Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 27 - Catastrophizing and ADHD
74 Plays2 years ago
Paul and Martin (co-Mayors of ADHDville) chat about Catastrophizing, that feeling that disaster is right around the corner.... and for these two, it usually is.
------------
See our beautiful faces on YouTube
Put quill to paper and send us an email at: ADHDville@gmail.com
Theme music was 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.
Recommended
Transcript
Gary Newman's Influence and Discovery
00:00:00
Speaker
So yes, I was musing about Gary Newman this morning about, you know, this connection I had with this guy, you know, he like popped up on top of the pops, as people do, pop up on top of the pops. I remember seeing this guy like, what the hell is
00:00:22
Speaker
what is going on in my life you know i was i was 12 years old 78 or something like that 79 so i would have been 12 right it's actually the first seven inches that i bought with my own my own coins all right our friends electric yeah
00:00:41
Speaker
I thought I'd go into it.
Understanding 'Our Friends Electric'
00:00:43
Speaker
What if there's like a thing, you know, you make connections with these people, like, oh, he's so neurotically diverse. Turns out he is, he's got, he's on the spectrum as Asperger's, which is now, apparently Asperger's doesn't exist anymore. It's been grouped under the general autism spectrum. Yeah. Yeah. So there you go. So then, so I did like a bit of,
00:01:09
Speaker
looked him up. Turns out that whole song is about a prostitute. I never knew it.
00:01:18
Speaker
Cause he was, he was, he created the song based on his imaginary world in like 30 years time. Okay. So 30 years is already passed. It was already all Christ is already like 15 years ago or whatever. Anyway, in this imaginary world, you get these people that would turn up at your doorstep, offer you services. And in this instance, our friend electric, because friends is written with apostrophe because a friend is actually a prostitute. Huh?
From Punk to Electronic: The Mini Moog Revelation
00:01:48
Speaker
which I thought was really interesting. Anyway, he was talking about, in the interview, talking about it, and he said he stumbled upon a Mini Moog Model D synthesizer. Yeah. And it turned out, it turned up in this studio, expecting to like record like a, like a
00:02:06
Speaker
typical punk rock tune, found this mini Moog lying around, and just gave up on the whole recording and just rewrote the whole thing based on this new instrument that he'd found. I thought that was really cool. That happened. Very nice. Nice. All right.
Introducing the ADHD Focused Podcast
00:02:29
Speaker
Well, and on that musical bombshell, welcome to ADHD, Will.
00:02:39
Speaker
Our friends electric and electric. Our friends and our friends electric and electric. And our actually prostitutes. And we didn't know until 2023 it was all too late. Prostitutes. Friends. Electric friends.
00:03:02
Speaker
Hello, my name is Paul Thompson and I was diagnosed with the combined ADH and the D after 56 years of combining other letters from the alphabet like WT and the F. I'm Martin West and I was diagnosed with ADHD in 2013, which incidentally is the year that they did a survey and the most popular password for your computer was 123456.
00:03:33
Speaker
What say say that again, please There was a survey in 2013 When I was diagnosed that basically said that the most popular password for your computer Right was one two three four five six Okay.
Password Humor and Evolution
00:03:53
Speaker
Wow things have changed
00:03:57
Speaker
I know. Can you imagine how many people would be hacked if that was still the case? Right, I know. There's this joke, isn't there, where like when computers first ask for passwords, it would be, all right, let me just, my password will be the word password. Just write it in.
00:04:18
Speaker
And then, and then they say, okay, well, you have to add a number to it. All right. Password one. All right. Now you have to have a capital letter or capital P password one. And now you have to have a symbol capital P password one, exclamation mark. Right. Yeah. So I hope no one's is. I've just dipped your bank account, by the way.
ADHD and Job Market Challenges
00:04:52
Speaker
why did i do that just i've left a fiver in there for you martin so anyway we're we're just having to be two mates who by coincidence or not after 39 years of friendship discovered that we're co ADHD is hooray yay that this is an entertainment podcast about adult ADHD and does not substitute for individual
00:05:19
Speaker
always trip up there does not substitute for individualized advice from qualified health professionals so don't take any advice from us no no no we just here is a kind of inclusive ADHD park bench comfy with room for everyone including your doppelgangers your auto egos your doppelgangers and your chaperones
00:05:42
Speaker
Sheperones. Anyway, you have two doppelgangers. I know you said doppelgangers twice, which was hilarious. Doppelgangers. Anyway, still here, then grab your jetpacks and any or any other transportation devices and let us take you to ADHD field in a imaginary town that we've created down our minds. We like to explore different parts of ADHD.
