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Episode 5 - ADHD Myths. Busted!
91 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, Paul and Martin (co-Mayors of ADHDville) try to make some sense out of the nonsense that’s out there on the subject of adult ADHD. Paul goes on about cranberry juice hoping that he can hopefully shoehorn that into an ADHD themed conversation. All this interwoven with Martin talking to walls, doodling and being in happy places whilst Paul listens to himself not listening about his endlessly-pocketed backpack.
Theme music written by Freddie Philips and played by Martin West. All other music by Martin West.
Please remember:
This is an entertainment podcast about ADHD and does not substitute for individualized advice from qualified health professionals.
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Transcript
Strange Encounter at the Pool
00:00:00
Speaker
So I was at the swimming pool the other day and there's this guy who's like swimming up and down and he's always there. And I usually like not okay. Hey, how's it going? And the other day, not bobbing at the same time.
00:00:23
Speaker
Yeah, up and down, from end to end. And he was ignoring me. And I was like, oh, that's weird. And I kind of swam up, like he was in the lane next to me and I was kind of in, you know, kind of came up to him and he was looking everywhere, but at me. And that was right. And that kind of went on like for the whole hour. And that was really weird. I got out of the pool.
00:00:53
Speaker
got changed, met my wife afterwards because she was swimming as well and and I said yeah this this guy who normally says hello was totally blanking me
00:01:09
Speaker
And she said, oh yeah, he was just talking to me and he was saying, oh yeah, your husband, yeah, he should be doing this and he should be doing that. And she said, yeah, hello. You know, my husband has ADHD and part of his thing is he doesn't really like getting into pools and water. So it's a miracle that he's here anyway.
00:01:35
Speaker
I went, oh, he's, he's gone, oh, you've got ADHD. He must be some sort of like mental weirdo. And he just blanked me. No. No way. Yeah. Oh my God. Oh, that's a new one. I was like some sort of psychopath. Right. Okay. Oh, wow. And with that bombshell.
00:02:27
Speaker
Well, I copped that one up. Wow.
00:02:33
Speaker
cocked. Thankfully cocked is actually quite a loose definition.
Meet the Co-Hosts with ADHD
00:02:42
Speaker
Hello, I'm Paul Tubson. I was diagnosed with ADHD a few weeks ago. And I'm Martin West and I was diagnosed ADHD in a little office in Manhattan.
00:02:54
Speaker
So, we're just two old geezers who, by coincidence or not, after 39 years of blissful friendship, discover that we're co-ADHDers. Now, it's really important to say at this point that this is an entertainment podcast about ADHD and does not substitute for individualized advice for qualified health professionals.
Podcast Purpose and Audience
00:03:19
Speaker
So,
00:03:20
Speaker
don't take any advice from us no no no no no we're just here as an all-inclusive ADHD ADHD park bench or as i prefer ADHD comfy slippers probably a nice smooth yeah a wall blend i'm thinking of ADHD nice wall blend not too much polyester
00:03:43
Speaker
No. So our ultimate hope is to create a safe space for the ADHD community where we can engage openly and frankly. Indeed. So we start off here in the mayor's office where we as the joint mayors of ADHD will take care of
00:04:01
Speaker
business. How was your week? I'm going to I'm going to kick off while you while you while
Challenges of Swimming
00:04:07
Speaker
you think so. Yes. So as I said last week, I've gone back to the swimming pool, which is great because as we're talking about it, exercise is fantastic for you. I don't
00:04:22
Speaker
know that I really actually like swimming. It's a lot of, it's a lot of, um, it's a lot of, uh, it's a lot of transitions to get there because you have to, I mean, not only do you have to kind of book time to, to go or to, you know, pay the gym membership, but you have to kind of get your swimming stuff ready. Have to get it on the bag. You have to get your locker key. You have to get there a certain time. Then there's the,
00:04:52
Speaker
putting stuff in the lockers making sure that I don't lock the key to my padlock and put it inside the locker
00:05:02
Speaker
Um, you know, then, then you're, then you're cold and you have to kind of go into the pool and then that's cold. Once I'm in, in the pool, then it's kind of fine. But, uh, yeah. And then there's a lot of transitions coming out where you get out, you're wet, you're cold. I hate it. I hate it. Drying off. I hate it. Um, but, uh, I feel good. Is that a thing? Is that an ADHD thing? Transitions.
