Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ep 9: My ADHD inner chaos followed me to a slower country town life (Siti's Story)
226 Plays1 year ago
In this honest and fascinating episode of Awaken ADHD I speak with a dear friend and colleague about the journey to her ADHD diagnosis.
Siti is a Psychologist and Sensorimotor Art Therapist. She tells us that there were a couple of years between her online ADHD self survey to her formal ADHD diagnosis. During that time Siti moved, with her husband and 3 children, from a a busy Melbourne life to a small coastal town in Western Australia. There was a hope that maybe things would feel easier, that her fast mind might feel slower. In a sense, Siti conducted the ADHD experiment that I often speak about. What if we were to take ourselves out of this busy, hectic life, would we still be met with the executive functioning challenges that are part of the diagnostic criteria for ADHD? For Siti (and I would say the vast majority of diagnosed ADHDers) that answer was yes. You can take the ADHDer out of the city, you can’t take the ADHD out of the brain (and body). Life was slower and yet she was still racing.
Siti describes her younger self as wanting to be a ‘good girl’ always trying hard at school and wanting to please. Despite learning coming relatively easily to her, she feels as though she didn’t know how to study, always left things to the last minute and feels that she could have done better. “The perfectionist is in my head and if I don’t have a deadline there won’t be an end product.”
“I’m now shedding all the labels, including the ones I gave to myself and pouring through my life album.”
When her own therapist suggested she had anxiety, she said, “no, I don’t have anxiety”. After some reflection she could see that the chaos inside her head translated to chaos outside and into many aspects of her life. Sound familiar?
“I’m on the biggest self-help journey of my life.” She’s armoured up with a ton of self-compassion, and when she looks back through the pages of her life she now reflects “you know what, that was good enough, I am good enough.”
There is so much gold packed into this episode. I hope to speak with Siti many more times. Not only is she is a wealth of knowledge and experience, she is a fabulous human!
If you liked to know more about the work Siti does you can find her here on Linkedin
If you'd like to share your story you can email me at jade@awakeninsights.com.au, visit Awaken ADHD or follow me on Instagram.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Awaken ADHD
00:00:06
Speaker
You are listening to Awaken ADHD, a podcast where people share their ADHD stories, life before and after diagnosis, support strategies, strengths and challenges. Hi, I'm Jade and I'll be your host. I'm a counselor, ADHD coach and fellow ADHD. So join me as we Awaken ADHD.
00:00:31
Speaker
This podcast was recorded on the land of the Bunurong people of the Kulin nation, and we wish to acknowledge them as traditional owners. We recognise First Peoples of Australia as the original storytellers and pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging.
Meet the Guests: Magus and Citi
00:00:55
Speaker
Okay, welcome to episode... Oh, goodness, what episode am I at? Let's just say this next episode. I've been really looking forward to this episode. I'm so excited to welcome Magus today, my beautiful dear friend, Citi. And as per usual, with maybe some organizational challenges,
00:01:18
Speaker
I forgot to ask her to give me a bio. So instead, Citi, welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Citi's Journey Across Australia and Art Therapy
00:01:26
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me, Jade. I've also been very excited to come on this.
00:01:32
Speaker
long-awaited interview. You've talked about it for so long and here I am. Can I just say how funny was it the other day when I said, are you ready yet to come and chat? And you're like, yeah, I'm ready. Are you ready? I'm like, I'm ready. Of course I'm ready. And so we were both being so polite, not like pushing one another when we were both just waiting for you. No, I've been waiting for you to tell me.
00:01:56
Speaker
That was funny. At least we could laugh it off. But this is the right time. And I'm on this show as myself, as your friend, as a person who used to share the same neighborhood as you. And I'm sure I'll go into the story of how I got to the other side of Australia now.
00:02:13
Speaker
As well as being a friend to you, a mum of three. I have three primary school aged children. I've also been a psychologist for, gosh, I was calculating the other day almost a couple of decades. More than half of that time has been actually
00:02:31
Speaker
working with the modalities of art therapy and sensory motor art therapies, which is really where my passion lies because I see the power and the ability to really work with people and with clients who have tried talking therapies or for whom talking therapies doesn't work so well.
Art Therapy and Neurodivergence
00:02:56
Speaker
Do you want to just share a little bit about what that is for the listeners that might not have any understanding? I've had the lovely pleasure of having a go with you and experiencing that firsthand, but just to give them a little understanding. Sure.
00:03:11
Speaker
Jade got to try some clay field therapy. That's what we did together, isn't it? We did the clay in a box. So that's called work at the clay field. That's working with clay in a wooden box with adult clients. I'm asking them to really be in their bodies and close their eyes and focus on the processes that need to happen using
00:03:32
Speaker
the communication of their hands and their arms so that's part of the umbrella of sensory motor art therapies and also in that area you can use finger paints and pastels or oil pastels
00:03:47
Speaker
putting them in your hands and your fists to draw and make large or small movements on very large pieces of paper. And that type of art therapy is not centred on the visual artwork that you're making. In fact, you're not really making something to be looked at. It's more about the process and the being and the doing, feeling what that's like, as well as being facilitated by someone like myself who can
00:04:12
Speaker
there with you to talk about what might be going on for you what thoughts and images might be coming up and by doing so you're bypassing the story making and the memories and the killing our traumas can be either stored in or stored in in a way that hurts so sometimes by going a different way but it also is using up a different part of your brain.
