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Episode 20 - Are ADHD People Good In A Crisis?
76 Plays2 years ago
Paul and Martin (co-Mayors of ADHDville) chat about why why people with Adult ADHD are good when the shit hits the fan. Paul talks about who wore out first, his nan or her carpet, and Martin gets into cheesy Hallmark movies. Sound the alarm!
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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.
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Transcript
Reflecting on ADHD and Personal Stories
00:00:00
Speaker
So yeah, so this week in my many kind of moments of deep dive reflection on my ADHD life, it came to mind about me and my dancing, okay. People just used to say to me, including an ex-girlfriend who's a
00:00:23
Speaker
who you know as well. She said, Paul, you know, you're dancing, you know, what, what the hell? It's like, it's like, it's like you're listening to a completely different piece of music than everyone else. And you're on your, you're on your own, totally on your own wavelength. And it kind of, right, there you go.
00:00:53
Speaker
And I was thinking about it. Yeah. Okay. There was actually some, there was actually some truth in it. And I haven't been dancing for a while, so now I need to test it. I need to test it. That was a long time ago. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe back on the wavelength now or further off the wavelength.
00:01:20
Speaker
All right. Yeah. As we established a couple of episodes back, dancing's good for you. I think it was episode five, I think. Yeah. I'll go dancing next Friday. All right. Well, you can, you can test out the theory. How? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah.
00:01:46
Speaker
promising note. Welcome to ADHDville. I'm promising though.
00:02:19
Speaker
Hello, I'm Paul Thompson. I was recently diagnosed with ADHD after 56 years of WTF.
00:02:29
Speaker
you and you and the number of years. It's just like the number of years. You know, like every time we get to this bit where you kind of go, I was diagnosed all over and then there's a number. It's like there's a little panic that that that kind of comes in. Yeah, I've got a bit of thing with numbers. Yeah.
00:02:51
Speaker
Yeah. We're not bedfellows. We're in numbers. We're not bedfellows. Right. You just... We don't like it cosy, never. Never got cosy with numbers. You just squint at each other from across the room. Yeah. With kind of... Not disgust, but amusement. Mistrust. Yeah. I don't fully trust you.
00:03:19
Speaker
Yeah, I look at him and I'm thinking I don't get you and he's looking at me like you don't get me, do you? Right, I think I'm in the same camp. Then I move to then I go back to the cocktail bar. Wise move. Sidecar please. Thank you.
00:03:38
Speaker
And I'm Martin West and I was diagnosed with ADHD, a life span of carpet ago. So I've learned that the life span of carpet is about 10 years. Change it every 10 years. So that's how long I've been diagnosed with ADHD. One carpet length.
00:04:00
Speaker
nice carpet length my grandmother had her her carpet lasted about 50 years hers but she would insist that no one was allowed to you know have shoes so lasted a long long time longer than she did actually right you know what i saw
00:04:22
Speaker
I saw, you know, like how people put plastic on their on their couch furniture, this kind of plastic stuff to keep it looking good. I passed a house the other day and they were throwing stuff out of it and they had the couch that was covered in plastic still.
00:04:47
Speaker
I find that bizarre. Yeah, that's really bizarre. Yeah. Cubans do that. Cubans you go to, well, I'm talking many years ago, but going to a Cuban house and know all their treasured possessions, like, you know, porcelain or whatever, they'd have a little transparent plastic bag over the top of them. Yeah.
00:05:14
Speaker
Yeah.
Podcast Introduction and Community Engagement
00:05:15
Speaker
And then the other thing that I came to mind is you've been diagnosed with ADHD for almost one Liz trust.
00:05:32
Speaker
Right, premiership. Right. Yeah. She was the UK Prime Minister for about what, 40 odd days, 49 days perhaps. So I think you've almost had, you've been diagnosed with ADHD for one Liz Truss at this point.
00:05:56
Speaker
There was someone that said actually, if you put a cabbage in the fridge, it will last longer in a fridge than Liz Truss's premiership did. Yeah, no. I think, was it the sun or the mirror? I can't remember now. I had a live cam of a lettuce and it was like, which would last longer, Liz Truss or this lettuce?
