Hello everybody.

I'm Jemma Spake and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments, and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology.

Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.

Welcome back to the podcast.

New listeners, old listeners.

Wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here.

Back for another episode as we, of course break down the Psychology of Your twenties.

Today, we're going to talk about ADHD.

Getting diagnosed with ADHD as an adult can feel like both a revelation and a bit of a reckoning.

It's this moment when everything about how you've moved through the world probably makes a lot more sense, but you also now have to learn all these new ways to manage.

This is exactly the experience of today's guest, Chris Wang.

She's the founder of Shimmer.

It's an ADHD coaching platform that has helped thousands of adults better understand their brains.

And she herself was diagnosed in her twenties after years of feeling like she was kind of doing life wrong.

And the thing is her story is actually not a unique one.

I've heard from so many of you who have had the same experience, been through the same process.

So today I wanted to talk to her about practical strategies for managing your time, energy focus, managing ADHD in your twenties, especially when traditional productivity advice maybe hasn't ever worked for you.

I also want to explore love and dating with ADHD, why relationships can feel so intense, so confusing or addictive, how to handle romantic rejection but also just rejection in general, and how to feel like you're not too much in a world that is asking everybody to be a lot smaller.

I love this conversation, so without further ado, let's get into it.

Chris Wang, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you so much for having me.

You're an absolute icon.

I'm sick.

Oh my gosh, I'm so excited.

Can you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself and what you do.

I feel like I gave a little introduction before, but I'm like, you can say it in your own words, in the better words.

Probably.

I don't know if it's better, but I'm Chris.

I'm the co founder and CEO of Shimmer.

I am also a late diagnos adhder, so I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was twenty eight, which I know we'll get into that a little bit, but it's been a whirlwind of a journey navigating that diagnosis while creating Shimmer, which is a behavioral support platform, and as of date we've done seventy five thousand coaching sessions, which is really exciting just thinking about how many people have with ADHD have been a part of our journey, and many of them are late diagnosed as well.

And the last piece is along the journey this is very ADHD as well.

Usually things kind of unfold.

I have become an ADHD creator as well, so I started off by posting just My first series was ADHD Girl Hacks, so posting hacks that I've gleaned through my coaching journey and also those of the thousands of other folks who have gone through our platform but since then have done ADHD goal works, adh gold Dates and ADHD goal fields.

So I know we'll get into tips and things like that afterwards, but it's been a little bit of a journey since that diagnosis.

I'm really excited to hear about ADHD girld dates.

That's like something I'm particularly interested in hearing.

But this definitely won't surprise you.

It did surprise me how many people reach out to me with a similar story of like, I had all of these difficulties well actually, like sometimes even a lack of difficulties when I was at school, and then suddenly I became an adult, and you know, all the things that people had ignored or that I like worked really hard to mask, like kind of came to the surface and here I was at twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine, like basically discovering a new aspect of my identity and of how I operate.

Can you tell us a little bit about your story and maybe like what it felt like, Oh, how it was growing up?

Did you feel different and when you maybe realized that like there was a label for this or a series of symptoms that could kind of explain it.

Yeah.

So I will first preface by saying that people's AHD looks really different, and I'm glad you're asking for individual stories, because I think sometimes it's very easy to hear a story and not hear yourself in it, or hear a story and do hear yourself in it and feel like you either don't have it HD or have it HD.

So I think it's really important to learn about the symptoms, learn about the different ways the symptoms can coexist with each other, and also go through that process yourself.

And I also will want to say if your listeners haven't really dug into ADHD.

There's also three types of ADHD, and I'll share which one I am as well.

But there's the hyperactive impulsive ADHD, which are folks who as a kid were kind of bouncing off of wall, super talkative, probably getting into trouble, and as adults generally won't look as disruptive, but maybe it's chatty, maybe it's more internally being more hyperactive, and so that's kind of on the hyperactive impulsive side.

And then there's the inattentive side, which is the other type that generally a lot of the times women will have and girls will have which a lot of the times when you're younger, will be internally presenting as well.

So those are the daydreamers, the ones who maybe as an adult struggle to follow conversations or get lost in your own daydreams in your head, and so that inattentive ADHD will look really different from the hyperactive ADHDER.

And the third type, which is the type that I am fortunately or unfortunately, is the combined type.

