Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Living with ADHD: My Story | Clutterbug Podcast # 212

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

In today's podcast, I am going to share my personal journey with ADHD. Join me for some real talk about the ups and downs of living with this superpower.  Whether you have ADHD yourself, know someone who does or just want to learn more, this podcast will be truly insightful and informative.      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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm nervous to share with you today. This podcast is going to be different than normal podcast. Today, I'm talking about my ADHD story and I feel very vulnerable putting this out there. I hope you're not going to judge me, but I also feel really sort of drawn. I'm pulled to share this story in hopes that it helps other people who are struggling. and especially people who may have children who are struggling with some of the things I did when I was younger. So buckle up, friends. Today's podcast is going to go places. Hey, Clutterbugs, welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. We're talking about ADHD and specifically we're talking about my ADHD story, which I have only shared publicly one time. And I shared this at an ADHD conference that I went to. I was their keynote speaker. I wasn't sure what to talk about. So I shared my

childhood story and my own experience growing up having ADHD and undiagnosed ADHD and where that led me in my life. And it's so shameful and you're going to hear why, but I made a lot of really terrible mistakes. And I did really bad things that still haunt me to the this day and I still carry them with me every single day. I think about the things I did. I feel guilt and shame for those things every single day of my life. And now that I have a diagnosis, which I only received a few years ago, I do have a lot of sympathy for that little girl when she was younger. I look back at her and I just want to give her a hug. Right. And so let's jump into my story. maybe some of this you can relate to, maybe some that you can't, but I'm hoping at the very least

listening to this, you may have more sympathy for those bad, wild, terrible little children that maybe you know. Okay, because they're not so terrible. Let's jump in at the very beginning. I am very, very old. I was born in 1979. So growing up in the 80s, especially growing up in a really small town. I had never heard anyone ever mention ADHD. This was not something that anyone ever talked about. My parents had never heard of this. And growing up all the adults in my life, teachers, doctors, medical professionals, my own parents, the general consensus was she needs more spankings. like the the I was very hyperactive. I was very impulsive. And everybody just basically said she needs more discipline, right? Yeah. Like she needs to control herself or other people need to control her.

That was it. And I was like such a cute little kid, but I was extremely hyper. at first my parents assumed and doctors as well that I was allergic to sugar that was the first diagnosis that I received at about the age of two and I remember my dad always tells me this story like he was trying to to cut sugar out of my diet and because they thought that like sugar was making me crazy pants and I was bouncing off of walls all the time and I didn't I was always singing dancing and not really sitting still Spoiler alert, it wasn't the sugar. I was just a very, you know, active and a very sociable and very talkative little little child. And because I was all of those things, I heard a lot of adults in

my life really refer to me as annoying. I annoyed not only adults, but my peers as well, but especially my parents, they're amazing people. But I drove them nuts. And they, they told me as much. And I don't want you to judge my parents and be like, oh, there's a bad parents. I have three kids. They're annoying. They're annoying. They're like, mom, mom, hey, say, fat, look at me, look at me. But I took that to the next level. And I made that a musical. You know what I'm saying? I never stopped talking. I was always asking a million questions and I was always making noise and tapping and just in their faces 24-7 seeking attention. And the feedback I got was, you're so annoying. Go away. You're so annoying. Calm down. You're so annoying. And what I did for fun because I grew up in the country

and I didn't have siblings in my house growing up. I was like an only child. And I was desperate for attention and my parents worked a lot. I would like talk to myself. Honest to goodness. I used to put on the Cassandra show with my dog, Princey. And I would rip down my mom's drapes or fine fabric and do fashion shows and like, welcome back to the Cassandra show. Today we're interviewing Princey. Princey, what is it like being a dog? Like even in isolation, I was talking and singing and just being a lot. all the time. And the feedback from my teachers was also the exact same thing. A lot of like, shh, shh, stop talking. Every report card that I ever got was Cassandra is incredibly disruptive

to everyone else around her. Cassandra does not stop talking. Cassandra does not stop making noise. She disrupts the class all the time. That was always the feedback. And then in grade six, I had one teacher. I'm not going to name names of this teacher, but he actually moved my desk into the hall. So when the bell rang and all the other kids would go into the class, I would go sit alone in the hall. And this was embarrassing. It was isolating. I had already felt very isolated at home because I was home a lot.

Didn't get like my parents worked a lot. I didn't live by other kids my age. I didn't have friends that I could see after school because we live so far away. And now at school, which is like this time that I have people around, people, I was placed in the hall. And what I learned that year was not math or science or English because I was sitting in the hall. I learned I am annoying and I learned I am different than the other kids.

