If you struggle with impulsive behaviors, this is linked to ADHD, even if you don't have the Hyperactive/Impulsive Type of ADHD.

In this episode, Renee explores impulse control, how it's related to the ADHD brain and how it can be obvious to others and how it can impact you on the inside with emotional regulation and decision-making.

Learn simple ways to support yourself with ADHD.

Hello, welcome to Inspiring Women with adhd.

I'm Renee, the host of this podcast.

Excited to be here today.

This is probably going to be shorter because I am leaving to go on a trip today and I really wanted to make an episode before I left.

So you have one to listen to next week.

Because I know when I get back from a trip, it's always hard to just fit something in besides getting back to normal in my home.

So even though I'd like this to be a longer episode, this will be the beginning of maybe a discussion on this.

But I wanted to talk about impulse control because is impulsivity is part of ADHD in the combined type or the inattentive impulsive type.

It's funny that it took me a long time to say impulsive, because that's the part that I want to talk about.

But anyway, so a lot of people, in fact, I just went to get my hair highlighted, root retouched the other day, and the woman that I go to, I really, really like her, said I think my son has add.

And I didn't want to say, you know, ADD hasn't actually been a diagnosis for, I don't know, since the 90s.

Let's see.

So.

And my guess is that she was born in the 80s.

So this is something that we, we all often have ideas that ADD is, is inattentive, ADHD is the hyperactive.

But, but actually it was interesting because when she said, I think my son has add, her, her reasonings were because he was hyperactive, because he always needed to be moving.

And I thought that's actually the, the adhd if you went off the old diagnosis.

But I'm finding that when you talk to people and even if you've been diagnosed with ADHD already, or if you're like me and you've studied this, but then it's like, wait, how do I keep it all straight and how do I learn more about myself in the process?

It's good to review.

And so ADHD is either the inattentive type or the hyperactive impulsive type or the combined type that has the hyperactive, impulsive and the inattentive.

So.

But people still use that.

Just like people say, oh, I'm a little ocd.

OCD is actually a disorder that has, that leads to some very difficult challenges.

And yet a lot of times we just, we, I don't say I do, but a lot of people say things like that.

Or I remember a friend years ago saying, I probably have adult ADD because I can't keep my mind on anything.

And that was before I knew I had adhd.

And I'm pretty sure she thinks she has ADHD now, too.

I don't think she's been diagnosed, but we're very similar in a lot of ways.

And then even people that I knew that were diagnosed, I didn't see similarities between us and the challenges that they had.

I didn't delve into more.

I didn't ask them more about it.

And maybe we do have a lot of that in common.

But I don't live in that same place anymore.

I'm not in touch with some of these people.

But anyway, okay, so let's go to what I want to talk about with the impulsivity, because impulsivity is a big part of the hyperactive, impulsive part of adhd, but it can also be a challenge and in the inattentive type.

So if you were diagnosed with inattentive type adhd, but not combined, you may still struggle with some impulsivity, but maybe not to the degree of answering all the questions, meeting the criteria for the hyperactive, impulsive, impulsive type.

So you can struggle with impulse control even if you don't have that hyperactive kind.

And some of that could just be your brain's inability to stop what you're doing so you're hyper focused, or your inability to pause, to delay something.

You know, like when you, when you can't wait, you know, I want to do this now.

It may not show up in your body in the same way, but you may have a hard time resisting urges, even with eating.

If you need more dopamine and you're eating sugar all the time or snacking all the time, that might feel like you're having a struggle with that.

And it might feel like I just started eating and I didn't even realize that.

So you may have some problems with impulse control or just self control, and there are differences.

That was something else I looked into before this episode was the difference between impulse control and self control.

And I'll see if I can get it in the show notes.

But I made an episode last year about impulsivity, and there are different kinds.

There's the kind, and I can't remember the names of them, of course, without in front of me, but of doing something completely impulsively, like blurting out an answer, you do it before you even know you're doing it, or you have a little bit of time where you think about it and you still do it before you complete that thought.

Or, or you have the thought and you think, I need to get out of this traffic.

It's driving me crazy.

You know, you have the impulse to do it.

You're struggling because you can't do it.

And maybe you're not able to get out of that traffic as easily as you could get out of a line at the store.