00:06:09
Speaker
And we start off as always here at the town hall in the mayor's office where we the joint mayors of ADHD take care of business. And I'm just, let me just check the meeting agenda. And first on the list is how is your week? Good, bad, ugly.
00:06:34
Speaker
It's ugly. It's in the exhausting part still. A bit exhausted because I'm not doing enough. I'm really exhausted about not doing enough in terms of I'm just looking for work at the moment. Isn't it like a really bad time?
00:07:02
Speaker
to look look look for work like no one's doing nothing nothing nothing but um i'm looking anyway because you never know it's not a good time no it's something that is going to come up in the spring but i don't want to wait till then you know looks like i'll be teaching in the spring
00:07:23
Speaker
Oh, right. Because I tend to find that companies, the budgets come online, right, usually around April the 1st, right? But they can start spending against it in like March. So they're hiring
00:07:44
Speaker
process will tend to ramp up, like it will start in February, and then you go into March, and then it kind of gets, you know, that in that spring time, then they're all over it, because they've got money to spend against against things. Yeah.
00:08:00
Speaker
But then you get to realms of companies looking for people to employ. And unfortunately, when you get to like 56 or your late 50s, you start to get like a bit of a crap attitude towards your older citizens.
00:08:20
Speaker
And so my ageism real ageism God God does it exist? It's quite it's quite It's quite shocking actually it really is but Some looking for jobs and maybe freelancing in terms of teaching conversation English in Italy, so Pushing it as much as
Managing Finances with ADHD
00:08:44
Speaker
I can cool. You know what? There's an interesting subject for ADHD is here
00:08:49
Speaker
which we can kind of go into some other time. But interviews for an ADHD is a real
00:09:01
Speaker
bit of a nightmare place, right? Because you're, you're having to put up a front, right? You know, like, you know, this, this masking, an unmasking thing, you know, you definitely have to mask up to the, to the ninth degree, right?
00:09:20
Speaker
You have to kind of fit a certain person. Interviews are difficult. We're going ADHD here.
00:09:41
Speaker
I mean, we'd have to solve it now, other than to just to recognise that fact and we can add it to the list of a bit more of a deep dive at some other point. Yeah. I think we've both probably got some quite interesting stories about various interviews. Interview stories, absolutely. I've got a bazillion.
00:10:03
Speaker
My week has been, yeah, continues to be tiring, but I have paid the accountant the last lot, so I'm hoping to heal.
00:10:17
Speaker
I will finally have my taxes done just in time for me to start getting myself together for the next tax season, which is like 2023. Right. Just when I've kind of got that done, I will hopefully it will propel me
00:10:39
Speaker
to then get into next season's tax thing without a shame spiral. So hopefully I can get that. If you've got like a clean slate then right now, your taxes, you've got nothing in your past.
00:10:58
Speaker
like taxes. Well, yeah, no, I mean, so I'm about four years late. Right. So, so that's what the accountant's working on. So once they get once the account's done his bit and I sign it off and then we file it, then I'll find out how much I owe, which is going to be like, you know,
00:11:22
Speaker
a horrendously huge amount. It's going to be like, I could buy a house for that kind of, that kind of money. So I find out how much that is, pay that. And then, and then, uh, yeah, so, and then it's a clean slate and then I'll just go into the next year.
00:11:52
Speaker
feeling at least good that I've caught up. I wouldn't have had to have paid a penalty for being late and that will be a sizable chunk but
00:12:04
Speaker
Clean slate, good, and then we can rock on with next year's. Nice. I had a thing yesterday by coincidence about taxes based in the UK that someone actually made a research into ADHD tax and they reckon that it costs on average 20,000 pounds a year.
00:12:28
Speaker
more than a non-ADHDL. That's how it costs generally. It's all right. So the ADHD tax on taxes is about 20 grand. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure.
00:12:49
Speaker
That stuff can really stuff you up the arse. All right, so let's crack on and say, the last one, where are you taking us today, Paulio?
The Impact of Catastrophizing
00:13:06
Speaker
I'm taking you, Martyn, to the leftfield farm. I'm going to have a little chat about catastrophizing.