So I want you to bear with me because I'm like, I'm painting you an ADHD story here of my life. So you kind of see sort of why I went the way that I did. Not only was I really disruptive in school, but memorization was hard for me too. I think I was smart. So I did, I got okay grades, but I really struggle to memorize things. My multiplication table still don't know it to this day. I remember we used to do these flash card things where, you know, everybody would stand and then they would hold up flashcards for the times tables. And if you got it, you got to sit down. And then the next, I was always the last one standing. Spelling things. I could never remember anything. And I always thought there has to be a better way, you know, because I would try and try. I would study and I would study and I would study. And I would look around at other kids in my class who weren't studying as much as I were.

And they were doing okay. And they were passing. And I'm working my tail off and I still can't remember. So why would I work to fail anyways? There has to be a better way. And in grade two, I remember Miss Ditchfield. I shouldn't say her name. She was a nice teacher.

But anyways, she caught me cheating. I had written all the answers on my hand. And to the spelling test. and she caught me cheating and she was like, that is so bad, you're so lazy. And if you just tried harder, I remember this very clearly because what I learned from that experience and other experiences of being in school realizing how much harder it was for me and how every time I tried to take a shortcut, I was told that I was being lazy. I really learned that I was lazy and dumb compared to other children my age. And I internalized this. This was something like I was told by so many teachers

over and over again. And combining that, I also really realized I was a rule breaker, man. I did what I want when I wanted. I really did. So the cheating thing was like, I knew it was bad, but it seemed like a better idea. So I was just going to go for it. I didn't have a lot of that. What if I get in trouble? Let's think about consequences in the future. You know, how is this going to affect other people? I was like, that wasn't really ever a thought in this little brain of mine. And an example of this was in grade one. In grade one, I remember convincing my best friend, Jenny, to walk home with me from school at first. because I really wanted like pop tarts or something, like some sort of snack. And I lived far. It was a far walk. I'm maybe six years old. She's six years old at this time. And we walked all the way to my

house, left school, walked all the way there, stayed for a while. I remember throwing the, I was at least aware enough, like throw the snacks over the fence to the neighbor's yard so my parents didn't find out. And by the time we came back, everyone had been looking for us. Like Jenny's parents had been called. I don't know if they thought we were kidnapped. It was like a whole thing. And she was no longer allowed to hang out with me. I remember I started a pudding fight in grade four. And I was told like I couldn't eat lunch with the other kids in the class because I was the bad kid. I was the impulsive kid. So I, that's another thing I love. learned about myself, not only that I was impulsive, but I was bad. I was always doing bad things.

I was a bad influence on the children around me. And this I learned I was very young, six years old, and I'm a bad influence and I can't hang out, you know, anymore with certain kids. And I very vividly remember the one thing I wanted my whole life was to just be good. I just wanted to be a good girl. I just wanted to make people happy. I didn't want to upset my parents anymore. I wanted to follow the rules. I wanted to do things the right way, but I just couldn't help be annoying, lazy, dumb and bad. I just felt like no matter how hard I tried I screwed up anyways. So by the time I was 13, honestly, I really just stopped trying. I just embraced being bad and being lazy and being dumb because guess what? I was going to be that anyways. Why would I work hard not to

and get the same results. Like at least when I embraced it, it took a lot of pressure off me. And I remember I was just all in. And guess what? It was fun. I was doing things like even, probably around the age of 10,

I started shoplifting and doing like these little impulsive dopamine seeking bad things. And by the time I was 13, I was just, I did not care. I was like, whatever. Yeah, cuckoo. I think I was still a good person. I know I was still a good person as a kid. I would never have hurt someone on purpose, but I also didn't try to really contain my wild anymore.

I kind of let that out. And one of the biggest contributing factors, definitely around 13, 14, 15, I started to really notice a trend with the adults in my life, how miserable they were. There's this narrative that I was given and not just by my parents, by teachers, but society in general that if I worked hard, if I worked hard in school, if I worked hard and got a good job, I could have this life that was like a good adult life. And my parents had what everyone was saying and they were saying was like a good adult life. They both had okay jobs. They worked a lot. They had a nice house. They had a boat. They had a trailer. They got to go on a vacation once a year. They had a big in-ground pool. So the narrative was this is like this is goals for an

adult. This is the life you want. This is what you're working so hard to strive. This could be your life if you're lucky one day. This is the best that you could really get. And what What I saw was my parents working like a dog at a crappy factory job. They had crappy factory jobs. They worked shift work. They worked all day on their feet. They were exhausted. They were sore.

