of this. When women are going through hormonal shifts, when your estrogen is dropping, your dopamine drops also, your symptoms get worse. now these women or girls who are going through their first periods or things like that, their ADHD symptoms are 10 out of 10, horrible.

And they're going through all of these attentional issues. They're also going through emotional dysregulation because they're like, what do I do? My dopamine's all off. And that's when they're like, she's bitch you because of her period. Right. Oh, you want your period? Well, yeah, I saw post of years that was like 30% PMS symptoms for ADHD girls

versus 10% for the general pop. It's significant. Wait, really? You feel at 30% more? Is that what you're saying? It's more common. PMDD is significantly more common in the ADHD population. It sucks because you're in a situation where you're like, okay, well, my mood is already

garbage around that time before my period. But now I can't focus and I can't do the things I want to do. And it's even harder for me to emotionally deal with it. Like, that doesn't seem fair. So that's another huge one. And then the last one is quite literally just, I'm not trying to get political here, or it's not even political, but there is a societal difference in expectations for females. So females are expected to kind of tow the line and mask. So what is acceptable for a boy to be doing class is very unacceptable for a girl.

So the girl now learns to hide that behavior. So then what happens is that this high achieving, very capable student or child goes to. through life, they are now getting applauded for masking their stuff. And so when at times it becomes overwhelming and they can't, people are like, what's wrong with you? Why are you so emotional? What's happening? Why are things falling apart? Why are you breaking down at work? It feels like such a huge shift in their baseline functioning. But really, they're just busting their ass trying to feel and look normal. Yeah. Okay, I want to ask if these things I've heard, anecdotally or around the digital campfire are, in fact, people ADHD over index in.

So there's a rejection. Sensitive dysphoria? Yeah, tell me about that. I would love to tell you about that. Yeah. So I've become obsessed with that. Since my dad was sick, I mean, I was just like, what's happening? Why am I so sensitive to certain things?

So rejection-sensitive dysphoria is the very, very real emotional, sometimes physical pain that comes from real or perceived rejection or criticism. So someone criticizes you or rejects you or you think that that's happening. And all of a sudden, you can't stop thinking about it. You're beating yourself up about it. No one likes getting rejected. That's not it. I have told my husband, it is like someone sucked the air out of my lungs.

It feels that significant to me. Rejection sensitive is great. I think it's so important to recognize and to know about because it's so hard for the person who's experiencing. It's also so hard for the people around that person. Oh, yeah. The relationships. That's the tiptoe around them.

Oh, my God. So when my husband and I get into fights, I'm so sensitive that if I know we're kind of beefing with each other, he'll look at me and I will just start crying and then I will chase him around the house and I'm like, and another thing, and another thing is like, chill out because I feel like this urgency that I have to resolve this so that this feeling goes away. This is the email, right?

Yes. So what we do? I'm not an effective communicator when I'm in that state. I'm emotional and I'm angry and I'm scared and I'm sad and all of the things all at once and it's too much right in that moment. So what I do is I literally write an email and I draft it and I draft it and usually take three or four passes because I'm like that's not what I want to say. So already by the end of it I've come down pretty significantly. You've regulated a bit. Yeah, because I've had this like safe place, the safety of my laptop. I'm like, this is my happy place. I can write this down and I can take as many tries as I want to make it sound the way I want. Then I send it off to him. And we have a whole folder of this. Usually I'll send him a text message. I'm like, I send you something.

He'll read it. And then he will think about it and process it. And usually by that time, I'm like, I'm going to just go somewhere else. Like, I'll go sit in my closet or I'll go sit in the car or I'll go and hang out with the kids. I don't want to be around him because I'm looking for as he's really. reading it, what his face is doing. And so then what he'll do is he'll respond to it and he'll make pizza rolls. And then he'll put it out and then we'll have like a fun snack and we'll talk about it and then we'll be done. And it's the best system we've ever had. I loved reading that

because I guess my knee jerk, this exists in my relationship. And my knee jerk is we are good enough communicators and we are smart enough and we've all done enough work that we can sit down and talk about this. That's where I come from. It feels like a failure that we would have to be texting each other or emailing. But then hearing you say that, I was like, I also must admit, it does go smoother if those couple steps happen before we confront something verbally. I'm happy to be relieved of the shame of us failing and being great at talking immediately, I guess. I don't know how people do talk immediately. Whether it's ADHD or not, I think time is kind of important. Time and giving yourself that space to regulate before you have.

come into and like try to resolve the situation because otherwise this is so messed up. But I think I'm realizing now that if I come off of an argument and I want to address it right away, I want to show him how hurt I feel and how badly that hurt. And it's not about resolving it. Exactly. It's about wallowing in it. And then I get angrier and madder. I mean, it's pause when agitated.

It's the whole thing. Yeah. How about this inflated sense of justice or this inflated discomfort within justice? So it's not a clinical term. You see it a lot in autism as well. But it has to do with like rigidity, being very rigid and having a set expectation in your brain and then having it not come to fruition in the way that you planned. I think that's kind of where it stems from.

And so they're looking at like a huge gamut of presentations of ADHD. So there's some people who in order to maintain their ADHD, they have become very rigid about things. They have built these structures for themselves where it's like, this is how It has to be because this is how I can function. Right. That's where I can have compassion for it is you're very easily dysregulated. You somehow learn this about yourself, whether you're conscious of it or not.

And yes, the more things that you can map out and plan out and control, the less chance you'll have at dysregulation. So I'm sympathetic to it. My thing is like the airport. All my character defects come out at the airport because I'm being asked to cooperate with the TSA to do things that I think are illogical or make no sense. I'm powerless. People are taking photos of us.