So that's when you have symptoms from both sides.

And so when you meet someone who has ADHD, they could look really different if they just fall within those three buckets, but also if they have other sorts of intersectionalities and co occurrences with other mental health conditions.

So I just wanted to preface that.

And so for me, I have all the most of the symptoms, but specifically the ones that were the most salient.

When I was a kid, was definitely on the hyperactive side.

I was super talkative.

I was constantly distracting people around me.

I was always being told I was too loud or just to sit down or be quiet, just constantly in the way.

I think as I grew up, I've been thinking about this a lot.

I think I've heard a lot of stories of folks who their self confidence and anxiety just really increases over time, especially as girls.

And so there's actually the stat that people with ADHD here twenty thousand more negative messages by the time that they're ten years old in comparison to their non ADHD peers, which is pretty significant.

And you can imagine, especially if you don't have the right support system or other ways that you feel confidence, that that would yield just a lower self perception, lower goals, and just the way that you move through life is going to be really different.

And so getting support and getting at least awareness and acknowledgment that you are different and you will navigate things differently as a kid, I think is super super important.

I was lucky in that a mix of I think being Asian and having a really strong emphasis of my parents on grades and being smart.

I did get good grades and that helped me build a sense of confidence when I was younger.

So even though I was getting kicked out of class all the time I got suspended, the impact on me as a kid actually wasn't as strong.

And you'll hear all sorts of different stories, I think for me when we think about diagnosis, the impact didn't get really strong for me until I became an adult and all of those kind of structures and goals kind of fell off.

It was actually when I first started my business, and I when we were in the pandemic and so everything was online and I was not able to get a lot of that visual and physical stimulation from other people.

And then two, I was an entrepreneur and not only was I creating structures for myself, but I was expected to create structures for other people as well, And that for me was when everything started kind of crumbling.

And it took me that long to actually realize that all of these symptoms related to were related to ADHD.

And a big part of that also came from my cultural upbringing of not talking about mental health and not talking about ADHD since I was a kid.

And there's I think it's called like the rule of seven, where is a marketing thing where a consumer needs to see like seven ats.

Yeah, yeah, I feel like it's kind of similar with my ADHD.

I had a friend told me, tell me maybe I have ADHD because he has AHD.

I had Instagram for you page was getting at me, and so I really just started seeing it from here and there.

So it was a very nonlinear journey to finally thinking, oh, maybe it's this and then once then you go down the rabbit hole.

Or I went down the rabbit hole and started researching, and that's what led me to my diagnosis.

So again, like as I said, I think everyone.

I've heard so many stories by now, like everyone's story looks so different and depending on your culture and your other intersectionalities, and also just the cards that you were really dealt with in the support that you had throughout your life.

It's so interesting, like going back to what you said about the negative messaging that kids with ADHD will get, but also how some of them are actually highly functional in schooling environments, like when you said that you got you got such great grades.

Like I'm thinking about my best friend who also got to like a diagnosis for ADHD, and I remember sitting with her and her mom doing the test.

Do you know what I'm talking about, Like the scaling thing, like it's like maybe twenty pages long, yeah, and her mom being like you really didn't struggle with that.

You really didn't struggle, Like no, that doesn't describe you at all, And Aaron being like, no, but I like you saw the outside of that.

This was the inside of that, and how hard it was.

And also like you know, her day was so organized, she had like twenty different activities per day.

There was always something to keep her preoccupied, but also a structure within which you know it was so routine focused.

My question around that is do you see a lot of people be like, I cannot possibly have this disorder because I don't look a certain way or because you know, I'm not just I'm not in this description and all this idea of what this is.

Yeah, one hundred percent.

I think one thing that is that woman here a lot is that you're too smart to have ADHD, and that happens as an adult, happens as a kid, and ADHD has nothing to do with intelligence.

There are people who are who are have higher IQs with ADHD and lower.

It doesn't it's not correlated.

And also like with your friend, that's something I hear too as well.

There's just one example I always give.

If you ask someone with ADHD how often do you lose their keys?

They often say I lose it multiple times a day, or they say I never lose my keys, and you say, okay, well why they say, because I have this very elaborate system and built the entire system as to why they don't lose their keys.

So both those people have ADHD, it's just that they've dealt with that differently.

So what intelligence?

