Don't Blame Me! - ADHD and PhD

Episode Date: June 29, 2026

On this week's episode of Don't Blame Me, Meghan and Melisa are giving advice on what to do if you think you have ADHD, if you should drop out of your PhD program, and an update from the person who kept finding dead birds at their doorstep. Melisa has dubbed herself, "The Face of the LA Sparks Fandom," and Meghan has been deep in her gardening work, but also shares her thoughts on Love Island US and UK. Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/dontblameme Subscribe to But Am I Watching? Apple  Spotify Subscribe to Don’t Blame Me! Apple Spotify Call In for DBM - 310-694-0976 (3 minutes or less) Write In for DBM - [e-mail] (300 words or less) DBM Submission Form Buy Our Merch https://crowdmade.com/collections/sister-sign Follow Us! instagram.com/meghanandmelisa @meghanrienks instagram.com/meghanrienks https://twitter.com/meghanrienks @sheisnotmelissa instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa instagram.com/diamondmprint.productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's episode of Don't Blame Me, we are talking acronyms. What happens if you think you have ADHD? What should you do with that? Any tips to cope with that and deal with that? And what's our other acronym we're dealing with, Melissa? P-H-D. Should I stay or should I go? I hate these people.

That's all I got. And then we also have an update on the Dead Bird Saga. Do you remember it? It's okay. We'll explain. And yes, it's just as intriguing as it sounds. yeah um and we're also like in in the fun times pop culture updates on our lives we're talking about how i have dubbed myself the official face of the los angeles sparks fandom and you'll see

why you can also just go to the sparks instagram and then also spoil it yeah then stick around they'll stick around i put it in my stories you just didn't watch my stories oh i missed it that's weird i never miss your story i know i noticed you didn't so i was like oh this is gonna be a good story right and i'm concerned what was i doing that i missed your story i don't think i've ever missed one of your stories ever that's fine okay and megan was out in her garden and she got a lot done and it looks really good and she's also going to give us her weekly thoughts on love island i hold melissa hostage while i tell her about the two tv shows she does not watch it happens every summer and that's fine it's completely fine yeah uh megan if people want

to participate in the show, how do they go about doing that? You can leave us a voicemail at 310-694-0976. You can send us an audio message at meganpodcasts at gmail.com, or you can fill out the form that is listed in the show notes. Whatever your preference. Do you like to hear the sound of your own voice? Do you want to use a voice disguise or be very mysterious? Or do you want to type it out? Either way, you can get all the info there. All right, let's get into the episode great news the federal ev rebate is back eligible customers get up to five thousand dollars with the federal evap rebate on select 2027 volt and 2026 equinox ev models visit your local chevrolet dealer today for more details

first up hi megan and melissa i am 28 and i just finished year three of five in my phd program i didn't even know that there could be that many well i i was about to ask i don't know are you an engineer i don't even know how many they're supposed i know it can be like an unlimited amount of years but to me this sounds like minimum it's five years not like it's taking you five years to accomplish this wow the problem is i hate it well as we just discussed it doesn't sound like we would be too fond of that either. I pushed through this far thinking that I'd grow to like the research and classes and find my footing, but I just haven't. I think about quitting all the time and I think I'm finally at the point where I'm done. I just have no passion or interest for

the subject anymore. The whole point of doing the program was to be set up job-wise in the end and have a financially stable career either in academia or industry. But now I don't even know if I push through and finish it if I would be up to doing either. But I also only have two years left. It feels wrong to quit something this big especially because the issue isn't being able to complete it it's just not wanting to my heart is battling my pride and responsibility and i would love y'all's advice i'm also in a town i don't like the department sucks and there's been no real sense of community for me here because of how religious and conservative the university in town is my body is just physically rejecting the idea of staying in the program and i'm nauseous every

time i have to work on any of it staying is more practical but i'm sick of being miserable please help damn this is hard because despite the fact that like i didn't finish college you and i are like big advocates for finishing college when you're already there yeah but in this case she's this caller has already has a degree probably has i'm sure has a master's too like they've already they're pretty stacked and i am a person that does quit things oh i love quitting if i don't like them yep um i know i didn't get anywhere near as close or far as you but like even just starting college I started as a physics major and I was like I can't be around these people they are not my people switch to biology once I got to my senior year my plan I was pre-dental my plan was

to go to uh dental school got to my senior year took a dental class even though I like worked in an orthodontist office which I really enjoy looking back I probably just liked more the mechanics of orthodontics and not the actual yeah doing the work and so I quit well I didn't I stopped being pre-dental my senior year and switched my focus to writing and things so I get it like you're you're three you only have two years left three you're through most of it I'm curious though like if you weren't in this town would that be better I don't think you can switch where you do your PhD I'm not sure I don't know I'm not sure either but if possible is that something that you can do it might also be like to the point where it's this very specific program

that is only in certain areas and you can't do it other places but if that's possible Josie write in you that's this is your area our in-house PhD right but like if you just like you're looking for and you're like this is not what I want to do the rest of my life I feel like this you should quit because then it's like not just to the point where you finish with your doctorate, but then you're in a career that you don't want to be in. And so I feel like it's easier and better for you mentally to quit now than to get this degree in two years and then be in a field that you don't actually want to be in where you can pivot. And maybe there's aspects, aspects of it from your master's and undergrad that you can focus on that and figure out what you actually

want to do even if it's not in this field i agree with everything because my my advice relies on like two factors one is like you said if your community and like the area that you're doing this like you are miserable therefore everything there is going to make you miserable like it can without a doubt taint something that you previously loved because of like the context around it because of like the community surrounding it because of like every other aspect of it so it can make you hate something that you did once love but like you said like once you're out of that situation and circumstance that love for that thing oftentimes will still be there and that desire for that so is it a matter of like pushing through two more years of being miserable and if that is the case i

