Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Is it Adult ADHD or Overwhelm? | Clutterbug Podcast # 249

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

Have you ever wondered if your struggles with organization, time management, or procrastination might be something more? Five years ago, I discovered that my challenges weren’t about discipline—they were symptoms of ADHD. Today, I’m joined by Kristen Carder, host of the I Have ADHD podcast and creator of the Focused coaching program. Together, we’ll explore why adult ADHD—especially in women—is often misdiagnosed, how to identify it, and practical strategies to live a fulfilling life. Whether you're feeling overwhelmed or questioning if ADHD could be a factor, this episode offers clarity and hope.   Learn more about Kristen here: https://ihaveadhd.com/ Listen to Kristen's Podcast here: https://ihaveadhd.com/podcast/ Sign up for Kristen's Focused program here: https://ihaveadhd.com/focused/?internal-link Check out Kristen on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ihaveadhdpodcast Check out Kristen on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/i.have.adhd.podcast/ Check out Kristen on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@I.have.adhd.podcast   #adultadhd #adhd #doyouhaveadhd     You can find more Clutterbug content here: Website: http://www.clutterbug.me YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clutterbug TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clutterbug_me Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clutterbug_me/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Clutterbug.Me/   #clutterbug #podcast #Organize Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, Clutterbugs, welcome to the Clutterbug podcast. You know that five years ago I was diagnosed with ADHD and it changed my life. It really showed me that it wasn't my lack of organization, my struggle with getting to places on time, forgetting things all the time, struggling with procrastination. This wasn't because I didn't have enough self-discipline. This wasn't because I wasn't strong enough or I wasn't hardworking enough or it wasn't because I was lazy. I had a medical condition and now I have coping skills and medication that helps and I really want to talk about this because adult ADHD especially in women is so underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed as anxiety or depression. So today we're going to talk to an expert and really get to the bottom of it and hopefully you're

going to be able to see if you're just overwhelmed or if you have adult ADHD. I'm speaking with the incredible Kristen Carter. She is the podcast host of I Have ADHD. She has over 8 million downloads. I love this podcast so much. I also follow her on social media. She is a coach to thousands of ADHDers across the world with her incredible program called Focused. So today we're going to dig deep and I'm going ask hard questions and hopefully you're going to see do I have ADHD, do my loved ones have ADHD and how can I learn incredible coping skills to live an amazing life even with ADHD? Hello Kristen and welcome to the clutterbug podcast. I'm so excited to have you here. Hey Cass, thanks so much for having me. I talk about ADHD a lot actually on my podcast and in my

videos because I was recently, I say recently. I feel like It feels like it's been five years I was diagnosed and it changed nothing and yet changed everything about my life. So I'm so excited to have you on this podcast because I think the majority of my people in my community struggle with disorganization. They struggle to like get stuff done. They're just hot messes and they're not watching me because I'm giving great organizing advice. they're here because they feel like we're kindred hot mess crazy pants souls and so i do think there's a lot of undiagnosed ADHD with women and i'd love to talk about that but first how did you get into being an ADHD coach and expert that's very like niche how what a fun question

It's so interesting. So around 2010, 2012, I opened up a tutoring center in my local town. And I worked with a lot of students who were struggling in school. And I kept attracting people with ADHD, which is hysterical. And I knew I was diagnosed with ADHD. I was medicated, but I didn't know anything about it. And so these families kept coming to me whose kiddos had ADHD, and I would help them. and it was wonderful.

And then the parents would say, like, I think I might have ADHD too. They would like whisper it. You know, like, I think I might have ADHD. And at the time, I didn't even realize that it ran in families. I didn't know anything about it other than I was diagnosed and medicated for it, which I think is the majority of our experience when we're diagnosed is we're maybe not now in the age of information. But, you know, 20 years ago, it was just like, here's a prescription, have a nice day.

And there wasn't, you know, the internet and TikTok to like educate us on the lived experience of someone with ADHD. And so I kept going to look for podcasts because I wanted to recommend podcasts to people, you know, the parents of the kiddos that I was working with. And I just couldn't, I couldn't really find anything when I would look for websites. I couldn't really find anything that like I really resonated that I felt really confident to share with people. And it got to the point where I was just like, why isn't anyone talking about this? It's like, why isn't, you know, it's like 2014 now, 2015. And I'm just like, why isn't anyone talking about this? And I became kind of obsessed with it accidentally.

And finally, finally heard the whisper from above that was like, why don't you talk about it? Like, why aren't you the one talking about it? So I finally worked up the courage in 2018 to throw a podcast episode out into the darkness of the night with no launch with no fanfare, nothing. I just like snuck it out there. And people started listening, much to my dismay. I really wanted people to listen, but I also was so scared that people would listen. You know, who am I? I was just a nerdy girl who was reading all of these ADHD books, who was like,

we need to talk about this. And so I just started like distilling the information. And from that, people reached out to me and was like, hey, can you coach me? And because I had been coaching people and developing coaching programs for my students, I was like, I don't know, maybe. Maybe I could adapt this for an adult. And so I was very honest. Like I don't know anything about coaching adults, but I do coach, you know, teens and

students. And so maybe I could adapt this for you if you want to give it a try. And that's how it started. That's how it all started. It was really like just a passion project. I already had a full-time job. I already had three little kids. But I was like, somebody needs to talk about this.