00:13:16
Speaker
Oh, that sounds interesting because there's a lot of catastrophes that can happen on a farm. Let's get in our mayor's car, which by the way, I've had the carpets cleaned inside.
00:13:38
Speaker
Right. And I've had it and it's changed the the acoustics. So there's less cabin sound in the in the car. So I think, you know, when when you get in here. Right. Sorry. You plug some holes in the in the in the. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, right. So you'll kind of hear. I think you'll hear it. You hear it when we when we drive over to the farm. All right. Let's go.
00:14:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think. Yeah. Yeah, I can hear that. The improvement does make difference. Does make difference. So here we are, left field farm. I have trouble saying that left field farm. Anyway, and we're going to talk about catastrophizing and being a Martin. Yeah. You're much better at me at introducing subjects. All right.
00:14:51
Speaker
So let's define what we mean by catastrophizing. So that refers to the tendency to perceive situations as far worse than they actually are.
00:15:04
Speaker
And that can lead to heightened stress, anxiety, and even a distorted perception of reality. So that's, it's all those thoughts, isn't it? It's like, oh, you know, it's going to be terrible. I think if I do this, if I phone this person, they're going to have a rather old go at me. And you just, I think you were saying it in a while back, is that you're almost overthinking
00:15:30
Speaker
something and you go down this path, right, of it's going to be a disaster. It's going to be, you know, and you just get really stressed and then you end up, who knows where you're going to hold. Yeah. And I've got here, it can be defined as overthinking on the worst possible outcome, normally negative on any particular subject. Mm hmm.
00:15:55
Speaker
So I've got here, I mean, the classics of personal finances, tick, personal relationships, tick, and your profession, job, tick. Those are the classic, you know, ones, but it can be anything. It can be all kinds of stuff. Right, because I've got this, I was trying to think of a story of me doing, so I don't, I do it occasionally, but it's not something that I do regularly.
00:16:25
Speaker
But it does run in the background of my head. So I remember having this weird conversation with my boss at the time and he was like, Martin, we're going to set up and I was working in London at the time. He said, Martin, we're going to set up an agency in London.
00:16:46
Speaker
New York and we want you to head up the creative for it. Oh great, great, great. And I said, all right, well, I'll be prepared for all the people that are going to not like that.
00:17:09
Speaker
And he was like, what are you talking about? I was like, well, yeah, because I can think right. Well, Martin's going to New York. Why isn't it me? You know, I'm much better than he is. And and my boss was like.
00:17:25
Speaker
What are you talking about? Wow. And yeah, and of course, everyone was like, great, Martin. Yeah. Continue your brilliant. It's like round peg, round hole.
00:17:40
Speaker
And then the other kind of similar anecdote was I worked in Beijing in China for like almost a year. And then I returned back to the New York office and I was like, and I convinced myself that everyone had kind of got on without me that, oh, this is so much better that Martin's not here. He's been over there in China.
00:18:10
Speaker
We don't need him back here. The things have been going so much better without him. I was thinking these thoughts as I went into the agency building, went up the elevator and then the elevator opened onto the agency floor and I walked out and then everyone just stood up and I just got a standing ovation. Everyone was clapping and cheering. I was like,
00:18:39
Speaker
well that was not what i was expecting wow that's amazing that's amazing so you know yeah i i convinced myself that that everyone was going to think that it was a bad thing you know like yeah you know
00:18:59
Speaker
So good things were happening for me, but then I just went down this rabbit hole of thinking that everyone else was thinking that I was an asshole. Other than that, I've got a couple of zippers from my kind of life that I'll come to in a minute.
00:19:18
Speaker
other than a rabbit hole there's also an element of it that sometimes gets left out of this is that it's actually really really seductive for an adh tier to go down a rabbit holes you know
00:19:34
Speaker
you know, it's like, it's like in non new, you know, it's like, people aren't neurologically diverse. You know, it's the same way that for most people, it's kind of quite easy to get into negative kind of trains of thoughts, quite easy to get involved in gossip, because it's, it's just, it's just seductive. And there's something is kind of, however, however, no, however much you know, it's not right. And it's just not healthy at all.