00:06:21
Speaker
Yeah, and the lettuce one, thankfully. If you didn't already know. All right, so that leaves you to say. So here we go. So we're just two mates who, by coincidence or not, after 39 years of friendship, discovered they were co ADHD-ers.
00:06:42
Speaker
Well, now it's really important to say that this is an entertainment podcast about ADHD and does not substitute for individualized advice from qualified health professionals. Difficult to say. Always will be. Keep going. So you can do it. Don't take any advice from us. No, no, no. We're just here as a kind of all-inclusive ADHD park bench with room for everyone and your pets.
00:07:09
Speaker
Okay, still here, so grab your pop-tarts and let us take you to ADHDville, an imaginary town, not a village town, town town, that we've created on our minds where we like to explore different parts of ADHD. And we start off here in the town hall of ADHDville in the mayor's office where we, the joint mayors of ADHDville, take care of business.
00:07:39
Speaker
With a lowercase B. Oh yeah, very much lowercase. It's not big business, it's like, you know, business. And on the, we have a couple of agenda items. As always, the first one is just to remind you, dear ADHDville citizen to subscribe to the pod, rate us, tell us what you think, write a comment,
00:08:05
Speaker
and to remind you that we drop ADHD Ville podcast every Tuesday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify. And if you want to see our beautiful, beautiful faces, we're on YouTube where you can see Paul. You can see our beards. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very stages of grayness. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Salt and pepper. Salt and pepper.
Challenges and Strategies for Managing ADHD
00:08:35
Speaker
second item on the agenda is how was your week good bad how was my week how was my week yeah this week yeah at this point I realized how we in a previous podcast we talked about time time
00:08:55
Speaker
blindness. I describe mine as more time tunnelling because I realised that when we do a podcast, when Monday starts and I'm already thinking about the podcast that we record on a Wednesday,
00:09:13
Speaker
And it's like, then we stop the pop, we record our podcasts and I pop out the other end. And I realized that I've popped out of a tunnel. That's what I did. That's what I do. I realize what I do, but getting better at it or getting better, a little less tunneled. Right. Cause there's that thing and I don't know whether you do it, but if I've got a very important thing happening, say in like four hours time.
00:09:43
Speaker
You know, it's a zoom call or whatever it is. Yeah. And I'm really focused on that thing. Yeah. I can't do anything wrong. It's it's either two things happen either. I don't I do nothing.
00:09:59
Speaker
I'm almost like I'm a statue. I'm just literally waiting for that event to happen. And my brain cannot focus on anything else other than just sit and wait for that event to happen. I'm exactly the same, yeah. Or if it's not quite so important, I may try and cram in as much things
00:10:28
Speaker
that i can to get done yeah and then i'm in danger of missing that thing but yeah but that tunneling if you like is is that kind of like i'm gonna sit and that's all i can think about yeah exactly exactly but how about you how about how about you mr wett how was your week how about me good bad uh not too bad i'm i'm i'm still trying to get
00:10:57
Speaker
my head around structuring my day, but thankfully I can structure podcast stuff in, which is easy. It sounds like you're much better at structuring than I am. I still haven't got that. I'm still at the beginning of my ADHD kind of learning and whatever, and I just haven't got it yet.
00:11:24
Speaker
I mean, I wouldn't want anyone to think that I'm some sort of master of any any of this, by the way. But yeah, so I think it just comes out of and we will have an episode coming up called habit stacking, which is where you find one thing that
00:11:49
Speaker
works, and then you add another thing on to that thing so that and in that way you can build structure. Plus also my phone going off going mine, it's time to think about cooking lunch. And you go, oh, that pings up.
00:12:07
Speaker
Yeah. So, you know, like, yeah, there's a lot of a lot of that kind of failed it before I had ADHD, the ADHD diagnosis, I've often tried and failed quite often at trying to be more structured. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's not easy. And you
00:12:32
Speaker
I think everyone's different and different things work or don't work. And a lot of ADHD is always trying to find something that helps.