Realizing ADHD Patterns
00:04:34
Speaker
As you were talking I was just thinking
00:04:36
Speaker
Of course, I was just thinking, lots of thoughts. But I was imagining that there's another conversation we can have about the usefulness for a neurodivergent individual who is full of a thousand stories and does need to process often whilst moving the body and what that might be like to
00:04:57
Speaker
to experience that and detach from stories, which is difficult for me. I've got lots of stories running in movie-like reels through my head. And yeah, I'm interested in a bigger conversation about this. Yeah, I would love to. And even as you're talking, I'm remembering that when I'm doing this work with people who could be ADHD, it could be people who are just very head-oriented and love to talk and have stories.
00:05:24
Speaker
actually enjoy sharing, but in terms of movement and change in their therapeutic journey, it's going over the same stuff again and again, and it might not actually be bringing them to a place where they can transform and grow. While it can be very challenging because the world we live in, I believe, and you'd probably agree with this, Jade, it is about words and it is about
00:05:48
Speaker
how we judge and analyze and critique, but it's less so about how our body feels and what it's doing. Precisely. Look, I work with so many neurodivergent individuals, as you know. One of the biggest challenges we have in the work that I do is engaging with the body quite often. I mean, this speaks to people that don't have ADHD, of course, as well, is we're not embodied. When I say, oh, okay, you're feeling a bit overwhelmed or anxious, what are you feeling in your body?
00:06:17
Speaker
They say I'm feeling anxious, which is a story. And I do remember when I was working in the Clayfield, I closed my eyes and that took me to a whole new place of sensory experience. Because you switched off your mind because you couldn't be judging and thinking in that way anymore when your eyes, when your sight is off. So I was able to feel the body and feel the texture is a lot more
00:06:44
Speaker
yet mindful of the process. And the story, so to speak, was more about what my body was doing and what my hands are doing and the shapes they were making and the feeling and the movement than that subjective story.
Family Traits and Self-Realization
00:06:59
Speaker
It was more objective. This is what's happening right now, which is a practice we desperately need as big thinkers, fast thinkers.
00:07:09
Speaker
And one thing I forgot to add to that bio at the start is I can now say in public, this is my first forum where I am announcing it to the world. I have been diagnosed as ADHD person as of October, 2023. Right. Well, that brings us to question one. What kind of awakened you to this perhaps ADHD fits for me?
00:07:35
Speaker
It was, and I'm sure for many, a very gradual process, but actually through work, it would have been over five or six years. I was noticing this pattern jade, and I know I've shared this with you, where a group of, a small group of my women clients, all of them in their, ranging from late twenties to mid forties, were sharing some challenges and difficulties they were having in life and how stressful it was.
00:08:05
Speaker
And I would be sitting there with my professional hat on, nodding and trying to, you know, listen and do the right thing as you do in a counseling session. But inside going crazy thinking, oh my God, another person is saying this. And this is something I relate to. This is what I do with my husband. This is how I feel with my children. This is what it feels like for me when I'm trying to clean the house.
00:08:32
Speaker
And as I suggested to them, perhaps your brain could be working in a way that fits with this group of behaviours called ADHD. I would be saying this on one hand and on the other I was thinking,
00:08:50
Speaker
You know, Aurelia, you've said this a few times now for others. It's sounding like you. So it was years, actually, before I had, I think, the self-courage to go. And it was 2 a.m., of course, one night where I couldn't sleep. Of course. I wonder why. And many others like you.
Organizational Challenges: The 'Doom Bags'
00:09:08
Speaker
I went, nah, this is ridiculous. I'm going to do that online quiz that I myself have set out for other people, for people I work with.
00:09:17
Speaker
And I did it. And I was nervous. And sure enough, the results were you very likely the criteria for ADHD. That was my first awakening. That was my aha moment. And I couldn't... You can't go back from something like that. You can't, right? That moment is you've opened this awareness and now we're going to dive down that rabbit hole anyway. You could ignore it. I mean, that's a choice too. You could just go, okay, that came up.
00:09:47
Speaker
You could, but if it hooks into that hyper focus, I'm just going to deep dive. You can't emerge from that until it's run its course. Exactly. And yeah, it plants itself and it's a seed that grows and becomes a plant and tree you can't get rid of.