They came home. They had to cut grass. They had to cook dinner. They had to clean. They had to work all day at night. They were miserable. All they did was complain about how much they worked, how tired they were, and how much more they had to do.

And they never caught up. they never caught up. I never saw them really enjoy themselves, have fun. I certainly didn't see them do anything exciting or like, yay, you know, it was this mundane, boring, miserable existence. And if I worked hard, I could have that too. No, thank you. 13, 14, 15, I was like, I don't want to be that. I don't want to grow up. I don't want to fit into society's box. I don't have any desire to follow the rules and become that because that looked like my absolute worst nightmare. It really did boring, mundane, miserable existence. That's what my perception was.

it wasn't that bad, but I certainly didn't want to work all day at a crappy factory job and come home and clean my house and cook grass and do laundry and make dinner and no thank you. So I made the decision like a conscious decision at the age of 15 that I could either take the path that everyone else in society was taking and continue to work hard in school or try to work hard in school even though it was really hard and tough. So I could live my parents life or I could choose to be happy. I could choose to be free and wild and just figure out a new way, a better way, an easier way to live life outside of this box, which felt stifling and suffocating and miserable to me. So at 15 years old, and I had been thinking about this for a long time, I literally just

packed a bag. I'm sure I had a fight with one of my parents or something. But I had already made the decision that I wasn't going to stay in that house and live that life. And that was not going to be my future. And I was very stubborn. So I packed a bag and I left at 15 years old with the clothes that I had grabbed and I became homeless. And I at first was like bouncing from couch to couch, different friends who would take me in. but nobody's going to let some random kids sleep on their couch forever, right? Their parents were like, she's got to go.

And I also was really aware I didn't want to overstay my welcome. There was lots of times that I slept in parks under picnic tables. I slept in and out of teen homeless shelters. Homeless shelters would only let you stay for 30 days and then you would have to leave for 30 days and then you could come back for 30 days. So for years, I would literally live in a place called the transition house for 30 days and then be homeless for 30 days. And then go back, dropped out of high school, obviously, was really broke. Didn't, couldn't wash my clothes, smelled, didn't have any food. I was extremely hungry.

It was living like a candy that I could steal from variety stores. There were many days I had no food at all. I got involved and started getting hooked up with other homeless teens, obviously, from the homeless teen shelter. And then outside other homeless teens that didn't have a place to go. Sometimes we would all, you know, we would all steal and then pool that together and pay for little apartments. You know, we'd all have to go out and steal change from cars or do what we could and then pool our money so we had a place to live. But most of the time, we slept outside. It was a hard It was hard.

But I didn't want to go back. And I could have went back at any time. Like my parents were wonderful, non-abusive people, unlike most of the homeless teens who were leaving because of abuse or trauma. I just was so stubborn. I was like, I'm going to figure something out that is not that life. I'm going to find another path. And I definitely, because I was so impulsive, and didn't have any rules at all. I was doing little crime and I was doing drugs and I was drinking

and I was engaging in a lot of really, really toxic negative behavior. But I got really sick of being broke and again, there's got to be a better way. I started coming up with more elaborate criminal schemes. I want you to think of like, catch me if you can, you know, with Leonardo DeCaprio, except I wasn't a smart criminal like him. And for all, for all, while it was, I was doing okay and I was doing all these little like different things. I'm not going to give you ideas by telling you what I was doing, but I was doing some stupid stuff for money. Eventually, I got caught. And by this point, I was actually an adult. And I think I was 18 or 19 years old. And before that, I had got caught lots of times. But they send you to like little kid jail,

which is not really jail. And then they would send me home to my parents or something. And then I would just like run away a couple days later, a couple months later. But I took off, you know, and I knew I had warrants out for my arrest all over the Ontario. But, but when I finally got caught, I was an adult and I got put into an adult prison. And it was like a real prison, like orange jumpsuit. Everybody in there was a grown-up. Everybody in there was mean. There was a reason they were in there. It was a real hardened prison. And I got my butt kicked regularly. And it was terrifying.

And I feared for my life. And this, I think, is the first time I had real consequences, real consequences for my actions. And I got out of that jail. I was supposed to get transferred to another jail. but the car never came to pick me up. The police from another town, they never showed up. So they just released me. And I made a decision in that moment I would never break the law again, ever.