It was nothing like it is today. in almost 2025 when, you know, seemingly everyone is talking about it. And so it just really started out as a passion project. And then I really enjoyed coaching and was like, oh, this is what I'm supposed to do with my life. Like it was this very weird coming home experience of like, oh, I've accidentally been coaching people unsolicited without their consent my entire life. Like, first of all, sorry about that. And second of all, why don't I go get a coaching certification and like make this official. And so that's what I did. I got certified and I got certified again. And yeah, I've been coaching people since 2019. That's so amazing. It's such an ADHD story. It's like so

ADHD. No, it's so good. And I think what I really love that you said is like now everybody's talking about it because yeah, this is a thing. Even five years ago when I was first diagnosed, it was kind of like not really being talked about it a lot now with TikTok. And so this, This is the thing that I've noticed. It went from children have ADHD, but do they really have ADHD or do their parents just not want to deal with them and do they really just need more spankings? That was like my experience with ADHD for years and years to like now everybody says they have ADHD.

And as somebody who really has it and I really understand like now how it affects my life, I'm like you don't really understand. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody gets a little forget. sometimes. Everybody can be distracted. Everyone can procrastinate. But what I dealt with was like a whole other level on a daily basis. So for my listeners listening, how, I mean, I mean, you're not a doctor. You can't diagnose, but how can they see the differences? Like how, what are those like telltale signs like,

oh, maybe this is what's really going on? Because honestly, I had no idea. And, It was obvious friend, okay? Oh, dear. But no one said it to me. Everyone said, you are spazzy, you can't calm down, you're so annoying, you're so forgetful, what's wrong with you? Why can't you have self-discipline? No one ever uttered the words ADHD. Yeah.

So for my listeners who maybe can relate to me and all the squirly girliness, how do you know, how do you the difference between just chronically overwhelmed, your life's chaotic, so you're having symptoms and actually have ADHD? It's a great question, and I don't think enough people talk about it. So in the words of the great Dr. Ari Tuckman, who I adore, he says that ADHD does not create new problems. It just exacerbates the universal problems. Everyone is forgetful, just like you said.

Everyone gets overwhelmed from time to time. Everyone is impulsive once in a while. Those are very normal human problems. And that's why everyone, not everyone, but there's a lot of people out there that's like, oh, I'm so ADHD. You're like, yeah, everybody's a little ADHD. But that is not the, I know, the amount of heat in my body that happens when I hear someone say, like, well, everyone's a little ADHD.

Well, everyone has human characteristics. sure. Everyone has flaws here and there, of course. But someone with ADHD is going to have deficiencies that are debilitating, spanning your entire life. And spanning, it doesn't matter if life is going great or if life is going terrible. You're going to have these deficiencies across the board. And you're going to see these deficiencies in multiple areas of your life. So that's one of the diagnostic criteria is that we see the deficiencies, not just at work or not just at home, but we're also seeing it, you know, in your social settings, in your community and your, you know, like, I can't get to Bible study on time or like whatever the case is, right? Like in your communities, you're going to see them persistent across different areas of life. And so everyone with ADHD who is, you know, officially diagnosed has these deficiencies.

that have been seen since the age kind of varies depending on where you live in the world and how knowledgeable your doctor is. It used to be age 12, that they had to be see or remember symptoms prior to age 12. In some places now they've raised it to age 16 because, hello, we suck at remembering. Like, how am I, if I'm a 45-year-old woman going in for a diagnosis and you ask me what my childhood is like, it's going to be very hard for me to remember and do my parents have an accurate picture of it. And did we save those report cards that every single one says, they're really smart. But if they just paid attention in class more, if they just stopped talking more, if they just, you know, would apply themselves. Like mine over and over were, Kristen could be

really successful if she just applied herself. And so that became my story. And that became what my parents held over my head. If you just applied yourself, Kristen, you'd be so successful. which is true. Like I did. I applied myself at something that I was really good at, that I really enjoyed and I became very successful. But I think this idea that we have, and this is getting into a different topic,

but this idea that we have of ADHD students or ADHD, even young adults or whatever, that we should be able to apply ourselves in every single area of our life, even when it's mundane and it feels like death to do the dishes or to do the laundry or to do those stupid things that we don't give a crap about. I don't care about it.