do wonder if there's like you know um a doing something like on an online portion or doing something like split your time not with what is it not a fellowship is it that's for is that for phd too though i think it's sometimes part of it or after it but like something along the lines of like could you do something that takes you out of this small bubble that you hate that still pursues this education because again i'm not sure if you can transfer or do anything like that and you know if that takes a little bit longer how much did you love this thing to start but then my second question is which is a completely opposite advice which is like yeah just quit because there's no point to waste any more of your time but also like your mental health and that is are all of

the connections that you are making and the pursuing of this in this industry and like academia for this specific study would that be in this community like would you be here like would it be like oh well i've put all of my connections here so going somewhere else to kind of like foster and get a job and do all of that kind of stuff like that would be really hard because i think if that's the case i think you're going to burn out of two years of doing this and then if it is either you get a job where you're at that you fucking hate or you have to like really put a lot of work in to get a job somewhere else and you're not starting at the same footing you would be i think you you'll probably be pretty burned out by then to do that so i would say that like there's nothing wrong

with maybe we reframe quitting there's nothing wrong with deciding that you want to pursue another journey like or that this has this has served its purpose for you up until this point and it's like yeah i'm actually like cool not doing this anymore and that is much more common actually i don't even know if it's more common but in certain like a lot of people of go to law school apply to law school and then don't ever take the bar don't ever start practicing law a lot of people are pre-med and they never apply to men's school like there's all of this kind of stuff and i think in academia there's something there's something about those degrees something about those achievements that to me i would i could see that it's a little bit maybe not as

common to get this far and leave but i think you need to like the pride of it right now your pride and your happiness are at war with each other and you either need to make a compromise between the two of them and your pride needs to be hurt like a little bit and your happiness needs to take a little bit of a cut, but you can't sacrifice one entirely for the other. Because I think if it is totally going to hurt your pride and like in a way that you're like, well, now I don't know what to do. This is the only thing that I really loved. Then I do think that you'd be screwing yourself over. I think there is like a compromise in it. And sometimes a compromise is literally just like I'm taking like a six month break from this thing and I'm going to do like a work study. I'm going

to do something that's like in this field that gets me out of here. And it might prolong the process of walking across that stage getting that diploma for this specific degree but it's something that's going to keep you sane in a field that you are more passionate about but if you're like i'm actually like i don't think i'm that passionate about this because kind of like what you said like when you were in the other major and you're like i can't be around these people and it's like oh are these the people i'm gonna have to be in at least my colleagues is this like the vibe even if it's not these exact people then i think like yeah it is so okay to change your mind not only once you have more knowledge once you have more like lived experience with something

to be like oh actually either this is not who i thought i was and i don't fit in with this or this thing is not what i thought it was that's okay which i guess it's not a very definitive answer for telling you to quit no but also can you talk to like your professors can you talk to people and just maybe they've gone through this too where they're like at this point where they're just burnt out and ask them like do they feel like it's worth it if there's p i feel like a phd program you're close to your advisors and things so like this could be a candid conversation reach out to other people in the field um that maybe don't necessarily go at or at your institution but like get on linkedin and ask other people just how they're feeling about

this program as a whole and how much money would you make because that's like another like school is a strong motivator yeah for me and it's also like this shit's expensive like unless like i mean a lot of people get their phds covered like based on i don't know the the grant yeah all that kind of stuff but like if this is if it is going to cost you more money to do this and you are going to be making in return quite quickly like then i also think that like at that point the sunk cost fallacy versus the the monetary sunk cost fallacy to me i'm like i would so much rather you abandon that and save your money than go through something that's like this expensive that you're miserable do i hate things that are like not fun and expensive like that's the worst

combination so i'm not planning a wedding like it's expensive and i would be miserable like ew it sounds horrible so um yeah i'm also curious what the exact like or the specific field of it is because like if you if you're talking about getting into academia for this specific thing i do wonder if it's like it's quite niche and then you're thinking about like oh my god all of the people i would be teaching would be like these insufferable losers that are my classmates and i fucking hate them and that would be hard that would be incredibly hard also i again don't know where you're at but all of my knowledge of phds it took people so long like they left and they had kids and then came back and like did all of that kind of stuff so it's you if i'm not wrong

if you decide to be done with this now in five years if you change your mind you can finish it can't you i think it just depends on the program okay well if they have room for you in the program if the program still exists or if you get to a point where like you're you just have to submit your dissertation but i think happiness like also you're 28 i don't think you've ever not been in school that's a lot yeah that's true yeah josie please write in give us your thoughts and opinions on this anybody else that is or has been through a phd program please let us know do they call them phds in other countries i think so because it's like a we'll just call it a doctorate of philosophy oh okay i wondered because i was wondering if we needed to get country specific i don't know

degree programs work different in different countries in some countries you can just like do your undergrad and you're considered a lawyer wow remind me not to commit a crime there yeah this is one girl that i knew which a lot of people in the entertainment industry that are producers like the financial producers have gone to law school and aren't practicing lawyers but there was this girl when I was just working on student films and she was from I'm not even gonna say because I don't even remember but she was from not here and she was in the MFA program and she would always like make remarks about her being a lawyer and I'm like you're 23 years old are you like a child genius i never asked her but then i'd hear like people talking about her on this