00:12:47
Speaker
And then if you find something that helps, then try and build on that. And that's. But slightly the last podcast, we're saying that sometimes you need to develop your own hacks because no one else has seemed to resonate or work for you.
00:13:03
Speaker
But yeah, it isn't so much that they don't work, because I think the core of the idea probably works. It's just you have to give it your own spin so that you feel like it's yours. It's like you must have to have ownership of it. If it's someone else's idea, I don't know whether it's because of our age or because we're arseholes or what, or ADHD, all the above, all the above.
00:13:30
Speaker
We tend to not want to do someone else's idea. Whereas if we've came up with it ourselves, we're like, oh yeah, yeah, I'm more likely to try and invest in it. Yeah.
00:13:45
Speaker
Yeah, we like to think we're special. That's the thing. And I think so. Yeah. So, you know, be on special Martin. Right. So next week we will report on our homework that we are doing. I've already forgotten what the hell it is I'm supposed to be doing. Oh, yeah. We're doing a portrait of each other. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And of each other's partners.
00:14:12
Speaker
Well, it has to be a a entirely sure that my dog up for that. So I'm going to do a portrait of something. And then you're also going to just look around the house and and look at all the flat surfaces and see if you can find ways of not stacking things up on flat things. Yeah.
00:14:40
Speaker
All right, cracking on. We should take a stroll down to ADHD someplace. They were going, Mr West, they were going down to the fire station with my first aid kit kind of conveniently tucked under my arm to talk about why the hell our ADHD is often great in a crisis.
ADHD Strengths in Crisis Management
00:15:08
Speaker
All right, let's jump in the Mez car.
00:15:20
Speaker
is the same music that I use for the police station so I think I'm just going to use this for all emergency services. Yeah well we have had a note from our budget department who said you know we've got to cut corners. I think they're thinking of cutting bigger corners than
00:15:44
Speaker
Right. Because, you know, if every place in ADHD has its own little piece of music, then the more places we have, the more I have to sit down and write stuff. So apparently, this is a thing, an ADHD thing, that we're highly dependable. I think it got
00:16:08
Speaker
I was talking to someone, listening to someone a few weeks ago who said he was once in a car accident.
00:16:16
Speaker
And it was a really violent one. Literally, it was his car went off the road and flipped over. And he said, and he's an ADHD guy, he said he could remember himself as the car was flipping over. He was going, whee! Jesus Christ. I mean, it's just unbelievable.
00:16:45
Speaker
So it kind of made me think though, it made me think that, and it turns out it is a thing, that ADHD is generally really, really good at focusing when the shit goes down.
00:17:01
Speaker
Is that an expression? Is that the right expression? When the shit goes down. Well, yes, that is an expression. I think what you were going for was when the shit hits the fan. Hits the ground. Yeah, hits the fan. That's the one. Because I live in Italy and I forget a lot of these kind of sayings and I get them mixed.
00:17:26
Speaker
Is there an Italian version of when the shit hits the fan? Well, but there is an expression about fear, which is really bizarre. But it's really funny when you actually live outside your own country and you hear these kind of things, they all sound weird. You think, where the hell does that come from? But anyway, it is an Italian expression for when they're scared. They say that they shit in their hands.
00:17:57
Speaker
Oh, very nice. Okay. Yeah. I had a shit in my hand. I was like, I said, what? The first time I heard it, what? Because you take it literally, right? Yeah. Of course, that visual. So I've got the visual as well. Yikes. He said I was so scared. I shit in my hand. What?
00:18:22
Speaker
And it's a general, I've moved around Italy. It's not just like as little thing in amongst some friends, whatever. It's a general Italian expression anyway, bizarre. Anyway, so.
00:18:36
Speaker
And it made me reflect. I thought, well, yeah, I'm pretty damn good. When the proverbial manure gets mixed up in the ventilator. And generally, I'm down there and I can read the situation really fast.
