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Episode 4 - Let’s Talk About The Basics
107 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, Paul and Martin (co-Mayors of ADHDville) take us through their tick lists of ADHD basics. Finding feet-on-the-ground information either online or offline can be frustratingly difficult so Paul and Martin take us through what resonates most for them and what doesn’t resonate for them at all. All this poetically laced with stories of Pug-themed birthday cards, brown noise homework and buckets of lost non-essentials. Their podcast budgeting gets easier as Alexander Graham Bell throws a wobbly about the lack of gourmet burgers on offer and refuses to turn up as this week's guest.
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
The Birthday Card Incident
00:00:00
Speaker
My wife called me and she was laughing. She said, oh, I really love our ADHD life. And I said, well, what's going on? And she held up the birthday card that I gave her the other day. And it's a pretty distinctive card. It's, you know, it has sounds in it and it's got a pug on it. And and she said, oh, yeah.
00:00:27
Speaker
I went to put this birthday card in the pile with the other cards that she has, because she kind of keeps them. And she noticed that I'd given her the exact same card last year. And I didn't notice, and she didn't either. Okay. Oh, nice. Happy birthday, Tricia, by the way.
00:00:54
Speaker
Oh, right. Yeah. And with that, welcome. Nice to old geezers. Talk ADHD. Welcome listeners. Welcome. ADHD. ADHD. ADHD. ADHD. ADHD.
00:01:25
Speaker
Indeed. Okay. Hi everyone.
Podcast Introduction
00:01:28
Speaker
I'm Paul Thompson and I was diagnosed with ADHD a few weeks ago. And I'm Martin Weston. I was diagnosed with ADHD about 30 miles away. Okay. It sounds a bit like the intro to people introduce themselves on a university challenge.
00:01:46
Speaker
Paul Thompson, study in English, Christ Hospital, Oxford, whatever. Anyway, yeah, let's get down to it. So we're just two old geezers who, by coincidence or not, after 39 years of friendship, discover that we're co-ADHD-ers.
00:02:06
Speaker
It's getting on. Now, it's really important to say that this is an entertainment podcast about ADHD and does not substitute for individualized advice from qualified health professionals. God, that's hard to say. I know, right? So don't take any advice from us. We're just here as an all-inclusive ADHD... Ooh.
00:02:28
Speaker
ADHD park bench or as I prefer to think of it slippers ADHD slippers. Our ultimate hope is to create a safe space for the ADHD community where we can engage openly and frankly.
00:02:46
Speaker
Never gets any easier, that intro. Anyway. No, I was going to say, this is not the smoothest that we've ever done. No, it's that early days. Early days, mate.
Imaginary Town of ADAD
00:02:55
Speaker
Yes. Crack on. So, crack on. Still here. Then grab your pop tarts. And let's take you to ADAD. An imaginary town that we've created in our minds where we like to explore different parts of ADHD.
00:03:12
Speaker
Well done, Paul. Well done. Yeah, thanks. Yeah. All right. Well, we start off here in the mayor's office where we as joint mayors of ADHDville take care of business. So first on the minutes, how was your week? Good, bad, ugly. Give us a brief look. Well, nicely kind of like merging from last week. I've literally just come back from the
00:03:41
Speaker
psychiatrist to update my, uh, um, medication. All
Psychiatrist Visit and Medication Change
00:03:49
Speaker
right. Which was, which was in another event. Uh, he switched me up down or sideways to, um, Ritalin.
00:04:00
Speaker
And if you're listening or watching from last week, I was on Provegeal. So yeah, I've not started taking it yet. So that was that. It was another, it was another really bad experience. Even if I was in and out really quickly, but really bad. But yeah, it is, it is. I'm going to say that thing. I hate saying it was what it was.
00:04:25
Speaker
it is what it is what it was yeah so that yeah that was what it was all right so uh yeah so by i'm kind of a big kind of thinking oh ritalin oh you know it's got a whole different like you know energy around the name you know it's like this like the historical one it's one's been around the longest right
00:04:50
Speaker
Um, but I'm thinking more likely to be, you know, specifically ADHD, whereas provincial was actually, it was an off off off label prescription. So we'll see. Right. We'll see. How about you?
Achievements with ADHD
00:05:06
Speaker
Uh, my week continues to be pretty good.