other project i was on they're talking about her behind her back nobody liked her she sounds insufferable yes and they're like and she she's always talking about being a lawyer like that's just how it works in her country like she has an undergrad degree she's not in a she's not practicing law hmm yeah that is weird very weird though i mean law school doesn't seem fun but like no it seems um i don't want to speak out of turn it seems like relatively necessary the education not like the cost or you know whatever but like education seems yeah pretty necessary yep my cousin lived with us during her first year of getting her of going to law school and then moved into an apartment after but she was not happy throughout the whole process but that's

all she ever wanted was to be a lawyer and so she like worked hard at it and stuck it out because she was miserable going going through school it's like med school it's like it's it's absolute it's like you have all these big dreams and then when you actually start the process it's hell and then you get out of that hell and then you're like oh now i'm doing the thing that i like but it's like they really put you through the gauntlet and like make sure you really fucking want it and you're gonna take it all those loans but yeah one of matz's friends from college or two of his friends from college but one of them his wife but at the time they were just like dating anytime we'd go visit new york i would i would hang out with him and he'd be like so sorry like

she can't come like she's you know she's got school and i was like totally get it that's fine we didn't even i truly don't think we met until her wedding and she had like just graduated she had like graduated she goes so happy to i've heard so much about you you're lovely you're wonderful you're great and i'm like and now we're close but like literally up until then i had just gotten to know her like boyfriend to fiance to husband and then it was like oh she's done and Now of like any time we're in like groups of people that like she's the person I talk to the most and like she's got the time now because. But God, yeah, it was like, oh, no, she hasn't seen anyone in years. I was like, yeah, it's tough, especially in a city like New York.

I'd be like, that's the time where I go, OK, send me to Missoula or something. We're going to take a break and we will be back. across canada in a volvo destination vancouver turn left to leave travel west through approaching continue toward you've arrived adventure and comfort with volvo whether you prefer gas plug-in hybrid or fully Electric. There's a Volvo for everyone. Learn more at volvocars.ca. Your playlist might get you through the workday, but have you ever wondered how your ancestors spent theirs? What work helped them build a life? How did they adapt as the world around them changed? With Ancestry, you can search

select historical occupational records for free for a limited time and discover the stories behind the jobs in your family tree. You've got questions. We've got ancestors. Search free until August 31st. Visit ancestry.ca for details. Terms apply. We're back. What's up with you? What's new? You're looking at the face of the LA Sparks fandom. Oh my god. In what way? So I went to the game this past Sunday. White Ashley invited me to go. she has they're considered courtside but it's like the row behind courtside um and so we had a good time it was the 30th anniversary season game where of the very first game so it was the la sparks versus new york liberty which was what the very first game was did you see ellie that's

what i was hoping for but i don't ellie doesn't travel but i was like i feel like ellie should be traveling for this game ellie without a doubt i mean i think ellie should be ellie's a girl of the world she should be traveling in general but she certainly should be traveling for this game yes that's a little disappointing i literally was like is big ellie gonna be there but like the first teams on both sides were there so they did like oh yeah they did a uh like ceremony at halftime lisa leslie who was there was there and she when i was growing up story time when i was growing up i was like i'm gonna be the first woman in the nba and then the wnba came along And I was like, I'm going to be the first woman or I'm going to be in the WNBA because like Muggsy Bogues exists and he was 5'3 in the NBA.

I was about to say, do you just clarify for the listeners how tall you are? I'm 5'1, but Muggsy, again, Muggsy Bogues was 5'3 at the time, like during this time in the NBA. So that seemed very attainable for me. Yeah. My love for basketball just waned. But I was obsessed with Lisa Leslie. and so since we were like right there in the front my goal was as she's walking by I will throw up my pinky because she's a member of my sorority and so I was like I'm gonna get a picture but we never

she did pass by I didn't see her till she was like almost right up on me and she's like six five first person to dunk in the WNBA and so it was she didn't make eye contact I was like damn but Ashley had a really good picture just of her walking I was like this could be in a magazine but then the game most of the game the until the third quarter the sparks were down by like 16 points oh that's hard yeah but they came back and then in the most of the fourth quarter was just going back and forth between the two teams and the very last seconds of the game sparks are down by one point they had just reviewed a play where the ball was hit out of bounds and folks were saying like it got tipped off one of the new york liberty um players and in one angle it definitely

looked like it did it but they kept replaying and replaying it and then they switched another camera angle she didn't touch the ball and like you could just hear every like the whole stadium just like die down and they're like damn game game's over it's because new york got the ball but by some miracle they've the sparks get the this new york does not score on that position sparks get the game back get the ball back only a few seconds left on the clock but it's just like quiet in the stadium and i see this woman with the camera walking past and she keeps looking at me and i i was like she wants something yeah she wants a performance uh-huh so i put it on i'm not the number one spark fan in the world but if they need you to be they need me to be in this moment

I'm an Aces fan. Sparks are number three. They're the hometown team. Like I love them for LA. The Wings, Dallas Wings, where Paige and AZ and a whole bunch of people play. So I'm like, she wants something. So, you know, I'm standing up. I'm like putting my hands together. I'm going to hit a herky. I am. I am like thinking about when I was in third grade and they, for some reason, I don't even remember what the reason was, but the news crew came to my class and I was like, the cameraman wants a moment so you and i are the same so i got we were working on like i think an art project so i took my art project and put it on the ground so i could look you know then they

could have a full frame of me on the ground doing it nobody else did it i knew what i was doing no shame and what did they use on the news that of course yeah i am like i'm making sure i'm not making eye contact with her because i knew people would do that in the moment so sparks get the ball inbound it looks like one player's about to shoot she shoots it out to another play like you think they're gonna go for the two for the tie to to just tie it up to go into overtime no she shoots it out to uh somebody else that's in at the three-point line shoot scores everything goes crazy whole crowd's going crazy i'm still not looking at the camera woman but i i know she's she's on me yep so after the game me and avian and another one of our friends teresa in this group

And Teresa was like, in our group chat, and Teresa was like, I was looking for you in the crowd, but I knew I wouldn't be able to see your short ass in the crowd. And I was like, one, I'm in seats where you definitely can see me. People have seen us there before. Right, right. And two, I am, there was a camera woman on me. So their post, like all the games or all the sports networks, all the networks are posting video of it.