00:10:05
Speaker
Yes. I wonder, I'm recalling a moment when I came to your workplace. I might have just popped in as my daughter had an appointment in the same building. And you said what's going on. And I probably said something like a world of chaos, but I'm in the process of
00:10:28
Speaker
of looking at an ADHD diagnosis. And that might've been the first time I said it to you and you went, are you serious? I think that's me too. I can't even remember that, you know, I cannot remember that conversation because I've had so many with you since. But now that you're mentioning it, what's coming up for me is remembering feeling like another kindred spirit
00:10:52
Speaker
but not being surprised and just thinking, of course she has it. And of course I'm friends with someone who thinks like this and does something. And that's what I thought. As soon as I said it to you and then you said it back to me, I'm like, it was like your whole life and my experience of you flashed before my eyes. I went,
00:11:10
Speaker
Yes, of course. Yes, of course. But you did pave the path for me, thank you. Yeah, but I wonder if, you know, seeing that we know each other both personally and professionally, I was outside the context of your client base and your professional hat, so to speak. Did knowing people that were being diagnosed or that you were close to and you could reflect in, did that actually make
00:11:40
Speaker
the process of, you know, in that journey to diagnosis, I don't know, did that influence it? Oh, definitely. Because I remember some very influential moments in mid-client sessions where somebody, one of my clients would say, this is what the medication's doing for me. It feels wonderful. And someone else saying, I feel so validated. And being a little bit envious, like that the child, the child's self in me was like, oh,
00:12:07
Speaker
I want that. You know, if I've got what you've got, I want to feel better and I want some epiphanies like that too. And so once I had that screenshot in my phone, of course I did what I try to do these days, make myself more accountable. I texted my siblings who I'm close to, you know, I didn't even wait for morning, I think. And I just said, hey guys, I think this is something that I'm going to look into
00:12:34
Speaker
I'm curious as to how that conversation went. It was a group conversation. So I think I received, I think I received support. So it would have been, you know, this is, this is the start of something for you and hopefully you learn more about yourself. I haven't told my parents and I probably wouldn't. And the funny thing about that is Jade,
00:12:56
Speaker
I believe, now I'm saying something here that's going on in public records, so I'm a bit nervous, but I really do believe my father has had these traits and therefore would really fit the criteria for ADHD. We grew up in a close-knit household, but with a dad who was always busy.
00:13:19
Speaker
and not just always busy. He was always two places at once. He ran this business of his own. He was, you know, he's your typical success migrant story of someone who came with nothing, built up something, connected to community, became a community leader of his own. But of course, we shared my dad with many other families and he was always in other places, but he was also running a business and he has, he has,
00:13:47
Speaker
Doompiles. He has what we know are called Doompiles where there's just stuff. I've only just recently come to the Doom bag understanding. I heard it in the ADHD Aha podcast, which is a fantastic podcast and something I've kind of modelled this podcast on. Do you know the acronym? For Doom? No. Don't organise, only move. Oh my gosh, that's so perfect.
00:14:12
Speaker
Isn't it perfect? I have doom bags everywhere. Not piles, because piles people can see. And that would connect to my shame. My family had doom piles. I have doom bags hidden in every cupboard. Is that what they're called? And can I just explain to the listener that as someone who's visited Jade's house, she is super neat and tidy. And I'm pretty sure she's not doing that just because she knows I'm visiting, because I have done random drop-ins.
00:14:41
Speaker
And to think that you've got doom bags hiding in corners in places we can see, yeah, it makes sense. Oh, they're everywhere. My house on the outside looks nice and tidy and neat. And I do do a panic clean because I can't tolerate the thought of a cushion being out of place when somebody comes over. But don't open a drawer or a cupboard that I haven't recently had a hyper fixation
00:15:06
Speaker
about because they're everywhere. There'll be a beach bag not opened from last summer and then I will have just bought new goggles and written off those bathers as gone forever. Do you come home from, it could be a huge thing like a camping trip with a family where you've had a few days or even just coming back from the beach or coming back from an outing and there are bags because you've got family, you've got kids.
00:15:31
Speaker
and you've got bags and you bring them home and they sit there, and that takes so much effort and energy just to open them and go through. Because when they're in a bag, you don't have to do anything about them, right? They can sit there. Exactly. Well, often with those, there's also leftover snacks that are festering. There's always some watermelon that's going rancid in a container somewhere. Probably my worst doom bags are
00:15:55
Speaker
the cleaning out the car doombag. And then you've got a mixture of coins and socks. No. And too many places to return things to. There's just too many people. There's too many things. Pencils. I have been known to throw those doombags out, including
00:16:15
Speaker
whatever is in there, it's just lost to me because it became so overwhelming. Usually it will also include items that were supposed to go to the charity bin about a year ago, and now the bags broken open and there's a thousand different items.
00:16:33
Speaker
that one day you decided you didn't need and now you have the unfortunate situation of having to look at them again. And sometimes I go back to the boot and like wear them again. I'm like, oh, I've got a whole wardrobe in here. All right. Now I'm sharing too many secrets. I want to go back to this, this dad thing for a minute and say, yeah, me too, in a sense. So, you know, I'll throw my dad in there as well. It would just became so
00:17:00
Speaker
obvious that my absent-minded professor dad, and he is very aware. I have thrown it to him. I'm like, I have ADHD. You do too. You have it really, really, really bad. It's affected you a lot and it's not getting easier in your 70s.
Life Changes Post-Diagnosis
00:17:18
Speaker
Just saying. For anybody who thinks that you're too old for diagnosis, I don't believe that to be true.