I'm not going to apply myself. to it. So that's where the understanding of ADHD comes in. But no, not everyone is a little ADHD. And the way that clinicians distinguish it is, first of all, we have to, they, I say we, that's adorable, they have to rule out, is it something else going on? Is it bipolar? Is it anxiety? Is it depression? Is it something else? For example, my son was diagnosed with OCD. But he was presenting as very ADHD. And the clinician that evaluated him said, he's so distracted by his intrusive thoughts that he's presenting with these ADHD symptoms. But as soon as we medicated and had therapy for OCD, his ADHD seemingly, quote

unquote ADHD symptoms disappeared because we were able to tackle the root issue, which is why self-diagnosis is wonderful and in communities where there's not access to health care and there's not, you know, money for diagnosis. Like, I think self-diagnosis is so, so important. But if you have the privilege and if you are able to speak with a clinician about your symptoms, it is really important because they could rule out or diagnose you with something else. Yeah.

I'm so glad you said that. So I live in Canada and we have free health care. And my experience also, I just want to say with the. medical profession with ADHD is if you're not getting answers with one doctor that and you still feel like maybe that's not it. Do not be afraid to get a second opinion. Do not be afraid to look for people who actually specialize in ADHD. So my daughter was also diagnosed with OCD. And because she was not hyperactive and because she didn't sort of act out and wasn't fidgety and wasn't really struggling in school, ADHD wasn't even brought up. It wasn't even something that was a possibility.

It wasn't until a few years ago that I started working with an ADHD psychiatrist and a psychotherapist and a whole team of specialists and I want to talk about that in a second because it's been crazy that I realize some people internalize that hyperactivity or and there's also different kinds of ADHD and not necessarily hyperactivity. hyperactive ADHD, which is like, what? I did not know that. So I think it is really important that we educate ourselves and that we also perhaps look for experts that specialize in this outside of just our normal GP, maybe he doesn't know, or our children's pediatrician. Because yeah, I think there's a lot of misconceptions, even in the medical community. Oh, 100%. If you were to

ask just your general practitioner, how much? How much training have you had on ADHD, which I doubt any of us women would be so bold to ask. I guarantee you that they would say, I've had one class in one course on it. Or I haven't actually had any training on it, but I have read this like one page in the textbook. Like it's not something that is, that general practitioners are being trained on. And that's fair because only in the 90s did we recognize it as an adult disorder. Up until the 1990s, it was just a childhood disorder.

So there are many clinicians out there, God bless them, who just don't even recognize it, don't even look for it. They aren't even considering ADHD as a diagnosis. And so so many women are being misdiagnosed with depression and anxiety, and sometimes the root cause of that depression and anxiety. is actually ADHD, but the clinician just doesn't know any better. And I don't think anyone is trying to do harm, but I just don't think it is a widely known thing.

And then when you go to your clinician with like a list of symptoms or with a book in hand with some underlying spots, some clinicians receive that, but some don't. Some say like, oh, do you think you know better than me? How you think you know better than your doctor? as if we're not allowed to research and be educated and learn about things and then ask questions. So it's a very interesting. I absolutely think if you're able to find someone who specializes in ADHD, that's wonderful. Not everyone has access to that.

So I think doing your own education and reading and then just not accepting the BS that some doctors will want to kind of put out there like, oh, you're too smart. I've had clients or even just conversation. You're too smart to have ADHD. You couldn't be a lawyer if you had ADHD. There's no way you would have passed the bar exam if you had ADHD or you're a doctor. There's no way you would have made it through medical school. That's not true. That is not true.

ADHD does not affect your intelligence. And us high achievers with ADHD can get a lot done. However, the question is at what cost? What's the behind the scenes? What's the burnout rate? How are your relationships holding up? What does your car look like? What does your house look like?

How's it going? How many alarms do you have to set to actually make it to something? Exactly. And how many all-nighters have you pulled in comparison to your colleagues or your peers in school, right? And so it's just very important to look at. It's not whether or not we can accomplish things. It's at what cost. Oh my God. I'm so glad you, listen, I'm just going to give somebody a little peek into, and I'm medicated, okay? So here's a little peeky-poo into my life. I'm in truck driving school right now, which is boring. And because I went to be a firefighter, it's another ADHD thing. It's not fun. It's horrible. Not the firefighting. That's great. But the truck driving is horrible. So, so, so boring. So I'm supposed to be studying because this big test that I'm doing, this D-test, and I need to know all this terminology.

I'm supposed to be doing that. So instead, what do I do? I get home. I get home and it's late. I am like, I should be making dinner. I'm going to decorate the house for Christmas. I did that until two in the morning last night. Didn't study at all, didn't eat, didn't stop, didn't even have a drink, didn't feed my kids, didn't put anybody to bed, didn't even say hello to my husband, realized at two, Oh, I'm done decorating, but I hadn't eaten yet. So then made myself food and then was like, oh, my rule is I have to clean. It was four in the morning before I went to bed. And I almost missed this podcast this morning.

Do you know what I'm saying? Like, what? You know what I'm saying? But I'm in the zone. I'm just, you know what I mean? And I'm polling in all night or doing something that really isn't a necessity right now. But that's kind of what my life looks like. And sometimes that leads to a lot of success.