And I can see the back of my head and I can see like where I am. And I can see that that camera woman is 100% on me because she's in all these. So like everything that's being posted, I can see that I'm there. And I'm like, where is this woman's camera? Then I, on Monday, I was getting a massage and I then opened my phone because Coco was also there because she has season tickets. And she was like, I was texting her. I was like, I created this moment and it's going to be something.

It's going somewhere. Yeah. And I told her like how I was playing into it and everything. And so I opened my phone after the massage and I have like 45 text messages and Coco's like, look on Instagram. My brother-in-law is like, did you go to the Sparks? And I know he doesn't keep up with the WNBA. So he's just seeing this some random place. I have so many messages and I'm like, oh, this is it. This is it. Go to the Sparks page. i am if you scroll on the sparks page nobody else is no other just like fan that isn't famous is on the page i'm the only person on the whole page so that's why i have dubbed myself as the face of the la sparks fan melissa shut the fuck up literally i scroll i scroll scroll and scroll who the fuck do i see there oh my god and now i've been edited into so many like the on espn on the women's espn

like it's making traction i'm also in the like anniversary pic video that they made for the spark so i'm like gonna forever be part of history oh my god well okay you need to promote them to maybe your second favorite team from this that is amazing oh my god i have to send this to i'm sending us to mods right now yeah things keep popping up but literally there's no other if you scroll on their page there's no other their own you only see players and famous people that are courtside nobody else and like you got you got the you're the cover like that's what i'm saying i am the thumbnail you are the fucking thumbnail well this top and hair combo also like you i mean if i'm if i'm a videographer i'm i'm like yeah let me get this hottie front and center she's

gonna look great in our feed wow that is epic damn i wish i was there yeah i invited you i know but y'all were gardening we were so it was and it was very last minute ashley was like i forgot that i had these tickets do you know anybody that wants to go and i'm like the people that i know want to go are either already there that or they're at the dodgers game and megan doesn't do well with doing things at last minute well we were also just like it was one of the things like mox was like he was running to like the hardware store to pick up something because we had run out of something as we're doing this and i had called him and i was because i was immediately just going to be like oh we're we can't and without asking him and i was like i should i'll at least like

tell him but i was like i was like my inclination is to say no because like we are in the middle of this he goes god i would love to but like we have if we don't finish this i'm gonna go insane and i was like it's true but we were building planter box covers and we were we were so close to finishing it and he was like i just don't want this we have chicken wire in an hour you would have had to shower and everything too it would have been a lot to do but um god that's so that's so cool yeah and warren g was also performed just in like not at halftime but later as well and uh he did regulators which i feel like is his most famous song and me and sarah when we would like road trip for her to drive her car back to miami when she was in med school that was our song

for some reason we just like wrap it for hours on end as we were driving i had and we had i had just seen uh an old clip of him on cadillac chronicles where they drive around in the cadillac singing songs like from the 90s and stuff and he and so i had sent it to sarah and then when i saw he was going to be at the game we were like how is this so serendipitous now that we were talking about it and he is performing at the game that's so fun wow what an epic time you had i love that for you that's so exciting yeah and the sparks one so much that's crazy yeah that sounds like a good game i wish they had more i need to see if we have replays here on our tv well it's hard to watch anything besides love island but damn i love watching them i'm watching

women's sports me too so i'm me too yeah i told you that i just i only recently found out that the world cup when i saw the boys playing didn't know they played only and i was like okay name a single soccer player who's a man no one can messy that's all who plays for america oh no clue you didn't say diamond's little brother diamond's little brother that's the only one i know and besides that i i can name so many americans but god i love i love women's sports me too all right we're gonna take a break when we get back we will get into some more advice and then hear about Megan's Weekend. Your summer travels deserve an upgrade.

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Save on lunchbox savers like Ziggy's sliced deli meat products for always $3.75. And get Life Brand Pure Vita shampoo or conditioner for $8 each. At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready. With a whole world and more. We're back! Alright, this person is 32SheHer. Hi, Magna Melissa. I'm looking for advice on potential ADHD. Just want to preface, we are not doctors. Looking back, I've always had symptoms, but it's been worse since returning to work after my son, almost two for reference, and it's affecting my performance. I keep making silly mistakes because I'm having so many issues focusing. I keep thinking it was just that I was getting back up to speed or lack of sleep, but I've

been back a while and now I'm still having issues and a few people have mentioned that I could have ADHD, so I looked it up. My main issue is I feel like I have ADHD imposter syndrome, if that's even a thing. I feel like I'm making excuses for why I'm struggling and I just need to try harder. I keep thinking, well, surely if I had ADHD, it would have been picked up earlier. I spoke to a doctor previously about this and because I have a history of anxiety and depression they said it could just be anxiety related which I think is adding to me thinking I'm making this up but I've been on anxiety medicine for six months now and still having issues. Even writing

this I feel like I needed to include a list of reasons why I think I might have ADHD and then I deleted it for word count. I'm in the UK and it can take a couple of years to get diagnosed and part of me feels like I'm just wasting everyone's time if I try to pursue it. Do you have any advice on how to deal with feeling like you're not ADHD enough to get help and also any tips to help with concentration on tasks would be really helpful, thank you.