I would never shoplift. I don't care if I'm starving. I'll starve to death before I ever break the law again because I was never going back to prison. I can promise you that I was never, ever going back to prison. So now I got to, I relied on. for years on on petty crime to feed me to house me to get me the things that I need I stole I had little jobs here and there but but as a homeless kid you can't get a job you know I had government programs here and there but the majority of my survival was dependent on stealing and I had made

I would never do that again so now it's like steps to be a grown up you know got to be a grownup I went back home with my mom and they got me with a job and a little apartment and steps to being a grownup are go to work every day, pay bills, do housework, repeat till you die. Like, this is it. I'm back in the box now. I have to be because outside of the box was way harder. Outside of the box leads to prison and being starving. I better play by the rules.

I guess there isn't an easy. way. The easier way is to climb back into society's box and do the thing that I got to do. And so I worked multiple crappy minimum wage jobs just to be able to have enough to pay the rent and feed myself. And I would come home exhausted after working day to night, really. Yeah, just try to tidy a little bit. I was a bad housework and terribly disorganized. But I would do that. And even though I was still annoying, lazy and dumb, I was no longer bad. I probably would have lived that way for the rest of my life, dead end minimum wage jobs that I would often get fired from because I was so forgetful or impulsive or just not

great at it or was not, I would try to like find shortcuts still. You know, like I was still all the things. And so I was constantly getting fired. were quitting jobs and getting new jobs, but I was always working and I was trying my best. And I wasn't happy. It wasn't fun. It wasn't exciting. I didn't feel passion. I just felt like this is life. This is what my parents do. You work all day to pay the bills, slowly hope you get a nicer place to live. And that's it till you die. Okay. I resigned my fact to that, to the fact that that was life. until I had life-changing moment number one.

I had recently lost a job, and there's a government program called the job creation program that would take unskilled people like me as a high school, a high school dropout, okay, and put them in real careers in order to get real job experience. And the government would pay the employer in order to have me. there. So they would get a free employee and also they would get money. And I, they would help you with like money for fancier clothes. You could have like nice businessy clothes. And then you would do this job. The government would pay you and you would learn what it's like to work a real job. And my placement was with United Way. And not only did I learn to work in an office. I learned to do computer work.

I learned to fundraise. I started working for a program called Good Neighbors at United Way, where they would collect used furniture for free. In the community, the fire department would offer their services for free to go around the whole community and pick up donations, bring them back to a warehouse that was donated to United Way, and I would help set up everything, furniture, bedding, towels, glasses, dishes, curtains, everything. And then people from the community could get refraud. from social services programs and come and shop for free. And I would open up the doors to these people who, they had appointments,

and they were so grateful. And I remember one lady in particular, I hadn't been working there long. And I met her at the warehouse. She was going through chemotherapy. So she was, you know, she was covering her head with a bandana. She was very frail, very sick and covered in bruises. She had left her abusive husband while going through chemotherapy for breast cancer and moved into the women's shelter and they had found her her own place. And she had left with nothing but the clothes on her back and moving into an apartment starting over with nothing.

And so she picked out old furniture and tables and we got her curtains and bedding and dishes. She cried with joy of all this things that, you know, other people were just giving away because it was old junk to them. She was so grateful. And I cried with her. And we hugged, ah, I'm getting emotional just thinking about it. Because that experience gave me so much joy. I realized, oh my gosh. And I had done a lot of drugs, okay? And I had. I had partied and I had done crazy things. And I had never felt the elation that I did feel helping someone else, helping change someone else's life. And I felt for the first time in my life something that I never felt before and that was purpose. Purpose. There was a reason I was here.

I felt passion for. for helping others, which was the most addicting drug at all and was filling me with all the dopamine and serotonin. And I wanted more of that. And eventually I left United Way. I was working other charities. I started working for the Lung Association, doing fundraising for them, raising money, teaching kids in the schools about stopping smoking. I would bring the pigs' lungs. Like I was, I loved my job. I worked part-time in a new. nursing home in the activities department, playing bingo and doing nails and bringing in musicians and bands and entertaining senior citizens. So much purpose, so much joy. I had a reason for being

on this earth. I was making other people's lives better. And I was happy. And I met my husband. We got married. We had kids. And I realized when I had kids, like, I had a whole. new purpose. I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom so badly. Even though I loved my job, I loved being a mom more, but we didn't have a lot of money. And that same excitement and drive I had felt with my careers up until now, the passion, I took that and I really channeled it into being a stay-at-home mom. And I remember my husband saying, like, you still need to earn money, Cass. I don't earn enough for you to be home with the kids and not work. And I thought there's got to be away. I'm going to try all the things. And I had a year maternity leave with my second daughter. I had an older daughter. She was two and a baby.