Do you ever do that when you're in line at a store and you just think, I just can't wait this long.

I just can't wait this long.

And you just put the things back and just say, I can't go to the store today.

I've done that so many times.

Or standing in line in the store and see that your line is going more slowly than somebody else's line.

And so you switch lines.

And you can do this in traffic too, right?

You switch lanes, you have the impulse to be in the quicker lane and you get in it.

And sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't.

It can be maddening.

Then all that builds up again.

But if you think about the ADHD brain having the ability to, like they describe it, like with a gas pedal, to turn on something and to stop it.

So like pushing them gas pedal or putting on the brakes, and so your brain has the ability to.

And maybe you're not doing it on purpose.

Like with emotions.

Emotions show up.

So that's just like you just start going and then your brakes get you to slow down and think, oh, I don't want to be going that fast.

Like, oh, I didn't realize I was, you know, you know, going 60 when it says to go 55 or something and you slow down.

And so you have that ability to regulate it and to stop it when you have adhd, the ability to put on those brakes sometimes isn't as good with emotions.

Emotional dysregulation.

You might notice what's happening with your emotions or you might not.

But you're not putting on those brakes.

You're not stopping it, or your inhibitions.

Somebody else might think, oh, I want to go over there and get that to eat.

You know, like, go order that, those French fries or something.

And you might just reach over and grab some french fries and eat them or something.

I don't know if you've ever done that.

I've seen kids do that, you know, where they don't know which table's theirs or something.

And I have Eaten things that aren't mine before.

Not that somebody else has touched them, but just without knowing it.

Like seeing it and eating it and not realizing what I'm doing out in public.

I know that sounds horrible, but the one time that I can remember, and I know this has happened more than once, but my kids were there and I saw a little, like the little paper tray that they have, you know, like at a fast food place.

This was actually at a boardwalk, Santa Cruz beach boardwalk, where you could get a hot dog and then you have a little booth there and you can put relish or whatever in the little tray and then dip your hot dog in it or whatever.

Anyway, it had onions in it.

And I saw the onions on there, and we were walking by and I saw them and nobody was standing there from what I can remember.

But I saw the onions as an adult and thought, oh, onions.

And they were in my mouth before I even knew what was happening.

My kids said, mom.

And they belonged to a lady who was just a little bit to the right and she was turning to maybe get ketchup or something and total impulsive move.

And I had no idea I was doing it.

There were no breaks going on there, and I've done that before.

You have to really be careful driving.

This is one thing that my doctor told me when I went in and was diagnosed for adhd.

And I said, well, I don't know if I want to take medication.

I'm not sure about this and this and this.

And he said, one thing to consider is there are safety issues with driving if you have impulsivity problems or who knows what, you know, paying attention or something like that.

And I have done that before where I'm driving.

And then I think, oh, like one time, and this wasn't an unsafe thing, but it did wreck our car.

But I had the kids.

We were on a trip in San Diego.

It was like, how many hours Was that?

Like 15 hours from our house.

We lived way north, Northern California, and.

And we were driving to go to Target.

I have no idea why, but my husband wasn't with us.

He went with his brother somewhere that day.

So I was just with the kids.

And I know none of that seems like it matters, but we were driving through the parking lot, and I think this is the day, the days before.

We had GPS or anything, so we knew how to get to Target, but I couldn't find it in the parking area.

It's like, okay, I know it's here somewhere.

So I'm about to go out of the the parking space, whatever you call it, that whole area.

And as I'm starting, as I'm still going forward but slowly, I see Target off to my right.

So my impulse is, oh, there's Target.

I'm going to put on the brakes and then turn that way.

And I didn't do some crazy, like, turn right before I even think about it, but I put on the brakes before I thought about it.

And the car was still accelerating and it ruined our transmission, which I didn't know yet, but I did that.

I felt I heard a weird sound.

And then we drove her over and went into Target.

We came back out and the car wouldn't go in reverse.

And we couldn't even, you know, put it in neutral so we could push it.

It was a mess.

It was a mess.

And I don't remember how, how it worked out because my husband wasn't nearby and he's really good with cars.

But somebody helped us and somehow we were able to push it because it was really gripping on, you know, took off the emergency brake, push it back out of the parking space, which I don't know how I knew I could go forward because, you know, why, why get out of the parking space and not be able to go forward?