I think my question to you is, what are you looking to get out of it? Because I think that the only real relevant question, I don't know what medication is like in the UK, but like there are a lot of people who like do not like from like a moral standpoint or whatever ever want to be on medication for adhd and if that's the case i don't think you need to go through an entire diagnostic like years of diagnosing to with something that you're not going to do anything with the diagnosis because like you can go to therapy and be like i think

i have adhd i would love some like help and tips with that you don't need to have an adhd diagnosis to work on it with talk therapy but like if you are looking if you're looking for medication then go through the diagnosis like do it like if it is if it feels like it's not worthwhile for you or you feel like at a certain point that you're like oh this is all coming back but like i don't know how long did you say how long ago you had your kid they're two almost two so i would go with two yeah that makes sense um like they're yeah like it could be a multitude of things that's like the aspects of adhd it's like they can be things like anxiety um and there's the idea though that like if you had adhd someone would have caught it i'm like an incredibly rare anomaly

of a woman who like as a as a little girl it was like oh this is abundantly clear this is what she has but like the diagnostic criteria was written for boys it was written for like little boys and a very specific type of it so there's like a lot of people who have a kind of adhd that like i personally love that for them cannot relate to of like super gifted high achieving women in like traditional academic fields like stem fields people who are like really really smart and they're not like jack-of-all-trades like gig working like bouncing from thing to thing like i've always been very traditional and like diagnostic like the base of that but there are so many people who have other other experiences and it can be like when they leave college or when

they have something that changes the structure of their lives or they have like a larger life moment where it becomes it becomes like manageable until it's not and that's kind of like anything that you're like oh i was able to coast on whatever like uh just powering through masking but now i'm burnt out or whatever or my hormones that really shifted everything like things change some people also develop like full-blown like autoimmune disorders like after having like children like the idea that like your body and your the chemicals in your body and your brain are like back to quote-unquote normal at a certain point like is all based on like hypothesis like it's not like the same for everyone or guaranteed i think like if the diagnosis itself will feel

validating for you then i think like sure go through with it but i would ask yourself like what you are in fact like looking to do because like a lot of people don't want to take stimulants and a lot of people don't like how stimulants make them feel and there's also things that like that are anxiety or antidepressant medication that is also can sometimes be used for people with adhd as well and like that's something to have a question with your doctor about something like that but i think that like i don't know i kind of think i kind of think of it the same way i think about like plastic surgery in the sense of like if you can't go a day without thinking about this and this is like you can't it is without a doubt like if there's a meal that is

served that is your mind for the day and every single day it's there it's on the plate every single fucking day like you have to address it you have to address whether this is like an insecurity of something you need to deal with this is something that you want to change about yourself something that you want to fix this is something that you want to get rid of in your life or this is something that you need to tackle because if it's not getting smaller it's not going away then like all you're going to do is continue to stew on over it and it sounds like you're looking for an answer but also at the same time like what if you don't if the answer is not that like if you put all of your eggs in one basket for something like that i think that the

best course of action in general um is a diagnosis is is great if you're open to getting medical treatment medication for it. But simultaneously, you also might not end up liking that and therapy and something that can help you with that. I don't have the best tips on like, oh, how to concentrate and how to focus and do things like that. But one of the things I saw online that I was like, oh, this is really helpful. I think this content creator, I think they called it scary hour or something like that, where it's like one hour where you do all the things that you don't want to do and you try and do as many as possible so it's like gamifying this task and you and it can even just be like you only do one thing but it's this hour window where you do this and then you

get it over with so that i've found to be like helpful and the other part that is less helpful for me now because pots definitely gets in the way and you have a kid so i don't know how helpful this would be for you but like i would book a workout class or something early in the morning when I had other tasks I know I needed to do. And so I would be able to do like essentially like if I think of it like a sim going to one location and then all the other locations that I need to go are close by for that before I come home. So essentially stacking tasks of being like, oh, I want to go work out. There's something I want to do. I'm going to pick a workout class. It's near the pharmacy where I have to go pick up medication. I'm going to do it by the grocery store that I don't want

to go to, but they are the only ones who have like X, Y, and Z. And I'm going to do this. So I'm stacking all of those things on top of each other yeah i think like it's just about what you what you want because a diagnosis is can be validating but like if you're having a hard time coping a diagnosis doesn't help you cope you know like those are strategies and skills you need that that come from something else besides that and again as and if it's not medication you'll be able to work on coping strategies without a official diagnosis yeah i don't have adhd well I've never been diagnosed with it, but I do have characteristics that if I were to go to the doctor, I think I could be diagnosed with ADHD. But I do, as far as like remembering things, I write down

every single thing that I have to do every single day. At the beginning of the week, I write down my plan. I plan out every hour of my day for the whole week. And then after that, as I'm working through I'll adjust and rearrange things but as long as I have everything down on paper and I usually don't get to a lot of it anyway but as long as I have it down then like I know that I have a goal for the day and so that helps me a lot I constantly checking things off constantly reviewing my list also as like remembering to do things all that help like with me focusing i take i drink this coffee that allegedly helps the man that created it has adhd and so like is this your mushroom one yes the mushroom coffee that's called it sounds like a drug doesn't it

everyday dose uh-huh it does and the man like i said the man created it has adhd and he created it for himself to help himself focus and his whole story is on the website and on the back the package but that helps me focus when i am getting all killed i don't it might be you know it might not actually work but for me i love a placebo i live for a placebo i love a psychosomatic effect right if i'm getting done what i was achieving was it actually a placebo no it just turns out that that's called by that's what i would like to consider biohacking hack your brain And yeah, that's, I mean, that's pretty much what I'll take. There's plenty of supplements that say that they help with brain things. Most of them, they probably do help, but they hurt my brain. So I literally get headaches from most of those neuropathogen medications. so and that's also like i don't want to be on a stimulant because with coffee i'm very sensitive