00:05:11
Speaker
in that I actually feel like I'm actually getting some big things accomplished, like my taxes are still going through. I've managed to get the car in for a service. I've, what else have I managed to do? The mundane stuff.
00:05:28
Speaker
Oh God, it's always the mundane stuff. Well, yeah, I mean, you know, that's the whole thing about ADHD, right? Is that we, it's the struggle with the stuff that is the boring things that we don't really want to do, but this week continues to actually be fairly good. So, um, so, uh, let's see how long that, that lasts.
00:05:51
Speaker
yeah um yeah i like oh no yeah just like a thing about that it's like um because it's still early doors um my girlfriend she still doesn't get like she still thinks oh paul doesn't help out as much as he should do you know with the like daily chores because he just doesn't want to
00:06:15
Speaker
You know, so, and it's, um, yeah, it's still, it's still like that early stages, like, you know, trying to like communicate to her that, you know, you can't just like blame everything on ADHD, but you know, it's yeah. Yeah. But it seems like I'm pacing myself in terms of how much I kind of like, you know, talk about ADHD as an excuse for not doing this as an excuse for not doing that, you know,
00:06:42
Speaker
Otherwise, if I just like blurted all out, you know, it's just going to sound like, Oh no, it's just an excuse to be an asshole. You know, you know, 24 seven. Yeah. No, I, I do a fair amount of household chores. Um, and I would say several ways that I make it work. One is, for example, if I miss bin day.
00:07:09
Speaker
or trash day, you know, when the, when the trucks come and pick up your truck, like if I miss one, it's chaos for the rest of the way chaos is we both work at home. So we're eating like three meals a day here. So we're producing a lot more crap. And if I miss it, then chaos ensues and I don't want that to happen. So that's one way of
00:07:35
Speaker
doing it. Plus, I also tend to do a lot of those things in the morning that like I'll get up and I'll do laundry and I'll and I'll get the lunch food prepped or I'll make and I'll make breakfast and and I'll and I'll get the trash out and I'll sort the research. So I do all that in the morning because I'm better in the in the morning. Okay. Okay. But anyway,
00:08:02
Speaker
Anywho. Okay. Yeah. It's a thing. We can talk about it on another app. Yeah, exactly. Daily Chores would be, every time we do an episode, it's like, you know, it's like, it splits us off. It's like, oh, we'll cover this in another episode. Yeah. But it won't. Daily Chores.
00:08:23
Speaker
All right, number two on my meeting notes, please subscribe to the pod, rate us and tell us what you think. It keeps the lights on here in ADHDville. Yeah. Well, we will try and get, I'm sure we'll get Rad to put in solar panels on the roof. So, you know, we won't be so dependent. Right. I'm subscribed. It'd be good to go green, right?
00:08:53
Speaker
Number three on the list is the budget. I've had a complaint from Steve from the accounts that you've been writing some large checks. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I just paid off the guy from the food truck last week. Yeah.
00:09:16
Speaker
Yeah. We have no advertising right. We have no money coming in. You're writing these large checks for like Stephen Hawking's voice box computer last week. Yeah.
00:09:36
Speaker
Well, and also because I don't know if you spoke to Betty in procurement department, but we also screwed up this week. We were supposed to have on Alexander Graham Bell, but turns out in his like, he's got like, he's very specific about his food. And yeah, he wants gourmet burgers.
00:09:58
Speaker
before and after the show is really specified. Otherwise it doesn't turn up. Wow. Anyway, push, you know, basically what happened was, um, the, I thought I'd paid the, the truck, burger truck, the, the food truck guy, and it bounced, the check bounced. So he didn't come today as we've got a guest as a long winded way around Graham Bell not arriving today to be a special guest. Alexander Graham Bell.
00:10:26
Speaker
Or was it just Alex Bell? Probably. Good news is we're saving, we'd like a cock house with the guest list. We're actually saving a lot of money. Yeah. Saving money that we don't really have in the first place. Yeah, exactly. I mean, maybe having a procurement department was a bit pushing a bit. Probably. Right. I'm going to crack on. We had homework from episode one where you,
00:10:55
Speaker
where you suggested that I listen to smooth
Sound Therapy for Focus
00:11:02
Speaker
brown noise and isochronic tones. How did that go through that? Firstly, we're talking to the wrong person here because
00:11:14
Speaker
I know I feel like I think like unlike most ADHD people, like as soon as my head hits the pillow, I am out like a light. So it almost didn't matter that it was on. Well, the opposite. I thought most ADHD is have real problems with sleeping.
