Powerful Possibilities: ADHD Newly Diagnosed and Beyond

Episode 3 - Why am I so bad at adulting?

In this third episode of the 'Powerful Possibilities' podcast, ADHD coach Katherine discusses the distinct challenges that adults with ADHD face, such as maintaining a nine-to-five job, forming stable relationships, and maintaining a home. She discusses the negative feedback and lack of understanding these adults often face, especially when they struggle with society's 'adult functions'. She explores the stronger likelihood of adults with ADHD to face executive function problems, lower income, having smaller social networks, and other difficulties. However, Katherine assures listeners that despite these challenges, a fulfilling life is possible with ADHD, it might just look different. She encourages her audience to get an assessment of their unique executive function profile to understand where they are struggling, build individual strategies to manage these struggles, and create a balance between structure and freedom. Katherine also hints at future episodes where these strategies to manage ADHD will be extensively discussed.

00:07 Introduction and Overview🎵 What's up everybody....

00:19 Understanding the Struggles of Adulting with ADHD - Why am I so bad at adulting?...

00:59 Feedback and Reflections on Previous Episodes

Thank you, everybody for your lovely feedback on the first two episodes of the podcast, this is the first time....

01:11 The Challenges of Adulting with ADHD - First question is, why am I so bad to adulting?...

01:41 The Impact of ADHD on Adult Life: Adults tend to be people who have jobs....

02:36 The Role of Executive Functions in ADHD: So I love to do research for blog posts for podcasts, for everything....

03:11 The Importance of Identifying and Addressing Challenges 

03:31 Understanding the Inattentive Presentation of ADHD -  people with inattentive presentation of ADHD who are more likely to be missed when younger....

04:23 The Concept of Adulting - what adulting usually means....

04:47 The Impact of ADHD on Brain Maturation and Adult Responsibilities 

06:19 The Role of Executive Functions in ADHD and Adulting

06:38 The Importance of Research and Understanding ADHD

09:15 The Challenges of Time Management with ADHD

10:08 The Role of Medication in Managing ADHD 

14:09 Understanding Emotional Regulation in ADHD

17:32 Strategies for Managing Executive Functions and Time Awareness

23:19 The Importance of Emotional Self-Regulation 

23:56 The Power of Reframing and Emotional Self-RegulationAnd we have social communication problems....

Silverstein, M. J., Faraone, S. V., Leon, T. L., Biederman, J., Spencer, T. J., & Adler, L. A. (2020). The Relationship Between Executive Function Deficits and DSM-5-Defined ADHD Symptoms. Journal of Attention Disorders, 24(1), 41-51. https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054718804347

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1...

Michielsen, M., Comijs, H. C., Aartsen, M. J., Semeijn, E. J., Beekman, A. T. F., Deeg, D. J. H., & Kooij, J. J. S. (2015). The Relationships Between ADHD and Social Functioning and Participation in Older Adults in a Population-Based Study. Journal of Attention Disorders, 19(5), 368-379. https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054713515748

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1...

Berger I, Slobodin O, Aboud M, Melamed J, Cassuto H. Maturational delay in ADHD: evidence from CPT. Front Hum Neurosci. 2013 Oct 25;7:691. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00691. PMID: 24298243; PMCID: PMC3829464.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...

Ptacek R, Weissenberger S, Braaten E, Klicperova-Baker M, Goetz M, Raboch J, Vnukova M, Stefano GB. Clinical Implications of the Perception of Time in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): A Review. Med Sci Monit. 2019 May 26;25:3918-3924. doi: 10.12659/MSM.914225. PMID: 31129679; PMCID: PMC6556068.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...

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First question is, why am I so bad to adulting? And I feel like this is a question almost every one of my clients over the age of around 30. Even over 25 comes to me with why does it feel so hard? And so I felt like this was a really important episode for us to do. Right at the top. When we think about adulting () which if you're over 50 is only recently verb. It makes sense. Right? What do you think of when you think of adults? Adults tend to be people who have jobs. They are people who have stable relationships. They are people who have homes that are secure and pleasant to be in. They are are people who can take care of children and they really seem to have their act together. And quite [00:02:00] often when we have ADHD and we maybe have a very late diagnosis. We may struggle with one or more of those elements of an adult life. So I wanted to take the time and explore. Why these things are so difficult or can be so difficult when we have ADHD. But when we know that we have ADHD, what can we do about them? And how can we make our lives more easy and how can we step into a place of possibility and understand that things are possible with ADHD, they might look a bit different, but they are absolutely possible.