to it and so i can be up for days on it and in a perfect world i would love to do that yeah but it gets to the point where i can't concentrate yeah at all yeah yeah and that's the thing some people just that is like not a medication that works for them and like that's why there's so many different like alternatives that are medication or not medication for this and i would also say to go to your regular doctor and get just tested get a blood test get like a regular workup and like talk to them about it because it could it can also just be something like a combination of like oh you have really low iron and really low b12 and like you're having a really hard time concentrating because like these you have deficiencies in x y and z for that and that can whether it like fixes

it or it can just like exacerbate those symptoms in itself um that there's so many factors and so many different things uh that you can do but it's not a waste of time if it is leading you to a goal i would really make sure if that is your if medication is your goal that can't be your only goal because like it might not work for you because it gives a lot of people can feel really anxious or a lot of people can cannot work with like other medications that they take um so yeah but don't feel like an imposter there's no point it doesn't achieve it doesn't help yeah doesn't help you or anyone and a lot of women get diagnosed early like later in life like 40s 50s get diagnosed so i don't like you age shouldn't be a factor in this no and like again like if you

were a if you were a young boy you might not even had adhd and they would have diagnosed you with it so like the concept that like someone would have noticed it sooner is truly not the experience for the vast majority of women with adhd yep so pretty sure my mom has it yeah i've told her she thinks she does and i wouldn't even thought about it until like because megan talked openly about it and i was like well your mom's and she is a high achieving has multiple degrees but like she can't sit still she can't sit still and she gets distracted a lot and i was like ask her doctor she's like i want to ask my doctor and i'm like okay well like do it she just doesn't do it but there's so many different like like sub like kinds of that and like yeah i will acknowledge that like

mine without a doubt has been like i wouldn't say it's been like the easiest because like part of me i'm like damn it would be really nice to be like incredibly academically gifted and like people like oh my god there's no way you like no one was no one was surprised at all everyone was like fucking finally like i was deeply underestimated always but there's something like i didn't have to deal with the oh that couldn't possibly i mean i got that from you know certain people in my family when they were like you don't need medication you you've read a book before you can't have ADHD you've read a whole book and I was like well I'm literate that's not the same thing so okay but yeah there's most people have this experience so best of luck yeah how was your

weekend my weekend was um very indoor because of except for when you're in your garden well when we were in our garden with our giant fucking respirator masks because of the fire the fire which is not close to us but the wind patterns are just crazy so there was a huge chemical fire by the way as of this morning it is officially out even though it has been burning for a week since yesterday yeah a chemical fire in la and it's at a warehouse that's had multiple fires before but because it's a chemical fire they can't go inside they can't like fight it from the inside refrigerant so like that stuff is highly flammable there was ammonia all in the air it was like this thick loom of black smoke so there was like no fucking sun for days and the

whole weekend the air was so bad it smelled even all we have our air purifier on we have all the windows shut all the doors shut i woke up smelling like the inside of a pellet grill like i smelled like a barbecue it was crazy so um we did like some of the work on was it saturday i think and then it the the air was just like way too fucking bad and then sunday it got a little bit better so that's when we were able to do it but yeah we made planter box covers we finished one completely it just we just need to like adhere it we need to like nail it in a little bit better um and then we have to finish building the second one but oh yeah that looks awesome doesn't it yeah i got the plans on etsy and it's like it's like going well and the things are looking good and i'm feeling happy

about it because all i want is for my plants to survive and i want to like grow so many things And I feel like once I got these under control, then I can, like, have, like, other random pots of things and whatever. I want to put corn in a random pot. I also want to grow pumpkins and do all that. Well, pumpkins take over everything. Yeah, I would do that on the ground somewhere. Yeah. I want to do.

I've seen people do a pumpkin trellis, though. And I was like, that sounds so fun. But it sounds a little bit heavy. Ty once grew one in a toilet. What? As in, like, a pot? Yep. Okay.

not like when when people like would get like things from lush and they had like too much natural ingredients and so they'd actually grow plants in their sinks no okay no it was uh planned but it's something that people do oh i was unaware i'm unfamiliar with those people but um after he did this i then looked i've seen it was like one of those things where once you know about it you start seeing it a lot of places and that's what happened he's also from florida so anything goes yeah i feel like toilet planting is like certainly like a staple in florida culture florida horticulture florida culture exactly um but yeah that was like really my weekend i did a lot of cleaning we're having a cleaning service come on saturday and i am so excited let me know

how it goes because that is i need to like do one good clean of my that's yep that's what we've been doing that pre-clean uh-huh i just haven't had time to do it but now i'm getting like advertisements on instagram they read my mind i haven't even looked into a cleaning service but they're like there's no need to pre-clean when we come like no no i have i have i have things that i don't want you to see and i have i have shame right and like i also care about your time and energy and like i'm gonna fix these things but i've also just been watching once i've been watching so much love island this is the first time in my life that i'm watching us and uk at the same time like and you're feeling like me with my soap operas i have to i there is a girl on uk her

name is jasmine she's so beautiful she's so beautiful she loves to yell at men and all of the men hate it and they're always like you're really off put they're just like really like all of the men also i think have toupees most of them at least two of them it's the scariest thing i've ever seen i'm calling it toupee island um and they're like very very defensive and feeling like very uh emasculated by her putting them in their place and then there's this one guy lorenzo who is well i like to say a hot dumb idiot on the first conversation with jasmine he referred to her as promiscuous and she said what the fuck did you just call me and he said i think i am using that word wrong because your reaction makes it sound like that's not a good thing and she goes