00:19:02
Speaker
decide what needs to be done, who needs to do it, when it needs to be done, and just think about, you know, what's the most urgent thing to do. And yeah, generally like, um, really on it, really, really focused. And I wonder why Mr. West, if this is like a bit, because, um, I don't know. I mean, obviously the dopamine thing, you know,
00:19:31
Speaker
this, you know, this, you know, dopamine hit to be had in that situation, in that situation. Yep. It's very, it's a very rewarding place for us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's so, I mean, I guess it's, I guess it's that, I guess it's that. There is, yeah, there is definitely that part to it. There's also more parts.
00:20:01
Speaker
But yeah, it's like, now I've never really been involved in anything that is like a, you know, a real human in an emergency, but there's plenty of stories online of ADHD people like, you know, while everyone else is like dazed and confused, they just get the situation and they just jump in and they can, with clarity,
00:20:31
Speaker
Yes. Sort everything out. It's like the opposite of the rabbit in the headlights. You know, some people just like throw, they freeze like what the hell. Right. Yeah. So, um, I know that I like, so I do, you know, I, you know, as, as you know, I'm a creative director and I like, I like, I like retail.
00:20:57
Speaker
working in the retail business, particularly because it's very quick, fast. There's emergencies all over the place. There's fires springing up left, right and center. It is a very, very fast moving by the seat of your pants industry to work in.
00:21:25
Speaker
Uh, January and I kind of like that in environment. Like when something goes horribly wrong, I am horribly happy. Like, like it fills me with some weird joy and everyone else is pulling their hair out. Yeah. This is my, is my happy place.
00:21:45
Speaker
Yeah, I had an ex-boss who had an evaluation, what are they called? A review? A review, thanks mate. And he said, I don't know how you do it, Paul, but you always, we're really, really under pressure because we've worked in the annual reporting accounts.
00:22:06
Speaker
world. And so from February, from January through to March, it was like ridiculous hours and stress and everything. And he said, Paul, you are your best. That's when you are your best. It's like, I don't know how you do it, but that's when you really pull through.
00:22:26
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's parts of it which you'll definitely agree with here. So one part is we're very good at absorbing information really quickly.
00:22:43
Speaker
So you know, yeah, you know, when you're kind of like, we were saying last week about going into a room of people and you can, your brain is it can, can hyper fixate. So the ADHD thing is the attention deficit. No, hyperactive.
00:23:08
Speaker
But yeah, that part of you which can hyperfixate goes into overdrive and you can absorb all of the information that you need. So ADHD is probably really good in an accident emergency department of a hospital, probably, I'm guessing.
00:23:30
Speaker
I haven't looked, but I would suspect that things like air traffic control and I don't know about air traffic control, but that's probably not right. I will have to have a look at an industry service. It's the reason why it took us to the fire station.
00:23:52
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, we are very good at firstly absorbing a lot of information. We're also very good at filtering out what you don't need. And I know we've talked about this before, right? Yeah.
00:24:09
Speaker
is you can quickly identify what is important and what isn't important. You can almost paratize really quickly. That's the first time I've clicked my fingers on a podcast. There we go. It's probably for the same reason we hate small talk.
00:24:29
Speaker
Uh, maybe I, I, I just think it's a point, you know, oh, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. Please, you know, tell me something that is engaging and stimulating. All right. It's, it's the, well, yeah, it's the part of, of chatting with someone where you know what they're going to say, because you're already ahead in the converse.
00:24:52
Speaker
You're already two sentences along. And you know that the endpoint isn't even interesting either. It's not even worth getting to. Right. So you can filter everything out and you can prioritize, which is like really important. Your brain is in its happy place. I mean, being in a
00:25:20
Speaker
shit show might not feel happy to you emotionally, but there's parts of your brain that kind of go, Oh yeah, this is, this is where I work. I was built for this. Yeah. Right. And also I think this is where, this is what I wired for. This is what I was wired for.
