Guest Kelly Brändli, an ADHD and relationship coach, talks about living and thriving with ADHD, with actionable advice on managing daily life, relationships, and productivity. Visit https://sofrickinhealthy.com/episodes/kelly-brandli for more information and resources.

00:00 Introduction

02:41 Understanding the SRR Cycle in ADHD Relationships

05:44 Communication Dynamics in ADHD Relationships

09:29 Psychoeducation and Partner Understanding

16:53 Practical Life Hacks for Managing ADHD

17:46 Routines, Rituals, and Rewards

25:08 Balancing Household Chores and Dopamine Levels

26:24 Effective Communication in Relationships

27:36 Listener Q&A: Personal ADHD Experiences

29:06 Dealing with ADHD Comments and Misunderstandings

34:26 Addressing ADHD Medication Shortages

37:01 ADHD and Female Cycles

39:40 The 10-Minute Challenge for ADHD Awareness

46:24 Wrapping Up: Reflections and Gratitude

47:57 Outtakes

Mentioned in this episode:

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Hi, everyone. I'm Kelly Brandley, and I am today's guest on the So Frickin' Healthy podcast.

I'm an ADHD coach, a relationship coach, the mother of two children with ADHD, and the partner of a late diagnosed man. On today's episode, we talk about living and thriving with ADHD with actionable advice on managing daily life, relationships and productivity.

And we're going to answer a few listener questions that came in over the last week.

Hey, Kelly, thanks so much for joining us on our fourth episode special about ADHD.

Hey, Danna. Hey, Megan. Great to be back. This time we're in different clothes, so obviously it's a different day.

It is. It is. I took a week nap and now we're back on recording session. We got a bunch of listener questions.

You know, Danna and I love to get together and just talk, and we love to talk with our guests, but, oh, my God, it is so exciting to hear from people who are actually listening to it and then take the time to actually text us or call us or write us. Oh, it is like a really, it is like an ultimate high when you connect with somebody who's enjoying your content. So thank you, Lisa, for sure.

We're hopefully also bringing in experts that are able to help our listeners, which is even more exciting because, yeah, listen to us. We're funny, we're worth it. But, you know, hopefully you come out of this with something in your pocket.

And today's episode is probably going to be the most exciting one, I think.

I agree. Today's episode is really just about how to live your best life with ADHD. That's going to include, you know, some tips and tricks.

Of course, these are nice to do and nice to have, but also we're going to dig into some relationship stuff because I think living your best life means being able to live with other people, whether that's friends or family or colleagues at work.

I think that there's a lot of people that, and Kelly's already talked about this in other episodes where there's people who've, you know, divorced or they lose their job or other things. And these are actually really very difficult things to manage.

Not that other people don't get divorced and other people don't lose their job, but how can we manage this better with ADHD? So let's just dive into the relationship part. Obviously, ADHD doesn't just affect us, it affects people around us. It's not an internal disorder.

We are very external people sometimes.

So, Kelly, what is one of the most common relationship challenges that you see, people with ADHD have, and how can they start to address that with their people?

Well, the people that come to me pretty much across the board struggle with the same issue, which I call the SRR cycle. It's the symptom, response, response cycle.

And it's basically this mundane discussion about something totally benign that suddenly flips into this out of control conflict, like in a split second. And at the end of it, you go, like, we've been here before.

We've done many rounds on this merry go round, and our intention to stop it doesn't seem to work because we always end up in the same place. And we know with ADHD relationships this cycle has a very common pattern, but once set in motion, it's very difficult to stop.

And so what is the SRR pattern? It's basically there's an ADHD symptom which leads to a response from one of the partners.

So it could be something like, my partner today left his keys by the fridge because he put something in the fridge and he wanted to remember to take it home with him. So he put his keys there.

I saw his keys and I thought, I'll be very helpful and I'll bring him his keys back so he doesn't have to look for his keys when he wants to go home this evening, which then got him upset because he's like, that's my reminder. Put my keys back. Right?

So there was the symptom, there was the strategy, there was the response, and then I said, well, you don't need to talk to me that way. I was just trying to be helpful. Which then started a little bit of a dynamic off and rolling.

Luckily, we've learned to recognize this and we use a code word. Our code word is pink snowman. And the pink snowman got pulled out and we separated ourselves momentarily to sort of recover from the little incident.

But this is a very, very common dynamic I hear from all the couples that I work with. And it happens over and over again and it often stems from RSD, the rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria getting triggered in that moment.

And we're off and running.

Oh, wow. I thought you were gonna say, oh, there's lots of things.

No, that was really painful to listen to.

This is triggering big one.