Because if I'm going bonkers hyper-focusing on something like designing a website or doing something cool, wow, that shows on paper I can really get ahead. But again, I haven't eaten. I haven't slept. I haven't spoken to my family. I certainly am not taking any time for my mental health in that. So years ago, I saw a psychiatrist because I was like, something's wrong. I know something's wrong. And I said, could I be bipolar or I've heard of this thing, ADHD?

And he literally said, oh, no, you're way too successful to have either of those things. You're just overwhelmed. You've just got too much on your plate. It's infuriating. And so I left that. I was given anxiety medication. And I left that meeting just like, oh, I guess I'm just really anxious and not good at like, you know, prioritizing. And it wasn't until years later that it just like, oh, this is actually what's going on.

And as soon as I got that diagnosis, it was like self-love, self-forgiveness, self-acceptance. And I want that for the people who are listening to this podcast now to know, like, if you know something isn't right, something's probably not right. Yes. That's such a good way to put it. It's like, so with my son that I mentioned before, I felt like there was water dripping from a faucet. And I kept turning off different faucets. So we like, we turned off the OCD faucet.

We turned off the ADHD faucet because that wasn't really it. There was still water dripping. And I was just like, something still is not right. And we eventually, he was diagnosed with autism level one. And it was like, that felt like. the final faucet of like, okay. And I just, like, if you hear dripping, follow the sound. Like, if you're just like something's not right, if there's just like something eating at you, please, please go talk to someone. I understand that there's risks involved. There's the risk of

being vulnerable. There's the risk of being rejected or being told just like you were. Like, you're way too successful. There's the risk of being dismissed. I understand that. But there's also the risk of reward. There's the risk of being understood. There's the potential for knowing yourself and having this like understanding that everything that you hate about yourself is not a character flaw. It's actually a symptom of ADHD.

That's what it was for me where everything, when I started researching ADHD for my students, I was like, what the actual? F, like, you mean being late is connected to ADHD? You mean emotionally exploding at people. It's connected to ADHD. You mean forgetting everything and, like, putting my keys in, like, the most. Why are they in the fridge? Why?

My husband will come out of the pantry with, like, the most random thing and be like, you're adorable. And, like, we've gotten to that place. We've been married 20 years, so it's taken a lot of work. But, like, why did I put, like, my shoes in the pantry? I don't know why. I don't know why. And all of those things that I used to beat myself up over, that I used to lose sleep over,

that I used to spiral in shame over, there's answers for them. Not to say that I'm a perfect person, right? I still have my own character flaws, but now I'm able to separate character flaws from ADHD symptoms. And that's a very important practice. Yeah. I think if people are listening to this one thing that they struggle with is chronic disorganization. So when you're talking about like, why are the shoes in the pantry? Why do you

think that disorganization is one of the glaring telltale symptoms of ADHD? Like, why are we discharges? Well, I mean, there's a scientific answer for that. And that is that ADHD affects our frontal lobe. And the frontal lobe is where all of the executive functions are housed and the executive functions are the skills which allow us to adults. Working memory, prioritization, organization, planning, problem solving, emotional dysregulation, like emotional regulation, excuse me, impulsivity, all of those executive functions work together or don't work together to allow someone to just kind of live out this adulting lifestyle.

And so when you have ADHD, your executive functions are to varying degrees very impaired. And so it's not just like I'm disorganized, but it's like I don't know how to prioritize and I don't know what's most important. And so everything feels important. The way that I describe it, and I think prioritization is one of the primary reasons why we are disorganized because everything feels for an ADHD or on the same level of importance. The way that I describe it is a neurotypical is naturally going to put things in vertical order. Like number one is the top priority and then number two is a little lesser, number three,

number four. For an ADHD, it's all on a horizontal plane. It's all the same. They all feel equal. It's also like, if you think of every item in your home as having a sound, this is a weird analogy, but if you have it each year, I feel like you're going to get it. It's like the volume is turned up and everything is screaming at you. It's like every task is screaming at you.

Every item is screaming. It's like, I'm important. No, I'm important. No, I'm important. No, I'm important. And it's impossible without some real intervention. It's impossible for us ADHD is to turn the volume down on what has a lesser importance and turn the volume up on what has the greatest importance.