00:25:40
Speaker
Right. And your brain's also the ADHD brain is very wide for connecting the dots of things. So being able to kind of go, Oh, I need this. I need that. Oh, I can, I can, I can connect the dots in this situation and see where I can, where, what the solution could be.
00:26:07
Speaker
I can, I can, I can hear you. You're good. Okay. Okay. You're back. You're back. Okay. Um, yes. So we're, we're, we're, we're, we're very good at seeing patterns that connecting dots. I think that's probably why you end up with a lot of creative people or ADHD people because they like, Oh, he's gone. He disappeared. Oops. He had a technical hitch.
00:26:44
Speaker
And he's back. Corbeid's. We are recording, yes. We are recording. I had a bit of a contextual problem, eh? Medieval internet. That's what your problem is, mate. Exactly. Thick walls as well. Just a lot of thick walls here. Yeah. OK. But there was... Yeah, go on. There is... I've talked enough.
00:27:14
Speaker
There was something, because there's something that came to mind. I mean, it's one of the things I kind of like about this podcast is like, one of the things is that we don't necessarily have all the answers. I'm just going to throw this out, this idea out there, see whether it sticks. All right. So, um, like this to a late, exactly. Or in your hand.
00:27:40
Speaker
There's a lady talking about ADHD on YouTube yesterday. She was saying how her mum was in bad health and that she's like, how come I'm just really on it for her? And normally I'm just a mess and my mind is all over the place. And it occurred to me, because I had the same with my mum,
00:28:05
Speaker
I wonder, I'll just put it out there, I wonder if it's because normally, because sometimes or very often, as most ADHDs I think, it's quite often overwhelming the amount of thoughts you've got going in your head at the same time. And to have that excuse to like, okay, I'm just going to concentrate on this one thing.
00:28:32
Speaker
because that's where my attention and concentration is needed. There's an element of relief in it. It's like, OK, I've got all the excuses I need to need to just like clear my mind at that moment and just like focus on that. Yeah, I think it isn't even necessary an excuse. It's just that your brain is wired.
00:28:56
Speaker
to be happiest in a certain situation, working in a certain way, right? It takes a lot of effort to do the normal boring things, right? It's actually hard work for us, right? So it requires a lot of energy and effort. Whereas if we're doing something that is like, you know, is this sorting out a situation or this person's mum or something,
00:29:24
Speaker
It's like, oh, this is how your brain is wise to work. So it's a lot easier to work that way. It's like you can squirrel down on a hobby or a thing that you're
00:29:39
Speaker
You get a lot of tatopamine, and you can hyperfixate on that thing, and it would wear out. Anyone else would have been worn out ages ago, but you're just like your brain is humming on that thing, and you can do amazing things. It's just because it's built that way.
00:29:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, you know, it's like a, it's like you've got a, you've got a F one sports car, right? Racing car. And you're trying to drive around London.
00:30:13
Speaker
And it's shit, right? It's just really difficult to kind of get anywhere, but you put it on, you, you, you put it on brand's hatch or a, or a racing car circuit and boom. Yeah. That thing flies. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, you know, when you work your way, your brain likes to work. It's everything becomes easier. Hey, that makes sense.
00:30:40
Speaker
Also, another thing we're good at is adapting. So if we're in a crisis situation, and even if we can sort out what's going on,
00:30:55
Speaker
And we can filter out what's important. We can we can we're much easier on about turning on a dime and adapting this, you know, change into that particular situation. Oh, yeah, that's where the connecting of the dots things. How many times have you gone, you know, like suddenly the answer to the thing that's going to solve it is like, oh, there's this thing that I haven't thought about in like
00:31:23
Speaker
five years. But I know is a is over there somewhere that is going to sort this problem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, kind of.
00:31:37
Speaker
nuts. Yeah, your brain can problem solve really quickly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, 56 years of collecting skills, it is just like, I could do a, you know, I've, I've accumulated, it's not like I do something once and forgotten, it kind of accumulated, I can just do
00:31:58
Speaker
Yeah. Like, well, I built, I built, as you know, Martin, I think you came to the opening. I built up like a big ass kind of studio at the bottom of my garden. Dismounted a garage, double garage, built it myself. It's like, Oh, I just did that. You know? Yeah. Just throw it through, through my hat over the wall.