I don't like that. They might be taking pictures of my kids. This big storm of things. And I do a pretty effective job of controlling my day, you know, normally. And so, yes, I have learned that before we leave to the airport for the best outcome, I have to have that expectation. That helps me enormously to just go like, okay, we're going to get there. And some guys going to tell you to hold your pants up and also hold your hands over

your head at the same time, which you know is impossible. People are going to take pictures. They're curious. Get over that. But if I walk in ill-prepared or unprepared for what's going to happen, that's when some massive dysregulation happens pretty quickly. Yeah, we're all trying to get by. There are some brains that are just more sensitive to these things than others. Do you ever spend any of your time or focus thinking about the evolutionary aspect of it? I do wonder if this would even be a, quote, condition without the... the incredible amount of stimulation. What do you think about that? There's been some thought about if we're looking at ADHD just from evolutionary perspective and we're looking at hunters versus

gathers. ADHC people are the people who are going off and they're hunting and they're doing these things that involve risk and adaptation and impulsivity to some degree. Novelty seeking. Yeah. And they're great at that. And now we're putting that same group of people that would thrive in that environment in a new environment. And I don't necessarily, think it is, well, maybe it is due to all the stimulation, but I think it is just society adapts and evolves based on what its needs are. And the needs are, there is just a much larger neurotypical population. And so the world is built for a neurotypical. Now you're expecting this population of people whose brains are wired differently to occupy space in a world that just

wasn't built for them. And a really easy example of that is for ADHD, a lot of people have delayed melatonin onset. So their brains don't feel a normal. I feel sleepy at 10 and then I'm going to wake up at 7. There's are like, I want to go to sleep at 1 and I would love to wake up at 10 a.m. But that's not where society runs. You've missed three hours of meetings already. Yeah.

You're right. There was a lot of different outlets for a lot of different types of brains before. But we have really homogenized the work experience, which is you go to a box, you sit in a chair, you do this thing. There's not like, oh yeah, why don't you go explain? floor over that other peak. We'll weave the baskets. We're more apt to sit here and weave these baskets. You know, everyone has a bit of an outlet. Now it's like, no, no, everyone's supposed to wake up at six. Everyone's supposed to do this and that. So you had funneling us all into the same thing. There's going to be a lot of tension there. I think it's tough because you are expecting

people as you're growing up to function and learn skills in an environment that's not built for them. So you're already kind of starting off at a deficit. And then, you know, you hit adulthood and they're like, okay, fit for yourself. You haven't really had time to build good skills unless you've actually really dialed down understood ADHD, learn how to make accommodations for yourself. It's kind of like you're going through this environment that you never really figured out with schooling. You never really grabbed hold of it. And then now you're an adult and you have to figure out what to do with it. But you don't have any of those foundational skills sets. What do you think about the fact that so many people, especially from social media and stuff,

are self-diagnosing? I have a problem with that. And this comes up a lot on the show. That's partly what we were so excited to have you. But I think it's a problem that so many people are walking around saying, I have ADHD when they don't know if they have it or they think they have it based on what they've seen. Because for me, I'm like, well, what about the people who really have it? To me, that takes away from, it is something happening in your brain. A neurodevelopmental condition.

Right. What are your thoughts on that? So I kind of have a hot take on that. And my hot take is that I think self-diagnosis is actually good to a point. And the reason for that, and I'll tell you what the point is too, I think that it is incredibly valid to have someone learn about what is happening in their brain, find things out on social media or in books or in literature or research that looks like them, and grab hold to that and start learning verbiage of how to describe their own internal environment.

I think that's a wonderful thing, and I think that that can be a wonderful stepping stone to accessing care. And I know that's not an accessible step for a lot of people, but that next step. I have problems with it when it moves from self-diagnosis to the medication standpoint. That's really where I start to draw the line because when you start trying to treat yourself, you haven't done the exclusionary kind of thing to figure out what else is going on. And medications of any type, they're not without risk. You're doing things that could potentially impact other things in big ways. So if you think you have ADHD and you want to learn behavioral strategies that help an ADHD brain, go forward, man.

My hunch, Monica, is that your issue is much more the person who says, I have ADHD, so deal with this. Using it as an excuse, I don't think you would ever have a problem with someone going. I think I have ADHD. So, wow, I should explore these tools that have been shown to work really well with ADHD. Let me try them. Great. These are helping. I think your fear is probably more like, I proclaimed I'm this and you have to lower your expectations of me now. Yeah, exactly. Obviously, if someone's like, oh, I think I have it, I'm going to do research and learn about it and figure out how to help myself. That's amazing. That's what I would want for everyone. But that to me is not what's happening. I think people are saying, I have it. And so I'm late. And I think the reason I don't have an issue with it is I come from a background where alcoholic self-diagnose. That is the full premise. No one can. tell you're an alcoholic. You have to tell yourself, you're an alcoholic. And then you have

these steps at your disposal if you want to try this. And no one's declaring, I'm an alcoholic. So deal with the fact I didn't come to work. So for me, the association with the self-diagnosis is very positive. I think you're right. If you're using ADHD as an excuse, and if you're saying, I can't do this and you don't have a formal diagnosis, for someone who does have ADHD, that can be extremely irritating. And I've been guilty of that where people have, said that and I'm like, you don't know what to slyke. You can't possibly know like I do. At the end of the day, I have no way of knowing that.

I have no way of knowing what's going on in their brain. Yeah, you don't know. What their dysfunction is. I don't know. So I've tried to peel that back and figure out and look at, why is this bothering me so much? But using self-diagnosis as a tool to get steps to get a formal diagnosis or get more access to knowledge about things and research about

things so you can learn about your internal environment. I think that there is a huge space for lived experience and talking about that. Yeah, your fear is someone who will like, I am ADHD, I have time blindness. Don't ever expect me to be on time. Yeah, and that happens. And it's like, guys, I don't want to be on time either. But I think it should be more like, I have ADHD. Yeah, I think I relate to this time blindness thing.