00:17:25
Speaker
Anyway, and look, you know, later in this interview, you might hear me talk about my own journey with one of my children who we're only at the beginning stages of. And when I reflect on this and go, what I'm looking at here possibly is this genetic
00:17:45
Speaker
lineage that's being passed on. And this is in addition to all the other things that are helping to lift off shame, because one of the things that came out of somebody saying, well, yeah, you know, your quirky brain fits in this category. I just started on this whole
00:18:02
Speaker
self-validation journey, but also rediscovering myself in a new light that was shaking off the labels of lazy, procrastinator, disorganized, cluttered, flaky. And I could go back and go, well, this is why. I just got more freedom from that. So I guess seeing other people do that with their journeys, yourself included, inspired me
00:18:29
Speaker
to think about the possibility. October, 2023 was still maybe two years after I had done the quiz. A lot of stuff happened in between. We made a big move to relocate to a much, much smaller place. So I'm from Melbourne and I'm now talking to you from the Midwest area of Western Australia. We are five hours drive north of Perth.
00:18:56
Speaker
It's a town of 36,000, very different to the big city of Melbourne that I miss very much. We are here in a beautiful little community that I'm still getting to know. I discovered as I came here that I was looking forward and I was hoping and going to adjust myself to a slower life, to a smaller, very, very much warmer,
00:19:22
Speaker
temperature wise, but a slower life. So it was slow indeed, everything around me apart from trying to settle three kids who we've uprooted and are also going through their own emotional processes of loss and grief leaving behind my family who they're very close to, their grandparents still there in Melbourne, aunties and uncles and cousins, settling them in school, a smaller house, a house that needs a lot of work to a very different place.
00:19:51
Speaker
Can I just ask about that? Because what I have understood and read and experienced that transitions, small or big, can be quite overwhelming, experienced as quite difficult or challenging to a neurodivergent individual. Do you notice that within yourself or when you're looking back or within your children?
00:20:19
Speaker
I definitely can see it in my child. He's 10 years old and transitions and changes and new things, even if it's one activity to another, is extremely, extremely hard for him. This is not, however, my first interstate move. And as an adult, I have lived overseas for shorter to longer periods. But it was certainly the first time I'd moved.
00:20:45
Speaker
with these three bigger kids and leaving behind a very, very close support network. So to me, emotionally, that was the hardest thing, moving away from people, because it's people who give me a lot of joy in my life.
Emotional and Community Challenges
00:21:01
Speaker
But I think with, I guess the training or understanding of how I work and how human beings work, I did a lot to, and you were part of these, Jade, I had celebrations, I had farewells that were not
00:21:14
Speaker
sad. They were about friendships and the people. I did cry several times. You did. I did. We had moments together where we cried. We had a silent disco where we got to dance it off and cry because I'm pretty sure I cried at the end of that too. So I did lots of
00:21:32
Speaker
rituals, which are really important to me, I realize, and I think our so-called modern society have, we've got a huge lack of. Is that a word? Correct. There's another podcast. We don't do it often enough, and you look at groups all around the world who still have celebrations, but also just events where they mark milestones in people's lives. Yeah, transition's hard for many people, and that goes for all of
00:22:02
Speaker
Yeah, even people outside the neurodivergent groups. So you don't have to say.
00:22:08
Speaker
So you're over there trying to adjust to this new life, trying to connect to the community, trying to settle these kids. Do you think it's slow in my brain? Do you think that I'm quieter and there's more space and with the space that I can see in my life that it's quieter up in here? It wasn't. It was still loud. It was still busy. It was still chaotic.
00:22:33
Speaker
So you can take the girl out of the city and not the city out of your head.
Pursuing Professional Diagnosis
00:22:38
Speaker
That's the thing. I don't know if I was expecting or hoping for a miracle. My husband certainly was. Aaron would say to me, I was just thinking that you would be slow or feel slower. And that's when I really looked at seriously committing
00:22:56
Speaker
the time, the money also, because we all know that an assessment and the diagnosis process and then there's consultations you have to have, that all takes financial effort as well. That's when I decided, I think I have to take that leap. And I knew once I'd started that there was no going back.
00:23:16
Speaker
Um, because I thought, and this is the thing that I said to this GP too, who was the one that did the referral. And she's, she's a very stoic, um, maternal woman. And I could see she wasn't just going to, you know, hand out any old ADHD referral. She made it quite clear that she had to hear some very compelling evidence that here was this new woman, this patient she'd not seen much before. Once I said to her, you know what, this is what's going on for me. And I explained that.
00:23:44
Speaker
I'm realizing now that it's in me, that as much as I try to have everything around me slower and less stressful and less anxious, it's my brain. And I'm understanding more and more that this is, it's not a problem so much as a difference. I've got a different brain to the way perhaps the majority of the world work or a large group or also how society wants
00:24:11
Speaker
human beings to work. And when she heard that, when she heard that I had this dramatic change in life, but my head was still very busy, I saw her nodding and I could feel her understand and go, okay, this is a genuine case here and she's trying to rip me off.