Cycling Preparation Mishaps
00:05:28
Speaker
Yeah. Like the, yeah, the whole, yeah. Okay. Well, it makes sense. I have, yeah, I'm the same. When I go cycling, I have to like put on the Lycra, you know, in the right order, preferably because you've got like the bib shorts and you'd like, Oh, once, I think a couple of weeks ago, I put the bib shorts on the wrong way. No, no. Inside out. So the padding that was on the arse was like showing on the outside, you know, and then
00:05:58
Speaker
It's not a good look. Lycra, being 56, it's not a good look anyway. Right, so you've got these other cyclists zooming past you kind of going, Jesus, look at that guy's arse. I've joked with my Italian friends who said that if you see this thing going past you really fast, you'd be going like, is it a plane? Is it Superman? No, it's a fat man in Lycra.
00:06:28
Speaker
And, um, yeah, it's not good, but yeah, it's a lot of process thing that I, yeah, I I've got a list. I've got a list of things that I need to put. Cause it's like quite a lot to think about when you go off cycling. Right. Yeah. And yeah, but for me, it's like that first push.
00:06:49
Speaker
So for me, it's like, I get myself into the Lycra bib shorts and then I know that I'm going to do it. It's like the, you know, the, the, the, the thing that tips me over into thinking about it and doing it. Right. Cool. I guess we're swimming is a lot of other things that tip. You have to have to tip yourself over with not just like getting yourself into your, into your, into your budgie smugglers.
00:07:16
Speaker
No. Speaking of budget smugglers. Gap, long gap. I like, oh, I like dead space. I like that. Something kind of really nice about that dead space thing. Well, yeah, because I know that weekly feature, weekly dead space feature.
00:07:38
Speaker
All right. Here's some really great dead air from 1973. Vintage dead air. Loving that. Slightly crackly. Reassuringly crackly.
00:07:55
Speaker
Right. So I was at a budget meeting yesterday with Steve. He wasn't really happy about some of the expenses, some of the big checks that you've been
00:08:18
Speaker
I know that you've saved on not buying Haribo. So that's a little bit of a savings there.
00:08:33
Speaker
Well, yeah, you know, I must admit, because I've been giving up, I've been giving up on the booze as well, on the, you know, the French Accorta, you know, the local sparkling wine. My favorite fruit drink just happens to be cranberry juice. I don't know whether it's the same in the States. It's like ridiculously expensive.
00:08:58
Speaker
It's like, what is it? And it's my, it's my go to juice. That's probably what's been tipping the budget
The Cranberry Juice Budget Dilemma
00:09:05
Speaker
over the traction infection. Oh, uh, no. No. Should I add one? No, I suspect you don't have one because you drink cranberry juice. Yeah.
00:09:19
Speaker
Or it could be pomegranate juice. Oh, true. Yeah, because that for me is like, yeah, it's like so. Yeah. And I know that, you know, I've been spending a bit on the, you know, but it's expensive, cranberry juice. What can I say?
00:09:37
Speaker
I can really binge. I can binge on cranberry juice. I know it's not rock and roll. I know. I know I'm listening to myself, hearing myself say it, but it's here. It's about cranberry juice. For a liter, you'd spend about seven or eight euros. You know, you'd get a nice bottle of wine for that. Hmm.
00:10:00
Speaker
Yeah. Everything's gone up. So, uh, yeah. So Steve was just going to have to like, you know, suck it unless he could like find me. Yeah. I'll go to little try, try them out. So we've got something cheaper with a ridiculous German name. All right. Okay. Well, we'll, we're going to have to skip over the, uh, the, the homework, the, uh, me listening to smooth sound. Yeah. Smooth brown. I knew you weren't going to read the notes. You were, I knew you wouldn't read the notes.
00:10:31
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm going to try and do that this week. Yeah. All right. On to the next agenda. Where are you taking us today? Well, I'm taking you, Martin, back to the town square.
Introducing ADHD Myths
00:10:47
Speaker
I don't think, you know, we kind of like, we chewed the card on the basics of ADHD, but we really didn't get our chops around the myth part of it.