And so everything just screams out. us at the same volume. And so what do you do when like people are screaming at you? You're like run around. You hide. You, you implode. You feel like you're on the spin cycle of the washing machine. It's impossible to think because everything's screaming at you. Yeah, which is for me, so I'm an organizing expert, which is bizarre because I am not a naturally organized person. Listen, and I teach other people. I coach other people. I organize other people's homes for them. In my home is organized. So how? So I'm going to tell you how. this worked for me. One, I had to declutter because my brain was so distracted by stuff. So I couldn't

put the keys in the same spot every time if where the keys are supposed to go, there's also a pile of other things because that disrupted my motion. The other thing I had to do was I had to set up systems that worked with how I naturally would put things down. So where I was naturally putting things that had to be the home. And the way I put things down had to be the home. So I can't stop and sort papers into file folders. I have to have a basket that's like deal with this paper once a week. The other thing I had to do was have hard rules for myself that I had to slowly with sticky notes everywhere because my big thing with disorganization is I forget to remember. So I will literally like walk in and I'll have bills in my hand and I will forget I even have

bills in my hand. I'll forget they have to be paid. I forget where they have to go even though. So I need to rely on muscle memory. So the way I do that is I'm like, okay, this is where I usually naturally pile stuff. I'm going to put a basket here. I'm going to have nothing else around and I'm going to have a sticky note that is like, put the bills in here, pay all the bills on Sunday.

And then I'm like, that's all I see. So that's my visual cue. muscle memory, put it down. After a week, sometimes two, I no longer need the sticky notes and the reminders of the reminders on my phone because I've trained my brain. But I had to do that for every, I kid you not, every stupid thing, my hairbrush, my toothbrush, my everything. But it's added up to this like, I'm just now a very, very organized person within my home with the things I currently have. If you add something new in, I've got to train my brain all over again for that. So I think people who are like, I'm so disorganized and they're looking at me, clutterbug,

how do you go from point A to point B? It isn't a one step, friends. It is a journey. It's a treacherous journey. But it is doable. And it starts with removing. We're moving. some of the noise, as Kristen said. So yeah, all your stuff is screaming at you. That is the best analogy I ever heard. So let's put the stuff that's screaming that is not necessary. Let's kick it out of our house. So we have less noise. I'm fully on board with that. And the question then is, how do we know what we keep and what we get rid of? And that seems to be the issue when I talk about decluttering or minimalism or any of these things. It's like a client will come back and say, well, that's great.

But like, how do I know? How do I know what's important? How do I know what's not important? And so having a criteria of do I love it? Does it work? Is it broken? Like, if it's broken, get it out, right? Have I used it in the last year?

Well, that could be a hard question because I don't remember. So like asking your partner or asking your kid, like, hey, do we use this? Is it useful? And like, again, go back to number one, do I love it? I kept so much crap in my house because my mom gave it to me or because it was so-and-s or because it was attached to a memory, but not necessarily because I loved it. And what I realized is it took up a lot of space. It created a lot of noise.

And if I could really distill down to what do I love, what's useful to me, not that somebody else gave it to me and told me I should like it, but something that I actually like that gives me joy, that is a really good criteria, which then is like, well, how do I know what I like? It's just like, it's so layered for us at each dearest. It is. And I think if we really dig deep for me, I'm just saying, for me, I didn't trust myself to declutter. I didn't trust myself to do anything because I had proven my entire life that I am unreliable, that I am irresponsible, that I make stupid decisions, I make mistakes all the time. I'm crashing my car. I'm forgetting my wallet. I've lost my purse like 20 times. So and my narrative from teachers, friends, parents,

even my spouse now is like, oh, you kind of are woo. You're like, you can't be trusted. So how could I be trusted of what to let go of and what not to? So having clear rules for me was absolutely key. And I have clear rules. I have so many rules, Kristen, listen, and I need them because my brain doesn't have. I have impulsive ADHD, hyperactive ADHD. So I don't have clear limits and boundaries. My brain doesn't work like that.

It really doesn't, which is why I had. real struggles in my teen years. So giving myself boundaries, do I love this? Have I used this in the last year? If I didn't own this, would I have to buy this again? That's a big one for me. And the answer, usually that is like, no, I wouldn't actually buy this exact thing again. That's a really good one for me. But those rules helped me gain confidence. So I slowly started decluttering. My life got better. And I was like, I'm good at this. And now I trust myself. I do, but I had to prove it to myself.

So if you've lived in this state of like, I'm just, I'm a hot mess, right? I'm chronically a hot mess. It is hard to trust yourself to make decisions because you've made so many mistakes. Oh. I am so glad that you brought this up because I think that this is one of the fundamental struggles of someone with ADHD so much so that I taught a course on it. It is something that I encourage all of my clients to go through is this course on how to build self-trust because I think that this permeates every single area of our lives.

And self-trust is a developmental process that really should have been completed for us within the context of our family community. And for so many of us ADHDers, we were not afforded that. privilege. It's more of like a social familial privilege. So many of us as children were told you're doing it wrong. You are wrong. Everything about you is wrong. Why can't you just? Why can't you just go faster? Why can't you just be smarter? Why can't you just do your homework? Why can't you? Why can't you? Why can't you? And so for a child in a healthy enough environment, their caregivers help them to go through the developmental process of establishing self-trust.