I mean, of course, there's all kinds of little misunderstandings that are unique to everybody, but this dynamic, we can almost take apart most of the conflict situations and understand the key components of it. And that's what I help people do in my work, is to work through these cycles and actually understand them for theirselves and their relationship.

You call it a cycle.

And I have several people in my life with ADHD, and I'm wondering, is having a cyclical conversation the same, or is that part of that where it's like you go around and around in the same circle and you never find an end to the conversation unless one person gets really upset and just blows up and leaves? Just curious, not talking from experience or anything.

Not at all.

So, yeah, these conversations that seem to never have an end come from one of the common aspects in ADHD relationships, which is not actually exclusive to ADHD impacted relationships, but this feeling of not being heard.

And often when somebody has ADHD, they're very focused on what they want to say, and so they tend to respond so quickly and it doesn't often give their partner the impression that they've heard what they've said. They've sort of processed it and now they're giving an answer.

And so because of this, we tend to see the same conversations coming up over and over again, which I always kind of relate to children going, mummy, mummy, mommy. Like, they say it because they're like, you haven't heard me, so I'm going to keep saying your name.

And that's what happens a lot in relationships is things get repeated because the person doesn't feel like it's really landed. And that has a lot to do with super fast processing in the brain, impulsive speaking out and wanting to get out of thought before it gets lost.

So another technique is learning to really slow conversations down and to learn to actively listen to each other.

Wow. I have to say that you hit the nail on the head. That was kind of. I'm really feeling. I don't know if I'm feeling seen or attacked.

I'm not sure, but that is probably one of the sentences. As a mom with ADHD, with kids with ADHD at home, that's probably the sentence that I say the most every single day.

It's like I am not being heard because not only am I exactly feeling like you're. You just explained literally not feeling heard, but also they're so ADHD that I'm really not being heard.

I mean, I think I'm really not being heard because they're just somewhere else. So just that whole dynamics of anyways, me feeling like I have to repeat everything and then I'm becoming white noise because again, they're ADHD.

So the more I'm going to say one thing, the less power those words are going to have. And now I'm frustrated, and they're like, why is mom going crazy? She just told us this for the first time. And I'm like, no, seriously, no.

So that is so real. What do we do, though? How do you slow down a conversation?

Yeah, so there's a really simple sentence, and you can use this with your children, you can use this with your partner. And that's, can you just repeat back what I said? And surprisingly, they do hear us a lot more than we think.

But by asking them that question, it slows them down so that they actually process what they heard and then they can incorporate into their response.

I might tattoo that on my forehead, though. Like, repeat what I said.

So now that we know, basically, like, the biggest common relationship challenge, how can our partners or our friends, if they understand ADHD better, how does that gonna help us manage our relationships? You guys heard the little snippet that I did with my husband. Like, I'm trying to educate him. I'm not sure if he does understand.

I don't know if he can really get it. And then we still have this dynamic and this is going on.

Yeah.

So basically, I think he kind of did shed some light on that question and the fact in that little snippet, he said, well, I don't think it's that way. I think it's just an excuse, which, for me, shows that he doesn't deeply understand ADHD and the symptoms.

And that is, besides this Srr cycle, that's probably the number two biggest thing I see in relationships, is there's a lack of common understanding of what ADHD is.

And when I start working with couples, that's the first sort of seven, eight weeks we spend together is just on what we call psychoeducation, is understanding what ADHD is. And that often has to come from somebody outside the relationship, outside the family.

Otherwise it gets interpreted as, oh, you're just making this up because this is really convenient for you, that this is ADHD.

And a lot of people feel like their partners lean on ADHD as the sort of go to excuse because they don't truly understand how the brain functions, how the dopamine works in the brain. And so it's excuses like, well, you leave stuff out to remember, like, my partner's key, right.

If you don't understand why that is a strategy, it just seems like, well, you know, now you're making up an excuse for leaving stuff laying around. But when you understand the process that that goes through to get to that strategy, then it's almost like you look.

At it, and you go like, well done.

You like, good for you. For, you know, putting your keys there and trying to remember something. Right?

Yeah, it's a different, you have more compassion and understanding for your partner. And so psychoeducation is absolutely necessary.

Like, I call my program ADHD essentials because it's essential knowledge that you need to have when you are living a life with somebody who has ADHD, be that your children or your partner or a close relative, because you need that understanding. Otherwise, we misinterpret symptoms as character flaws.

We attribute things like, well, you're just lazy because you didn't finish cleaning up the kitchen and you left halfway through to go watch a TikTok that sort of popped into your mind. It's not that.

It's not intentional, but if you don't understand distractibility and impulse control and all those executive functions, you can attribute it to character flaws. And that's what a lot of couples do, and they do that for years and decades, and it causes a lot of conflict, and it feeds the SRR cycle.