00:11:00
Speaker
OK, so all right, well, let's jump into a mess car jump into. Yeah.
00:11:20
Speaker
in the town square. I'm going to set this up. It's like, you know, I think you rather beautifully may take this up when you're talking about your anecdote about swimming pool. The guy looked at you strangely. Oh my God. You know, talk about myths, you know, like these dumb associations people make with it.
00:11:41
Speaker
um yeah yeah yeah yeah so i've got so uh i just picked up from the magazine stand over there um it's uh it's attitude attitude mag and i've seen that i've seen that they've got a podcast
00:12:00
Speaker
today? Oh, yeah, they might do. They might do. So this is from attitude mag.com. This is the kind of scientific based. Yeah, yes, the kind of scientific based, you know, yeah, making up for the fact that we aren't
00:12:22
Speaker
I don't know what you mean.
Is ADHD a Real Disorder?
00:12:25
Speaker
Yeah, totally. All right, so I've got nine myths, so I thought it would be quite good fun to kind of run through those myths and then see what we think. Myth number one, ADHD isn't a real medical disorder. Right. It is.
00:12:45
Speaker
Yeah, 30,000 30,000 research papers have been written on it. That was two years ago says, you know, add 5000 to that. You know, it was just like logic says, they wouldn't write that many papers if there wasn't any kind of if it wasn't anything other than, you know, a legitimate disorder.
00:13:11
Speaker
Well, they say that the medication for ADHD is the most efficient neurological solution amongst all the other things. So there must be something in that. They've clearly identified it, you know, otherwise they wouldn't be able to create a medical solution for it. Right. It is specific.
00:13:36
Speaker
I've heard that they haven't actually found the precise like DNA kind of like existence of it, you know, like, oh, right, you know, biological components, right? Exactly. Yeah.
00:13:53
Speaker
But yeah, it is a very reliable diagnosis. It's one of the most reliable diagnosis in all of psychiatry. So it says ADHD is on par with the reliability of diagnosing a pneumonia with a chest x-ray. Wow. Which is very reliable.
00:14:12
Speaker
Yeah. Well, some people have like brain scans. They have actually done brain scans of people and the brain activity is really distinct with ADHD people. Right. And I would argue that
00:14:27
Speaker
Once you kind of get ADHD and you know about it and you see it in yourself, you start to see it in other people. Like, you can spot them a mile away. Oh God, yeah. It happens to be like twice, three times a day. Right. Yeah. All right. Onto myth number
Does Bad Parenting Cause ADHD?
00:14:47
Speaker
two. ADHD is a modern farce.
00:14:50
Speaker
created by drug companies. So the argument here is that, I mean, certainly here in the States, is that there's a lot of money in drugs.
00:15:04
Speaker
and they invented ADHD to sell us Adderall, or whatever, which is absolutely false. Again, yeah, complete myth. Yeah, you know, after COVID, you know, these kind of what they called, Martin helped me there, they're
00:15:27
Speaker
Oh, I don't know. Yeah, these kind of myths, they breed like, they breed like, they breed like rabbits these days with COVID. It's just like put everyone's, you know, just like feeds into people's imagination. Because COVID is so easy to like get into that kind of way of thinking, isn't it? Like about anything to do with medication. Right.
00:15:51
Speaker
I mean, you know, if, if it was a, a condition that was, um, made up by drug companies, then you would expect ADHD to only really appear in the Western world, right? Where the, where the drugs are being, being sold back, but actually, you know, they've done worldwide studies everywhere all around the world and the levels of ADHD remain consistent. Yeah.
00:16:19
Speaker
I think it's about, um, you know, between five and 6%. Yeah. So, yeah. Well, the numbers, like, they sort of like move, they get creepy. I've seen like 7%. Yeah.
00:16:32
Speaker
And also between male and female is like they're actually going against another myth. They're pretty much the same. Just that boys and girls in young age, they demonstrate it differently as well.
00:16:51
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. I think there's, uh, one myth that, uh, that, uh, ADHD only occurs in boys, which as we just said, yeah, absolutely not true. It's just, um, it's harder to spot. I think, I don't know. I'm not sure what it is. It is hard to spot in women and I'm not sure whether that's because they mask it more. They're better at masking it, or there's just.