And so I had a year off to try every business I possibly can. I tried multi-level marketing. I tried making jewelry. I was making tutuos and hair bows. I even became a birthday clown. and was advertising like I learned to do balloon animals and stuff. So at weekends, I could start like a clown business and do birthday parties to earn money. None of those worked out. Okay. None of those worked out. And a few weeks before I was supposed to go back to work, I still hadn't found a career. I was like, I'm going to run a daycare from my home. and I put out advertisements looking for children that would come to the daycare. And what I figured out on paper was if I got rid of a second vehicle, didn't have insurance,

didn't have the gas for that vehicle, didn't have to pay for daycare for my children, and I brought in daycare kids, I would be earning the same amount as if I was working full time. And that's what happened with just maybe a week and a half left before I was supposed to go back to work. I was earning the same amount as I would have if I would have went back to work. And I was able to be a stay-at-home mom, which was incredible. But running a daycare out of your house and, you know, having a bunch of kids in your house really amplified one of my biggest issues. And that was disorganization.

I was a slob and now I have kids in my house and now my job is to be a stay-at-home mom and take care of kids and take care of a house. Why is this so hard and why do I suck at it so bad? And I did. It was like toys or us vomited. I worked all day and all day from the time I got up, I was like, go, go, go, go. I'd fall into bed at night and never. get ahead and never be able to catch up. And I felt like, why is it easy for other people and so difficult for me? And I'm going to share with you what I discovered in one second. But first, I have to

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code clutterbug to get 35% off sitewide. All right, so let's get back into my struggle with organization. I think my biggest issue was I've always been messy my whole life. And anytime I'd ever tried to get organized, I just failed. And so cleaning to me was like shoving everything out of sight, shoving it under the bed, shoving it in closets, putting it in the basement, filling rooms nobody will see, you know. I used to shove dirty dishes in my stove and melt them because I forgot about them when I would preheat the oven or shove dirty dishes in cabinets. Like I, I didn't have any idea how to organize. And my husband, who's a really organized person, used to try to set up systems for me, he would set up like all these little containers and all these

categories and the filing cabinet, he would set it up all the file systems. And he was like, Cass, it's not that hard. You're done paying the electricity bill. Open the file cabinet and put it in the folder that's labeled electricity. Like, why is this hard for you? But I would be done paying a bill if I remembered to pay a bill, if I remembered where I put the bill. But when I did, I would just shove it in a drawer. Like I wouldn't take the time to put things away in this really detailed way. And eventually I kind of just gave up and was like, well, this is what I'm going to live like, this constant shoving and hiding, pulling it out to find what I need, shoving and hiding it again.

And one day I was sitting on the couch with the daycare kids. They were like playing or whatever. And I was watching TLC. And I had dirty clothes everywhere. and it was a disaster. And Peter Walsh's show, Clean Sweep came on. And he inspired me. His words inspired me to try again, but try a different way. First, you did clutter. He inspired me to get rid of stuff, which made the second part a lot easier, which was organization. But instead of doing it the way Joe was showing me and this really detailed way, I came up with this really

non-detailed way. I got a bunch of dish pans from the dollar store and I would just toss my bills and paid bills for that year. You know, like I knew where they were. And I was actually putting them in a place that was, I could find it again. And I did this approach to everything, whether it was medication, extra products, my socks, I didn't fold my clothes, everything just had a home. But I gave myself permission to kind of make big categories and put it away kind of messily. And this amazing thing happened was that my house started staying really tidy. And I could find things quickly. And I could put away things quickly. And I wasn't losing things. And I wasn't looking for things. And I wasn't forgetting I owned things. And I thought I was a genius. I thought I had discovered

that organization was two ways. You are either a really detailed person like traditional organizing people or you needed a simple laid back less organized approach with big categories like me. So a micro or a macro organizer. And this like realization was I'm not messy. I just organized differently, which was my second life changing moment in my life, like my big, huge, life-changing moment was that organization was not one-size-fits-all. And armed with this knowledge, I not only got my entire house organized, I started helping friends and family. And then I thought,

could I do this as a business? Because I was getting referrals from people and people were like, hey, you want to help me? And I started advertising, like, I can help you get organized. And I reached out to real estate agents like, hey, I see this house on my street isn't selling. It's kind of messy. I can organize it for free. And then if it sells faster, maybe you could refer me to other clients who need a little organizing help. And this business really started to grow. But I had one particular client who was a lawyer. And because it was insecure, like about my services, because I was such a naturally chaotic person. My marketing strategy was, if it doesn't stay organized for 30 days, I'll come back and organize it for free again. Like I'll reorganize it for free. And I had this client