For many of us ADHD, that was never established. And so here we are in adult bodies walking around as children who have never built self-trust. And I just think this could just open up a whole Pandora's box of trauma and its impact on the ADHDer and all of that. But suffice it to say, ADHDers have a severe lack of self-trust, and it's not their fault. You know, we blame it on ourselves because we say, well, I mean, I have so much evidence. And like, Kristen, look at everything that I've done wrong. But the truth is that every human has done stupid stuff, every single human. But humans that grow up in healthy enough families don't use that evidence against themselves as incriminating factors to say,

you can't trust yourself. You're not allowed to decide whether or not to throw out this Ziploc bag. Should I wash it? Is that bad for the environment if I throw it out? Do I have to keep it? All of the noise, right? Like a, you are allowed to make decisions. Um, but the problem is we've been told so many times that the decisions that we make are stupid. They're impulsive. They're dumb. What are you thinking? You did it wrong again. And so we just, we never were able to establish self-trust or some of us grew up in healthy enough families, but then we had a really toxic boss or a really toxic spouse or, you know, and then it was eroded in that way. But I would say most, I mean, I've coached thousands of people and most of my clients would say that they

grew up in families where self-trust was really never established. And it's tough because we do sometimes, especially if you're like me and you have that like impulsivity, flighty, inattiveness, we do do things. We make little dumb mistakes more than the average person. We do. We do like, oh, we put our keys in weird spots and we lost this again and we're late for this. And it's like, oh, I'm just so scattered brains. But that is very different than deciding whether you should have something in your home or not. Yeah. Like that is not the same type of flightiness. You can be a flighty person that forget your person is constantly late. needs reminders to remember things and still decide, is this important enough to stay in my house or

not? They two completely different things. And so it, it builds confidence to just try and get started because decluttering is 100% the first step to getting yourself organized because less noise means now you're not as distracted and you're more likely to actually put things where they belong and set up homes. And it's slowly like, see, that's the other thing. I didn't trust myself to organized because I'm so naturally bad at organizing. But when I embrace the fact that I just organize differently and I need big categories, macro systems, I need to be able to toss it like a basketball from across the room. When I embraced this and set that up and saw success, I started building confidence in that ability as well too. So my friends listening, it is not,

you are not doomed to be a disorganized person for your entire life because you have ADHD. We just have to adapt and have coping skills. Yes. Absolutely. And be confident enough to know what works for me. So my husband's side of the sink, we have a bathroom with two sinks for the first time in our lives. I feel like a queen. A queen as of two years ago.

You know, it's just so fun. So anyway, his sink, spotless. My side of the sink is set up for me. I have a basket of all the stuff that I toss in. I have the things that I use every single, you know, at every single whatever washing. It's like I'm not going to hide something under the sink that I need every day. And I don't see that as clutter. I see that as like, this is efficient for me.

This is setting up my space for me. So I think that like another encouragement is be willing to take up some space in your own home, for goodness sake, and organize your stuff in a way that works for you. Yeah, preach. I mean, that's my whole clutter bug thing is like organizing isn't one size fits all. And hearing you talk, you're obviously a visual organizer, which a lot of people with ADHD, it's out of sight, out of mind. So you have to have a visual. system because you're subconsciously going to leave it out anyways, so you might as well put it back in an organized way. You can all day be like, it belongs down here, hidden away, but your

brain doesn't work like that. So I love this so much. I have to take a second to thank today's podcast sponsor, Hello Fresh. For me, getting dinners on the table, it's stressful because, first of all, I forget to remember to take things out and defrost sometimes, but also this holiday season, I'm busy. I'm shopping and wrapping and decorating and going to parties. So I love getting three meals of Hello Fresh delivered each week. It's just I don't have to go to the grocery store and it's one less thing to think about. There's over 50 recipes to choose from. They're delicious. They come with easy step-by-step instructions and you can get calorie-wise or vegan options. The sky is the limit and it's easy enough for even my kids to create these

chef-inspired meals. Right now, you can get 10 meals at hellofresh.com slash free clutter pod across seven boxes, new subscribers only. That's 10 free meals. Just go to hellofresh.com slash free clutter pod. I do want to challenge you, though. Or maybe you're going to challenge me. Listen, I follow you on Instagram and you said something that hurt my feelings. Oh, honey. Because, Because you said ADHD is not a superpower. And I'm going to say this. I just want to tell you a quick story. So I was diagnosed with ADHD by my 85 year old doctor.

I was crying. I'm like, I'm successful. I don't understand. I always forget things. I have to have 50 alarms. I feel like I work so much harder than everyone else just to do the daily crap. And I cried to him. And he said, I think you might have ADHD.

take some riddlin. If it gets you high, you don't have ADHD. If it calms you down, you do have ADHD. And it did. It calmed me down. Like it calmed my brain down. I was less talkative. I was less impulsive. I was less like, I was calmer. Fast forward to a few years later. And I'm like, man, this ADHD is amazing because when I want to do cool stuff, I just don't take a riddlin. And I'm like dittl-l-l-l-l-l over here with the creative stuff. And when I got to sit in the conference and be boring, I take a riddle in. Now, I realize now that that wasn't great. You know, don't do that, friends.