00:20:04
Speaker
You kind of get drawn into it like a comfort blanket. Right. And I'm just wondering whether that's whether there's anything in the idea that, you know, like, so the the catastrophizing thing comes from a basic primal instinct. Right. Which is, you know, you're the hunter, gatherer, stone man, Stone Age man, rather. And
00:20:31
Speaker
you're thinking right well what's around that corner what's what's over that hill on the one hand you you you you you're curious but on the other hand is like well what if there's a saber-toothed tiger what if there's a another
00:20:46
Speaker
enemy around there. So you kind of like, there's a comfort in trying to kind of like into being prepared for the future, right? And I wonder if it's almost like, well, what's the worst thing I can think of?
00:21:09
Speaker
And I can find comfort in the, at least I've thought what it could be. And perhaps I can be prepared for it.
00:21:22
Speaker
Well, we had a, we did a couple of whiskers. We did a podcast on, um, you know, how half, how often ADHD is a great in, uh, in, um, difficult circumstances. Yeah. Maybe this is an overlap here, you know, that it was, we're good at it because we've already experienced it in our minds of all the ways it could go wrong. Right. We've already played it out. We've already done the dress rehearsal in our minds.
00:21:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And we get a lot of dopamine when something has gone wrong and you're running around like a mad person.
00:22:04
Speaker
doing feats of superhuman strength to kind of fix things. Yeah, because my story I thought to kind of share was that we've discussed this in the past Martin, I once went to see my
00:22:24
Speaker
psychologist and I sat down and she looked at me and said, Paul, what's wrong? What's up? I was just a mess. I said, I'm really scared that I'm going to end up living under a bridge. It's a bit like your boss, you know, with you, who you were talking about before. She listened to you, Paul, what the hell are you talking about?
00:22:51
Speaker
And to me, it was so real. It felt really real because it probably, you know, for about a week or so, I was playing with that prospect in my mind. You know, the what if rabbit hole. And it felt really real. That puts a possibility, you know. Honestly, though, I think
00:23:18
Speaker
There is a, you know, as you get older, certainly when you get older, you realize the difference between you and your situation and the guy on the street who's homeless.
00:23:32
Speaker
there's not a big difference. In that it only takes a couple of things to go wrong and you can see how you can end up there. And I think from an
00:23:51
Speaker
And an ADHD mind is very aware of your shortcomings, right? It's like, okay, well, you don't pay this, you don't pay that. Then you end up having everyone loads of money and then you have to sell stuff and then you've pissed off everyone and you end up on the streets. You can see how you can get there.
00:24:16
Speaker
Well, especially now, if you talk to emergency services in the UK at the moment, especially in built up areas, the amount of especially men of our age has gone up enormously. And so circumstances becoming more and more difficult the last three to four years. So there's definitely that.
00:24:43
Speaker
There's an element of it though that sometimes I just wonder, I'm always incredulous about my general imagination.
00:24:58
Speaker
you know sometimes I just I can you know get things pop into my head and just don't make any sense at all there's a part of me just likes playing with it you know all right you know those those kind of scenarios you know what if
00:25:16
Speaker
Oh, what if this happened? What if that happens? Then you kind of like just go down that thought train. My mind I would describe as like a playground, you know, there's all kinds of stuff goes on in there. Tons of stuff, you know, so many tangents and, you know, off here and off there and off everywhere. But yeah, even if this, this, you know, this what I say to my psychologist, psychologist,
00:25:47
Speaker
felt really real at the time. Money was not good. Job was not going well. Yeah. And my son was just about to come and live with me.
00:26:06
Speaker
as well. And so there's like, that, you know, I think taking on that responsibilities, you know, was starting to feel way on me a bit. Yeah, because like, you get to a point, right, where
00:26:24
Speaker
this the safety nets around you become less and less right so from for a whole bunch of your life your parents say either safety net right when you're young you're a kid so if something goes wrong you know they will they can they can help help you out and sort you out but but as you know but when you're
00:26:45
Speaker
parents either kind of they either die or they themselves don't really have much resources anymore. So so they can't help you as much. So you end up like feeling like you're really exposed out there. Right. Especially if you've got kids.
00:27:05
Speaker
You know, you're supposed to be the one, you know, that is their safety blanket, right? And then they can come around and you've got a roof over your head and you could feed them and you know, all that stuff. So that, that kind of starts to all wail on you. Yeah, it did, it did coincide with that particular moment in my life. And then of course, you know, you, you applied the minimum amount of logic to it. It just didn't make any sense whatsoever, you know.
00:27:33
Speaker
No, but I mean, like, right. I mean, but yeah, that's where the catastrophizing, you know, kind of hurts you, right, is because you are going down that thought process and you are, it does cause you anxiety. And that, and that does have a real effect, you know, all that stress. Yeah, yeah.