What are the three best tools? Yes. Because I know I do have to be on time places. We all have stuff and we have to figure out how to live in this world. You know, we're not islands. That's why I'm going to just quickly say, Neutypical is bullshit as well. It's the same reason the ESM is fucked up

because it has some premise of normal, which simply doesn't exist. There might be eight people who don't have something going on. There's zero people. We're all variable. And I think the neurodivergent terminology, it was like a psychological term that came out in the 90s. And it was really this umbrella term

to talk about autism and ADHD and all of these other things. And the neurotypical was just kind of like a byproduct. What's the opposite of this? Yeah, DOSM has problems. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do stimulants work? Why is that an effective medication? This is a weird area of medicine because it's not this cut and dried mechanism.

So basically, where a majority of that deficit happens is that frontal lobe. So directly underneath your forehead, that's where all that executive function judgment processing happens. So what a stimulant does from just like a very rudimentary perspective, if your brain has a million different things going on, a million different times, because of that underlying dopamine and noraphenephyrant dysregulation, so everything is just floating by it, an incredible space. You can take a stimulant, a riddle and derivative,

something in that family, and it actually works a little bit counterintuitively because it slows things down. And really, it's not that it's slowing things down. It just speeds everything up to match what's going on with your brain. Oh. It, like, synchronizes it. almost. Yeah, it is very counterintuitive. I very much feel like I would benefit, but I also know I

can't be on that. Oh my God, there's so many better things than being on a stimulant. Yeah. Oh, tell me. Okay, so here's the deal. If you're treating ADHD, you could do it behaviorally or you could do it medicinally, right? And with medicine, for ADHD, they're stimulants and they're non-stimulants. And so the stimulants are what everyone thinks of, and they're our gold standard right now, because they work well, they work reliably. And you could tell pretty quickly, is this going to work or is this not going to work? Those are things like adder all derivatives,

Ritalin derivatives, those are all part of that class. But for a lot of people with ADHD, stimulants, even the long-acting ones, they'll give you like a six-to-eight-hour coverage. But ADHD exists outside of that six-to-eight hours. So then it's like, what are we doing for the rest of that? So non-stimulants, a lot of them give you a 24-hour coverage. For the great majority,

they either fall under the category of an antidepressant or a blood pressure medication or some other class. Interesting. And you are getting additional benefits. So for those people who have ADHD, who are also anxious, here's a medication that's going to help with ADHD. Well, it is a blood pressure medication. So there's long-acting formulations of blood pressure medications that can help with anxiety and ADHD. Or you're doing an antidepressant, which is going to help with depression and anxiety and ADHD. or you can do something long acting that people take for shift work disorder.

So it really depends on what you need and what you're looking for and what else is happening at the same time. But for a lot of people, when they're coming to the doctor, they're assuming if I have ADHD, I need to be on a stimulant, I need to be on five ants, I need to be on AdRol, I need to be on Ritalin. And 90% of the time, that's not the direction we're starting at. Because I always tell people, we need to build skills. So we need to work on that.

If that's not possible, because your ADHD is disregulating everything, we need to give a medication that's going to give 24-hour coverage as much as possible so that you have a chance to kind of see and build. There's some people who just that diagnosis immediately lifts them. It gives them the permission to study and make changes and do those things that they don't need to be on medication. So it's not like an absolute you have to be on medication to treat your ADHD. But there are a lot of people that in order to build and cement those habits, they need to be on medication.

And that's also incredibly valid. It just depends on how your brain is wired. So your first book, Self Care for People with ADHD, you have over 100 tips. It's fast moving. It's for an ADHD brain to read this book. Just little page long blips. I can tell you my favorite one in that book. And it's do a headstand.

That's not the one that's going to work the best or anything. It's just the weirdest one. But there is something about that change. change. One, you're doing something weird. How I figure this out is when I was in medical school I was studying for organic chemistry. It was just so boring to me. I was like, I can't do this anymore. My mom would be like, just do something to change your position or just do something to distract yourself a little bit. And it was that inversion of a headson. That's hilarious, not necessarily the most impactful, but that's one. If you're bored and in the middle of

stuff. Another one, I think that is important. So the book is broken up into separate areas and it breaks it down in terms of emotional self-care, physical self-care, professional self-care, all of those other things. I think if I were to pick from those, because some of that book is also things like giving yourself permission to grieve if you haven't gotten a diagnosis. Because a lot of these people are coming to a diagnosis late in life. I'm done with a career portion of my life. I'm done with a child-waring portion. I missed on so much. And now I'm having to grieve this diagnosis. I bet there's a feeling of, oh, man, I could have blank, which is heartbreaking. That's hard. But, you know, what I tell patients who are in that position is that this whole

time, you have been building skills, you have been building structures, you have had this brain this whole time. And so now it's what you do with it. And it's what you make of it with this new opportunity. And so you wouldn't have built those skills that you needed if things were different potentially. Another very, very important one is just making time for physical activity. I feel like such a hypocrite because I hate exercise. I think it sucks. It's so boring and it's so hard for me to motivate myself,

but it truly does make my brain work better. Let's talk about the forthcoming book. Yeah. That will be out. That's called currently. Too sensitive. Rejection, resilience, and the science of feeling deeply. I like this.

So this is exclusively ADHD? Because this feels like this could encompass more than just ADHD. No. It's not. exclusively. But, you know, the thing about, like, we were talking about rejection-sensitive dysphoria, almost 100% of people with ADHD have rejection. I feel like I have ADHD now. I also have hypocondria. The irony of all this would be, yeah. I know that if I have had it. Don't self-diagnose.

No, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. But I do have that. So the concept of rejection-sensitive dysphoria, I started writing this book when I was all disregulated with my dad. It came about during that time, and I was like, this is the worst part of my ADHD, my emotional dysregulation. This is the thing that will bring me to my knees every time. If I can't focus or if I can't do things, I'll make a hack around it or I'll delegate. I can't delegate someone to take care of my emotions. And so I'm like, there has to be a better way to think about this and learn about it and talk about it. And I think that's why I have so much beef with the DSM. By the way, Europe changed their criteria in 2019 to include emotional dysregulation as part of a core

component. We haven't. And so I look at it like, say your diabetes. so bad that you started to lose your vision. Now, instead of someone being like, oh, okay, well, let's fix your diabetes. They're like, no, no, okay, let's just give you glasses. Let's treat anxiety and depression instead of treating the underlying diabetes. The underlying diabetes is ADHD and the anxiety and the depression and the rejection sensitivity and the emotional dysregulation. That's what's causing the vision loss.

Right. It's a symptom, not the cause. Yeah, it's a core part of it. It's not a separate diagnosis. And so if we don't get on top of this, what happens, and I've seen it so many times, is that for women in particular, I'm seeing women who are on antidepressant number six or seven. They're coming to me and they're like, I don't know what to do anymore. I think I have ADHD.

Did you talk to someone about this? Yes. I've talked to my doctor for years. What did they say? First thing that they're going to hear is they're going to say, well, you're doing too, well, there's no way you could have ADHD. The second thing they're going to hear is, no, it's anxiety and depression. Let's treat that first.

The third thing they're going to hear is after there's six or seven antidepressants in, then they're going to say, listen, these antidepressants aren't working. Can I please look into ADHD? They're going to be like, we can't treat ADHD until your anxiety and depression are clear. These people aren't getting help, and it's because emotional dysregulation isn't in the criteria. I have a loved one who has come to this late in life, and it's so fucking impressive because they've done it without any help on their own. but they said to me, I finally realized that I'm processing everything different than everyone

else around me. And I'm realizing that these really crazed states I am going through are that thing. Yeah. And it has not fixed it, but it has helped me go, oh, that thing's happening. And no one else around you is really experiencing it. So if I pop off now at work or try to let everyone know, A, they don't care. because they're not experiencing it. And this is without any help from anybody. Just his ability to go, oh, that thing's happening. It's incredibly powerful. It really, I feel like, takes a lot of the heft of it

away. And it probably gives you a little bit more agency. The way that this book is set up, the first part of it is truly just the science behind. And a lot of the evolutionary perspective and just like the history of it, how it came about, the neurobiology, what is actually happening, what areas of the brain are being triggered, that amygdala is being hyperactive because it's assessing threats all the time, even though it's not appropriate. And then the second part of the book is how deeply do you feel? So it's actually an assessment where you can actually walk through and be like, is this me? Where do I fall? It's broken down into like, you're probably in a spot where emotional sensitivity isn't a huge issue. You should read this if it applies to other people

you love so you have better understanding. Or this probably does apply to you. Maybe it's not all the time. Or this is probably you. This is probably something that's pretty significant, but you haven't had really all that much verbiage for it because we don't talk about it. And then it goes into the tools you use. There's just 12 tools that you use. And then the last part of the book, which is my favorite, are real world examples of how you get triggered. So it's a quote. And then it is what's happening in your brain and then how you get out of that moment. So when I was researching, I was pulling from all these different psychological principles. I'm like, what actually does work?

So this is just an amalgamation of all of those principles together to actually help with this select thing. Yeah. I mean, I can immediately think of several people I can't wait to buy it for, which will be triggering, but then... Well, good. I can't decide on the covers, you guys can help me with that.

Oh. Well, when you see it on your nightstand, don't be triggered. Well, Sasha, this has been a blast. You have a very popular Instagram account that would be very fun for people to go through because I think a lot of stuff would feel quite familiar as you describe it. Oh, there was one last thing selfishly I wanted you to talk about it, and that is parenting with ADHD. What can you tell me about that? It's hard.

It's hard. Parenting with ADHD is a huge expansion of what your needs are because not only are you having to manage your own brain, you're having to manage and guide little people's brains as well. Help them regulate. That's really your job. Yes. And model good behavior. And from the logistical standpoint, it feels like it's just a lot to do.

My kids are in two separate classes, which is two different class party schedules and two different field trip schedules and two different teachers and end of school things and parent teacher conferences. And that probably doesn't sound super overwhelming, but that's so hard for me to keep track of it, which one is this, which one is this? And like, you have to really create good systems around that. And I think the most, most vital thing that I could tell anybody who is parenting with an ADHD brain, give yourself grace. Let yourself mess up and have a hard time. Because when I got pregnant, I had numerous Pinterest boards of the kind of parent I wanted to be. what I wanted their nursery to look like. Immediately you have this kid, you're sleep deprived,

you have breast milk everywhere. This is just not what you thought it was. And that goes out the window and you're just like, this is probably going to be harder than what I thought. And one of the best things that we've done as a family is work through moments that are hard and difficult kind of together as a team and problem solving. So there are times, this literally happened two days ago

where I was just like, this is hard for mom because there is so much. So when you give me a show and tell bag and you're like, I have to do this by tomorrow and it's 8.30 at night right before you're going to bed, you run downstairs and you're like, I forgot to do this and I have to bring it in the morning. That's hard for me. And I'll do that. But this is why I snapped at that or this is why I had a hard time. And then what I tell my kids when we have conversations like that, like any idea is a good idea. Come up with solutions and let's talk about it. And so, like, they're problems solving. They're like, well, he could have turned in his bag to you earlier today. Well, he could have figured out what he wanted to put in there. Yeah, siblings are great at coming up with ideas for the other siblings.