It's quite painful to hear the same things that we've been hearing from parents and teachers come from the partner, you know, especially a partner that you're decided to spend the rest of your life with.

Do you think that if, and I've heard this quite a lot, unfortunately, lately from one partner discovering that they're ADD or ADHD and the other partner kind of building up resentment and anger towards them and really so taking what Megan just said and what you just discussed about, but really amplifying it to a point where I, wow, now the relationship is really on the line because one person is really just from my side, I can say closed minded, but maybe just close hearted to trying to understand the situation of the other person? And I mean, like, when you know someone for so many years, you kind of, I hope you would know if they're now bringing up something as an excuse.

And I do hear a lot of relationships that are really on the line.

And the question is, is there even a way, or is there even, you know, if the partner of the person that is not officially neurodiverse, and I'm saying officially because, hey, there's a huge chance they are as well. If the person who is not neurodiverse, when it feels like they're very closed about it and kind of angry about it, is there even a hope?

Like, should we even try? Yeah, exactly. Like, should we even try to.

To get this other person on board and try to understand things or is it kind of like, great, that's a lost cause and 20 years of marriage down the drain?

Luckily, that's not the only option. So what I often find, and this is a question I get a lot, is, yeah, I think my partner may be ADd or ADHD.

How can I convince them to go get a diagnosis and get treated? Like, can you talk to them for me? Kind of thing. Like, that's. I often get that call, right?

And the thing is, is that if you've recognized in your partner some of the traits you see in yourself, right, this is where our self defense mechanisms go up and say, hey, I don't want to out myself. Like, I've understood that, you know, you're add or your ADHD, and that's okay, I've lived with that.

But now if all of a sudden I need to come to terms with that, I need to go through this whole process of realizing I live my life different to what I thought it was. I need to now integrate this into my life.

And for a lot of people, and I'm not going to say men exclusively, but I think men have a harder time with this than women do, who tend to be more open to self development and they're, like, more hopeful, like, oh, now I can work on this, where men tend to be a bit more resistant to wanting to understand this.

And so often what I find and what I help people do is say ADHD is like the elephant in the room, and it belongs to both of you, and it doesn't actually matter who genetically has it, but that elephant is there. So whether it's one or two of you, you still need to manage the elephant for your relationship.

So let's do this together because we can't do it alone, right? And we can see some of the damage that this elephant is doing because it isn't managed properly.

And so whether you're the one with ADHD or you're the partner, you both have it. You need to do the psychoeducation, you need to understand the patterns to actually help the relationship.

And so that's kind of the approach I recommend people take, rather than, hey, this is your problem. You need to go get a diagnosis and treat this. And I'll just sort of lean back. Now, I've done my work.

We've been talking about more like adult partners, but your son did a really cool thing that you asked him to do.

So I just asked him if he could tell us three things that he wished his parents better understood about ADHD coming from him because I think talking about understanding as a key focus here is sometimes we don't ask the questions of what would really help you manage this. And so he actually gave me three quite interesting sort of little bits of information that I didn't know.

I'm curious, how quickly did those answers come? Like, did he have them ready? Was he just waiting for mom to ask that?

No, he was a bit resistant to it because he's like, I don't like my voice. I'm like, it's okay. You don't have to listen to it. And that then convinced him that it would be okay.

But one of the things that really annoys him is the way I chew gum, apparently. So that was a learning for me.

Oh, that's awesome.

You know what? Do you know what the worst time in our family's together time is? When we sit down to eat.

And I hope my husband listens to this because he will crack up because he's a. He's. He sometimes forgets to eat with his mouth closed. Or, like, he'll eat. You know, he'll. He'll be loud.

And my kids and I, especially my little one, and I just look at each other.

We're sitting right across from one another, and we cringe, and we're just kind of, like, smiling at each other and kind of going like, you know, I will murder him one day for the.

Way that he choose.

We talked a little bit about relationships, and before we move on to the Q and a session, which I'm really super excited about, just a little question to slip in here about some life hacks like Danna. I feel like every time Danna talks about her life at home, she's, like, literally living in a war zone, and it's so chaotic.

You know it's true, though. You know it's true.

Yeah. So what are some simple things that Danna can do, or our listeners for managing daily life?

And we talked a little bit about, you know, talking with your kids, but do you have some other practical things that you typically. That's, like, right at the top of your toolbox for all of your clients that you just pull?

These are the five first things that you should be doing to help live a better life.

Except for getting rid of your roommates.

I always recommend the three R's. So having routines, rituals, and rewards, those are really three easy things to do. So, routines.