00:24:30
Speaker
Look, I'm interested and I know there's a conversation I want to have with you on this podcast about women and the difference between ADHD and the expression mum ADD, the executive challenges that come with trying to live. Yeah, the mental load, the living in that
00:24:54
Speaker
you know, city life of having a career and children and the impact on the executive functions. And one of the differences I often say to clients of mine is exactly what you have articulated to your doctor is if you take these women, these mum ADDs that don't have a diagnosis, that don't have ADHD,
00:25:18
Speaker
talking about it in a casual language, out of having two jobs, parenting, mental load, and their career, or even just parenting and trying to run the life of all of these people in their lives. And you put them in a country town, they're probably going to feel less busy
00:25:42
Speaker
they're going to feel less stress. They're going to feel less cluttered in their head. And that's exactly what you, you are the experiment. Yeah. I am that study that shows, um, there must be something else going on. And I think if you take all those things away, what would happen? And for that, in my case, it didn't make it, I didn't have a quieter brain. It was quite a kick up the bum for me because, um,
00:26:11
Speaker
I had to go, okay, this could be real, this could be something here. And, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who said this, pre-diagnosis or pre, even just going to the appointment, you have those thoughts, you're nervous because
00:26:27
Speaker
You don't know what that person's going to say. I was preparing myself. What am I going to say and do? How am I going to feel when this professional, this expert turns around, does those tick boxes and says, you know, I know you've explained all that to me, but actually you don't quite fit it. I would have to deal with that. And I was prepared for that risk. And I decided, even if I don't get a piece of paper that says it, I will still be happy.
00:26:54
Speaker
to be somebody who self-diagnoses myself to be on the fringes, on the borderline.
ADHD Strengths and Superpowers
00:27:00
Speaker
And I will still use these amazing resources such as the TikToks and the YouTube videos and the podcasts and the forums that actually explain how a busy mind can work better. I was okay with that. I had to be. That is a fabulous kind of tip.
00:27:19
Speaker
for individuals because the other alternative is, say, you know, I had somebody just recently that their psychiatrist said, no, I don't think so. If we're not challenging the diagnosis, the alternative for us, it could be, oh, we just have to believe all of those negative stories. We have believed about ourselves since the dawn of time. All the things we've been told that you mentioned before,
00:27:48
Speaker
I'm lazy and disorganized. I'm all of those things. My friend. Right. So the other alternative is, okay, so maybe I don't meet the criteria or maybe not right now, not with that specialist, but I'm going to embrace and understand that my brain works differently.
00:28:10
Speaker
I have executive functioning challenges that may not fit in that box right now, but they are still very real and show up for me and I'm going to work with them. Yeah. And I'm going to work around them and I'm going to also, and this is something that I'm
00:28:30
Speaker
I'm trying to remind myself too, while we've been talking about the challenges and the difficulties and where it impacts negatively on our lives, I'm also looking at the flip side and remembering that I have, while I'm terrible with doing things,
00:28:47
Speaker
in a way that looks, you know, organizing a timeline that looks, that makes sense because I'm squashing it all right before the due date and it looks like I don't have my chisel together but when I come through and I come through at the end, I've made some really amazing and achieved some projects that are huge and
00:29:09
Speaker
and that I'm proud
Advocating for Neurodivergent Strengths
00:29:10
Speaker
of. And I couldn't have done that, I think. I wouldn't have done it as well. It certainly wouldn't have had that twist on it. If not for my ADHD brain, I think this is definitely something I remind my clients anyway, and I'll continue to remind people. But there are parts of our ADHD brains
00:29:29
Speaker
that give us superpowers. We do some pretty cool things. I think employers and families and partners, they gain from that. I think that's definitely something in an area that
00:29:45
Speaker
there can be more research or even a spotlight on because like we are doing with, you know, the whole of our community, embracing and accepting everybody with different kinds of brains, everybody has something to offer, even though traditionally we might not have fit in the box or we don't fit or we don't learn or we don't socialize. And when I say we, I'm sharing that across the board with everybody else. I really,
00:30:15
Speaker
want to have another podcast to discuss this with you because whilst I appreciate the people new to the diagnosis of people really struggling in certain areas or people that have really had a significant ADHD tax, so to speak, can find that concept of the superpower jarring at times. And even I can at times when I'm in my hardest
00:30:43
Speaker
and most overwhelmed parts of the ADHD experience. But often, I am battling against, again, the norm. I am measuring against the norm. I am trying to fit into that normal box. So that's one aspect of that. But so I want to be mindful and respectful of people that do struggle with the concept of the strengths. But also, I'd love to have a conversation about
00:31:10
Speaker
a cultural shift and a cultural change that I hope is on the horizon so that we can embrace a neurodivergent brain.
Cultural Background and Education Challenges
00:31:18
Speaker
I'm interested to, if you'd like to share and share as much or as little as you're comfortable with, but what the little city experienced or the younger version of you, how you think you see it showed up for you?