00:11:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Right. I don't. I sleep like a log. Okay. Right. Those boxes. Right. So I think we were, we were trying to solve for a problem that we didn't have in this case. Right. But I don't think it's for sleeping. Did you read the instructions under the video?
00:11:56
Speaker
I forced myself to read them. Right. Okay. Right. Yes. Nothing to do with sleeping. All right. Yeah. Okay. You're supposed to have it in the background while you're working. You try to focus on, I don't know, you wrote writing your, your, your, your third biography, volume three.
00:12:22
Speaker
And you need to focus, you put that music on and it's supposed to like, um, um, balance out your brain. All right. So the, the Brown noise flicks between your left and your right ear and balances out your, your, your thought processes so that you can focus easier.
00:12:42
Speaker
All right. All right. Brown's got anything to do with it. I don't think it maybe has. Yeah. Oh, because there's different sorts of noise like pink noise, white noise, brown noise. They're like different spectrums of, of static sounds.
00:12:59
Speaker
Oh, I didn't know that. All right, so I completely cocked up there. So you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to give this one a second whirl. And while I'm doing work, I'm going to plop it on in between the ears and we'll see how we go.
00:13:16
Speaker
Yeah, I'll give you a bit of a backstory because I like, hands up, I must admit, I like left it to the last minute last night and listened to like 20 minutes, this three hours of that thing. And at first it drove me a bit crazy and then after that it still drove me crazy.
00:13:35
Speaker
But I did, reading these sleeve notes, there's actually, there's actually some sense about it, you know, saying that if you're an ADHD person, I'll put these up at the link in the notes, by the way, so quite a cool article about someone who
00:13:51
Speaker
tries out different like white noise stuff, brown noise stuff. But also say for people with ADHD, it's also really good if you're working on something, put instrumental music on and it really helps. And I kind of see that sense, you know, I suffer from like, you know, noise pollution.
00:14:16
Speaker
out massively. I just go crazy. Last weekend, we had two dinner parties, one at our house and one at someone else's house. And there were three conversations going at the same time, typical Italian kind of table thing. And I was going out of my mind. So point being, it's like the opposite of that. Last week. Right. Oh, did we? Yeah, probably. Yeah, it is a theme.
00:14:46
Speaker
But the thing is, now that I've been diagnosed with ADHD, before I used to give myself a really hard time about it and people just like girlfriends used to look at me and say, what the fuck, Paul? You know, you're getting really upset. You know, what the hell? And I just couldn't understand why no one else felt like that.
00:15:03
Speaker
Right. We'll know what else struggled except me. Now you put a like, you know, pin a name to it and it's like, you can deal with it better. You know, even the scent of, you know, you know, like, okay, pretend that you smoke. Cause I don't smoke, but pretend you smoke and just go out for 10 minutes and get some air, just get some really from it.
00:15:24
Speaker
well just say you know just like put your hand up say look this is I've actually done this I've stopped people said I can't read concentrate on three conversations at the same time
Music and Concentration
00:15:35
Speaker
and people really cool about it every time
00:15:38
Speaker
Yeah, because when you know it's ADHD, it stops becoming like a flaw in your personality, right? Yeah. It's actually a mentally diagnosed condition and then it means that, again, it takes some of that guilt out and then it means that you can find ways to
00:16:01
Speaker
work with it or around it better. Yeah, exactly. Why I mentioned that was because it's the polar opposite of the brown noise and the instrumental music. If you can create an environment for yourself where you can concentrate
00:16:21
Speaker
And it is the opposite of, you know, in my case, three conversations going on at the same time. You know, what is it, you know, is it instrumental music? Is it sometimes for me, it's like listening to Radio 4. It's like, it's kind of like background. You know, you can dip in and out when you want.