no i think he meant to say like particular or like or precocious i don't know i don't think he knows that big of a word um but that's the thing he doesn't know it he might like it might be in his brain somewhere but he doesn't know how to say it or it was like passionate it was something like he and then he like fucked up i'm like oh shit sorry like my my bad so all the other guys get so like they will literally tell her even they're on a couple with her like i found like your behavior really off-putting like i just think you're really abrasive and off-putting and then you have this guy who goes kind of liked it i like i kind of liked it when you yelled at me earlier and i'm like this is and they're not even in a couple together but it's like everybody wants

them to get back together because they were at the very beginning but Mott's just found out that she dated like one of the most famous soccer players ever wouldn't know who it is so I asked David Beckham or Messi I don't know that's what I said and I was like well could you give me a comparison and he was like okay so on a previous season there was a girl Gemma Owen and Gemma Owen's dad is like I don't even fucking remember his first name Michael Owen I think and when we found out that season that it was that was what was going on Monta was like you have no this man is like it was Michael Owen and David Beckham like they are just as famous like they're both just as like he is like the number one soccer player like he's better than David Beckham like

he is so famous so huge and so I was like okay so in comparison to Michael Owen he goes if Michael Owen is Tom Brady then Jasmine's ex-boyfriend is and I was like like who like Jalen Hurts and he goes exactly and i said oh my god go jasmine like he's like a fashion icon he's gorgeous he's so popular he's so cool and now she's on love island and she's the coolest girl in the world and it's a breath of fresh air because most of the people on usa love island these men melissa have turned evil they have become they've become so scary to the point where now i'm also convinced they're talking such a big game i think they're all virgins i think none of them have had sex but I've been enjoying it. And I would recommend anybody who is watching USA Love Island to also supplement it. Take a dose of UK Love Island as well, because it really helps balance it out a lot.

Many people have written in to me and said, we wish you were watching Love Island because we think that you would have a completely opposite reaction than what Megan is having or opinion. I don't know. But one of them was Coco. So I feel like that she she actually like knows me, knows me. So wait, Coco, are you Coco? Are you are you one of the people online defending Casey? I need to know. There's no way.

I can't picture that. because we'll have a coco's corner yeah i don't know i need to know because by the way coco i am no longer defending casey whatsoever my issue was and i said from the beginning i know that my opinion was without a doubt being colored by the fact that i find him incredibly attractive like i knew i was not being objective because he's very hot so i was like i hope he's not evil but by the way if he is i would probably let him be evil to me because this man is so hot but you know i i now i'm like okay no i get it i get it i get it i get it i get it but the issue is is he's still just as hot but now he's not nice a lot of hot people that exist but then

their personality makes them not hot yeah his personality is currently making him not hot and also his personality right now is kind of making me think he's actually never had sex once in his life that i'm like oh have you kissed a girl before it's giving we're like very much um we're presenting a what feels like an image of fuck boy he has been cast as the role of man who fucks not the man he's and it's not method acting you know he was like i really love to get like i'm like all about like talking about like a big game of sex and he's like oh what do you like to do and he's like oh i i don't nothing i'm not i don't like nothing crazy and i was like oh wait so what was that whole like like i just need someone sexual of that and she was like oh so like do

like to do toys he goes no she was like like whipped cream he's like oh uh for sure definitely done whipped cream and i was like oh my god so wait what were you when you were giving this whole like no it's really important to me to have someone and being so vague and then she's giving you options you're like no no and i'm like wait can you let us know what you have what you've been doing what what what but um yeah so that's been really my life and i do have an update on or it's on an update remember how i told you about the hot girl read trademark girl turns out someone has also trademarked hot girl walks and this girl is so incredibly litigious that she will take people down for posting an instagram caption saying like on my hot girl walk like we'll do

anything she apparently reached someone who had a spotify playlist like where she doesn't even have these trademarks and um her defense video is i would love to just recommend everybody on the like just to watch it it i i think it will go down in history of one of like the greatest internet videos ever where she and i am i am not exaggerating makes a video like defending this by insinuating that she invented walking she goes walking wasn't popular like people didn't want to walk like nobody was nobody was walking for exercise like walking was one of those things that like you didn't want to do and like i was able to like harness a movement to like popularize walking i can't megan mostly it's the craziest thing you've ever seen it's the craziest thing

you've ever seen and then i'm like i'm so sorry what did you think we were doing but we i know for a fact i was definitely walking on my my hands and my knees before she came around i didn't know we could walk i didn't even know i had hind legs like what the fuck meg meg need mega sally she needs to come in and be like i i literally was thinking that i was like megan the stallion just needs to say i invented hot girl which she didn't but i think she has enough she has enough of herself out there to say that and then knock this girl down yep and then just like doesn't care about anything else after that because this girl is the same way that paris hilton trademarked that's hot well this girl's currently suing fashion nova for like you saying like hot girl

walk on like one of their advertisements and i was like that's crazy yeah you did not have so much money yeah so somebody's gonna bankrupt her well the i think from what i've read and i don't this is total rumor both her boyfriend her brother and her dad are all lawyers and so it doesn't even sound like she's paying a lawyer it sounds like i've got a family lawyer because it's also been like a massive overreach of the actual trademark like she doesn't have it trademarked like an instagram caption is not what she has trademarked so like it's a lot of like fear tactics and uh all that but now this all this really makes me want to do is like i gotta trademark something like everybody seems to be doing it but it's one person yeah but it really