00:32:24
Speaker
Right, as the expression goes. And then once you've sorted out the crisis, then that's when you're
00:32:39
Speaker
then your brain goes flat and dies. And then, you know, even though you've done acts of superhuman strength, almost, or, you know, superhuman effort, you saved the day. And then, you know, then you've, then you've lost your car car keys, can't remember where they are, forgot to
00:32:59
Speaker
find someone and the shops are shut when you get there and it's all back to being a disaster again so quickly. Yeah. Or as David Bow would say, a hero just for one day. Right. I would be a hero for two days. Right. You know. I think that's on the B side.
00:33:23
Speaker
I was here for one day and then and then shit for another five. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Because, yeah, it does ring true. Actually, that does resonate, unfortunately. Right. Because it takes so much
00:33:40
Speaker
Even though it is like a Formula One sports car, when it runs, it requires special fuel. It can run really well, but afterwards... The next day, it's like a...
00:33:56
Speaker
it's like a trabant the next day yeah for pinto or trabant right you you know yeah it takes so much energy to actually make it work in its optimal way that you the next day or for the next couple of days you can expect to feel like absolutely crap like a zombie like you're just yeah uh it's like asking a same bolt to run a marathon so what
00:34:26
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Or or actually it's to run a marathon after he's broken the world record of by the of his hundred meters. He's like he's just no expelled all the energy marathon. I built for speed. Right. Quick speed. Yeah.
00:34:47
Speaker
Yeah. Yep. That's us. We're, we're, we're the same bolts, not necessarily. Right. I'm just trying to think of a marathon or a long distance runner and I can't. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think there was a British guy called. Yeah. He's just retired. Oh, what's his name? Amazing guy. He's been knighted as well. Amazing guy.
00:35:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you can expect the plus side being great in emergency. The downside is you just get ADHD burnout afterwards. Yeah. Which is horrendous. But at least if you know that... Mo Farah. Mo Farah. Mo Farah. There we go. Mo Farah.
00:35:41
Speaker
At least if you know, that's how it works, then you can plan for that. So, you know, like if you've got a piece of work or cuts or pitch coming up or something else, that's going to that, you know, you're going to end up.
00:35:55
Speaker
I'm trying to sort out. So sometimes it can be, you know, that there's a deadline coming up for a project you have to do and you know, you're going to procrastinate and you know, you're going to pull out a super act of superhuman strength to get this thing done. At least you should also know that
00:36:18
Speaker
not to plan to operate any heavy machinery for the next day. Or worse, you'd be hero the one minute, in the next minute, you're self-sabotaging, as I've done. It's like the polar opposite. Tell me about it, Paul.
00:36:43
Speaker
I was at the agency, the same agency we talked about before. Oh, Paul, you're great. You're great in really stressful situations. How do you do it? Blah, blah, blah. Two years later, I fell on my own sword and just self-sabotaged. At that moment, I was described as a loose cannon, and I was fired. You know? Right. How about your own loose cannon?
00:37:12
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I blew myself out of my own cannon. Yeah. Right out of the doors of the agency. Yeah, landed on my arse. Oh, what the hell happened there? In that comedy sort of skidding down the street on your arse kind of way. Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:39
Speaker
I mean, what happened there? And it used to be, it was realising that there was a pattern and I'd blown myself out of my own canon on other occasions. Right, because that's like, right. I think
00:37:56
Speaker
if you get known for being really good in a crisis, then people look to you when there's a crisis. So it's your brain's happy place in a way. So you'll be doing more of it. And you think, oh, you know what? I'm getting praise. People love me. I'm saving the day. I'm being productive.
00:38:23
Speaker
Um, I'm a goddamn hero and you end up doing more of it. And then in the end that burnout, because if you don't realize that that's what you're doing, there's no self care afterwards, right? There's no right. I've done that thing. I now need like a week of doing not much at all.