People with ADHD do better when they can anticipate what's coming, because we know time blindness can be a factor. And so when you have routines that happen pretty regularly, in your daily life, it's easier to transition from one thing to the next.

And these are the things that kind of create this kind of chaos because you're trying to do something distraction. So routines are really important. Rituals are lovely because they also create nice transition. So we all know the story before bed ritual.

I mean, most families had done that when kids were young, but we then when they grow up and we stop reading bedtime stories, we often drop all these sort of events. And it's really nice to have with our children this time where we say, hey, like, let's talk about your day. And I started this with my son.

We would always have this cuddle before he would go to bed. And it got so long, it was like taking an hour. So I started calling it the 1 minute cuddle to try and get him to shorten it.

It still took probably 40 minutes at night, but it became, you know, our thing is like, are we going to have our 1 minute cuddle? And I'm like, I don't know if I got an hour's time, but okay. And he really looked forward to this.

Even I shouldn't probably say this, he'll be embarrassed.

But he was past that sort of typical storytime age and he still really looked forward to it because it also gave him a chance to get out all those words, those extra words he hadn't used in the day. He had a space to let them go and then to go to sleep. So those are important. And then rewards.

With rewards, I always say, don't use grandma's rule, which is do the yucky thing to get the good thing. So eat your broccoli and have dessert. But with rewards, we almost have to flip it on its head so that they can get motivation.

So how can you actually do something exciting or rewarding before you want to then transition into something like homework or getting ready for bed? And how you can integrate rewards throughout the day?

Yeah, I have some feedback or question on the routine part because I feel that I like to create routines. I don't necessarily have a lot of routines, but then I also don't like to keep the routines for very long.

So I'm assuming somebody with ADHD, it's because if you do the same thing every day, this is so boring. Like, you know, it's just so like I don't even have the. I don't even brush my teeth at the same point in the day every day. I don't.

I don't take showers every day because I. I don't. Because I. So I don't have hardly any routine except for get out of bed, go to the bathroom, and weigh myself. That's it.

That's, like, the routine I have. That's the only thing that I do consistently every day. And I'm super proud of myself for having, whatever, 700 weigh ins in a row.

But I find that I struggle a lot if I want to plan out my week for my exercise or try to have a routine. I don't know. I think, am I the only one that struggles with routine?

I understand the concept, why it's important, what you said, but I feel like, okay, I have a routine for a month, and then now I need a new routine.

Yeah. So, I mean, sometimes it can be as simple as just switching up things, right.

If we ate the same cereal every morning, we would get really bored with it. But if we change out the cereal every day, we can still eat cereal every day.

And these are the kinds of things is establishing routine gives security and gives the ability to follow a plan. It helps with timing. It helps with getting things done oftentimes. And it's a little bit like with pushing things to the last minute.

As adults, we learn that it's kind of plausible that that's really the way it works for me.

And part of that is, in a way, an excuse to say, well, I haven't made it work the way I want it to, so therefore, I see that this doesn't work for me. Right. If I always push everything to the last minute and I'm under pressure, I know that I'll get it done.

That doesn't mean it's necessarily the easiest way for you to get it done. And if you would have planned earlier, it would have been less stressful. And so establishing routines are often about really understanding.

Is the way that it's working for you taking energy from you, or is it giving energy to you? Everyone's different, and it may be, in your case, that routines would suck energy out of you. So don't do them.

But you also want to understand, is the way you're living your life right now, is it taking more energy than it needs to? And could a routine help you get rid of all these decisions that you need to make in the morning?

Which means by lunchtime, you're already in decision fatigue, because everything's been a decision.

Rather than I get up, I have my coffee, I brush my teeth, I get dressed, and then you've got excess decisions to make in the afternoon which don't tax your sort of dopamine glass. If we think of dopamine as a glass, we start out with it two thirds full, and by the end of the day, it's down at zero.

The more decisions you're making in the morning, the more you're already using that dopamine up or early in the day.

Yeah.

Wow. I feel like we can do a whole episode on decision fatigue.

And now this is where I have to tell you and Kelly, the relationship coach, the dynamic of me and my husband. My husband does the exact same thing almost every single day.

Gets up, takes a shower, puts on his clothes, you know, like, the exact same routine every single day. Every single day.

And so you have somebody who's super, and he's also one of those people, these unicorns that does all the hard stuff first because they don't want to have it, you know, he does not procrastinate anything. Well, no, he procrastinates us going on vacation because he likes to stay home.

But, like, doing his taxes or filling out a form or processing a bill, like, he just does it immediately and then. So he's like a level unicorn person when it comes to getting shit done.