all seems to be trademarking that specifically all right we're gonna take a break when we get back we're gonna get into an update we're back hope you are both well i just tagged megan in a tiktok of someone wearing a who ate all the pussy sweatshirt which by the way they did thank you so much the tiktok was of someone who's like remind me never to ask one of my gay friends to like if i can borrow a sweatshirt when we're all out because this is what they hand me and i was like iconic i loved it i loved seeing it so this reminded me that i actually have an update to the saga almost a year later so this person found a dead bird wait what do you remember this person there's a dead bird on their doorstep wait why did i think i dreamt this like the way you're

talking about this i go i remember this but i don't remember this being a call on the podcast yeah and wasn't like a guy who left i'm relatively inexperienced in the adult dating world i didn't know how or when to have the talk with the guy i've been dating for about a month and or and a half two months i really appreciate your guys advice and decided to talk to him so we were giving this they initially gave us an update i don't have their original call sorry you didn't share it with us but this is an update to that call and then now they're currently writing in with another update but i'm going to read the update to the last one just so that we have the context i said i wanted to define the relationship and he said he didn't think it was fair to either

of us to commit to anything given his visa would be expiring within a few months and he was basically in limbo trying to find a job that would be able to sponsor him with the very real possibility he would have to move away by the end of the summer but that also if his visa slash job status wasn't a problem then he'd want it he'd want to be in a relationship with me. I told him I might need to take a step back and thought we ended the conversation on a good note but then literally on my drive home he was texting me saying he was texting me trying to make plans. It just left me feeling really confused and like we were trying to talk past each other which led to a drawn-out conversation over text for the next week until we finally settled in a place of let's just keep

going as is and figure it out as we go or so I thought because we ended up continuing to talk like normal for the next month but didn't see each other in person until he finally just stopped responding literally mid-conversation and of course we had been talking about how there was a dead bird on my doorstep I accepted that I'd been ghosted although a few weeks later after finding multiple more dead birds outside my apartment I did send him this because I found it really entertaining which was they looked up on wiki how what uh finding dead birds at your doorstep meant and um on wiki how it said you're experiencing the end of a relationship if you see a dead bird in the middle of a tumultuous time with a partner friend or family member it's a sign that the

relationship has passed the point of no return i love symbolism i love it's not at this point it's not even like it's just facts because it happened yeah yeah and so here's their update to that and that was from almost a year later they say yeah they they wrote in march 20th 2020 No, their original call was March 20th. They up-to-dated us October 20th of 2025. Okay. Which reminded me that I actually have an update to this saga almost a year later. Not gonna lie, I never thought this would happen.

Basically, my bestie who saw me through this whole saga the first time is doing an internship halfway across the country. I'm in Austin. She's in Boston. And she sits outside the Whole Foods across from her apartment one day last week to call some friends and guess who she sees walking into the store. The motherfucker who ghosted me. They made eye contact, but she couldn't remember his name, so she just asked, so you didn't leave the country? And he ignored her, but she thinks he recognized her. LOL. I suggested we come up with ways for her to haunt him, maybe involving dead birds. I've been cackling to myself about this ever since because what are the odds? And I figured it was worth updating because one, he didn't get deported. And two, he ended up in the city. I guessed he would. Love y'all. yeah because we were being sensitive to the information because people are getting deported all the time and we were like maybe he did get deported we don't know i also don't think we

knew where you were and like in california like that it's like massive massive deportations are happening across the country but we're obviously colored by our experience here yeah but being in text is saying no that makes total sense so yeah i i feel like and correct me if i'm wrong but i feel like i was like maybe he left the country or maybe he just ghosted you and you had said something like he was still act like you thought you could see something on um his dating profile that he was still in the u.s yeah i'm a big believer in like we can give them the benefit of the doubt but you can never tell them that you can never tell them that you're giving them you can never do it to their face like it needs to be something you do in private and secret and

it needs to be temporary until you figure out the rest of it and so like i'm i'm like i'm not shocked i'm i'm obviously relieved he was not deported but i'm also not surprised that he a man is plot twist a man is a liar and an asshole and like moves as a means of ghosting like yep it's just like so over the top so deeply over the top i guess you got a new job too i have to say though i i you've got a really great friend there because i love someone who is bitchy and can think on their feet like the fact that she didn't just text you she said something to this man that is the bar remember his name that's not gonna stop me i'm not that's not gonna stop i know that face i'm in boston sitting out outside of whole foods probably eating out of a carton yeah drinking a

cold brew out of a bottle that's what i'm picturing and you're like hey you you didn't get deported i'm sorry this is looking quite domestic i love that like and i love that she didn't need the confirmation of anything she just said no no i'm gonna say it and if i'm if i'm wrong i don't think i'm wrong yep so you've got a really great friend there so that's like the i would say the biggest positive in all of this is um men suck but the friends are great so and i'm glad you had that particular friend to help you talk through it's very very uh cinematic in a way oh yeah there's nothing worse than like the worst friend the worst possible friend who could like be seeing your ex and you're like no like you have all like you're not gonna do anything you're not

gonna say anything you're gonna be overly polite and like you're maybe gonna like be like hey how are you good to see you and you're like no you're ruining you're you're ruining the vibe i've been trying to give across which is like aloof and angry don't be polite so yeah i i hope this helps you feel uh vindicated too and fuck this man all right well that's our episode hell yeah join us on thursday on but am i watching where we will be discussing hunting wives we will be and then we'll be back on monday for a new episode of don't blame me and then we're getting close to our summer vacay hell yeah baby all right bye

this is a sister sign production hosted by me megan rinks and me melissa d montz plus diamond imprint productions. Post-production by Coco Lorenz. Production assistance by Melanie D. Watson. And music by Ryan Hunter and Giacomo Picasso.