00:28:02
Speaker
But then I got personally, I got to a point when I got just really tired of doing that. I would I really got to a point of exhaustion of being that way. You know, I'm talking about when was it seven or eight years ago now, I got really exhausted of being that way, you know, until that that the age that I was at that point, I would have been what
00:28:31
Speaker
4950 at that point, I was exhausted living that way, being that way, you know. And, and I, I decided to get better at filtering my thoughts. There was a different, different point in my life. I thought, okay, I need to get better at filtering my thoughts.
00:28:52
Speaker
Right. So that, you know, you're kind of recognising that the catatophising is intruding in your life to a point where it's kind of spoils the fun, if you like.
00:29:13
Speaker
Yeah, because yeah, because it's not just they're not just thoughts either, there was a physiological effect in the end, you know, you got a, you know, the kind of classic, you know, not in your stomach. You know, there is good, it's not healthy at all.
Combating Negative Thinking
00:29:29
Speaker
So I started to get better at deciding, okay, because my worst point with this kind of catastrophizing was early in the morning, just before I got up, my brain was already working.
00:29:42
Speaker
right and I started thinking Paul but you can't do anything about any of this these thoughts right now so what's the point in thinking them so then I thought okay so where would I need to be and what situation would I need to be in to do actually do anything about all of this otherwise it's a complete waste of time right this is like the thinking that would go through my head
00:30:07
Speaker
And then so I would stop, you know, gradually, gradually, but surely I would stop doing it and, you know,
00:30:15
Speaker
like have a filter for like useful and and not useful information. All right. So it kind of sounds like you have you have two buckets. And in one bucket was the catastrophizing thoughts around stuff that you had no that you had no control over. Right. So say, for example, you know, someone becomes a president or
00:30:43
Speaker
There's a whole bunch of stuff that you kind of doom scroll your own thinking on, right? But you can do very little, if anything, about it, right? And then there's a bucket of stuff that you can actually do something about.
00:31:03
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Is that what you kind of mean that, you know, that you recognize? Totally. Totally. Yeah. And it's safe for me also, I like to visualize things. Sometimes I like to, if I have a particular problem, I'll imagine it's a ball in my hands. You know, every, weirdly, it just helps me. Yeah. Yeah.
00:31:29
Speaker
Now that's a very, so if you can visualize the anxiety, that also helps. Yeah. Give it a name.
00:31:41
Speaker
Right, because I know that some people, they will visualize an internal thing so that you can almost, if you had a ball, then you can push it and you can actually reduce it down. You can make it smaller and smaller and smaller. Yeah.
00:32:00
Speaker
And you're kind of almost forced to think more logically about it as well, and more practically in that way. Because most of this stuff is not real. It's huge parts of it. It's just not real. It's not in the real world at all. No, no. The more we're talking about it, the more I kind of almost realise in myself that
00:32:24
Speaker
There's big things that I can catastrophize about, but then there's lots of little day-to-day things that I do it to as well, so I think I actually do it more than...
00:32:35
Speaker
more than I thought I did. That's interesting you say that because I have this I had the same thought I had this thing I do less now for years and years people used to my thing was always to tell people that I was tired all the time and it's like God if you tell people tell yourself or in this case tell other people all the time you're tired guess what happened you'll be tired
00:33:03
Speaker
You know, right. Well, yeah, because you just get tired of telling people you're tired. No, I got it. It gets boring. Yeah, it gets very, very boring to yourself and others. Right. It's like, you know, like, so we worked in, you know, in the creative field. So I come home from from the ad agency work and and I and your partner would go, how's your day? And you go, so nightmare.
00:33:32
Speaker
The nightmare, oh my God, this happened, that happened. Oh God, it was like the pitch went wrong and then we got this other deadline that was due and blah, blah, blah. And then after a while, you realize you're saying the same thing over and over and over again.
00:33:48
Speaker
It's just like, I'm just shut up. Just say, just either change the situation or the job you're in. So it's not like that. Or, or, or I should just reset the level. So I would only say it was really bad if it, if it was actually really bad. And actually what I thought was really bad, it was just normal. Just, yeah, it was just a normal day. Ah, normal crap. You know, the sort of thing.
00:34:18
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So yeah, I think one of the things I used to get really, really catastrophes on was if I was having a difficult situation with a colleague at work, that one could keep me up for hours and sleep really badly on it. I was terrible with that kind of stuff. Used to be, used to be.