And the thing that was fascinating was that people with inattentive presentation of ADHD who are more likely to be missed when younger. Are more likely to have executive function problems. So although we are still recovering from this idea that young people with ADHD who are very hyperactive are the ones that are most. Badly affected because they maybe struggled more visibly in school and they struggle [00:04:00] more visibly in jobs. Actually it's the inattentive presentation where we look like we might be paying attention, but we're not, we've drifted off somewhere. We are more likely to be affected by executive function problems. There's a direct correlation there. So if you're not a hyperactive ADHD person, It's fine. I've got you. This is your place.

And when we look at the executive functions as a group. Those are all the things that you're expected to have. In hand as an adult. There's a lack of tolerance for people who struggle with these things. And especially. One of the things people don't talk about much is the grinding monotony of much of adult life. You always have to decide what you're having for dinner from now until the end of time. And if you are a parent, [00:08:00] You have to decide for your kids. But at least the first sort of 10, 15 years, what they're going to have, and they expect you to know what they're going to have for dinner. So. I can hear the people who deal with dinner, making a new and the audience nodding their heads from here. So. adulthood is when we tend to lose things that meek life easier for ADHD. And that includes novelty. That includes being able to do things in the moment. When you are an adult. You have a job and you have a family and you maybe have pets. You have bills that need to be paid at the same time every month. There's less room for your natural impulsivity. To come out. And so you may find yourself drawn to other types of impulsive behavior, which can include gambling, spending things that you really shouldn't because those bills are going to come around every month. So for me. Adult hood an ADHD. Can be fantastic. And. You know, some of the most [00:09:00] successful adults we know. Have ADHD. But they also have systems and supports and awareness in place so that they are not forcing themselves to do the parts of Life that they really struggle with on a regular basis.

One of the things that we find particularly difficult as adults with ADHD is time.

And time. Working memory. These are core deficits in ADHD.

Are you still recording?

Yeah, I think you are.

One of the things I want to say is that. A bonus that comes with ADHD. If you like is the ability to use our more creative problem solving. In a regular way. And that's because of the. The communication between the default mode network. And the task positive network.

One of the other really difficult things, I find almost universal in ADHD, but especially as adults. Is time management. And I think the thing that makes it really difficult is that we know that time is the one thing we don't get back. And I just finished "how to work less" with Rich Webster, which is amazing. And I highly recommend if you are somebody with ADHD who wants to focus more on living a life than being run by your business. And one of the things rich really focuses on is how do you manage your team? And time is the one thing that we cannot buy more of.. There is a finite amount of time and the day. And we need to leverage all those other things to increase our time. But when you have ADHD, something really unique happens. And that is that. [00:15:00] We struggle to really comprehend time passing. And there's a paper I'm going to put into the show notes, which explains really clearly that this is a core deficit in ADHD. And I don't think it's in the DSM, the diagnostic manual at the moment. I think it really should be. But time management is a misnomer. If you don't understand. The span of time. And the passage of time. So in ADHD, we struggle with time horizon, most adults. Have a time horizon of around 12 weeks. I think it's like 12 weeks, which is why a lot of people can diet for 12 weeks. They can commit to a new routine for 12 weeks. Because that's as far ahead as we can see, and it's why it's easier to motivate yourself for something in a couple of months than it is for something in two years for most human beings, there are some unique beings. Who can manage that? If you can only see four weeks ahead. Sometimes less. [00:16:00] How are you going to remember to save for things like your retirement? How are you going to realize that actually your mortgage is coming due in less than 10 years? How are you going to plan ahead for your health? If you are 45. And you are looking at a family history of heart disease. And you knew that other people in your family have had problems in their fifties. Five years feels like an eternity, and it really is hard to motivate yourself to make those changes. In the hear and now if five years could be five decades or 500 years. And so with ADHD, Our time horizon is shrunk. way back. Think about when you're dealing with kids with toddlers. Five minutes can be five hours for them. And I know that some people, when they take medication time passes at a normal rate. Time suddenly goes normally, like they can feel time passing instead of every minute being too long. And so. You know, being aware of [00:17:00] time, managing time is a key requirement for an adult. And yet for us with ADHD, it's something that we uniquely struggle with. The other thing that I see happening a lot is we don't really understand how long things take. And when you're an adult. Especially if you're an employee or if you're working for yourself. You need to know how long it's going to take to do things so that you can plan your days accordingly. So ADHD, isn't just about attention and focus. These are really crucial challenges that we face as adults. And so there. Are of course things that you can do. So I'm going to break it down and let's look at things that we can do to support our executive functions and our time awareness. All these things and make adulting with ADHD. Suck just a little bit less.