I know what he could have done. There are many good ideas. They're not great to figure out what they should have done. But boy, they can see right through the problem in their sister. Yeah, I think it's just giving yourself grace when you mess up. Use it as a learning opportunity for everybody. I think I was so focused on hiding parts of it. of myself from them where I'm like, what am I doing?

I don't know what their brain is going to look like. Well, again, you're asymmetric rejection reaction. You can feel rejected from your family. I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Getting burned by my five-year-old. I feel like, but here we are. Okay, well, this was lovely.

Cannot wait for the new book. Currently, though, you could start with self-care for people with ADHD ADHD and then look for too sensitive rejection, resilience, and the science of feeling deeply. I hope you'll come back. This was a blast. Yay! Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare. We hope you enjoyed this episode.

Unfortunately, they made some mistakes. I have to say I'm only three days into No Dairy. And I'm already noticing. Oh, that's good. Well, that's good. I was saying last night I almost would rather have a running nose all the time. You have to, yeah, decide, I guess. Duh.

It's the worst one you know. No, it's better to live in ignorance. That's true. Just go, oh, I'm just someone with the runny nose. I know. Well, then you can pick, like, if there's something you really want with cheese and you just know what you're getting yourself into. You just go, okay, I'm going to cough, I'm going to cough for a day. Yeah, exactly.

I'm going to blow my nose a lot. Exactly. And that's going to be that. Yeah. Well, but also good, if you know you don't want to be coughing, if you have a big thing to do, if you have something to do, if you have something to do, on stage. I'm going to be like talking. For a living.

For a living. Yeah. Yeah. Someone's got to edit around your coughing and toilet clearing. Sure. Sure. That's good to know. I would never, I mean, never say never.

If I had to, I guess I would. But I could never give up cheese. It's my favorite food. It's so good. And it makes, it can make something that's virtually tasteless. Like a macaroni. rooney noodle on its own in a box of craft macarine cheese. You're not going to eat that.

You add that cheese to it. Now you've got one of nature's greatest offerings. Best, best, best, best. Okay, I wanted to tell you that in a very fun way, Lincoln has now kind of joined a little bit into our Sim Talk insofar as we were laying in bed a couple nights ago and she was telling a story about a girl in class had a caterpillar on her shoulder. Okay.

And apparently there's like a season for this. And there's caterpillars all over the trees at school. And they're dripping down on people. Oh, okay. That just made me feel gross. And then we were just talking about caterpillars. And all of a sudden, I just had this thought. And I said, you know, Lincoln, when we die and we wake up in like a medical room and they go,

you were in a simulation. I think one of the things they're going to say is, and by the way, you thought that there was a tiny little sleeve. of mayonnaise and that that little sleeve of mayonnaise went into a dark cloth and came out as a butterfly and you bought into that. Oh, God. That's what it is. A caterpillar is just a little tube of manis. And we have bought into the idea that that thing somehow goes into a dark cloth and comes out as a butterfly is preposterous. When we're talking about like the bus maybe is proof of the sim, I now think The caterpillar butterfly metamorphosis story we've been told is insane. How would it go from mayonnaise to a butterfly?

Well, how would a seed this small turn into you? Oh, the, like the embryo? Yeah. It starts as a sesame seed size. I know. That's crazy. That is crazy. But I don't think as nuts is like a little tube of goo goes into a cloth and is now a flying.

most beautiful, colorful structure. Where's it all coming from? That man is... Don't call it. That is. It is. So, like, so nasty. Oh, my God.

So then we're having a lot of fun of what else they were going to say to us. Like, you guys, he's not an octopus could swim over an environment and immediately become that environment without even looking. Their eyes are looking up at the surface of the water. And then they just hover over some coral. And then their whole body immediately is the color. of the coral. Oh, camouflage.

Get real. Look. Beings are very impressive. Is there anyone you want to add to this one? So right now it's like leading the charge is like butterflies. We're going to feel so stupid that we bought into that. And then for us, the octopi camouflaging. Have you watched it recently?

It's in pot. Monica, it could swim over your face and it would just be your face. What are we talking about? Wait, really? It just beaming camels. The camouflage. The bioluminescence or whatever the thing it's called, it's identical to whatever it's swimming over. No way.

It's not an LCD TV. It is. It is. Well, they're telling us it is. Also a TV. I mean, all of it. It's all, it's. TV I'm fine with.

No. A TV. This is a prehistoric glabagu. Globago. Well. Okay. You're fine with it. I'm still, I mean, I just think humans is, that's a bigger, to me, that's a bigger.

To me, that's a bigger leap from going from a sesame seed to you. It's bigger to me than the mayonnaise, God. But at least the thing is cell dividing, and it's taking on building blocks through nutrition to create the new cells. And you can just see the course of action. It's like it's doubling every time it divides. It's very trackable. That's a sesame seed with no eye, nothing.

Becomes a human. Yeah. It's wild. It's wild. But again, this gooey slug enters a cloth and then it flies away. Okay. Okay, yeah. You're not as perplexed by it, but I just think it's one of the...

It's a miracle. It's one of the hardest to believe things that happens in nature. Yeah, I mean, there's some things like ladybugs that I don't like but have grown to like a little more. Okay. What are they doing? That's so startling. Really just the way they look. It's like, wow.

Or like, same way. with fruits or like the pineapple. It's like nature made this. Nature made this pineapple, this thing with spikes and this hat on it and the sweeten it. I know, but I'm struggling with the gap between these two organisms. If you were to like, you just look at all in nature and we didn't know that those were the same things. They'd be two of the last things you ever even put in a category, a caterpillar and a butterfly. Sure.

It's like an elephant going under a cloth and coming out as a rattlesnake. Yeah. Okay. You don't like my examples. Or not my examples. They're just things that I find, like, wild about the world. Yeah, you're really blown away with growth. Yeah.