00:17:20
Speaker
the research really hasn't been done. Yeah, I think more of the first one, generally, whether it's ADHD or any other thing, you know, women just like, culturally, they're kind of like, grown up to like, mask more than more boys would. It's like, boys have more permission not to mask. Yeah.
00:17:47
Speaker
You know, I think women are expected, you know, they could like to, you know, suck it up more than boys do. Yeah. Myth number three, ADHD is the result of bad parenting. Right. Yeah.
Environmental Effects on ADHD
00:18:01
Speaker
And I think, you know, this kind of almost goes back to that, you know,
00:18:06
Speaker
thing that you were saying earlier, that it is more of a biological thing than it is from your upbringing. The kind of version of this that makes most sense to me is that you could have certain environmental conditions during childhood that could poke a finger at your ADHD and, you know, make that
00:18:28
Speaker
make that show up much more than it maybe would have done without that kind of environmental influence. This article makes a good point in that it says that overly strict parents, which may involve punishing you for having ADHD symptoms can actually make the whole thing worse. Yeah, exactly that.
00:18:57
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And I definitely feel like it's very hard for me to think of anyone who has ADHD that doesn't come out of childhood without some feeling of shame about
00:19:14
Speaker
or low self esteem about who they are. Yeah. And also so many that develop masking techniques to like cover for it. But sometimes that, I think that masking element can be so different from one person to the next. And also can be really extreme. Some were so good at masking it that it never actually gets discovered.
00:19:44
Speaker
I would argue that that's most people. Yeah, to be honest. Yeah, right. Yeah, good point. Well put. Yeah. All right. Myth number five. How can you play video games for hours?
00:20:00
Speaker
If you can, you can't possibly have ADHD. And it isn't really about video games. It's that thought of, right, well, if you've got inattention, you know, if it's that you can't focus, then how can you focus on this thing?
00:20:16
Speaker
Yeah. For so long. You, you can't have ADHD. Right. But in fact, our brains tend to hyper focus on the things that we want to do. Right. Yeah. Like a particular project or, or whatever it is. Whatever gives you the dopamine hit. Yes. And then we can squirrel down on, on that for like hours, days, weeks.
00:20:41
Speaker
I got into sport, for instance, that was my outlet, hugely. I would just play every sport. That was absolutely my outlet for it. But other people, video games weren't around when I was a kid. And we were just more active, go back to that thing. And the last thing, we were just more active as well, which is good. That's a good thing. Mate, I'm older than you. I played video games when I was a kid.
00:21:12
Speaker
Oh, right. I'm not thinking kid kid. Oh, right. Yeah. But I wasn't into that stuff, you see, because I get it gets me nauseous. Makes me nauseous. Video games. Oh, right. You're right. Yeah, my mates were into it.
00:21:26
Speaker
You're right. All right. So, uh, myth number six, although I have, I think I've actually jumped around a bit actually, but, uh, children with ADHD eventually outgrow their condition.
ADHD from Childhood to Adulthood
00:21:39
Speaker
So, uh, what we kind of got here is that about 70% of, of individuals who have ADHD in childhood continue to have it in adolescence.
00:21:52
Speaker
And then up to 50% will continue to have it in adulthood. So there's like a one in two chance. If you had it as a kid, you're going to have it as an adult as well. And as I was saying last week, the fidgety part of it kind of goes away.
00:22:13
Speaker
But the other parts of it, you know, like the inattentiveness and struggling with tasks and doing things that, you know, in interest, I mean, they stay. I think because, you know, maybe we're talking about, we're talking about that point of which people start working, you know, they go from studying to working. If you're lucky enough to be in a type of work that suits an ADHD kind of mind,
00:22:42
Speaker
then that's a help. You and I were in the creative business. I got my dopamine hits because we were meeting deadlines two or three times a week. That's what I got, you know, kind of helped me survive in a way. But if you're doing a mundane job, if you're stuck in shelves or you don't do something that
00:23:06
Speaker
didn't have that kind of, uh, the element of, uh, you know, fear, you know, or, you know, uh, potential to let people down, et cetera, responsibility. It's going to be a lot harder to mask it, you know, it's going to like, when I like bleed out somewhere, who's out, you know, and, uh, cause more havoc maybe. No, I think people do tend to get bored of the job they're doing.