00:31:35
Speaker
So I could not sit still. I mean, that's a pretty stock standard measure or tick box of ADHD, but I was a girl and I was a really studious,
00:31:49
Speaker
very much people pleasing. You could even call Goody two shoes girl in school. I'm also mindful of the other factors that I believe have contributed to what is now called an ADHD diagnosis, but I believe have been shaped by
00:32:06
Speaker
my upbringing as the eldest of five. This household where I had a very busy, anxious, what do we call them? Marta Mum, self-marta, who was constantly, you know, at us to do things and we couldn't rest. That was a busy, I had a parent who was busy in the house and where we couldn't be resting or seen sitting
00:32:31
Speaker
relaxing, God forbid. And then I had a dad who was really busy doing things outside the house. And then I was raised with very strong values that were based around religion and culture. I'm of Asian background. I am Muslim Malay ethnically from my parents who migrated from Singapore. So we have those cultural factors as well. And so while I know many people will say, well, I was the ADHD kid who couldn't get
00:33:00
Speaker
anywhere and didn't get good marks, I aced it. I was trying to do good because I wanted my teachers to like me and getting good marks meant I was a good girl and I was very blessed and lucky in that schoolwork came easy to me. Mind you, I'm reflecting now on some projects and homework tasks where I did not
00:33:20
Speaker
meet the brief where I did not actually answer properly because I went in my own world and I did other things, but because I'd already established myself as this really good student, the teachers were really forgiving and they loved my borders and my drawings and I put extra effort into other things. So I was that kid who did well, but that only worked up until a certain point.
00:33:41
Speaker
Well, I was just curious, with homework and projects, you said that learning came easy to you. Does that mean you were able to procrastinate and put it off until there was that pressure point?
00:33:55
Speaker
And I did good work, but that good work was on the last day, the day before it was due. That can only get you so far. So I hit, so I got to year 10 and I was still by then, still maybe, you know, and in the higher cohort of
00:34:12
Speaker
academic levels. But then I saw people around me who they were studying and they were working really hard and I thought I was too. But I had been coasting. I'd coasted and I had kind of free loaded because things came easy. And I know now I could have done much, much better.
00:34:31
Speaker
I know I could have scored higher marks but I didn't know how to study. I had people who were really trying hard and they were getting good marks and they were improving in their scores. I want to understand what you mean by I didn't know how to study. Because I think I grasped concepts easily in class and I was eager to learn
00:34:53
Speaker
but I wanted to do because I was a people pleaser. That was just what made me feel good was making other people happy. It meant that I could do good in class that way, but when it meant to studying, reviewing material, learning it, putting it inside my brain and being able to spit it out in a way that was cohesive and could demonstrate that I knew this, that was difficult. I actually had a maths teacher, bless him,
00:35:17
Speaker
who came to me and said, look, I know you do classwork and I know you do work well, I've seen it and I know it's your stuff.
00:35:24
Speaker
not doing well in your tests. I don't know if it's performance anxiety, I don't know if you're not studying well or that you're not able to capture and then show it on the day. He actually asked me, encouraged me to write on the top, just breathe, be calm, and he was helping me with the performance side of things. But I probably, I didn't know at the time, it was because I didn't know how to go home and review and
00:35:50
Speaker
do that every day rather than do the cramming. Right. And I think you also mentioned something about the order, the structure. It became a big kind of jumbled mess because if you think about it, you're supposed to go from A to B to C to D, but between A and B,
00:36:10
Speaker
there could be a whole other 10 lots of alphabets for us in that. Yes, and backwards, and different languages of alphabets. We go from A to Z to Japanese to... Yeah, so when you say you don't know how to study, it wasn't about
00:36:30
Speaker
your normal version of study skills, it was about your brain went in a whole heap of different directions and wasn't knowing necessarily how to order and structure and put all of these big ideas into something that was ordered and structured and coherent.
00:36:47
Speaker
that you were expected. In a linear way. In a linear fashion way. In my uni days. I started studying intuitively. So I did big posters with different colours and I made myself flashcards. I talked out loud. I put up posters in my shower so I could see what the cell biology looked like. So I could repeat that in an exam because I knew exams is what brought me down in my overall scores. I remember I'd say to myself, even if all you can do tonight
00:37:16
Speaker
is write out all the page numbers of your assignment.
00:37:19
Speaker
even if all you can do tonight is write your name on the cover letter and write the subject
Perfectionism and Self-Compassion
00:37:24
Speaker
heading. I had to tell myself, do the bite-sized spaces. And interestingly enough, if anybody's read Atomic Habits by James Clear, he talks about that as being one strategy of doing work. Just tell yourself you go to the gym for 30 seconds and then you do your 30 seconds and Phil, you've achieved it and can go home, or you do your 30 seconds and you end up going, you know what, I'll just stay here and I'll find out. Which sometimes becomes half an hour.
00:37:48
Speaker
Yeah, so I got better, I think. Yeah, for sure. And I'm really resonating with your story. You know, ours is a very different story. I kind of flunked out of high school. I couldn't study. I wasn't a great student. But then when I went back to do my counseling degree, I had to start from scratch where I had never actually done any formal education.
00:38:12
Speaker
I don't even remember handing in an assignment or a project through high school. So, you know, it was very new. And I remember, you know, researching all of those same things you speak about. I remember being caught in the chaos. I remember having to take myself away to very quiet places to get into some sort of hyper focus. But I also remember, for me, I felt it was quite new, this relationship to this perfectionism.