And, like, the ladybug doesn't grow. It just is very, it's just, how is it red with polka-d? Like, nature made polka dots, like, perfect. Pocodots. That is astounding. On top, like, on an insect. Like, what? That doesn't even make sense.

It is crazy. And then if it turned into a screwdriver at some point. Sure. You'd be like, hold on. I guess, yeah. I don't have that. I'm not that bewildered by metamorphosis and change. One animal turning into another animal.

Yeah, because of the seed turning into you. Like, I'm primed with that and that. Yeah. My distinction is like it was one thing and now it's another. At least the seed was always a human, you know? Well, the butterfly was always a caterpillar. It just... That's what they're trying to tell us.

That's what they want us to believe. Yeah. I mean, yeah, the Sim is crazy. Mm-hmm. It is. I mean, what about magic? We're going to feel foolish. We're going to feel foolish.

You're going to feel foolish because you're going to be like, they're going to be like, no, that was magic. Like those tricks that David Blaine did aren't tricks. That's magic. And like you spent so much time trying to figure out what it, what were the tricks since there are no tricks. Yeah. I mean, as you know, I spent no time trying to figure it out because I know I can't figure it out. Right.

And I know it's not magic. Yeah, but you're going to find out it's magic. Oh, we were playing 32 questions last night at dinner. Oh. And Delta really stumbled upon one. Now, it was, I would argue that she was wrong on both fronts. But one of the questions was, is it. man-made.

Oh, okay. Or is it from nature? Okay. I like that. Yeah. And so it wasn't man-made. We figured that out early. And then later on the line, it's not from nature.

And then so I kind of bailed out of the game. So I'm like, well, if it's not man-made and it's not from nature, then it can't be anything. Okay. Right? There's no, there's nothing that's neither of those things. Let me think. Let me think. Not man-made.

And not from nature. Nature. Did she mean, like, cotton or something? thing that is nature, but like I could see her thing, like. Well, what it was was weirdly, it was both nature and manmade, which is maybe why she didn't think it was either, an eyelash. Oh. So that's both nature and manmade.

That feels like she stumbled upon a riddle. Oh, that is a good riddle. Yeah. What is man made and Nate from nature? From nature. And eyelash. Although she said it was neither. Yeah, she meant both.

But I can understand why she said neither. It was like, is it man-made? No. At that moment, she was like, no, no, the body made it. Nature made it. Right. And then is it from nature? It's like, no, it's human-made.

Sure. Sure. Well, yeah, yeah, interesting. That's a fun game. Yeah, it was. It's fun for a while. I bail out pretty early. My attrition for 30 questions is brief.

Okay. Once we, like, I guess I just, I lose, I lose hope. Again, when I heard it's not manmade and it's not from nature, I'm like, well, then I can't continue to get, I'm doing running a fool's errand now. Oh, wow. Because there's nothing that is not either one of those things. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Comment if you can think of something that's neither. That's a riddle. Well, it's not really a riddle. It's just a hard question. Would we say, like, thoughts? Or manmade. Well, I guess it depends on how we're saying man-made. If we're saying-

They can't exist without a human. Okay. Like a wrench doesn't exist in nature. Yeah, exactly. But a man didn't construe, I guess, construct thoughts, but it's more abstract than that. They didn't invent thoughts. I think it's an example of it's both in that case,

because it is the human thought, like, is human thought man-made or nature-made? Yeah. And it's both. Or neither. Or I'll play with Delta. Stay tuned for more armchair expert. If you dare.

Let's play. Play. 32 questions. Why don't you want to play? Okay. You have something? No, you have to do it. No.

Oh, okay. Think of something. Um, okay. I have it. Is it manmade? Yes. Would it be sold down? at Walmart.

Yes. Is it smaller than a microwave? Yes. Is it for personal hygiene? No. Do you plug it in? No. Okay.

It's smaller than a microwave. You don't plug it in. They sell it at Walmart. Is this where you give up? We're getting close to where I would give up. Okay. Rob, do you have any questions? Is it food related?

No. No. Okay. So we're not eating it. It's smaller than a microwave. is it bigger than an iPhone? No. Wow, okay, great.

We just really got, so it's kind of microscopic. But they sell it. They sell it. It's smaller than an iPhone. It's not personal hygiene and it's not electric. Is it a pen? No. Is it home improvement related?

No. Would it be in your living room? I would say no. Like, it could be. Would it be in your kitchen? Um, Not traditionally. Would it be in your bathroom?

No. Would it be in your closet? It could be in your closet. Could be in your closet. Your nightstand? It, you, yeah. I'd probably put it in my nightstand. Wow.

Not electric. Well, not plugged in. Is it battery powered? I think. It's not plugged in. And it has a mechanism. It's electronic? It's electronic?

Is it electronic? Yeah. Is it a vibrator? No. We were led there. Yeah. Nightstand. Yeah.

Yeah. It has a battery smaller than an iPhone. These days you do plug in your vibrators. For a period. Yeah. They're not tethered. Right. Correct.

If you've got one that's tethered, I tip my hat to you. You're working hard. You need that kind of voltage. Yeah. Yeah. A remote? Is it a remote? No.

It's not a remote. but you're kind of in, they're in the right zone ish. In the nightstand not a remote, not a vibrator is electric. I mean, I don't know if it's electric. I don't know if it's electric.

Okay. It can be. It can be. Oh, wow. Now, I'm picturing a nightstand drawer. I mean, don't get so stuck in the nightstand. It just, it could be. be there.

Okay. And you said it is or isn't electric? It can be. Batteries. Let's say it has batteries. Does it tell time? Is it a watch? Close.