00:23:35
Speaker
You know, there's the novelty of a new job and you start the new job. And then after a while you kind of get comfy and then you start to get bored and then, then you want out and you find something else. Yeah. And then that.
00:23:55
Speaker
And then that tends to kind of like, you know, so people often experience career difficulties and tech. And then, you know, it can it can stop you earning, for example, you know, you can get to legal financial problems and anxiety, mood disorders. So as as an adult,
00:24:20
Speaker
you don't outgrow the HSE, it kind of morphs into
00:24:26
Speaker
into its own adult kind and if left untreated can wreak absolute havoc in your life. People develop alcohol, you know, you can binge drinking, you have eating disorders, you can get into drugs, you can get into, you know, really crazy sports.
00:24:51
Speaker
Um, there's Gabo Mateo who wrote the book on ADHD. He struggles with, um, shopping addiction. You know, people, you just, I guess when you're an adult, you suddenly, you'll have a whole world of potential dopamine hits that you didn't have before. They're available to you suddenly, you know?
00:25:18
Speaker
Yeah. Oh yeah. No, because if you actually earned cash, you can, you can feed your own, right? Yeah. Like little. Addictions you, you have, in fact, that kind of takes us on to dancing, go dancing on a Friday night in London, you know, after work sounds like a good, uh, from what you were saying, uh, last week, right? Dancing is a, is a good thing. It's the best. It's one of the best forms of ADHD exercises you can do.
00:25:47
Speaker
All right. So myth number seven. Uh, if you take ADHD meds, you are more likely to abuse drugs, which again, myth. Um, and in fact, uh, this, this article goes on to say that it's in fact, the complete opposite having untreated ADHD increases the risk of an individual will abuse drugs or alcohol. Mm-hmm.
00:26:15
Speaker
Right. Okay, so distinction is diagnosed and undiagnosed, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. As we all know, you know, you get into drugs to, you know, those alcohol and bad drugs to numb the pain of the trauma and the anxieties in life. Whereas actually dealing with those anxieties is the path out.
00:26:44
Speaker
Right. Yeah. But there's also, I think the distinction of when you're diagnosed, you know, we're in our fifties, you know, and, you know, you have, I think you get to a point when you're in your fifties, you have dealt with some stuff. So what I'm getting to is that, you know, maybe in our later years, a little bit of less shame, you know, sort of less,
00:27:11
Speaker
you know, maybe I don't know, just put it out there. When you're younger, you don't, you know, she's still got some stuff to do within your head about the deal with shame that you've things you've dealt with badly in your past, that might make you want to drink, but it's not, it's not, you know, not saying it's linked, it's just saying it's a method that some people might use.
00:27:35
Speaker
to deal with the shame. Right. Yeah, for sure. But they're not locked into each other. That's the point I'm saying. They're not locked into each other. Right. Myth number eight, according to this, is children who are given special accommodations because they're ADHD are getting an unfair advantage.
Do ADHD Meds Provide an Unfair Advantage?
00:27:57
Speaker
Now, I know that there is a number of
00:28:05
Speaker
kids who try to get an ADHD diagnosis in order to get Adderall recreationally. So I know that that is- In the States, one in four, apparently, one in four that go for diagnosis are actually stuffed to the drugs. Yeah. Right. Which as I've said before, actually, if, you know, taking Adderall, if you don't have ADHD doesn't help you
00:28:33
Speaker
study any better. So it's just a recreational thing, I guess. But, you know, for the rest of us, actual ADHD people, I don't think, you know, if you do take drugs for ADHD, you know, this is even as an adult, I guess, it doesn't make us it doesn't give us an unfair advantage at work.
00:29:03
Speaker
If we, if we do, it just means that we can function a little bit better. You know, we can actually cause less chaos and anxiety. As people are trying to like, make it sound like it's, you know, like if you were kind of an Olympic athlete, you know, a sprint, 100 meters sprinting, you had, you know,
00:29:30
Speaker
you had you were doped you'd have a one second advantage that's not the point at all all we do is like all we do is like level out the playing field it's like we just like get to concentrate a bit better that's all you know right and manage our thoughts a bit more evenly yeah number number nine this this will be close to your heart the myth number nine people who have ADHD are stupid or
Are People with ADHD Stupid or Lazy?