who was a lawyer and she called me and was like, this isn't working. And I would go back and reorganize it. You know, at first I organized it in a non-detailed macro way, all her papers. She had a home office. And I was like, oh, let's just do it laid back. And she's like, this is ridiculous. Like, no, I want details on details, on details. So I came back and I organized her filing cabinets. And we got extra filing cabinets. And I did it color coordinated and everything in alphabetical order. And it just about killed me to set this up for her. But, and I spent so long on it. But I was like, well, this will work for her. And then she called me back a third time. And I walk into her office. And I kid you not, all the files, or a lot of the files that were in her filing cabinet,

she had pulled out and spread on the surfaces of her desk, spread on the floor, spread on her credenza. Everything was spread. There was sticky notes and post-it notes all over everything. And I thought, like, and she's like, I'm just not putting it back when I'm done. I don't know why. I work better when I can see it and I can spread. it all out like this, I can't put it back into filing cabinets, but I can't also live with this chaotic piles of mess everywhere. And I had two thoughts, either one, she's lazy, and that's why she's not

putting it away. And my second thought was, I don't believe that there's got to be a better way. And that's when it really hit me like a truck that she's visual. That's why this doesn't work for her, because traditional organization is putting papers in filing cabinets and hiding it all out of sight. And she doesn't want anything hidden out of sight. That's why she's spreading it all out, subconsciously. So I was like, okay, listen, we're going to stop using the filing cabinets. We went to the store. We bought a bunch of magazine racks. We hung them all over her walls with big labels. And we put all of her files on the wall so she could see them. So it was off the desk, so it wasn't piles, super vertical, super visual. And guess what? She called me back, but not to come reorganize for her. She called me back because she said,

the realization that I'm visual has changed my life. I took the cabinet doors off my kitchen. I installed open shelving in my kitchen and in my living room. And it's never been tidier. I took the doors off in my closet. I put a bunch of hooks for coats and purses in her in her briefcase. It's no more mess. She embraced this visual organization and she stayed tidy and this is when it hit me. Some people are visual. And there are four different organizing styles. That combination of detailed or non-detailed, which do you prefer? And are you a traditional hidden organizer with things behind closed doors, or do you need to see it and have it out and have visual? And that, how you sort and how you store, I developed into the clutter bug organizing styles, which I started, again, helping more clients discover their styles and saying, if this doesn't stay organized, I'll come back and organize it for free. And I never had to go back. because when I could diagnose their style and what they preferred right off the bat before I started

organizing it and I was set up systems for how they naturally manage their stuff and I created this clutter-catching organizing system for them based on how they lived and how their family lived it didn't get messy again. It didn't get disorganized again. And this was the, it is the whole basis of my business. I started making just all of this content and helping all of these people based on this method because maybe you're not actually bad at it organization. Maybe you don't suck at organization. maybe you just need to try a different way. And it worked. And it was proven again and again and again with hundreds of clients.

And it was so now passionate about this. I was like, this is my purpose. This is my passion. This is what I meant to do. I'm still running a daycare. I'm still a stay-at-home mom. But on the sides, weekends and evenings, all I'm doing is organizing. or talking about organizing or researching organization. I'm reading every book, every magazine.

I am so passionate about home organization. It is my entire life. And my husband is like, please for the love of God, stop talking about this. Please, can we not talk about organization anymore? And he bought me a camera. And I'll never forget. He gave me the camera and he said, listen, how about you record yourself talking about organization and posted on the internet on this new thing called YouTube instead of always talking about it to me? Like let the world be excited. Share your excitement with the world cast and maybe we can talk about something else at home. And that's exactly what I did. And I started my YouTube channel. It was back then it was called Malatos 79.

but I became a YouTuber talking about my passion. So here's the thing. You guys know, I talked a lot and I was always like, as a kid, my whole life. I used to talk to the mirror. And now I get to do nonstop talking. I get to help others make a difference, help someone else. I get to make videos.

I get to organize. It's the perfect career for me. It is the thing I'm born to do. because I'm passionate and it combines all my passions together into one thing. So because I'm passionate, because I'm excited about it, I discovered this incredible thing called hyperfocus. Hyperfocus is like super productivity. I can do all the things.

Like I as a high school dropout could learn how to design a website, do coding. I learned, I taught myself how to use a camera, how to learn editing, use editing software, taught myself how to do graphic design, taught myself how to do courses, do marketing. I wrote books, like crazy pants, things. I got done so quickly. I wrote my first book in like two months because I'm just like a rabid spider monkey because I'm hyper focusing on it because I'm so incredibly. incredibly passionate. And eventually I started earning so much money from this organizing business

that I was able to stop doing daycare. My kids were going to school full time anyways. And this became my sole career. And now Clutterbug, I mean, I developed the quiz. So to help people identify their organizing style, over five million people take that quiz each and every year. I have four books, which were all bestsellers. I got a show on HDTV all about the four different organizing styles. Like HD TV show, Hot Mess House, was based on the four organizing styles. And I'm at the height of my career. And my life is incredible. And I'm earning great money. And we're, we're, we're, I have beautiful children, a wonderful relationship. I'm a relationship, great friends.