Very, very close. And some would say it's a kind of. An Apple watch? No. Like one of those fucking rings you wear? Like a health monitoring? Think a little more archaic. Stop watch.

Yes. Stop watch. Good job. A stopwatch. Yeah. Do you have a stopwatch? I have one in my nightstand. You see, okay.

You have a stopwatch? No, I don't. Oh. No, a stopwatch. What made you think of a stopwatch? Because there's a stopwatch we're using in at the SAG Awards. Top of mind, as you would say. Top of mind.

Okay. Okay. I mean, I feel like I'd keep it in the nightstand or I'd keep it. It, you know, yeah, in the garage toolbox. I'm going to meditate on why the game for me gets frustrating. Okay. Probably just because I don't know and I don't like not knowing. Sure, probably.

Calvin likes it and it's frustrating for me too. Yeah, it's hard, right? Especially when you, I'm not sure he's always answering correctly. I have the same as this is a male thing. I'm like suspicious that either they forgot or. Yeah. Like Vinny we can't play with because he's got... He'll just change it, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the other thing. You catch these kids changing it. Like, if you guess it too quick, they don't like that. Yep. Sure. And it's, what should happen is it should be written down on a piece of paper to keep everything above board. Well, I mean, playing with kids is different than playing with adults.

Like, I think if you play with kids, sure, it could be a little like, are they switching it? Are they, what are they up to? Do they remember? I mean, a lot of the time, like, this is a long game. Yeah. And I'm not even sure if they remember. Sure. But if you're playing with an adult and you don't trust it, that's on you.

Uh-huh, okay. Adults know what they're doing. Yeah, whether or not they would change it is another thing. There is some legion of people that would change it. Sure, but if they don't know the answers, like, that's like a little like, you know. It was very easy when they were tiny children. Yeah. Because you knew it was something they could see in the room.

Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You would like, you could narrow it down pretty quick and go, is it a light switch? Yeah. It's because they look at it immediately too and then say they have it. Wow.

Every time you ask. Is it brown? No. Yeah, I know. So cute. See little caterpillars turning into butterflies. Mm. All over the place.

All right. Should we do some facts? Yeah, let's do some facts. Okay. I didn't bring it up in the interview, although I was tempted to. What? You know, Sasha holds a lot. a very dear. It's a very important name to me. It is. That's who you had sex with. Oh, yeah,

that's your first girlfriend. Let's definitely not say that to Sasha. Was that, that was your first girlfriend or the first person you had a crush on. We're getting close. It's so relevant that my therapist remembered her name. Is this because she had the sauna? No, that was, that was Randy. That was later. Okay, so elementary school could not. No, no girls like me. And I like so many girls. I was just telling Delta this the other day. I was like so many girls. No, no, none of them like me. I got a sixth grade with my new look that my brother gave me. Right, right, right, right, right. And the most popular girl in the whole junior high. Yeah. Sasha Crosset. Okay, yeah. It was an eighth grader. Yeah, I knew she was an eighth grader. Came up and gave me a note in the hallway. In the sixth grade

hall. Okay. And I took it into my science class and I opened it up and it said, will you go with me? So you dated. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But she wasn't your first girlfriend? I had a, I got to be careful. I'm going to call her Frank. Frank. I had like a Valentine once. It was, let's just leave my back. Wait, what happened? I had a, I don't know if you'd call her a girlfriend. I had a girl who I think, did you talk to her?

Yeah, a little bit. And I think on Valentine's Day, maybe I gave her something. A car. I want to say she gave me some fudge or something. But, yeah, I do remember her name. The reason it's so important is it is a transition from no girls like me to the most popular girl in the world. I know. This was a humongous, the biggest 180 of my life.

That's huge. I also think I was kind of right in saying your first girlfriend. Because I'm not counting this fudge girl. That's fine. That's fine. Yeah, we made out a ton. We would make out in front of the buses. Wow.

You didn't make out with fudge. No, no, no, no. Yeah, she was your first girlfriend. So I'm right. Yes. And I guess I'm impressed you didn't bring it up because it's really important. We haven't interviewed a Sasha. No, we haven't.

No. I have only met one Sasha since then. Sasha Baron Cohen. I guess two. Thank you for pointing that out. The other was a Russian dude. I knew. Oh, sure.

I know. All right. Well, Godmother's bookstore. You know, I was like, it's in Montecito. And then you guys were like, it's not a monocito. We're from there. Yeah, yeah. And.

In Santa Barbara, right? Okay. Which I think Rob said, Summerland. Summerland. Oh, okay. And everyone was like, yeah. that's not Montecito. Okay, which is fine.

But then when I Googled, I said, where is Godmother's bookstore? It said Godmother's bookstore is located 2280 Lily Ave. I think Rob had said that because you said, Lily, that's her middle name. Summerland, California, founded by Jennifer Rudolph Walsh

and Victoria Jackson in 2024. Oh, it's pretty new. I'll say. It is situated in a restored 1920s bar. Victoria Jackson, the performer from Saturday Night Live, Victoria Jackson? Who's that? A beautiful blonde castmate in the late 80s. Oh, I don't know.

I see her SNL. It's a different Victoria Jackson. It's a cosmetics mogul. Oh. Cosmetics mogul. Okay, Greg. With the renowned literary agent. Oh.

Well, it's situated in a restored 1920s barn, often described as a cozy curated space near Montecito. It says that. Near Montecito, it does. Open daily. You're having a hard time with this one. Because I was just there. You're taking another swing at it. It said it, though.

I didn't even say, I said, where is it? And it even included Montessia. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, it's such a cute bookstore. Oh, my God, I could live there. Oh, brand new, too. Only a year and a half old. Yeah, timeless.