And I'm average ADHD person, so now you may understand his voice snippet a little bit more, like, oh, she doesn't get anything done in time. It's because he's, like, 150% of most population, so you don't need to, like.

You guys are ultimately compatible, right?

So it drives him nuts. He's like, wait, wait. Why didn't you do this already? I'm like, well, because there's no time limit. I can do it anytime.

But why didn't you do it immediately? I'm like, cause I'm not you.

Yeah, but no time limit limit for ADHD is probably the worst.

Yeah, no, it is. It is the worst. But we do, like, around the house, we have figured stuff out.

Like, for example, and maybe Kelly will applaud me a little bit for this.

So I like to cook, and then he wants the kitchen clean, and then I want to sit on the couch after we've eaten and not do anything, because now I'm done. It's the end of the night. I've cooked. I don't want to clean.

I just want to sit there and enjoy and let the food do its thing in my stomach and veg out. That's what I want to do. And he wants the kitchen clean.

And so finally, years ago, I mean, the years ago, he was always, like, huffing and puffing and going over and cleaning the kitchen and making lots of noise, and I'm trying to watch tv, and he just wants me to know that he's over there cleaning and wants me to get up and go help him clean, but he doesn't want to ask me. So finally, we had this conversation. I'm like, listen, somebody told me a long time ago, if you want something done, you just do it. Don't just do it.

And if you want the dishes done now, you can do the dishes now. I don't want to do them now.

I will do them in the morning when I have 150% of my dopamine levels for the day, and I want to go and clean everything up and make it look all nice. So I said, let's agree in the evening. If you want it clean, you do it.

But don't go over there huffing and puffing, and I'll tell you, I'll clean it in the morning, and if that's okay for you, if you can go to sleep and not look at it, then I will clean it in the morning before you get up. It will look perfect. But that's the kind of conversations we've had, and I feel like that's actually one of those things that worked really.

Well for us, and I would definitely applaud that.

And that is this tactics of play to your strengths and understand right where your dopamine is at the end of the day and after you've sat down and had a meal, if you feel like I have no motivation to do anything but just veg it on the sofa, then trying to force yourself is not going to end well for either of you. So these kinds of solutions work well for the relationship, work well for you.

And if he had a deeper understanding of how your dopamine works in your brain, actually, he would see why this is the perfect solution for both of you.

He's pretty good with it now, and we actually, we enjoy it, but, you know, the kitchen's not big enough for two people, so we just, like, stay out of each other's way in the kitchen anyway. Oh, my God. I feel like we can talk for 4 hours every time we get kelly on.

I feel like we just, like, need to sit down for a whole day with a bottle of wine. But we need to move on. We need to move on.

You need to keep us in time check here, which is we want to get to this q and a part where we had some questions from our listeners, and I think the very first thing we should do is start with Danna. Danna wants to read this listener comment because it's somebody she knows. We're not using anybody's names.

Nobody really wanted to give their names, and that is super, super fine and super okay.

We just love to hear from you, so please know that you can still send us an email, and we will not divulge any of your personal information if you don't want us to. So, Danna, why don't you start off with reading this comment, and then we'll see what Kelly has to say.

All right, perfect.

So I just wanted to read it because it's also very, very relatable, and she's dear to my heart, so she says, hey, guys, it was really heartwarming listening to the three of you this morning. I'm 42 and have recently been diagnosed with ADHD.

I've struggled my whole life with chronic anxiety, depression, substance abuse, negative talk, overwhelm, etcetera, etcetera. Not to mention that I've always been a weirdo. You and me, sister.

Now that I feel like I have some answers and begin to unmask, I really feel the need to talk about it and my struggles. A common response from people, even loved ones, is, well, everybody struggles with forgetfulness sometimes, or everyone gets overwhelmed.

This can be really painful to hear because I feel like I'm being told to stop talking about it. I was wondering if you could talk a bit about how to deal with these kinds of comments.

Absolutely.

And I think right now, with this sort of explosion of awareness that's happening in social media, this phrase of, doesn't everyone have a little ADHD? Is being thrown around like crazy.

And I know for a lot of people that actually is hitting a chord with them, saying, like, this is really showing a lack of understanding of what I'm struggling with. And so I think to answer this, you can do it in several ways.

You can take the sort of educational route of trying to explain, hey, ADHD isn't just about forgetting your keys once in a while. It's like literally forgetting your keys, like, ten times a day.

And that has a massive impact on how I show up, how I get work done, you know, and sort of doing it from an educational point of view, you can do it also from a humorous point of view, as we've been talking, using some of your own examples of what that actually looks like for you and sort of helping people relate to that to go, oh, actually, yeah, that is a bit more serious than the way I think about when I forget something. So using examples like that and then also making a reference to something. So let me think of an example here, if you could relate it to something.