But my house is tidy and spotless all the time. Like from the outside, it's like da-da-da-da-da-da. I'm winning at life. But for some reason, adulting still felt so hard for me. I felt like I struggled more than the average person with things like remembering dates, remembering what I'm supposed to be doing. I had all this success, but I had to have 50 million alarms and messages and calendars and apps and things just to remind me. I had spots for my keys and and wallets and everything,

but I had to work so much harder to do like basic things. And I got very distracted. And I still, I know that I was, I was still annoying people in my life because I was told, gosh, just annoying, calm down. Extremely forgetful, that was the worst thing. I would often also interrupt people and like bring it back. Like I wouldn't let people finish their sentence. So I had a hard time making new friends because I was just like, but, but, but talking over them. And often also, this is another thing that I would do.

Anytime I was in a social environment, I would feel very uncomfortable and awkward because I was so aware of all of these little annoying, I talked too much. I was very impulsive traits. And I would get that social anxiety would cause me to blurt out really inappropriate things. I would tend to overshare about personal things. Like, oh my gosh, I poop my pants last week. You know, I thought it was a fart. It wasn't to a completely random stranger. Or I'd be in an environment where we're supposed to like be quiet and behave. and I would just feel like an impulse to say like balls or something or swear or like it was weird not Tourette's level but I just I had a hard time being a grown up and behaving and I remember

going to my doctor my family doctor and I was 40 years old and I said to him I cried I said I have all this success on paper, but I'm 15 minutes late for this appointment because I forgot about it six times today. And I had to remind myself and have multiple alarms just to get here. I forgot to eat breakfast and lunch. And I don't even know what I'm doing and where I am and where I'm going. And I struggle with relationships. And I struggle with just everything in my life. and I struggle to remember things. I still don't know what nine times seven is. And I've been teaching my kids,

their times tables for years. Like, what is wrong with me? Something is wrong with me. I know this. Something I'm not normal. And I was crying to him. And he said something that changed my life. He said, I think you have ADHD.

Now, the way he diagnosed me, he was like an old dude, okay? He was like in his 80s, my family doctor. And he didn't send me to a psychiatrist. He didn't get me tested. He said, listen, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to give you some riddling. If it makes you high, you don't have ADHD. If it calms you down, you do have ADHD.

And come back to me after two weeks and let me know how. I went. And so he prescribed me some riddalen. And I was like, okay, this is weird. Sure. And I took the riddle in and it was like, whoa, my, I can't describe it. I'll never be able to describe it with words. But it's like someone turned off the TV in the background of my mind that I didn't even know was on. suddenly my brain got calmer and my physical body didn't feel calmer but my brain was like oh it wasn't like pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop it was just I could have a thought one singular thought at one time and I was no longer as forgetful I was no longer as distracted I was no longer as chaotic I was calmer. I wasn't interrupting people. I wasn't as annoying. And it didn't change my personality.

And I was still a little bit of all those things. Let's be honest. But I stopped doing silly things like losing my phone at the store, putting it in my boob and like looking for it for six hours, even though it's in my boob or, you know, just all the stupid, stupid leaving the, the house and forgetting to put on pants. Like just, you know. I was a basket case. And taking medication really helped with a lot of that. It did not cure me, but it was life-changing enough. And yet it changed nothing.

But here's the biggest thing it changed. For the first time in my life, I realized what's wrong with me? Nothing at all. I had a new perspective. I started realizing like this isn't that you're not trying hard enough. It isn't that you're not smart enough. It isn't that you're too lazy or dumb. You have a real medical condition and you wouldn't shame someone who has diabetes because their body doesn't make insulin. So why am I shaming myself for how having ADHD and the fact that I'm chronically low on dopamine and I don't have good executive function in my brain. My brain's always looking for stimulation. So I need to take stimulants to stimulate my brain so that it can calm and relax. And I also got a new perspective because I'm looking at my life differently, not with shame, not with the shame and

guilt that I had always felt, but instead I'm like, okay, I am incredibly impulsive because I have ADHD, but that means I'm never afraid to try new things. It means I never let the fear of failure get in the way of me trying. My ADHD means that I'm like, this impulsivity, if I have rules and boundaries, can be an incredibly positive thing. My hyperactivity. My hyperactors, I'm very hyper, but it means I can hyper focus on things that I'm really, really passionate and excited about. And I can get 10 times more done than the average person, 10 times more, 10 times faster. I don't need to stop. I don't ever get distracted. I could do something for 12 hours straight and be excited with a smile on my face and never stop. I work like a rabid spider monkey

because of my wonderful hyper focus. My dislike of mundane, now this is a big one. I hate boring, boring mundane things, but that means that anytime I'm presented in a situation where I have to do something boring and mundane, my brain is always looking for a shortcut, always looking for a, to do it differently.