00:16:39
Speaker
Right. Yeah. And it's different for everyone. I really like instrumental music going on. I don't like words or singing because it occupies and it kind of gets into my brain way too much. Interesting. I have another episode. I know when I work, I will just say when I work and I have to concentrate, I have a tab
00:17:08
Speaker
on my web browser that takes me to a YouTube video of a three hour
00:17:20
Speaker
track right and it's an instrumental track and I'll just hit that tab and I'll hit the play button and then my brain goes oh yeah okay it's now time to work it it's almost like a Pavlov's dog response where my brain kind of goes okay I'm now expected to concentrate
00:17:40
Speaker
Right. A what dog? Pavlov. Pavlov's a dog. You know, like when you, um, yeah, he was, uh, I think he was a Russian. He experimented on dogs. So you could get a dog to salivate if you run a bell. So it's like a, um, yeah. Okay. All right. Well, let's crack on. Yeah. Crack on my friend, uh, to our next, um,
00:18:11
Speaker
Where are you taking us today? Martin, I am taking you to for a light stroll or maybe even a, you know, rigorous stroll down to the town square. We're going to talk about a few ADHD basics and a few myths. Okay. Well, let's jump into our mayor's car.
00:18:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:51
Speaker
So yeah, as I was saying, we had a bit of a chat, me and Martin, before we came on air, as it were.
The Name Debate: ADHD vs. Neurodivergent
00:19:00
Speaker
And actually we kind of put this in right at the beginning, as one of the first few episodes, because we thought it'd be good to kind of cover off the real basics of ADHD. Actually turns out, when I was actually going through it, the basics are really, the basics you could easily turn into like three episodes.
00:19:22
Speaker
But what I've tried to do here is I've kind of like, I was trying to think about, you know, what if you were the kind of person who was like right at the beginning of your, your kind of, your learning, your journey on ADHD. Okay.
00:19:43
Speaker
And you just looking for, you needed some real common sense kind of approach to thinking behind ADHD. But also I was thinking it's not always a given that your local GP
00:20:01
Speaker
Um, it's that knowledgeable about ADHD. I heard something really shocking this week that the British, the British GPS have a two slide presentation on ADHD. Right. Um, yeah, two slides and that is it. That is it. And then, you know, poor guys at GPS, uh, they're really, you know, um, under pressure.
00:20:26
Speaker
So point being, it's not always guaranteed that they're going to be knowledgeable enough about ADHD. So what do you do? You do what I did. Maybe if you're going to YouTube for the first time,
00:20:42
Speaker
you're pretty lucky you're going to find the information you want right from the start. You could find some out there stuff that is completely irrelevant. You could find stuff that's a bit too much out there. It could be quite scary, some of it. I've put together a few things about what I think the more useful common sense basics are. They're more like basics of the basics. Here we go. Let's start off with, okay, it's a crap name.
00:21:13
Speaker
Let's just go there. Let's talk about that for a second. There's a guide that's right. I've got it right here. Amazing book. First book I read about ADHD. It's this, put it up. I know it's not good for podcasters. I'll just give you a visual for the people watching on YouTube.
00:21:29
Speaker
delivered from destruction by Edward M. Halliwell and John J. Rady. Really good book, you know, really, really worth reading. And he said, you know, oh, he's ADHD, by the way, studied this, studied ADHD for like 30 years. I think the first chapter talks about how crap the name is. You know, why is it called necessarily a disorder? Why is that?
00:22:00
Speaker
So there's some better names for it. Unfortunately, we're stuck with the name. We are stuck with it. A lot of people prefer to talk about being neurodivergent. Other people express it as being executive malfunction disorder.
00:22:15
Speaker
We have also dysregulated attention disorder, selective attention impulsive disorder, capacity management syndrome, and neurospicy. There you go. For the more informal versions. So yeah, lots of different names, but we're stuck with what it is. I don't think I'd think of it as disorder because it just, I don't know, just puts people on the wrong footing, I think.
00:22:45
Speaker
Okay Okay, so move on to the next thing. I thought it's really interesting Apparently the split Martin the people that have That people with ADHD the split between how they actually expressed it they some some people say I have ADHD and Then there's a percentage which is about 60% say I am ADHD and
00:23:14
Speaker
Otherwise quite cool thing. Um, because I think people that people say I am ADHD are saying that I think essentially because they're saying, it's not something you just decide to get rid of. You know, it's not, neither is it something you chose to have. It is part of you. It's part of who you are. It's part of your, whether we like it or not, it's part of our makeup. So I thought it was quite a, quite an interesting distinction. Hmm.