My mind is drawing a blank right now. What would be a good relation to ADHD?

I often give the example of just me deciding to clean something or taking on a project or as we like to call it at home, a. What do we call it? A side.

Side quest.

Side quest, exactly.

Side quests.

Right. So you have a bunch of side quests. So you have this goal, I'm going to do the dishes.

And in between, like, in the middle of doing the dishes, you're like, oh, I should write this idea down. And then you go to the table to write it down, and then you realize that there's a bag of laundry.

And so you're starting to fold the laundry, and now you're starting to fold the laundry and you see a hole in your kid's sock, and you're like, I should go get some socks. And now you're out the door. Their dishes are not done. The laundry's not done.

You have not noted down what you were going to write, and now you're on a side quest to go get some socks. And so I think that, you know, when people say, yeah, I'm forgetful or this shit happens to me, too, and I'm like, really?

Does this example happen to you numerous times a day? It's not that.

It's like, oh, once a week I'll have this, like, klutzy day where I don't know what I'm doing and I'm hungover or I'm tired or I node, I. It's all the fricking time.

I feel like people who say these things don't necessarily want to understand it, but, yeah, just kind of bringing some, some examples on what your day looks like on a regular basis might actually be helpful.

I think another thing that would be helpful, which was helpful for me, is honestly going out and looking for groups or, yeah, I know nobody wants to hear me talk about TikTok, but TikTok or groups on Facebook or Reddit or anywhere. I mean, it's just like any other thing, right?

You find these group of people who all have this, and I know it's not the people that your, your loved ones, they all have their own stuff going on as well. They might not care about your ADHD or how it shows up unless it really affects them. And that's a sad thing to say.

But, you know, everybody has their own things that they need to focus on. So find the people who are also focusing on ADHD and be able to share your stories with them.

And honestly, it is so rewarding to feel seen by another group of people, even if you don't talk to them, even if you're just watching videos from other ADHD people. There's a wonderful lady on YouTube, and she just wrote her first book, how to ADHD. I love her. I want to squeeze her. She's just so fucking adorable.

And I just want to watch her all the time because even while she's recording, she's making mistakes, and she just is so relatable, and I don't need to talk to her. She's saying exactly what I'm thinking, and it is fantastic.

And it is a really great way to go through that struggle and know that you're not the only one. And you know what's also nice about that is that you're like, oh, wait, no, I don't do that. Because everybody's got their own flavor.

You know, you're like, no, I'm always fucking on time. I am always on time. That is not my kind of ADHd. Nuh uh uh. Insane.

Absolutely.

And Danna's not the night owl, because we talked about night owls, and Danna's not.

I used to be. Not anymore.

But again, not your flavor, baby.

ADhd.

So you can be like, that's me. That's not me. That's me.

That's not me.

Exactly.

Very rewarding. I don't know why.

I think you're absolutely right. It's about that realization. She said, I've always been the weirdo of being labeled like that, or even to yourself saying, that's who I am.

But then when you find your tribe and you realize actually a lot of these things, other people are dealing with the same challenges and we're trying to find solutions, I think that humanizes all of us and makes us feel like we belong, and that's super important for everyone. We're all looking to belong to our tribe, right?

Yeah.

Okay, we have a couple more questions. This one, the listener says, it would be nice to touch on the lack of access lately. In the last year, I've had only a two month supply of medication.

I'm inserting that in there. What's interesting about that is that I could have gotten the higher subscription.

So they take 20 milligrams, it's sold out but the higher 30 to 40 milligram pills are in stock. So in their opinion, they deliberately didn't produce enough of the smaller dose, hoping to charge more.

So I think there's a couple things in there about lack of access, but also, is there more going on in the world of pharmaceuticals, or is this just happens to be a bad luck for them?

Yeah. So unfortunately, Alvonse is one of those medication that has been hit by the worldwide shortage.

And the reason we have a shortage of these is because ADHD medications are schedule two medications, which means they're controlled and they're regulated.

And that means that producers are only permitted to produce so many pills per year and because there's been a huge uptake in the diagnosis of ADHD since COVID but they haven't readjusted the allotments for the companies. They've been fighting for this. This is why we've hit a shortage, because there's only so much medication allowed on the market.

And so with Elvonse, we tend to take a lower dose. And with some of the other ones, like medicinette, you'll hear people taking much higher doses.

Elvon said they're all dosed differently is one of those ones. And it seems that the 20 milligram dosage was more popular as a prescription than the higher doses.

And so that's why it wasn't that they intentionally withheld it from the market to make more money. It simply wasn't available. There are some medications that you can repackage, and some pharmacies do that.