00:34:45
Speaker
right really bad yeah what would you imagine so okay so someone said something at work that you thought oh that's kind of yeah didn't well i'll give you a classic the one that pops into my mind i just i was in london and i i just started working for an agency and i'd come in and they clearly the account managers of the agency had clearly
00:35:14
Speaker
had quite a lot of creative influence that they shouldn't have been having, but because of the bad work practices they've got used to having, probably because they didn't have a particularly good creative director and it was a bit absent.
00:35:29
Speaker
and but you know by the time I got there they'd actually got quite used to having that creative aspect of their job and that was probably the part of the job they liked the most so I came in with my experience you know should we say normal experience that I had creative control or if I didn't my creative director had it they did not like that and they really reacted against it
00:35:56
Speaker
And there was like two account managers and another person that really reacted against me. And they just did everything they could to make my life really difficult in my new job. And I just like, God, all night, like trying to think about how could I deal with a
00:36:19
Speaker
you know, and really bad at it as well. Wasn't even good at kind of figuring out what to do about it. So on the catastrophizing front, where you kind of think, yeah, this is, I now have this kind of really kind of like toxic things start to build up and it's going to be really bad. And then I'm going to have like, there's going to be fights in the boardroom and I'm going to be kicked out or something. There's going to be big scenes. Yeah.
00:36:46
Speaker
I don't go over my mind about various scenarios in terms of how I could, how I, or potential conversations I could have with them and how badly, obviously, how badly that would turn out.
00:37:01
Speaker
really, unfortunately, never really having the kind of the kind of healthier thinking that I should have been doing is like, okay, Paul, what can you do about it? Well, almost in not a great deal, I could just like, do my job, and try to influence it, you know,
00:37:22
Speaker
Anyway, so yeah, that was a fairly classic one. That actually happened quite a lot to me. Count people having too much creative control over stuff and, you know, like having a, like a, like a really tight grip on it. I didn't want to let go of it.
00:37:41
Speaker
I, my, my, my thing was, you know, uh, was, um, I was happy for a good idea to come from anywhere. So if someone would come along and had a good idea or had an idea, right? Didn't really matter what, but it could be some copy or, or creative thought, whatever. And.
00:38:05
Speaker
my job was to understand what the brief was and what the right answer looked like almost like sort of like you know like um if you've got a jigsaw right
00:38:18
Speaker
And you've kind of defined what the edges of the jigsaw are and you're filling in the middle bits. And if someone kind of goes, oh, here's a piece and you look at it and you kind of go, well, does this fit or not? And if it was like, yeah, fits great. Didn't matter who, my, my, my, my only job is to fill this, this thing. And sometimes a, an account person would.
00:38:45
Speaker
I found anyway, if they understood the client really well,
00:38:52
Speaker
They knew what they would buy or what ideas they were interested in or not. And sometimes they would almost fill the jigsaw out themselves. Right. Well, this is what I think it is. And as long as I understand what the brief was and I knew what the picture should look like on my jigsaw. And if they're giving me the right picture, I'm like,
00:39:18
Speaker
Brilliant. All right. My job's done. Yeah. Let's do this thing that you just said. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, totally, totally, totally agree with that. But yeah, in this particular instance, they were just like not keen on giving up.
00:39:38
Speaker
Oh, yeah, they become like a pseudo creative directors. And it's like, yeah, they won't get anything easily. Right. So yeah, workplace cookie testifying is particularly bad because, you know, your salary, your the money coming in is kind of dependent.
00:40:01
Speaker
on this thing by and large, you know, and by extension, it's your mortgage or your kids or, or whatever it is, uh, kind of hangs on it. So I, I do, I mean, like if it, it's, it, it can, yeah. So it makes things more amplified, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:40:26
Speaker
What came to mind has come to mind now is that when I joined this agency that I was talking about, the creative directors really talking up my, my expertise and my skills and everything. So I was already on a bad foot with them. Yeah. So who's this kid that the creative directors seems to just, you know, love and adore, you know, it's really excited about, you know, it's like, can we break you down a peg or two?
00:40:54
Speaker
So yeah, I used to really go down a tunnel and that kind of stuff. Right. And I always tend to find that even if you know that you're catastrophizing, it doesn't always help.