But maybe I tried going forward a little bit and I could.

But anyway, then we drove back to my friend's house and I talked to my husband later that day and I said, the car won't go in reverse.

And he was a little discouraged because he'd just replaced the transmission.

And he said, yeah, you wreck the transmission.

And so I said, it's fine, it drives fine for you forward, as long as we don't go in reverse all the way home.

Mind you, we had this 15 hour drive, like in two days, which I thought you could navigate that.

And then when we get home, he could fix it.

But we ended up taking it in and trading it in for another car, a newer car, which was good in some ways, but impulse control.

And since then I'm more mindful of it because sometimes we do put on the brakes.

Impulse control.

Well, like impulsively, instinctively, you know, it's like, oh, there's a car coming, like, or, you know, somebody on a bicycle, you know, you put on the brakes and other times you might do it without thinking if it's a good idea or not.

Which makes me wonder, like, if I'm driving and I put on the brakes, why is that okay, but not okay?

Maybe I did the emergency brake, maybe I did the emergency.

I don't Know what I did?

Oh, that's what I did.

Okay.

I don't know if I said this wrong.

Maybe I said it right and I don't have time to go back and listen.

I didn't put on the brakes while I was going forward.

I put it in reverse.

That's what I did.

Maybe I already said that, but yeah.

So while I was going forward, I thought, there's Target.

I put the car in reverse.

It was an automatic, and that's when I heard the sound.

So, yeah, wasn't a brake problem.

It was a changing the transmission when you shouldn't to reverse.

Anyway, so let me, let me go to a different part right here.

Just kind of explaining that there's a part of our brain that controls inhibition.

So getting yourself to stop doing something when you think, I should put on the brakes, right?

And now I've gotten us all confused because I talked about putting on the brakes and putting in reverse.

We're just talking about stopping, doing something that we're thinking of doing or that we shouldn't be doing.

And sometimes that could be if you're super, super talkative and you're realizing, I shouldn't be talking so much or I shouldn't be, you know, putting in my input as often or, I don't know, chiming in, as I like to call it.

In conversations which might stop somebody half halfway through, they're just their sentence and it's just an excitement, but it's an inhibition and the ability to stop that isn't always there.

As I've gotten older, I've recognized it more.

But there could be things that you could, like, say something that you actually regret, like, did I actually say that out loud?

Or with emotions tied to it.

You know, say something that, you know, you.

Like when somebody says something and you.

You just snap back or something where you might be a little more measured and listen to them and.

And not do that and not cause some problems.

Or even you get a text or an email and your first response is, ah, I want to say this.

You know, like, if it makes you upset or something.

And just pausing, Pausing is important.

And I would think, like, with texting and emailing, you do have more time because the person's not right there.

And it takes more time to actually write a text or write an email.

So you do have a little bit of time to weigh it out and ask yourself, is this a good idea or not.

But in social situations, we might share more or give more details or tell too many stories or interruptions or.

Or Even just say yes to doing things.

You know, people, you want to do this, oh yeah, I'll do it.

You know, and then maybe think, oh, I shouldn't have done that.

You know, regretting that you're too involved or you've over committed and, and even overthinking can be impulsive.

When we have lots of ideas, it's just like the, the ideas just keep coming and they keep coming and, and you can, that may not seem like something that disrupts other people, but it might be, it might be like if you, you are in a conversation and I've done this before, probably on podcast, but I know I've done it with my daughter where I'm telling her about something and then mid sentence it reminds me of something else.

And so I start talking about that and I can go around and I've been with other people who have ADHD and they can follow what I'm doing.

And I've heard other friends who say, oh gosh, I just jumped all over the place.

I don't know if you followed that.

And I thought, oh yeah, I did, because my brain works that way too.

But a lot of people, it's not how they think and, and, and they don't want to jump around.

And the risk of jumping around too, not only in alienating the person that's listening to you, is also forgetting what you're talking about in the first place.

You go on a tangent, you want to explain that tangent, you want to tell some really great details on that tangent, and then you forget where you were at the beginning.

That can also happen just in our patterns.

As you go on your computer to do something and then you get an email.

So that takes you on what, a tange or to another tab.

And then you do that for a while and then you think, oh, I should do this too.