00:23:45
Speaker
Moving on to the next one. This is quite a poignant one for me actually. It's very often ADHD for years and years. It's often misdiagnosed as depression.
00:23:58
Speaker
Okay. And this happened to me at least a couple of times. And I just knew it. I just knew I couldn't put my finger on why it was. I knew I wasn't depressed. I knew I didn't want to take you know, Xanax or whatever for it. I knew it's something else and I just didn't know what it was. Unfortunately, it took me about another seven or eight years to find out what it was.
00:24:26
Speaker
But that happens apparently quite commonly. Okay, next thing.
Unique ADHD Traits and Diagnosis
00:24:35
Speaker
ADHD traits are as unique as you are. What we said right at the top, me and Martin, we both sleep like logs. There's a hell of a lot of ADHD people. Apparently it's really, really, really common that ADHD people just really struggle with sleeping.
00:24:53
Speaker
Um, I remember, I remember thinking, I don't know if you found the same multi, but I remember thinking, um, when I read that on the, like the end typical NDA ADHD traits, I thought, Oh shit, maybe I'm not ADHD, but actually it's not a thing at all. You know, you got, everyone is totally different.
00:25:16
Speaker
as a whole of other things so you know it is it is as unique as you are there even like some weird things up you know I've picked up on something this week
00:25:28
Speaker
people with ADHD apparently commonly have a trait called justice insensitivity, a justice sensitivity, the opposite of justice sensitivity, that you've always throughout your whole, as long as you can remember, you're just really, really passionate about injustice and a real standard bearer for justice. Apparently it's really, really, really common among ADHDs. Interesting, huh?
00:25:58
Speaker
And it's more than one. It's not just like one little one person saying it. I've actually come across it and it is a thing, apparently. So so then the response to diagnosis is as unique as you are, you know, how to actually treat it.
00:26:18
Speaker
That said, there are some things that are right at the top of the list in terms of things that whoever you are are good things. One of them is exercise. And they're actually specific about it, not just exercise, but actually dancing.
00:26:39
Speaker
has been specified. Dr. John Raiti, again, the guy who delivered from distraction, said dancing is phenomenal for ADHD because it's multi-sensory. You're connecting lots of different things and you're putting it into this rhythm and you're literally dancing with your traits and playing with them. Cool. I thought that was really interesting.
00:27:07
Speaker
But, you know, the important thing that was said was that it's not like, you know, those damned, you know, things on Instagram or on social media where you get people like, you know, pumping iron and assisting, you know, you've got to do, you know, three hours a day and et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, make major changes to your habits. No, this guy is saying it's five to 10 minutes is cool.
00:27:37
Speaker
It's just really not that much. So that's good. He also said, actually just emphasising the exercise, he said when he first, I think the book was published about 30 years ago, when he first sent it to his publisher, his publisher says you've got to cut three quarters.
00:27:56
Speaker
And he said, okay. He said, I did it. It took, it was, it was hard, but he did it. He said, but still two chapters of the 19 chapters are about exercise. Just to put it into context. Yeah. Now I find, I mean, I've just started going, going swimming again, back of the gym. Um, as I, as I do in the winter. Uh, yeah, it's good. It's good. It makes my brain happy.
00:28:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's always like, it almost distracts me from myself. That's why I think of it, you know, you got to read. There's this, there's, after you finish exercising, your brain kind of hums along happily. Like it seems to be, it just seems to be happier.
00:28:49
Speaker
You know, like those kind of like comfortable feelings where you're kind of relaxed and chilled and your mind's not agitated and running around bouncing off the walls. It just kind of sits in a nice little happy place and kind of, yeah, feels good.
00:29:08
Speaker
I recommend exercise. Yeah. Oh, I guess it's also, it's like, as if you're like, it's like your limbs and every other part of your body's like sharing the load from the, what your brain is like you're taking on the load, you know, too much. And then you're like, your brain is like having to think about, okay, move your left arm to the right, you know, right arm up and you know, you could like, you're kind of like brains kind of activities spread all over you. Okay.