00:38:45
Speaker
I need to rebuild myself. Because if you just throw yourself into the next crisis, and then again and again, you end up just burning out until your brain goes, you know what, Paul, I need out of this.
Importance of Self-Care and Preventing Burnout
00:39:01
Speaker
I can't actually cope with this anymore. And then you end up self-sabritizing just to get yourself out of that cycle.
00:39:12
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I mean, I don't know, reflecting, I realized I was, you know, I, I, you know, I was like rattling in a side of a cage, you know, and yeah, I think it's one of the reasons I moved to Italy, but it's another story, because I'm just like, get away from that, that whole madness.
00:39:30
Speaker
you know the London agency world you do there is burnout definitely god you know you know it don't you you know when when the good stress turns into like toxic you know like all income all you know just like it just eats you up after if it's not it's not if it's not good stress right i think one thing that my wife's better a lot better out than i am is
00:39:58
Speaker
before going into that crisis thing and pulling out all the stops out and saving the day, she will know and be prepared for the thing that happens afterwards. So for example, she will make sure that there's nothing important that has to happen for a day or two afterwards.
00:40:22
Speaker
There are some easy meals that require not much cooking, literally just reheating, so food is in and easy to cook. There's forward planning for the self-care afterwards that you need. A landing zone.
00:40:42
Speaker
right so that you're not coming out of doing the crisis and then you go oh god i've got no food because i forgot to go shopping yeah and then you're ending up having to like sort your life out but it's actually she's a lot better than me she will have already pre-thought that
00:41:01
Speaker
and planned for it so that when I or she or whoever, we pop out of this place, we've taken care of ourselves. Okay, what pops into my mind, you mentioned talking about that, is you know, guys, soldiers that come back from wars, you know, it's famous kind of,
00:41:26
Speaker
Like they write back as like, what the hell, you know, and no one prepares them for that. You know, we talked about earlier about emergency situations, like soldiers, you know, like in the middle of it, you know, just like stimulation, you know, seeping out of every pore and then coming back and start to, you know, you know, downtown, you know, suburban life.
00:41:55
Speaker
yeah i don't know about god or that that's that's that's a subject i hard know little about all right okay but yeah plenty ahead yeah sounds like uh so i think the takeaway at least for me is
00:42:12
Speaker
Yes, you're good to crisis by all means use that as a you know, as a positive thing in your world. But by God, you've really got to be aware of the of the crash afterwards. And to be actually quite good at the self care part, because if you can get the self care part down,
00:42:38
Speaker
Yeah. That's, you know, you're an unstoppable force, really. Yeah. Or at the very least, you know, just get good at avoiding the risks, you know, doesn't have to be like caring, you know, put yourself into a spa.
00:42:59
Speaker
It just be like awareness. I guess awareness is a great, you know, give it a name. I mean, that's to me, ADHD thing, give it a name. It's like, oh, all of a sudden things start to become at least manageable because of just awareness, even if you're not like, you know, got like, you know, world changing solutions for it. Right.
00:43:23
Speaker
Yeah, because once you know, you can, yeah, so, you know, you may not necessarily, if you can look after the burnout part, then the self-sabotaging part becomes a lot less likely. Yeah, yeah.
00:43:41
Speaker
And actually, the healthy thing is you go, God, this job here is demanding too much of me. I enjoyed the first year of craziness.
00:43:59
Speaker
But now I can see that everything is starting to, it's affecting me and my life too much. I will look for a different job or I will, you know, change it somehow or I will. Yeah. So that you don't get better at distractions, distractions, things that might be, you know,
00:44:26
Speaker
If you're spending too much time in that town or just find habits, hobbies, even past times that actually give you proper break, um, from that, you know, yeah, if it's meditation, obvious one comes to mind, but you know,
00:44:45
Speaker
self-care, self-care, self-care, self-care. Right. So that you may leave your job and kind of go, you know what, I'm going to go and do something else or change the job somehow so that you don't end up getting fired out of your own loose, loose cannon because you recognize that. Yeah. Yeah. It's like that situation at the agency, you know, that I got fired from.