And all of a sudden you have all these tabs open and you spent all this time doing it and you didn't do what you came there to do.

And so these impulsive ways, and it might not seem like it's impulsive to click on an email, but if you're in a time restraint and you really need to get one thing done, you have to, you have to be really controlled.

If you don't want to what, be late because you spent too much time on your computer when you only had five minutes.

Or you might not pay a bill today and you started to pay the bill and then you never did.

And then the next day it's late or your homeowner's insurance got canceled or whatever it is.

There's a lot of things that we can raise our hand and say financially that we've done because we thought about it.

And then the impulse to do something else, the idea that popped in our mind, maybe that idea isn't actually the impulse, but the acting on it is.

And same with blurting out answers.

If you blurted out answers as a child or as an adult, it's still a real impulse for me.

The idea comes up, you want to act on that, and sometimes you can stop it and sometimes you don't.

And when you don't, noticing that you did it is powerful.

And also feeling bad about it is powerful.

So the first powerful is a good powerful is noticing you did it can be helpful because it can be a way to learn to change.

Just like going on your computer and thinking, I just keep going on here.

And then I don't do what I intended to do.

I went into the store to buy this and I bought everything else and not the first thing that I'd intended to do.

And so when you recognize that something like that happens, then you could come up with a method to hopefully help that not happen the next time.

Like sometimes I put a post it note on the edge of my computer screen that tells me that's what I'm doing.

So I see it there and I can even write a note like don't do anything else or this is it, or this is it, you know, or walk in the store.

I'm just going to get this one thing.

No, then if I get anything else, because maybe you have a way of walking.

I do.

I walk to the right side of the store, go through all the aisles, Go through all the aisles.

And if what you plan to get is in the dairy aisle at the very end or the freezer aisle or something you might forget by then.

So go out of order, go the other way first.

You know, you could come up with a method that helps you not do that with conversations that can be harder.

I think I've mentioned before the parking lot for your thoughts.

Years ago, my oldest daughter, who, you know, it's been a long time since she's been in high school.

She's in her 30s now.

But when she was in high school and I went to her back to school night and we had 10 minutes with each teacher as a parent.

We went from class to class to class, and sometimes I'd have a question, sometimes another parent would have a question.

And you raised your hand.

Not always, but sometimes.

And the teacher Said, you each have a post it note on your desk and if you have a question or a comment, write it down.

And if I haven't covered it by the end, then come talk to me or if there's time, you can bring it up.

And I thought, wow, if she had just told us, if you have a question, just wait till the end or I won't have time to answer questions, that would be really hard because if a question came up in my mind, I would struggle and be all wriggly in my seat the whole time.

And then I really do hate it.

Even if the teacher doesn't say that here I was an adult and I still had teacher issues.

I love teachers, but you know, it's just the whole, the whole back and forth.

But even if the teacher did say, you know, like didn't say you couldn't answer a question or ask a question, but then I raised my hand and I ask a question and she says, oh, I'm going to talk about that at the end, that would even be hard because my impulsive brain wants to know now, I want to know now, I want to know now.

And I know it sounds immature, but it's my brain functions at that level.

So for her to say, if you have a question, write it on your post it note.

If you have a thought, write it down.

And if I haven't covered it, and she did cover it, she did cover it, but if I haven't covered it, somehow having it down on that paper was easier for me than saying, hold it till the end, or I'm going to explain that at the end, because I was able to put my thought on paper and not forget it, because I might forget later or I might not know if she answered it later, or my brain might go somewhere else.

So it can be trickier in a real conversation because if you're telling a story and you want to share something, but then you talk about when I used to live here and then you want to tell some story about what it was like to live there or where that is, or I lived there for this many years and then we bought this house and you know all the details that come up.

It would be harder if you're face to face to write it down in the middle of that.

But you could say something like, oh, I want to tell you more about that later, and maybe they'll remind you, like, what was I going to tell you about later?

Or maybe you're talking on a audio text, a voice note, or a Marco Polo with videos, or Something and you could actually write that down while you're talking.

Sometimes you're not always aware you can write it down, but there are ways.

And so noticing where that impulse to action part is a problem, then maybe you can find a way to deal with impulse, pause, and then make a choice and then the action.

And when I talk about these things, I don't want you to think it's bad to have an impulse problem.