There's other ones like concerta, you can't cut because of the way the drug is released out of it. So you can't do that. Some other ones, you can open the pills and then repackage them into two times 20 from a 40. So that really depends.

But I know we tend to, there's a lot of bad publicity about Bing pharma with pushing drugs and all this stuff. And so I think that kind of gets repeated by people thinking that it's big pharma, but actually it's the regulatory system.

We have to make sure there's not a flood of these drugs entering the black market.

And that kind of leads into, because we're talking about medication leads into our last listener question. Danna, you want to read that one?

Sure. This is a lady, and she says, with our female cycles, we have naturally lower and high productivity times.

During the week before my period, I'm a zombie on or off the meds. Anything we can do to counteract that should I just skip the medication for that week.

I actually made a slide to help explain this, so I'm just opening this little slide. You're amazing.

Thank you, Kelly.

Okay, there we go. It's. My best drawing skills were not brilliant, but at least we'll give the idea. So this is what happens with our menstrual cycles.

We have menstruation here at the end of our cycle, and then we start to grow. Here's the follicle, which is growing, and this is our estrogen level here.

And as the follicle is developing right before it's released, our estrogen goes up high. And so estrogen and dopamine are linked. When our estrogen levels are high, our dopamine levels are high.

And when our estrogen crashes, as it does at ovulation, our dopamine goes with it.

And so probably the reason that you're feeling that you're a zombie in this phase is because your dopamine is really in the basement at this time, and the dose that you're taking makes you feel like a zombie because it's probably not enough.

And so there's a lot of research going on in women's cycles is sort of in this phase is actually upping the dose, and they're increasing the dose of medication between 30 and 50% in that period where your estrogen then drops, you see it then goes back up a little bit just before you have your menstrual cycle.

So actually, rather than putting the medication off in that week, you may want to talk to your doctor about seeing if it's possible to actually increase the dose for that, what we call danger week.

Amazing.

Interesting.

I had no idea. I mean, I had a little idea the estrogen went up, but I feel like I've learned just so much from you, Kelly.

Thank you.

That was awesome. Thank you, listeners. Anytime you have some questions, even if you have more questions, this is our last ADHD episode for ADHD awareness month.

But please do keep sending in comments and questions. And, you know, if we get enough good stuff, we'll have Kelly on again. I'm sure there will be.

The ADHD is developing very quickly now in terms of all the research, I think we could have a whole episode just on the research, what's going on, which I would love, but it is ADHD awareness month, and so we want to challenge you, our listeners, the ones with ADHD, to raise awareness in your own homes. Kelly, how can they do that?

What I would like to propose is what I call the ten minute challenge.

And it's about spending ten minutes a day with your family members and actually asking them specific questions about how it feels to live in your home. So how did they interpret certain behaviors you do? How did they, or why did they do certain things in their reaction to you?

And it's all about gaining a deeper understanding of each other and why you do the things we do. A big part about ADHD is misinterpreting these symptoms.

So thinking, laying on the couch after dinner and scrolling TikTok is you being lazy when actually it's you trying to get the motivation to go to bed because your dopamine's in the basement and having that discussion about, why do you do that? Why do you lay on the sofa in the evening?

What's going on with you to raise the understanding and awareness of each other and how you're managing ADHD and how your loved ones are managing life with you and the elephant in the room.

I feel like that is something that people need a little bit more setup with their family, rather than just walking in, be like, okay, guys, this is my question. So how can they frame this? Can you make. Maybe they could play this part of the podcast and be like, hey, guys, I listened to this podcast.

This is what I'd like to do. And, Kelly, could you explain to the family members how this is going to work or what's going on?

Yeah. So the ten minute challenge needs to be set up as a routine in your home.

So you need to actually sit down and say, hey, for the next week, we're going to do this ten minute challenge. And this is the purpose of the ten minute challenge. It happens at the same time every day.

So if you're doing it as a family, maybe it happens at the dinner table. If you're doing it with one of your children, maybe you do it when they come home from school with your partner.

It could be after dinner when they're sitting on the sofa before they turn on TikTok. So you want to have a set time when this is going to happen. And it's very clear that these ten minutes are not about fixing problems.

I think that's an important thing. It's not about logistics, when are we doing this? But it's really about gaining understanding. So we consider this a learning conversation.

I want to learn something about you, and the reciprocal is true, is you're going to learn something about me. And so that's the purpose of. Of this ten minute challenge, is to really learn something you might not have known about one of your family members.

I have a follow up question for that because I'm trying to just imagine my family. Sorry, Megan, close your ears because it's going to be chaotic again.

I'm just imagining my family going through that conversation and everyone's going to have feedback on what I'm going to say. How do you suggest that?