00:29:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I know that probably didn't explain that well, but it makes sense in my mind, you know? Um, so, so then, uh, right doses, you know, the right doses is unique as, as, as you are, um, it's something that's like a hot topic for me at the moment. I tried on Provegeal.
00:30:01
Speaker
the last couple of weeks couldn't get it right. I doubled the dosage after the second week and it was, I did not like it.
00:30:10
Speaker
I was a bit high and a bit kind of, you know, zombied. No, I didn't like it at all. We didn't like it. Um, and that's why, yeah. So, but it's probably different everyone. Apparently you can literally, it's not like going from 20 milligrams up to 40. For some people they found their perfect balance was like 35 milligrams. Um, and if they get it right. Okay. Yeah.
00:30:40
Speaker
I've been started on 20. I'm like, yeah, but I'm on a different drug. I'm on Adderall. Okay. Okay. But yeah, for some people have just found that late found the right dosage, you know,
00:30:56
Speaker
In fact, I should actually take off. I've just remembered saying it. I've just, I've actually just got to go to take mine now, actually. My mother would do it. Okay. And then, um, how not to treat it. We had a bit of a bit of a bit of a fudge last week. I can't eat Haribo. I found out. Um, yeah, sugar, too, too much sugar rush. It's like way too much brain say, whoa, calm down.
00:31:25
Speaker
What a shocker that was. It's a shocker. Yeah, exactly. And alcohol, you know, really bad, really bad. And bearing in mind, I live in a part of Italy where it's like the Champagne region of Italy. It's an area just around the Italian lakes called Francia Corta.
00:31:46
Speaker
And God, it's my best. It's my favorite wines, my favorite sparkling wine. And, uh, yeah, like last week I had like two glasses and I couldn't do it. Two glasses. I always like off my head. So yeah, I'm going to bite that bullet. Um,
00:32:05
Speaker
And then, yeah, and then, oh, you know, additions, um, to, um, you know, whatever, um, medications you're, you're working with, you know, sometimes for some people it works at, you know, with med, meditation. Um, for me, I like a mug of lemon and ginger tea, you know, it could be anything. Um, so whatever helps you, you know, this, that's cool.
00:32:30
Speaker
So let's move on to the next one. Yeah, this has been a thing, Mati and I have talked about this, about it. There's a guy called, what's his name?
Genetics vs. Environment in ADHD
00:32:47
Speaker
Applemente was talking about, you know, he thinks it's ADHD is, is environmentally caused by environmental effects, that we as children, we develop ways of managing trauma. Okay, because of things that happen to a child, actually, it's been disproved. It's like,
00:33:12
Speaker
about 30,000 so far research papers have been written about ADHD and it's conclusively, you know, it is genetic. There's a lot of people that say, no, it's not, it's this, that and the other.
00:33:29
Speaker
That said, you know, they do admit that you can, if you have like problems, traumatic problems during your childhood, it can prod like a painful finger towards you. You know, if your ADHD anyway, it can elevate and cause, increase your problems, your symptoms.
00:33:49
Speaker
Are we in a myths part of this? We're kind of a mix and match of myths and yeah. Because I was thinking, because I think myths should be its own thing. Right, okay. Yeah, yeah, cool. Yeah, absolutely. So I'll move on to my last one, the last one, my list. Okay, which is help others to help you.
00:34:18
Speaker
this, you know, this one early on for me, you know, early does with my diagnosis, this really, really helps, you know, put up your hand, just, you know, communicate with people, you know, without any shame at all, just like, Look, I can't deal with this very well, you know, can you help me out?
00:34:38
Speaker
Um, give you the kind of easy example. I can't deal very well with zoom meetings. And if there's like lots of conversations going on in the zoom meeting, I asked people to like, you know, help me out to, you know, to write up the kind of notes from the meetings. Cause I just can't pick it all up and I drift away. You know, and just that honesty, people generally, if you're honest about it, they're really cool about it and really helpful. So yeah.
00:35:07
Speaker
Yeah. So what about you, Marty? You've got some, you've got your basics. Well, I just thought I would take a whole different angle on this. I'm just going to quickly run down the American psychiatric association's point of view.
00:35:22
Speaker
There are three types of ADHD. One is kind of like an inattentive presentation of it. One is like a hyperactive impulse presentation and the third is a combination of the two.