It's bad to blurt out the answer.

That was the other thing I said.

There's power in recognizing when you blur something else.

There's power in feeling bad about it.

And the power of feeling bad about it is the.

Is a negative power.

We don't want to have that impact on ourselves of just like, why did I do this?

This is so embarrassing.

Like, I'm the only one who yelled at, I'm that person, or whatever.

Don't think those things about yourself.

Most people aren't going to notice if they do whatever.

What can you do about it?

Right?

Don't give yourself the negative messages.

Maybe give yourself some positive ones instead.

Isn't this great that I was listening?

I was engaged enough that I cared to participate.

And maybe the teacher was happy to have some participation, maybe the teacher wasn't.

I gave a lot of participation in this hot yoga workshop that we had and I felt like my participation was more challenging.

What the person was saying, like, no, not necessarily those kind of participation things.

And because I did have more experience with some of the things that she was talking about and afterwards, I did feel some guilt for participating so much.

I was going to say chiming in, but I did raise my hand each time, thankfully.

But she said, oh, no, I liked the engagement.

Part of me wonders if she even recognized what was happening.

Because I felt like, because some of the people in class, I could see that they were kind of nodding their heads like, yeah, why would she be teaching us that?

That's more of a problem with the structure of this workshop.

And.

And yeah, anyway, sometimes when we apologize, we find out they don't mind and we don't always have to apologize.

Right?

Because we are how we are and we can do what we can to help with that.

But we're still who we are.

So don't feel bad about that.

Hopefully don't feel bad about it.

So there are a few experts, ADHD experts.

One is Dr. Russell Barkley.

I have his book.

I haven't read it, but I've seen some of his articles and quotes and even, you know, clips on Instagram.

That people have sent me, but he has.

Well, actually, that's probably a whole other.

A whole other episode.

And did you notice I said whole other and not whole nother.

Do you know when people, like, divide another and then they say another instead of other?

Anyway, yeah.

So this is what I want to touch on just a little bit, because impulsivity can look different in women than in men.

And some of the things that we look at with ADHD in boys when they're little, a lot of the hyperactive things.

Right.

And how they behave in a classroom, whereas we're told that.

That girls often mask it more.

Or I would say, for me, came up with methods like if I couldn't sit still, then I thought of things to do.

Instead of sitting there and pretending and dealing with it on the inside, I actually came up with strategies like, I'm gonna go sharpen my pencil, and I got to walk across the room and sharpen my pencil or go and get some Kleenex and blow my nose when I didn't really need to blow my nose or.

Or ask to go to the bathroom or I don't know what.

I also did a lot of drawing.

You know, like, you can take notes and stuff.

In the olden days, we used to be able to draw on the insides of our desks or something.

I actually had, you know, like, the real desk where you lift up the top and stuff, and you could draw on them with a pencil or at the top.

There's wood at the top and a place for your wasn't a cup because we didn't drink water bottles and stuff.

Then we just had drinking fountains, but there was a circle at the top.

Was that like in the olden days?

I know I probably sound like the olden days, but was that for the olden days, like, for an ink well thing, like to dip your pen in?

But there was a little circle at the top, and then there were little indents where you could put your pencils, and we could write on them with our pencils, or we could draw on our binders.

So all of those kinds of things are creative outlets for that need to move or that hyperactive nature.

You know, you see kids that are tapping their pencils or their feet are moving or adults whose feet are moving or something like that.

I think we do learn to mask and not do the things that make noise, hopefully.

But.

And.

And I would say with my boys and my girls, the blurting out, yeah, it happened with.

With boys and girls in our family, but.

And sometimes just talking, you Know, being able to talk to somebody in class or pass notes.

In the olden days, you could pass notes.

My son, my youngest son was told by one of his teachers because.

And I can see as a teacher, you don't want the kids turning and talking to each other and stuff.

And he was always doing that.

And one day she moved him in his seat, and this is in high school, and she told him, I could move you next to a brick wall and you become best friends with it.

I guess she kept having strategies of moving him near somebody.

She thought maybe he, you know, he won't talk to the person.

He talked to everyone.

He was an equal opportunity conversationalist.

And honestly, when I look at him, he's just friendly.

He's not, you know, he's not super chatty like I am.

But anyway, I think I'm going to stop there because my grandchildren are supposed to get hurt in five minutes.