00:38:37
Speaker
Like I'm out to prove that I'm not rubbish. Did you experience that? I mean, clearly you're a dedicated, higher achieving individual. Do you feel that you resonate with the... The perfectionist streak is in my head. And I know that while I say that I usually complete my tasks when I have deadlines and I do better when I have a deadline, I know that if I didn't have it,
00:39:07
Speaker
there would be no end product because I would just keep and keep on working on it. And is that motivated by me trying to prove to others? In part, yes. And I'm learning more about myself every week. I believe that is actually coming from being different. So I grew up in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne back then, because it's a different story now. We grew up in Boxall South. We were maybe one of three
00:39:32
Speaker
brown families in our primary school. I was the kid of migrants and even if I sounded like everybody else I certainly didn't and I still don't look like your mainstream Australian who is fair-skinned. So I think there's that chip on my shoulder about trying to show that I can do stuff and I'm just as good as
00:39:53
Speaker
you and others and wanting to be accepted in terms of how that's linked to my brain and the way my brain works. I know that I have that.
00:40:03
Speaker
hyper fixation of having an image of what something needs to be and look like, because I've done all my research on what should be, should be, and should being the operative word, pressured term. And when you don't meet it, the lack of meeting that expectation or that gap, that reality gap that exists is hard. So that's where self-compassion has to come in. That's where we have to go, you know what, that's the best I could do, or that's what I need to do for now.
00:40:31
Speaker
it's still a good job. And at the end of it, this is enough, but ultimately I am enough. And that's a hard one to say on most days that you are enough.
Self-Perception Post-ADHD Diagnosis
00:40:41
Speaker
Definitely. We just went very deep there, didn't we? We did, but it's all just so fascinating and so perfect. And I feel like, you know, my brain has so many different episodes that I want to share with you. So I'm wondering what difference has this ADHD diagnosis made in your life?
00:40:59
Speaker
Yeah, so I've mentioned already that there's a lot more kindness that I'm offering to myself. I am shedding those labels that were put on me.
00:41:10
Speaker
by others, but mostly by me, where I would reflect and I'd feel guilt because a friendship turned out like this or a work project went that way and it could have been done this way. And the way I organized my house back then was like this. So I'm pouring through my life album and looking at these episodes and going, that actually was okay.
00:41:35
Speaker
That was the way my brain was working. I also didn't have an understanding on that part of me being a vulnerability page and I'm certainly on the biggest, oh gosh it's so cheesy isn't it, the biggest self-help journey I've ever been on. Partly because I have moved to this new place and I don't have my girlfriend's clothes and I don't have
00:41:59
Speaker
my family to go and whose homes I can crash at and give myself a break from and drop my kids to go be babysat with. I'm building it up but for a long time it has been me and it will be me so I decided if there was a person who could help me it had to be myself and that's why I talked about it with my husband and I said look it's a lot of money and at the same time I'd also just started this
00:42:26
Speaker
Gut Health Program, which has also been another parallel process in helping me emotionally, psychologically, physiologically. So I'm healing myself literally from the inside and out. And I just said, I'm committing myself to that program financially. And I told him about how impactful it was when he said, when he turned around and said to me, just do it. If it's going to make,
00:42:51
Speaker
your quality of life improve if it's going to help us as a family, if it's going to help us in our marriage. I don't see why not. Like, why aren't you doing this? And that was huge. That's when I, I breathed a sigh of relief. And I'm really mindful that sounds like the wife asking the husband, please, can you give me permission to do this?
00:43:10
Speaker
But I think the reality of it is when you're in a partnership and there's so many different buckets that money and time and energy can go into, you know, you can't do everything and some things have to give. And we were already in a situation where we're renovating, we've got kids who are emotionally unstable. It was a lot, but you know, one of the relationship patterns that have identified is my way or the highway. So, you know, we can get in that black and white rigid thinking and become very determined and it's
00:43:40
Speaker
It's really useful to say that I have to consider other, that we're all part of this journey together. So it is also interesting and something I'd love to chat to you or any of the other listeners. I'd really love to have some couples on this show. I'd love to be talking to
00:44:00
Speaker
what was it like for potentially the non-neurodivergent individual? Or sometimes, as people I work with, one person will be diagnosed and then lo and behold...
00:44:12
Speaker
their partner is neurodivergent too, because us neurospychely people are drawn to each other. So I'd be interested to talk about the journey at some point with you, how your husband came to the information, what was that like for them? Because it can be very confronting and confusing and everybody has a different perspective and
00:44:36
Speaker
Yeah, and I can't speak for him except to say that he was looking at it positively as well. He knows very much so that I'm often too much in my head. He knows that I dump things on him, I download as he calls it.
ADHD and Anxiety Interaction
00:44:53
Speaker
while I've got things happening in here from the moment my eyes open and it really is from the moment my eyes open because I have gotten better over the years at now waking up and whatever is screaming in my head not sharing it with the person sleeping next to me because he might not find that very welcoming at 7am
00:45:13
Speaker
Even though that would help me, it would be great to share, what are we going to have for dinner tomorrow? Did you know that we've got two appointments today and we still haven't got a present for, you know, like that? I'd like to share that because a problem shared is a problem halved. But I've now discovered that's not how his brain works. It's very unfair for me to do that. So he saw this as an opening to improvements in how I
00:45:38
Speaker
could function in life and therefore how that would feel as my partner. Right, because if we are fast moving, I had somebody recently describe and I think I have myself, if our brains are working quickly and we're processing information and we also need to process it verbally quite often, our families get often caught in our whirlwind.