00:35:41
Speaker
For example, the inattentive type. So let's see if any of you lot kind of tick or how many boxes you can tick along the way. Doesn't pay close attention or details to make careless mistakes. Has problems staying focused on tasks or conversations?
00:36:08
Speaker
For sure. Does not seem to listen when spoken. You seem to be elsewhere. I do that. I tend to look off to the left or to the right. Yeah. Because if I look at the person's face, I'm thinking too much about their face.
00:36:30
Speaker
Whereas if I stare at a blank wall, I can actually concentrate on what someone's saying better, but it looks like I'm not listening. I can actually go like even beyond that, sometimes I can listen to myself not listening to the conversation. Have you ever got that? I was like Paulie the third person, I'm listening to myself not listening to the conversation.
00:36:55
Speaker
OK, Paul, mate, this person is talking to you and like, what, what? I'm thinking about this other thing. No, no, no, mate, look, this is important. Come on back up. Come on, Paul, back up, get up, back on track.
00:37:08
Speaker
I'm not glad you're interested. Has problems organizing tasks and work, you know, has, it doesn't manage time well, has messy, disorganized work, misses deadlines. Yeah. I'm lucky I've never missed a deadline.
00:37:32
Speaker
I've never, yeah, it's so rare. Cause my shame dial is too, is too kind of like primed to fail on that one. Right. Yeah. And always hit it. I'm always on time for meetings, always never late, never late. I've, I've, I've definitely missed tax deadlines. Oh, that's for sure. All kinds of ones as well. And it's, you know,
00:38:01
Speaker
If you miss one, then the chances of me missing the next one are exponentially higher because I now feel bad about myself for the first time and then I'll just miss the next one as well. All right. Often loses things. Yes.
00:38:22
Speaker
I definitely lose, there's, there's two, two buckets. There's the buckets of things that I definitely cannot lose wallet, keys, passport. And I'm fairly good about those, but the other stuff that is like non-essential, they can, they can wander off for sure. Yeah.
00:38:47
Speaker
I have this thing I have, I bought, I once bought a rucksack that's got like multiple pockets, like infinite amount of pockets. And it drives me insane. All right. Cause okay. So it like, it's like, okay, don't get it lost. Don't lose things. Know where they are. Okay. Compartmentalize them, you know, so that you like you organize your head. Oh, my keys are there. The passport is there.
00:39:13
Speaker
But if I've got more than like five or six pockets, I go crazy. It's as if I've got 300 pockets.
00:39:25
Speaker
Right. Yes. I find that the simpler something is, the easier it is for me to deal with. So if I've only got two pockets, I would prefer something that had two pockets over 30 pockets because I would only have to search two pockets and not 30. Yeah. Because if I have 30 pockets, I will go into each of those pockets. Four times.
00:39:52
Speaker
Yeah. So the next one is easily distracted. Squirrels. Squirrels. Yeah, obviously I was distracted as you were saying it. I noticed when I was editing last week's podcast,
00:40:13
Speaker
that you were talking and I was not paying attention because one of the answers that I said was like, hang on, Paul's talking about this thing and you're answering in a completely different thing, you've kind of zoned out somewhere in there.
00:40:33
Speaker
Yeah. It's kind of really cool. We've, we've just got really, we've got a really cool excuse to be really fucking unprofessional because it's like, it's, it's for ADHD is by ADHD. So it's all good. It's all good. It's all crazy. And then the last on this list is a forgets daily tasks such as doing chores and running errands, right? Paying bills, keeping appointments.
00:41:00
Speaker
Oh, I've got talking of talking of like paying bills and daily chores. I have a double whammy. I have to do it in Italian very often. Oh, yeah. Yes, you got like a bit. Yeah, sometimes pushes me over the edge. I had a bit of a shouting.
00:41:19
Speaker
thing with myself this afternoon, just before we came on, because I'm trying to sort some bureaucracy out online, and I can't sort it out in Italian. It's just a real crappy system, or it might be a, it could be a really good system. And I'm just not seeing it. And I just, one point just, and I don't do this very often, but I like,
00:41:45
Speaker
Shouted and obscenity. Yeah, but that, yeah. All right. Yeah. So the type number two is the hyperactive impulsive type. Now that, if my memory serves me, that's much more prevalent in kids. And then by the time you get to an adult, it kind of dies down.