But yeah, I think that's going to be it for today.

Just kind of bringing up how impulsivity can show up.

And just my view on it is when we're able to expel it, when we're able to take that need that we feel or even recognize before we do it and do it, it releases something.

When we don't do it, it might cause some internal problems like energy, anxiousness, inability to listen, pay attention, whatever that is.

And if you need to pay attention, so having other ways to get that out, like I said, you know, like the drawing, the doodling, the whatever those things, noticing what's happening and finding something manually that you can do that's different than maybe what isn't a good idea to do, or even just redirecting yourself to something that is what you need to do.

Like with being on a computer and not having the impulse to click on an ad, to click on a special or an email that sounds more fun to look at, or bring up Reddit or Instagram or any of those social media things, if that's not what you have time to do, that can be an impulsive thing because our brains can just relax and it can be easier to do that.

There's one thing, one more thing I want to bring up and I can talk about this next time some more.

But sometimes we think of with the masking.

So like, if we have impulse control problems or we're doing some things that maybe are like with the hyperactiveness or just, even if you just have the inattentive type and you're bored and, and so you feel like you need to do Something different.

Sometimes you.

You are aware of how that looks to other people.

And so what you do is you.

You notice that and you think, okay, I need to monitor myself so that I can do this in a way that is more acceptable to other people.

And when we think of people pleasing, sometimes I think of people pleasing as doing something that makes the other person happier.

You know, like, they want me to do that, sure, I'll for them.

But it can also come in a form of being hyper aware of what other people might think.

So like I said, you know, blurting out an answer or something like that, being aware of the other people.

So you're monitoring yourself because you want to have some control of these impulses, but you're also aware of other people, and you don't want to change how they think about you.

So that is thinking of, what do they think of me.

There's a difference between that and the awareness of, am I gonna hurt somebody?

Inconvenience them, do something that's not good.

So, like, if you're in traffic or something and you need to get out of a lane, you want to be aware of the other people.

You want to make sure you're not cutting in front of anybody.

There's a lot of room.

You're staying safe on the road or you're in a store.

You want to make sure you're safe doing what's fair to everybody else and all that.

But if you're in a social situation just with talking or something, and you have that hyper awareness on yourself, you might not be prioritizing your own needs.

Sometimes, you know, even just you think of the line, yeah, go ahead and.

Go ahead and go ahead in front of me.

Or you do something because you say, I'll be okay, but then are you really okay?

Or I don't know how to tie that to talking or interrupting or whatever.

But sometimes we are trying to hold back our own things just to help other people feel more comfortable or because we're worried what they may think about us.

And it can just get very complicated.

And isn't life great?

And if you have an analytical mind, then you think about it more.

But anytime that you're trying to take an impulse and do something with it, just try to find the way that is good for others around you and good for yourself, where you're not compromising your own needs and you're finding a way to take care of yourself in addition to other people.

And I'll talk about that connection a bit more because going over it too quickly may just be confusing and I think that's it for now.

Thank you so much for being here and I will be back.

I'm going on two trips, Miami and Arizona, back to back, and this episode will probably come out while I am gone.

But thanks so much for being here.

I will see you or talk to you later.

Bye.

Help Other Women Find the Show Rate Review Share with someone you know Help Other Women Find my Show Rate Review Share with someone you know Hurry before you forget Double chins Rubber ducks Squeaky.

Cheese and paper cups Applesauce Superman rocket ship San Peter Pan boogie boards and parachutes and soda cans Jumping jacks and pillowcases for my hands Donald Duck and fire trucks and Pokemon Santa Claus and Johnny Depp and Donkey Kong Chocolate chips and zippers it's a 914 little children jumping on the trampoline Model trains are passing lights in super glue Tangerines and magazines in kangaroo.

Oh yeah oh yeah.

Rewind I run out of time to sing melodies and harmonies I'm kind of but short the silence of sound has yet been found but not by me.

I bother my toes spread on some grape jelly I don't need to fast but I'm a chef and a good wine My grandma can't hear me Hear that breakfast is done getting col so I run.

Open windows broken shadow Frozen dreams are left for tomorrow.

Rewind I run out of time to sing melodies and harmonies I'm cut short the silence of sound has yet been found but not by me It.