00:45:10
Speaker
at least a minimal amount of awareness, I'd have been able to stop myself and think, Paul, what are you doing? What are you fucking doing? You know, you go down that rabbit hole again, you know.
00:45:25
Speaker
yeah don't step into the cannon you know yeah don't step in there don't go in there again yeah you don't have to poop in your own hand exactly
00:45:40
Speaker
Yeah, you can bet on yourself. But I also realized that not everyone has the luxury of being able to just kind of go, you know what, I need to change my job. You know, it's not always as easy as that. But I think that the self care part, you know, as much of that you can do is, you know, sleep.
00:46:06
Speaker
you know, eat as well as you can meditate. I think, you know, you mentioned that that could work for you. Yeah, I sometimes my sometimes my relief, it's not always sometimes relief isn't very healthy either. But I do get relief from just I just I can
00:46:31
Speaker
I like to kind of, um, watch a documentary. You know, I can, I can eat up documentaries, um, distraction. Sometimes distraction is good. As long as it's healthy, describe distraction. Well, I mean, you know, just like TV, you know, whatever.
00:46:48
Speaker
Yeah, I know that my wife has a very stressful job and her TV watching generally is stuff that requires no thinking. She doesn't have to think about it in the slightest. She can just sit there and just look at it and her brain can start to rest and
00:47:14
Speaker
Yeah. And there's nothing weird happening that kicks her brain into having to have a thought. She just likes to. Yeah. Her brain will just wind back down. And so we'll watch the most mind numbing TV. But for example,
00:47:37
Speaker
I mean, so at the moment we are recording this in December. So the Christmas movies are out and there are a lot of Hallmark films that require no thinking, right? It is literally almost the same plot, each one.
00:48:00
Speaker
Right? There's no weird, sad ending. It's always a happy ending. You don't have to worry about it. So we'll watch a lot of corny Hallmark made for TV films because they require no thought.
00:48:17
Speaker
Right. You know, a woman comes from the big city, a big marketing job. She goes to the little town. She bumps into the guy who owns the Christmas tree store. They hate each other at the beginning. But then her marketing skills saves the guy's business and they fall in love. And there's always a scene that takes place in a
00:48:47
Speaker
But in a, you know, baking, you know, being a bakery somewhere where they eat things. OK. And and you're done and you're out. OK. And it's a just happy ending. OK, nice. Yeah, I can totally get that. I totally get it. Yeah. OK. Not for everyone. But I guess people do that with books a lot. Books are a great way of doing that. Mm hmm.
00:49:16
Speaker
it's not official you know it's just like in your own world in your own head it's called web take your mind off somewhere else all right yeah talking of taking your mind off so let's take your minds back in the mayor's car yes to the post office and let's drive one over to the post office
00:49:44
Speaker
OK.
Engaging with the Podcast Community
00:49:45
Speaker
Hello. Hello, everyone. We're back at the post office. Let's have those that want to have a group hug. This point would just say, your feedback is vital to us, it says here. We'll be reading almost all of your comments, and we'll include a regular feature on our future podcast with a pick and mix of our faves.
00:50:05
Speaker
um and maybe a pick of a mix of are not so faves you know we got a comment this week we got our first hate mail this week that's quite good emotional that's we're it's actually made me laugh it's cool but um anyway so um but anyway the the comments that you do give us will um
00:50:26
Speaker
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00:50:40
Speaker
All right. Well, that just remains for us to dance our way out. Outro music. Yeah. Well, you can get some dance practice in here. Yeah. Yeah.
00:50:56
Speaker
the dancing thing. All right, well, thanks for being here. Check out the show notes for any links. Visit us on our YouTubers, Facebooklies, which is the cupboard of friends, I think we call it. The cupboard of friends. The cupboard of friends called Facebook. Come into our cupboard of friends. And we have stuff up on TikTok. But in the meantime, be nice to yourself.
00:51:47
Speaker
Ciao! Ciao for now.