Not recommended. No. So I went in this 80, and I'm like, it's a superpower. It's so great. Because in my environment where I am the boss, I am fully in charge of my schedule, I am doing creative things that I'm passionate about. I was crushing it. I could work for three hours and get 20 hours worth of work done compared to everyone else around me.

But then I went to a real program with real specialists for psychiatrists and doctors. And it was a government ADHD program where I had brain scans done. And the brain scans came back. my prefrontal cortex has clouding. It's smaller. Yeah. And there's less blood flow. And when they showed me my brain scan next to a normal brain, I was like, this looks like brain damage.

This looks like a cognitive impairment. So I cried for a week. It was very sad because I, there are parts of ADHD that are incredible. But to your point, there's also like I have to work 20 times harder to do basic things like remember to make it to this podcast. I needed six alarms today. That's a lot for me just to throw up all over you. But I guess I don't like when people are like, it's all horrible and it's brain damage.

And, you know, it's a deficiency. I know that it is, but I'm choosing to see the wonderful parts. That made you emotional a little bit. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Hmm. So because for a long time, I was like, oh, it sucks. Whatever's wrong with me.

Um, every aspect of my life felt hard. Yeah. But then I was like, when I focused on the parts that. Okay, I'm very impulsive. But it means I'm so willing to try new things and step outside the box. And like, think outside the box. And I'm very hyper and annoying and I interrupt people. And I'm not a great conversationalist because I have.

I disagree. I think you're great at this. I can talk to you all day. That's so nice. But when, but that also could be a good thing because I can hyperfocus. So when you say it's not a superpower, I know where you're. coming from because I know you're trying to validate the struggle. But on the other side, I think we got to find the good too. Okay. So let me ask you this. Why would you look at the

things that are so good about you? Like your ability to, you know, like the hyperfocus. And the hyperfocus when it serves you. Yes. let's be honest about it. The hyperfocus when it serves you. The impulsivity that makes you really fun when it serves you. Why isn't that just like what's awesome about CASS? Why do we have to give ADHD credit for that? Because I want to give you credit for that.

Like, you are fun. You're smart. You're like so easy to talk to. But I don't want to give ADHD credit for that. I want to give CAS credit for that. Like you're a whole. vibe. So when I say that ADHD is not your superpower, the heart behind it is first. If ADHD is a superpower, then everyone with ADHD would be thriving and they're not. There are so many

people struggling. And when a doctor looks at ADHD as a superpower, it can be really dismissive to a patient. And that's what I, like, go tell a little black boy. in an inner city school that his ADHD is a superpower when he's being discriminated against and the education system is working against him, that makes me upset.

Sorry, I get fired up. I get really fired up because if ADHD were a superpower, then everyone with ADHD would be thriving and they're not. They're just not. There's not access to care. There's not understanding.

There's not. Can people with ADHD thrive? Obviously. Like 100% but what does it take? What does it take? It takes us understanding what a struggle it can be and really setting people up for success. And so that's where my heart is. It's certainly not to hurt anyone's feelings.

But it is when someone like me who's a white middle class, maybe upper middle class, American person who is living a very privileged life, when I don't want to speak from ADHD from my experience only because my experience is not the experience of everyone with ADHD. There's so much discrimination. There's so much like so little access to care. There's so little understanding. And so I don't want to use my position.

This is my struggle with the book ADHD is awesome. Is that like penholderness is hot. tall white white rich rich and super super super smart yeah he's brilliant he's brilliant and like all of that is awesome well-to-do parents he came from well-to-do parents who understood him from the jump and accommodated their lives to serve his needs so which all of that is great his book would have been an amazing memoir I read every single word and I wish it were a memoir and not a, hey, here's how we should look at ADHD because he only spoke from his position. And there, I mean, I have served thousands of people globally.

It is a travesty to me for certain people, especially people who have a lot, like a large platform to say something like ADHD is awesome when truly there are people losing their lives because of ADHD. So the point, though, is you are awesome. You have so many superpowers. You have so much about you that is so compelling that I'm like, I want to be besties with this lady. Like she's so awesome.

That's you. I don't want to delegate that to ADHD. Okay. How does that feel? I know I came on really strong. You did. And I see what you're saying because I, okay. So I am coming also. I know I'm wary of your time from a place of privilege in that I can do for a living something that I'm super passionate about. That's what I'm saying. Yes. So good. And that makes all the bad. I'm able to look at the other flip side. But why for me that it's important that I look at the good side is I left home at 15. I flunked out of high school. I was homeless. I went to prison. I became a drug addict.

So I like, and now looking back, all of those things were because I had undiagnosed ADHD and I was impulsive and I was making poor decisions and I couldn't, I couldn't self-regulate my emotions and I couldn't make good decisions. Like I literally couldn't. Totally. And now that I'm older, I'm like, okay, yes, I have to work really hard to cope with all of that, but the flip side of all of those things can be good. The flip side of hyperactivity and impulsivity is that I jump in with both feet in a healthy way when I have rules and boundaries.