00:41:14
Speaker
like you like go oh god yeah i i know i'm i know that i'm thinking about the worst case scenario or whatever but
00:41:26
Speaker
But there's something valid in me thinking that, right? It kind of goes back to what we were saying earlier about there's some comfort in it. So it's not that easy to let go of the catastrophizing
00:41:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I used to, I can, I can think back and remember myself, you know, stopping, you know, getting, you know, halfway down the rabbit hole and stopping myself and thinking, Paul, what the hell are you doing? You know, you should be sleeping, you know, rest on it, you know, wake up in the morning, you know, more rested and stuff. And it was still two minutes later, if not even a minute later, I'd be done that same rabbit hole again. Mm hmm.
00:42:15
Speaker
know. Yeah. And I just I didn't have the skills at that point in my life. But God, did I waste a lot of energy doing that crap.
00:42:25
Speaker
Right, because you look back and you kind of go, well, none of that stuff happened. I spent so much energy worrying about it that when it happened, A, it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. Nine times out of 10, or even 99 times out of 100, it's nowhere near as bad as you thought it was going to be.
00:42:49
Speaker
Yeah, we, we, one of the first podcasts we did was about, um, you know, we're like, um, have looking back on our, on our past lives, you know, and what if we'd be diagnosed earlier.
00:43:05
Speaker
my God, I could have saved myself so much crap. You know, just like, okay, Paul, what's so what's happening? You know, we're not talking about, you know, 25 years ago, more, more than what could have saved myself so much grief. Hmm. Yeah. I've been diagnosed and think, okay, Paul, so what are you doing now? Oh, you're rabbit holding. Okay. So what are we going to do about that? You know, yep.
00:43:35
Speaker
Actually, I mean, that neatly kind of takes us to like the kind of how to stop part. And we've already kind of talked a little bit about how to stop. You know, that kind of what if thought, right? I think you've said this previously, which is when you could catastrophizing, you can also think, well, what if that doesn't happen?
00:44:05
Speaker
What if I'm wrong? What if all of this, all of these doom scenarios I'm coming up with, what if I'm wrong? What if it's nonsense? And just to kind of try and break you out of that doom scrolling thing. And I will add on to that, the thought that
00:44:31
Speaker
Even if the bad thing happens, what if it turns out to be a good thing in the long run? Right. So, and the idea there is that, is that you, you can't really tell whether something is good or bad.
00:44:53
Speaker
because you don't know what the outcome is going to be. So there's this Taoist story that I won't go into, but I'll just hack it apart and just do it quickly, which is two guys, they're talking to each other over the garden fence, and one guy says,
00:45:15
Speaker
my son, he's going off to fight in this war
00:45:24
Speaker
He goes, oh, that's bad. That's bad news. And then next time they talk, the son has broken his leg. He goes, oh, that's bad news. Next time they talk, oh, the fact that he broke his leg meant he didn't fight in this particular battle. And they were all killed in that battle and he lived.
00:45:53
Speaker
Oh, so the broken leg was a good thing then, you know, so, yeah, every, you know, how many times have you looked back on a thing that you've been avoiding, like a bad catastrophe or something, you know, or getting fired or whatever it is, you go, you know, and then the bad thing happens, then you look back and you kind of go,
00:46:21
Speaker
Well, I'm glad that happened because I actually went on and did something better. So in that way, there's this Daoist thought, which is like, there is no such thing as good or bad news. There's just news. Yeah. And that's it. Yeah. And in the end, you know, they're usually, wouldn't you?
00:46:46
Speaker
you know, the stuff that we're talking about, you know, 20 odd years ago, it's just utter nonsense. Now, you know, what the hell? Why was I getting so hung up about on something? It's just now you're just like, we'd think, you know, it's just sort of struck your shoulders out. Pretty much, you know,
00:47:11
Speaker
Now, knowing what we know now, you know, it's like, you know, for the 90% of the cases, you know, it's we get hang ups about really nothing at all. They're nowhere near as bad as we think they are. No. Although what is bad is the sound of my mic. I think I might have to just quickly turn off my mic and turn it back on again.
00:47:36
Speaker
And we're back in the room after technical hitches Yeah, go on go for it
00:47:46
Speaker
What I was just about to say was that usually in this rabbit hole state of catastrophizing, usually logic and rationality are really, really kind of like concepts are so distant in that moment.