The second thing you need to do once you've got a really good overview of your unique executive function profile. Is think about.

I'm definitely going to spend a lot longer on each of the executive functions. What they look like, what you do, how you can manage them in future episodes. So make sure you have subscribed. And you're going to come back for more episodes. But thinking about time. In particular, I want to talk about. The sweet spot. And time management. [00:21:00] A lot of people are like, time-blocking time-blocking is the answer. You must block out your time. And as somebody who really enjoys a visual structure, I do that. Not in a rigid way though. So, what I do is I have a paper planner and a Google calendar, and I am trying another couple of apps. People have asked me to look up. I block at my time. With color. But it's kind of flexible. Right. And this is what I mean by the Goldilocks. It's not too structured. But it's not too unstructured. It's just structured enough. And then I have a separate list of all the things I need to do that week. And I can rank them by priority and I'll come back to that again. But for me, that sweet spot between structure and freedom. Allows me to be much more. Productive in my own work. And much more present and engaged in what I'm doing. Because of not thinking, right. I've only got 10 minutes before this block of time is up and I have to just move on. [00:22:00] I can't keep going with this podcast because I have to go and do my admin for the end of the week. No. So. The sweet spot. The secret is to give yourself enough flexibility. But just enough structure and that is going to look different for everyone. So. Try to be aware of that tension, that ADHD people need structure. We need structure a lot. Sometimes we need people like a coach or an accountability group to put that in place. But it has to be light. Okay. You have to hold it lightly. Instead of squeezing a tennis ball really hard. Here comes my dog.

Instead of squeezing a tennis ball really hard. You're going to hold it lightly in your hand.

The other difficulty we might have with adult ADHD is emotional regulation. And. I don't think I've got enough time left to really go into it properly here. But emotional regulation or deficient emotional self regulation. Dr. Barkley calls it D E S R I think is another core deficit of ADHD that is not in the diagnostic manual right now. And. People talk a lot about rejection sensitivity. And it's not that we are somehow fragile, broken beings. We might feel broken because of our life experiences. And we might feel that we are being rejected. Because of our social communication problems and lots of us. Are also autistic. And we have social communication problems. But deficient. [00:24:00] Emotional self regulation is one of the other things that is difficult as an adult, because we are expected not to cry at work. We're expected to manage parenting children who are struggling with self regulation, and we may need to co-regulate with our kids. To help them. Learn to manage their emotions in a way that honors their feelings, but doesn't inhibit them. in learning and communication and inclusion and stuff like that.

No other thing that we can learn. And one of the things that I do in coaching is we offer a reframe. So it's quite easy for us to get stuck in our viewpoint. And for most of my life, I was definitely in that place. But learning how to. Reframe our experience and the experience of being an adult in the world is incredibly powerful. And again, because we've reframed that experience, we can. Find our executive functions [00:27:00] improved because we're no longer as stressed. And we're no longer. Held captive by those beliefs and thoughts. I want to say something very clear here. There are some life coaches who will teach you that circumstances are neutral. Some circumstances are. Absolutely no neutral. Ever. And so if you are in a situation. That is dangerous. Where you are being abused. Whether that's physically, emotionally, financially. In a relationship. If you were an abused as a child. That is not neutral. Ever. And I don't care if other life coach has come at me for that. There are some circumstances that are not neutral. And I will say that until the end. So. We can reframe things. But we also need to be honest. And one of the things I love about my clients. Is that people with ADHD can be brutally honest about themselves. They can also see themselves in a very negative light. But they do tend to be [00:28:00] quite objective about circumstances and things. And that's one of your strengths. Is being able to cut through the adult nonsense. And I think it might be one of the reasons why we sometimes struggle with social communication, because we can see. When people are talking rubbish for want of a better word. Anyway. I have. sk ated through some really big, deep issues here. And I want to say thank you for bearing with me. Really excited to go into each of these in more detail in future episodes. And I've mentioned a few people that I would love to interview. And if you have questions about being an adult about executive functions, about emotional regulation, about. This whole reframing about time management or time techniques do get in touch with me. You can comment down below. You can email me. You can get in touch with me. Through Instagram or my website. So, thank you very much for being [00:29:00] with me on the third episode of powerful possibilities. ADHD, newly diagnosed and beyond. I really look forward to sharing more information with you next time and answering your questions on the podcast.

I'm ADHD, coach Katherine. And thank you for listening to the third episode of powerful possibilities, ADHD, newly diagnosed and beyond.

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