00:29:57
Speaker
lazy they will never amount to anything
00:30:01
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, totally agree. I have not imagined it. Dama dama. Dama dama. I just do a podcast that no one listens to. That's that's what I've got. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think the opposite is true. Actually, they found that there's a huge percentage of ADHD peeps who are on the upper scale of intellectual
00:30:30
Speaker
of intellect, Christ. It's proving my point. Can we just restart that? Bill Gates is ADHD, you know, like, oh, come on, you know, Stephen Hawking, ADHD. That was some of the most brilliant minds
00:30:49
Speaker
a note in the history of mankind, you know. Well, Steve Hawke is a better example. In this list, I got Richard Branson of Virgin, for example. Elon Musk. Musk. Musk. Elon Musk. He's autistic. He's got autism.
00:31:16
Speaker
Um, not a very nice guy. I have to say, but anyway, never met the guy. He's probably saying lovely things about me. He speaks very highly of you. Yeah. I love that. That's my favorite comeback of all time. All right. So, um, that was, that was nonsense. It's just nonsense in that it's just, yeah. Um,
00:31:42
Speaker
I've got to put out there. Can I have you got this your list? No, you're done. I've got to add, I've got to like tag something on the end of there. There's like, there are also, um, guys are like celebrity level famous, like sold millions of copies of books, um, psychologists out there.
00:32:04
Speaker
that are like any other community. There's some extreme ends and normal people and whatever, all kinds of ideas out there. But there's a guy called Jordan Peterson. I'm guilty of buying one of his books a couple of years ago. He's been saying just
00:32:27
Speaker
bonkers, bonkers things. Does that work in the States? Bonkers, crazy, crazy things about crazy theories about ADHD. You know, this is a guy, you know, talk about miss this, this guy's like, you know, travels the world and makes huge amounts of money. And, um, he's been, um, seriously, um, criticized by the, uh, psychologist community.
00:32:55
Speaker
in the States, in Canada, Canada's where it is from, all over the world, seriously, is going through a really, I think it's going through a really hard time. One of his theories was that ADHD people are basically kids who had a lack of play opportunity in their early years. I mean, just what the hell? And it is huge thousands, hundreds of thousands of research documents that previously is wrong, you know,
00:33:22
Speaker
But unfortunately these guys, they, uh, you know, he's all over YouTube and social. Unfortunately, you know, these guys get to have a voice, but it's just insane. And I find it really sad. I feel sorry for him actually, but anyway, that's sort of the story.
The Importance of Research on ADHD
00:33:40
Speaker
Do your research. I think is what we're saying.
00:33:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Don't listen to it. Yes. Yeah. Then, you know, kind of wrapping that up a bit, you know, going back to what we were talking about, the basics as well. There's so much stuff out there, you know, if you're researching for yourself or maybe you're researching for a partner or you're researching online because, you know, you maybe got a, a child,
00:34:10
Speaker
that you're going to find this stuff about. There's so much shit out there. And fortunately, it's just, it's great you have so many stuff, so many things that can be really useful, but you have to be good at filtering.
00:34:26
Speaker
That's all I would say. Yep. Yeah. Filter. Filter, filter, filter.
Inviting Listener Feedback
00:34:32
Speaker
Alright, so I think that kind of wraps that up for this week. Let's get back in the car and we'll just head over to the post office. Okay.
00:34:50
Speaker
Oh, nice diesel engine. I know, right. It feels loose at the end. It does, it chugs. It's kind of like a, you know, well-used gearbox.
00:35:03
Speaker
Anyway, your feedback is vital to us and we really welcome any stories you have. We'll be checking up on your comments all the time and we'll be giving you feedback when we can and we hope very, very soon.
00:35:24
Speaker
Uh, we'll be making this a feature of our podcast, you know, giving back, uh, any feedback of the kind of a pick and mix of our favorite comments. Okay. So, uh, yeah. Um, yeah. All right. Well, okay. Thanks for being here. Check it out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to dance on my head. Yeah, exactly.
00:35:53
Speaker
All right, so visit us on all of our social links. But in the meantime, be fucking kind to yourself. See ya. Ciao. There, says the mayor. That's that.