Exercise as a Remedy for Anxious Thoughts
00:48:07
Speaker
You know, so anything you can do probably I think to kind of like, you know, even if you have to write it down somewhere in a prominent place near where you can, in my case, you know, is a bed, you know, before I kind of got up in the morning, just remind yourself, okay, where's the logic? Where's the rationality in this discussion you have? Anything that pulls you back to, you know,
00:48:35
Speaker
avoiding this thing which is in the end of the day is always an unhealthy thing. It's never a good thing. Right. I find that I've seen that one good thing is to go and do some exercise or do something physical. Yeah. To kind of like
00:48:58
Speaker
to kind of get your brain out of that spiral. Yeah. I had one guy said he used to brush his teeth to stop him going down the spiral. All right. So really simple. He used to brush his teeth and it would totally stop. Finished. It was over. And avoid dental costs, I guess, at the same time. We'd win.
00:49:26
Speaker
when when all right all right well let's uh all right have we got any else to add or or or should we think well there's a wrap isn't it i think i think i think we can just get back into it into the mez car and uh head over to the conclusion is make logic your friend logic rationality make them friends
00:49:49
Speaker
Use your good filter, the useful stuff, put the crap stuff in the bucket where it deserves in a crap bucket. Yeah. No, I think that there is something to kind of like putting into two buckets. Is it something that you can do anything about? Or is it something that you can do something about? Is it even something real?
00:50:18
Speaker
Well, because, yeah, to be honest, it isn't real until it actually happens, is it? Because you're thinking of a future scenario, so it will all be unreal. And chances are, as we're saying, it isn't real. And even if it does happen,
00:50:39
Speaker
you know, okay, anyway. Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one. What's gonna happen? Yeah, right. That is something we when you actually kind of go, right, what's the worst can happen? And the next thing is can I deal with that? So okay, so someone's really annoyed, I've got, I've got to go into a, a
00:51:06
Speaker
meeting with someone and they're going to shout it with my boss and they're going to shout at me, what's the worst that can happen? You know, well, maybe I get let, let go. Can I, can I survive? Can I deal with that? Then you kind of go, well, yeah, I can, you know, you know, it'll be tough, but I can get, but I'll get through this and I'll find something else. And you go, okay, right. Well, if I can deal with the worst, then
00:51:37
Speaker
I'll be OK. All right. All right. Well, let's get back into our newly carpeted mayor's car. We'll head over to the post office. Ooh, that's sounding so gorgeous. That sounds so good. So with the post office, so
00:52:05
Speaker
Uh, your feedback is really vital to us.
Listener Feedback and Host Dynamics
00:52:08
Speaker
It says here, and we will read all your, read all of your comments and we might, uh, read them out loud on our podcast. So, um, all, all feedback more than welcome, please. And I, I did some feedback, which was we both, uh, look way too similar and we even sound way too similar. Um,
00:52:35
Speaker
and having trouble picking us apart. Really? Yeah. Oh, that's bizarre. That's freaky. I mean, I can tell, obviously. But I think if you're like American, for example, English accents can sound very similar.
00:52:54
Speaker
Yeah, not so much tuned in to the subtle differences. Maybe I could buy a filter to put my voice through. Yeah. And then we're different color. We're both in gray today. It's not helping, not helping anyone. I'm feeling bad about that.
00:53:12
Speaker
No worries. I think we can just quickly jump back in the car again for a very quick scoot over to the upstairs, to the town hall, back into the office, back behind our vast desks.
00:53:35
Speaker
which comes with a array of rubber stamps. Oh yeah, no, yeah. I mean, it's a beautiful wooden office. Anyway, this is a point where I say ADHDville is delivered fresh every Tuesday to all purveyors of fine podcasts. Please subscribe to the pod and rate us most wonderful.
00:54:00
Speaker
And please feel free to correspond at will with any comments, good or bad. We'll take it all. But wait, there's more. If you wish to see our beautiful, beautiful faces, then Sally forth to the huge church tubes. And if you feel so inclined fields, Sally Fields, fine actress. You can also pick up a quill and email us at ADHDville at gmail.com.
00:54:31
Speaker
But that's it. That's it. All right. Well, let me hit. Let me hit the the outro button. There we go. So this just leaves us to like dance our way out and say thanks for being here. Check out show notes for any links. Visit us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram or TikTok. But in the meantime, be fucking kind to yourself.
00:55:01
Speaker
Say, from my side, know thyself, son of the hounds. Come hither and get flesh. There, says the mare. That's that.