00:42:12
Speaker
a lot, but I'll just kind of run through some of these anyway. But that's where, um, uh, that's where actually, um, there's a huge difference between boys and girls on that one. Apparently girls much, much more likely to internalize their hyperactivity. Yeah. That's a big difference. That's a big difference. Yeah. They're diagnosed later.
00:42:37
Speaker
Yeah, as well. I internalized my hyperactivity. I didn't show it to the point when I was at school, I used to sit on my on my foot, I used to wrap my foot under when I was sitting, put my foot so just like it was like it was a controlling method that I felt to go keep not show up, not show my hyperactivity like to like, you know, suppress myself.
00:43:05
Speaker
Fidgets, taps hands, feet, squirms in seat. I know that I tend to doodle in the meetings. So if someone's talking, I'll just be like doodling. And I find that that actually helps me concentrate on what they're saying. Yeah. I used to just have a pen or a pencil in my hand.
00:43:33
Speaker
It's oily enough. And do you just twirl it around? Yeah, yeah. Frantically. It's like a little windmill on your fingers. A bit subconscious, because if I do do it, I think people look at me and think that I'm not concentrating on what they're saying. So I'm conscious of not doodling. Yeah, my boss once said, you know, in the meeting, can you stop the doodling, Martin? Really? Oh, wow. All right.
00:44:03
Speaker
Yeah. But, you know, in my, in my head, it was like, well, actually, you know, I'm actually doing this because it helps me concentrate on what you're doing. But sure. If you, if you stop doing, then I'll almost not concentrate on anything you're saying from this point onwards. Yeah. Yeah. Find whatever. Uh, yeah. Runs about, you know, unable to play or do leisure activities quietly.
00:44:33
Speaker
What if this is just a kid thing? Some of these things are kids. Yeah, I don't fall into that category at all. I played almost exclusively, you know, I spent really good at spending time by myself and quietly and yeah, no props from on my part.
00:44:56
Speaker
Right, interrupts or intrudes on others may take over what others are doing. See, I've got to put this question to you. Am I like that? Do I do that? Take over. Do I like to finish your sentences and stuff like that?
00:45:15
Speaker
I find because I have a stammer that quite often people do finish my sentences because they're just bored of waiting for the end of the sentence to come. Yeah. I'm helping out. Yeah. I don't do that with you because I've always been conscious of not doing it with you.
00:45:35
Speaker
No, I don't think I do that generally. I don't think I do that generally with anyone. That's where I'm not on the meet. Personally, I'm not on. I don't have that. I don't own that. I don't have that badge. I don't think. All right. What about you? Do you have that badge? Yeah. Well, do I interrupt others? No.
00:46:02
Speaker
do I want to take over what they're doing? Yeah, I sometimes have the urge to and I know that I have done. So it's like if someone's doing some work,
00:46:17
Speaker
I have this kind of compulsion and I'm just saying that they're like being slow and they can't do it. I have this urge to kind of go, let me just give that mouse over to me. Look, look, this is how you do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is a good trait to have.
00:46:34
Speaker
It's not, it's not the same. Yeah, definitely. I find it, I don't, I don't interrupt people, but in my mind I'm interrupting them. I'm thinking, okay, I know that, you know, in five minutes time, cause I don't have patience. I like to get to the point. I know that five in five minutes time, we'll get to the, you know, the objective of the conversation. And I'm like, just itching to get there. You know,
00:47:01
Speaker
Yeah, but yeah. All right, okay. Well, speaking of itching to get there, let's jump back into our mayor's car and we'll go head over to the post office. All right. So, okay, we're in the post office, so your feedback is vital to us and we also welcome any stories you'd like to share.
00:47:31
Speaker
We'll be reading all of your emails and comments and we'll include as a regular feature on our future podcasts with a pick and mix of our faves. So yeah, I can't wait to see those when they come flying in. When they come flying in, right? Yeah, yeah. And we get our procurement department onto it, you know. Absolutely.
00:47:59
Speaker
All right, well, thanks for being here. Check out our show notes for the links. Visit us on our socials. But in the meantime, be fucking kind to yourself. See ya. Ciao.