Doing that exercise, but it not becoming yet another spiral conversation that is becoming a fight or an argument about that's not true. And I'm not like to not let the emotions come up and sabotage the conversation, I guess.

Yes.

So if that tends to be a bit of the pattern, we can use something called the talking stick, which I've used with couples as well as with family members. And that is you only get to talk when you're holding the stick. And you could say, like, today's my day to talk. I've got the stick.

Tomorrow you're getting the stick and you give it that way.

So it's actually really just a one way sort of sharing and learning conversation rather than creating a big discussion that could then end up, like you said, getting defensive and creating all kinds of tangent discussions and side discussions. But really it's about sitting and listening, learning to listen without impulsively reacting to what's being said.

Okay.

I think also it's important that, and Danna and I talk about this in almost every episode, to know yourself better, to understand, to listen to your body, to learn about yourself. And when you said your partner, your parent, your sibling, or whatever, could say to you, why do you do this?

And I could just see myself going, I don't know, why do I do that? And I feel like it's also important to say, you're not going to have all the answers.

But I think it's super, super fantastic if somebody's like, but why do you do that thing? What are you doing there? Because now you have the opportunity to consider that the next time you're doing it, you can say, why am I doing this?

Oh, I'm doing this because I'm tired, or I'm doing this because I'm super motivated right now. And why am I super motivated?

And that's always the, the concept of living a So Frickin' Healthy life is being able to learn about yourself and to become an expert on yourself. So many people don't know why they do things. They don't know why they eat things.

They don't know why they don't like that, and be an expert on yourself. And this ten minute challenge is a great way to go. Very honestly, and say, I have no fucking clue why I do this.

I feel like it's also an invitation to say, can you tell me the next time I'm doing this? Because I might not know I'm doing it right. That's also a good way to lead into that.

There's this great story about also a lot of the ways we do stuff we inherit.

And so there was this couple, and the wife, every time she would cook ham, which is quite typical in North America, she would cut both ends off the ham and put it in the pan in the oven. And her husband said, I don't get why you're doing this. Why are you cutting, like, big chunks of the ham off before you cook it?

And she said exactly that. I don't know why I do it, but my mom always did it, so maybe we should ask her why she did it.

And so when the mother came over for Easter dinner, they asked her, why do you cut the ends off the ham? And she said, I have no idea. My mother did it that way. That's how I learned it. So we need to ask grandma.

Luckily, grandma was still alive, and they asked her, and she said, oh, well, when I was a young woman, I was cooking for the family. We had a really, really tiny oven, and so the ham wouldn't fit in the pan that went in the oven, so I had to cut the ends off to get it in the oven.

And so it's just been passed on from generation to generation, and nobody ever asked, why do we do this? We just keep doing it. And so sometimes it's just that input of, why do you do that? That gets you to consider, is this really serving more?

Is serving me, or is this something I could maybe let go because I just inherited it that way?

Mm hmm.

Right? That's hilarious. Amazing. Kelly, thank you so much again. This was so freaking great. I mean, Megan and I still.

I think we've had our, like, huge smiles plastered on our face every single time we talk to you. And I love the ten minute challenge.

I hope that our listeners will jump on anywhere on social media, on our website, on our wherever, you know, where to find us, and just let us know how the ten minute challenge went for them. Even if they just tried it for one day and it completely blew in their face.

We want to hear about it, and if it's going really, really well, we want to hear about it even more. I'm sure Megan is going to come back and tell us how it went for her because she's very good at these kind of challenges.

So thank you again, Kelly, you've been a tsunami of information and to get reactions from our listeners who are very curious about this already. A few of them told me they're going to contact you directly. So really grateful that you came on and dedicated four whole episodes with us.

Thank you so much.

It has been fantastic. Thank you guys for giving me the chance to share this information.

I think it's so important to get it out there in the world, to help people find their tribe, find their people, to get the right information and to learn to cope better as a family in relationships, in work, and all those aspects. So I appreciate you both very much for this chance and thank you. And I hope that this won't be the last podcast we do.

No, doubt it. Highly doubt it.

Oh, my mother. My mother wants to facetime. I told her I'm going to be recording.

She wants to know how it's going.

I know. Should I just bring my mom in on the conversation? She has ADHD, too. Okay, let's start. Start. Danna, you say the hellos, but you.

Know that I will keep that as an edit.

I do. I'm steaming up now.

Should I just keep the medication for the week? No, sorry. Oh, my God. Sorry. I'm okay. Should I just skip?

What the skeep. Oh, that's good. I'm holding on to that. You don't know that.

This listener.

Let's skip it.

Last time. Last time I'm going to do this.