There's got to be a better way. So I'm always problem solving and being creative and coming up with solutions, which means I am inventing constantly new and better solutions and shortcuts and super creative. And my total disdain and hatred of structure and like, this is the way life's got to be follow these rules means that I get to create my own path, that I get to go outside the box, that I didn't need to learn to run on the hamster cage like everybody else. Be good, sit still, be quiet, follow the rules, do what you're supposed to. You run on that hamster cage. I just, in that hamster wheel, I just needed to get out of the cage.

I could be free and have flexibility as long as I had some sort of boundaries in the cage. my life. And for me, those boundaries in my life are like, I don't break the law, obviously. I don't drink. I don't do drugs. Like, I have strict rules for myself. But within those strict rules, I allow myself freedom. So I don't have structure. I have freedom, but I have boundaries to keep me contained so I don't go off and go crazy like I did as a teen. And I have this beautiful family and this beautiful life. I am so grateful that I was born with ADHD because even as hard as it is, and it's still hard today, I truly believe it's like the most incredible gift because I'm able to live this really creative, big, fun, exciting life that I'm passionate. That I'm passionate.

it about that gives me purpose. And I know that ADHD is the driving force behind that. So the reason I wanted to share this story with you is because, God, I'm feeling emotional. Every time I talk about this, I'll be less emotional. But anyways, like, if you have a kid, if you have a child in your life that struggles in this system, and I'm throwing the school system under the bus here, because the school system rewards sustained attention and memorization. That's what schools reward. Sit in your desk for hours a day. Learn boring stuff while you sit still and memorize it. Be quiet, be still, and memorize. That's rewarded. And if you have ADHD, those are three things you cannot do. So you are told that you're annoying, lazy, dumb, and bad.

Because you don't fit in to this box, this system that is the opposite of how ADHD brains works. So for kids, the system is the problem. You don't need to change. The system needs to change. You need a different system. And yes, we can't reinvent the wheel, which is why I think it's okay to try medication for children. I used to not think this.

I used to think, oh, well, why would you medicate them? Like, that's terrible. But the truth is we do have to play within the rules. That's life. There are some rules we need to play. And if we were wild and free, we wouldn't need that. But there is some point where we do have to sit and listen and behave ourselves at some. So medication can help that.

But you know what else can help with that? It's finding a passion. discovering your purpose. Help children discover their passions and purpose. Try lots of new things. Yes, they're going to stimulate their brains with video games and TikTok and on there. But like, that's not the solution. That's not a passion or a purpose. When that stuff's taken away, what fires them up and what fires you up? Because that's a problem. That's a problem. you turn ADHD from this negative thing into a freaking superpower. That's how you take all the bad and you make it a positive thing, discovering that passion and that purpose, discovering what

lights you up and going full in with that, making sure we've got boundaries and we're not doing negative things. We're only doing positive things. And that's where we as ADHDers can create this incredible life that neurotypical brains could only dream of because we are free from the limitations of a neurotypical brain. So thank you for listening to this very weird podcast today that made me emotional, but I'm still like I look back on all the mistakes that I made with regret, but also I wouldn't change a thing because I've learned so much. And I have so much more empathy for people who struggle with drug addictions or homelessness or struggle in school.

I see them differently because I truly don't believe that there are bad people. I think that there are people who are told that they're bad because they don't fit into the norm for whatever reason. And eventually that becomes a self-fulfill. prophecy because they've given up. And I hope you listening are feeling maybe you see some of this in your own life or in somebody that you know in love. Maybe they could find this helpful. Anyways, I'm feeling emotional about this, which is crazy pants because I'm like an old lady now, but yeah, it's a crazy thing. It's a crazy thing. Having eight.

ADHD, especially undiagnosed ADHD and getting the answers and finding a community of other people who struggle and forgiving yourself is incredible. So thank you guys so much for spending time with me today. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. I know it was different than I normally share, but I just, I felt, I felt like it was time. And I'm getting emotional. I apologize for that too. Thank you guys so much. And I'll see you guys next time.