I love it. Okay. Now, you know how I was on D? Pseudo-epidephedephyrine. Thank you, which is meth. Precursor. Does meth eat alcohol? Just said he used to make it like a Pac-Man, and it was like the meth would eat the alcohol.

Yeah. Does it? It doesn't eat alcohol, but it gets you high, which offsets the inebriated effects of alcohol. Okay. Like, because alcohol is such a depressant. So if you imagine you took a Xanax, and then you took an Adderall, the, The Adderall would lift you out of the Xanaxy feeling. Oh, interesting.

And this is why people do speedballs, Coke and heroin. They're opposites. So you're kind of leveling off both sides, both downsides of the drug. Interesting. Heavy heroin does you're nodding off. It's not ideal. Coke, you're too edgy gnawing on your face, you know. So I think that's what he means.

Is it right-sized as an ebriation? I don't think it metabolizes the alcohol any faster. Okay. Okay. Cocaine does the same thing. Got it. All right. What was the most popular Flintstone's vitamin flavor?

Based on nostalgic discussions, the orange Flintstone's vitamin was widely considered. That's what I think of. Really? I'm, I was a red. I'm not red. She liked great. I think they made orange really front and center in the ads. She says purple and in some cases the iron fortified versions were less popular due to tase,

with some users describing purple as yuck. Well, purple was my favorite. Really? You and Sasha could have shared vitamins. Oh, Valentine's. That's cute. God, I loved them.

Mm-mm-mm. Says nothing about red. I'm going to give you credit for something. Oh, my gosh. So you've been saying for a while that Gabor Mote is an expert in ADHD. And every time you say it, I have to stop myself from saying, is that true? I don't remember that. I know he was like a trauma expert, but I don't remember ADHD.

So I thought this was my in. Yeah, to correct me. Yes. Gabor Mata is a Canadian physician and author. He has worked in family practices and specializes in childhood development and trauma, including long-term effects on physical and mental health, such as autoimmune diseases, cancer, ADHD, ADHD, and addiction. So it's in there.

Yeah. It's in there. He had his circuitous path, if you remember when we interviewed him. He started working with the addicts in Skid Row there. Yes. That wasn't his thing, but that became his thing. Yeah, exactly. Kind of like Sapolsky being a fucking primatologist as a hobby, you know.

Oh, yeah. I think his addiction, trauma stuff more was his hobby. Right. But now he's really known for that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's written five books exploring topics such as ADHD, ADHD, stress, developmental psychology, and addiction. Now, if you guys miss that episode, you really really.

should go back. That is such a great episode we did with him. Oh, I guess I'd like to say one thing to Eric died, my friend. Oh, yeah. I'm so sorry. And he was such a beautiful dude. And I think it would Eric Dane. Eric Dane, yeah. I think it would be a lovely episode to listen to if you're curious about what kind of spirit Eric had. Yeah. I'm sorry. How are you doing? Well, I was talking to Lincoln about it. And I said, I, well, first I go straight to like gratitude, right? Like I had a lot of, I was, when you hear someone as ALS, my worst nightmare of that would be, I have lock-in syndrome.

Right. And although he was very, very diminished physically at the end, he couldn't move much of his body, if at all. He could talk. So he avoided that phase. So I just immediately, in the same way when my dad died, I felt grateful. Like, it didn't get gruesome. Yeah.

So I was grateful for that. I know how many people were around. That made me grateful. And then the sadness, I think for me, takes a minute. And I was talking last night to Lincoln. I said, I don't know. Imagine you came home from school today. And mom said, dad died today.

Don't. Could you comprehend that? And she's like, no. I'm like, yeah, wouldn't it take you a long time? You'd be like, no, that's not true. That's not right. And then months later, you're like, oh, wow, that really is true. That's, so I think I'm in that phase where it's like, is it?

No. Yeah. I mean, intellectually, I know, but also, no. I think that's totally normal. I think that's, yeah, how most people are processing is. It takes a minute. I feel guilty about that. Like, I see people, well, in real life and in movies, they hear bad news, and then they are

immediately devastated. And I'm so protective, I think. I have so much, like, well-worn neural pathway. that I'm like, I have so much shit that just engages right away to prevent me from feeling terrible. Yeah. And I think it takes a while for me to be willing to let that in. Yeah.

I think you shouldn't feel guilty about that. I think it's totally normal. And what's the problem with? There's nothing wrong with it. No, other than I think, well, my fear would be like, let's say I had been standing out of the hospital when they pronounced my dad, dad. And then all of his friends are then, and they start crying, and I don't. And now I appear to be sociopath, you know, like a sociopath.

That's like the fear probably. Or I watch these fucking date lines and the cops show up and I've witnessed something terrible and I'm kind of stable and they interpret that as guilt. Right. Like these are the crazy thoughts I have about like, oh, you're supposed to act a certain. People expect you to act a certain way. And if you don't, they start filling in explanations as to why you're not reacting the way they do. I know, but that's on other people. That's on those people who are deciding that everyone should be reacting the way they react.

Yeah. I think it takes a long time to process all of these things. Yeah. And, yeah, and I'm sorry. It's really sad. Loss is hard. Yeah, when I saw two weeks ago, there was lots of laughing. Yeah, that's good.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, sorry I interrupted that. Fact check for that, but I had forgotten that I wanted to say. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's just end on that. Well, do you have another one?

Well, it was just about PMDD. What's PMDD? Just really bad PMS. Oh, right. People with ADHD get PMS sometimes worse. Yeah, and I have, I'm pretty sure I have PMDD. Okay. And so then I was.

PMDD. PMDD? Are you complaining things? God. I do think I have it. And then I was like, I also have that rejection thing. Maybe I have ADHD. Yay!

Boy, you've talked about a 180. No, I don't think I do. But it's all a spectrum, you know? It is. It is. So that's... All right. Love you.

Love you.