00:46:04
Speaker
Yeah, we create this little tornado, whether it's a passion project or a house tidy up or trying to find our keys that we've lost. Again, people get caught in our whirlwind, so they are going to be
00:46:21
Speaker
So for us to slow down, are they going to be affected? For us to slow down means they might occasionally not get caught up in the twister. I'm not sure if we've already mentioned it, but I think it would be good to say that anxiety has been a part of
00:46:41
Speaker
our life, certainly for me, I didn't know it was that. I had worked with so many people with diagnosed anxiety that to hear others and to hear a specialist, I think it was two psychologists back, somebody who was working with me as my therapist said, you know, you've got anxiety. And I was like, what? I'm fine. I don't have anxiety. But I thought, okay, sure. You know, we need to get this mental health care plan if we have to write it down. And the more I looked into it, I thought,
00:47:10
Speaker
Oh my gosh, you do. And I now see that when I am, you know, doing the downloading or rushing the children because I haven't got myself organized or I haven't created a system that works for my brain, I'm creating anxiety in this house. So the chaos that is in here in my head is translating to chaos outside and I haven't worked to do it. We are all anxious because we are now all walking around with our
00:47:36
Speaker
tense shoulders and nervous systems that are firing. So it's huge. Yeah, it's gonna go hand in hand. I think I'm yet to meet somebody with ADHD that doesn't present with anxiety symptoms. You know, we know that there's a huge emotional regulation challenges, but then you've got all these other little contributing factors, like you said, of running late, of losing that thing, of not being organised, of
00:48:05
Speaker
getting caught up in the, oh, I've got to get this done because now I'm really focused on it, even though I've not done anything for a month. It's very important right in this minute. Anxiety does this lovely, crazy, frustrating dance with the challenges that we have.
Optimism for ADHD Awareness
00:48:20
Speaker
So the more we can find little hacks to not lose the keys and not run late, the better we get at those things, the more we can reduce
00:48:31
Speaker
reduce some of that sort of anxiety anyway. Not all of it, but yeah. And there is always going to be that amount of stress, isn't it? You've got families are busy, most families are busy and they have commitments and everybody has their interests and then you've got a house to run that has to have a home for everything and everything in its home.
00:48:52
Speaker
I try I really try God as long as you know like things can have five homes is that possible I guess it's where that level impacts you on a functional day-to-day basis so if it's so high that every day and feels like a struggle that everybody
00:49:11
Speaker
is feeling so stressed out by, it's not healthy. We're not coping very well. Right. But what we're also adding into the picture is multiple neurodivergent individuals in many houses. Oh, that's so fun. Isn't it? It's so fun. So we bounce off each other and it's the adult role.
00:49:34
Speaker
to be the calm, not during the chaos. And that's very difficult if you are just getting out of bed and can't find your keys and are running late for a client. So yes, kindness. Alrighty. Is there anything else you would like to share before we finish up? Because we could talk for another 10 hours. I know we could. And we may.
00:49:54
Speaker
episodes and podcasts. For sure. Yeah, I don't think I have much else to say except I knew and I already feel like this was part of yet again another step in my awakening into the world as a person with now a fully fledged ADHD club hat on. I think it's really cool the direction that I see the public space taking and I understand that it has
00:50:23
Speaker
that it has the risk of running into it being trendy. Suddenly these psychological terms which have real serious consequences for people leaving with these conditions.
00:50:34
Speaker
Right, like the mum ADD. Yeah, you know, I've got ADD. I know that is the concern and I've spoken to health professionals who've told me medication for ADHD running out, who've told me there is an over... What was the term they use? They believe there's an over-diagnosis, that there are people who are being diagnosed where they don't deserve or they shouldn't have that, you know, all those criterion on the list ticked
00:50:59
Speaker
But if I focus on the awareness of neurodiverse people in general and how we are not setting up our communities, our schools, our society for everybody to succeed, I think we can only do good from here if we understand that lots of people's brains are different, regardless of whether they've gone to a psychiatrist and got a label for it. Because even if you don't fit in a typical diagnosis that
00:51:27
Speaker
We all have different brains that are accompanied with different bodies. Yeah. That's a good place to end. It is such a good place to
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:51:35
Speaker
end. And it's absolutely been such a pleasure, Citi, to have you on the show today. And I can't wait for many more chats. So I hope now that you've done it, you'll be up for many more chats. That would be fantastic. Today, I am in my wardrobe because I'm trying out new places to record.
00:51:57
Speaker
No fancy studio here, people. I'm in my wardrobe. You think it's simple, Jane? Yeah. Keeping it simple. If you would like to share your story also on this podcast, I would love to hear you. I'd love to hear from couples, individuals, parents. Reach out to me on AwakenedHD.com.au. You can find me on Instagram. Please share, follow, subscribe. Thank you for listening and thank you for joining us, Citi.
00:52:27
Speaker
This podcast is not a licensed mental health provider. It represents the personal opinions and experiences of individuals. No content should be taken as professional advice or recommendation.