I don't drink. I cannot do drugs. I cannot take my credit card with me shopping. I have rules and boundaries, but those rules and boundaries that I need allow me to protect myself from the negative and really indulge in the other side of that, which is sometimes positive. Yeah. I struggle with relationships. You say I'm fun. Guess what I hear after a good week with someone, you're too much. So it's all great to be like this.

But day in and day out, it's exhausting for other people, which I completely understand. So I'm going to, I'm, I love that you're standing up. for everyone but also I don't want people to be in this victim mentality of I'm I have this it's not fair I was born my basically brain damage and it just is what it is and I'm destined to live this like hard small life is that what you feel like my message is I feel like if we can focus on the amazing parts of it maybe not calling it a superpower and definitely cope with the hard stuff, we can lean in and be more positive. Does that make sense? Yeah. And I hope that, first of all, I'm so glad that you have the like inner fire to have this

conversation. I'm so glad. Sorry. I'm just throwing it out there. Don't you dare apologize. Guys, this is like, it's so life-giving to me. It's so life-giving. I like, I so appreciate a really intelligent, healthy back and forth. I really do. So I just want to honor you for that. I so appreciate it. And I want to make sure, you know, if you see a clip of me on Instagram saying

ADHD is not your superpower, it might hurt your feelings. And I definitely don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. But when you listen, like, there's a very real reason why my content is long form. My podcasts are an hour long because clips of me saying things on Instagram is not enough to understand the heart behind the message and what I really think of people with ADHD because look around. Like we are successful. There is so much hope.

But I think for me, starting from a place of what's the reality that we're dealing with. That's where I come from. Start with the reality. And then based on that reality, because if ADHD is a superpower, why would I treat it? If ADHD is a superpower, why am I going to bother to get medication, coaching, therapy, right? You're right. That is true.

It's hard. It's right. And yes, if you're hearing, like, this is so great and it's a superpower, then you're like, well, then why am I? Because 90% of people haven't dealt with the coping skills and they're really struggling. And I struggle. I struggle every day. Exactly.

Why is my life so hard? So, okay. If ADHD is a superpower, then I must be doing ADHD wrong because it doesn't feel like a superpower to me. That those are the people that I want to reach that's like, no, no, no, you're not doing it wrong. You just haven't gotten the right support yet. And as soon as ADHD is the most treatable mental health condition, it is the most treatable.

And so you're not doing ADHD wrong. you just don't have enough support. As soon as someone with ADHD has the right support systems in place, they reach their potential, boom, boom, boom. And so it's not your fault if you're not struggling. I mean, excuse me, it's not your fault if you are struggling. It's what support do I need that I haven't yet put in place? Because as soon as we have the right support, we thrive.

And that is a fact. I mean, that is research backed. As soon as we have the right medication, if that's, That's a good fit for you. The right therapy, the right coaching, the right support, the right community, the right amount of people that understand us for the love of everything and see us. We thrive. But I want to start for me, it's so important that I start from a place of reality.

What's the reality? And then what's the potential? That's so good. Okay. So my listeners, how can they reach out to you and follow you? Your podcast is amazing. They need to listen to that. Please let everyone know because you're right.

You can teach them how to put the skills and the coping mechanisms and the strategies in place so that they can thrive. Not turn it into a superpower. But flip over that coin, friend. You're super human, right? Like, that's the message. It's like, don't delegate the great things about you to ADHD. That's you.

You take credit for that. I'm not, don't delegate that to ADHD. ADHD kind of sucks. Like, but you're, you've got some awesome things about you. So you take credit for,

okay, sorry. I like climb back on the soapbox. I won't get off. Okay, so my podcast is completely free. It's the I have ADHD podcast. You can find it on all the places that you love to,

uh, listen to podcast. And we just started on YouTube. We like literally just, just, just. So if you prefer to watch podcast rather than listen, you can check us out on YouTube.

because I think that's more ADHD-friendly for some. And if you want to know more about me, personally, you go to my website. I have ADHD.com. I do like to hang out on Instagram. I don't plan to hurt your feelings. And you can find me at I Have ADHD podcast there. And it's so good. I love all your content.

I mean, you didn't crush me, my friend. You didn't crush me. But I was like, I'm going to challenge her on that. I'm glad that you did. This was so good. I feel like sometimes. looking at the good of it. I don't know. I got to focus on the good because the bad is bad. The bad is bad. I got you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I really appreciate our conversation.

Thank you. And I appreciate you being here so much. I'm going to put all the links to. I definitely going to go check out your YouTube channel and to your podcast in the show notes below and to your website. So make sure everyone listening, you check that out. And thank you so much for this awesome conversation. And thank you everyone for listening. And we'll see. you guys next time. Bye. Rosen lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time. Let's play.

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