This one is definitely one and another one is women who have presented with inattentive symptoms because they weren't in the way of their teacher or their parent, and they oftentimes had been told that they don't have ADHD because we haven't really understood until recently what that DIES diagnosis looks like in woman, what it looks like in girls.

And so that's changing now and a lot of the times now with millennials, as parents knowing more about ADHD, being able to see this in their kid and then being able to advocate for their kid with their doctors or their or their teachers has been really helpful in this journey.

Like we see a lot of members come to us either who were diagnosed because their kid was diagnosed and just generally millennials or people the other way around who they were diagnosed, and then they're like, I'm starting to see these symptoms in my kid.

How do I best support them?

How do I make sure that they don't go through the thing that the experience that I went through?

And I think it's so interesting because I like, I'm sure you've seen this.

There's all these articles as like everybody has ADHD now, blah blah blah blah Blahyeah, actually let me before I say what I'm gonna say.

What are your thoughts on those popecastle those kind of articles or headlines.

Yeah, so I think it's a little bit problematic because but I get where it comes from.

When you hear people say they're symptoms out of context, it sounds like, oh, yeah, I lose my keys too, right, Like I also stub my toe on the chair, I always.

I also struggle to get organized, I struggle to focus.

So these are all universal symptoms, and especially in the inattention economy today, people are feeling those more strongly, and so I think that there's a couple of things here.

Like one, people with ADHD face those symptoms way more severely and every single day, all day.

And imagine if you can imagine you feeling that once in a while.

Imagine if someone was feeling it all day and it just becomes like, let's say you have a plan to go to a meeting that day, and then you end up spending your entire morning going back and forth for getting like seventeen things, and like what that does to you when you arrive at at that meeting and you're not confident, You feel like you're dumb.

And then you botch the meeting, and so there's just so many effects that are just they compound on each other.

And so I think what people don't understand is the compounding effect of the severity and the frequency.

Because the other thing about the ADHD diagnosis is that you have to have impairment in your life for you to actually get that diagnosis.

So that's actually part of the diagnosis criteria and has to show up before you're twelve.

That's how the DSM five is currently structured.

So that's one thing, and then the other thing.

I think that just from a human perspective, I feel like if you can resonate with people, instead of saying everyone has ADHD, I would challenge people to think, Okay, I can resonate with that feeling, and I imagine if they're feeling this all the time and way more intensely and it's impacting their life, instead of dismissing them through that resonance, it should we should take more an approach of empathy of like, okay, well I can understand a little bit.

I can only imagine how hard this is for you.

And so taking that, I think that mindset shift is something that a lot of folks, especially on the Internet, I would challenge them, as you trying to think of it in that way.

I also just think like anytime I see those articles, like that's just factually encorrec like not everybody has ADHD, like and I think it's one of those things where there's a specific kind of person who like makes everybody's health their business, and like everybody's lives their business.

And I think it's especially like an older generation who are like, I don't want to talk about this, like everybody is the same, Why can't it just be like as it once was?

And when they hear stories about ADHD and the media or in the news, it's like when you hear about plane crashes, right, it makes you believe that they're a lot more common.

It makes you believe that this is going to be this is actually a problem, and they don't actually have all the full information, Like there's all these cognitive biases that are making it seem like a like a a fake epidemic, and it must must be like such a struggle as you know someone with ADHD yourself to be like, you don't know what I went through to get this diagnosis.

It wasn't like I just went in and said I think I have this and okay, now give me the late people like, can you talk a little bit more about how that diagnosis maybe actually helped you understand yourself better and maybe it was actually, like, as you said, a long time coming.

Yeah.

So I think one of the biggest things for me and is for a lot of our members, is that pre diagnosis, everything about you that you didn't know yet was related to ADHD.

You just attribute it to your personality or you attribute it to you as a human, as like your core human.

So for example, I used I always just thought I was a bad kid.

I was like, I'm a bad kid, I'm a bad influence.

It makes sense that other my kid, my friend's parents don't want me to hang out with them.

Like I didn't even question these things.

They were just facts about me.

And now having this diagnosis, being able to look back and say, like, Okay, I wasn't a bad kid, Like these were the things that I was struggling with.

This is why, and this is probably what I needed in the time to be able to be supported.

But so going forward, so I like, I'm same with the coaching methodologic gy.

I'm very future oriented.

I think it's important to understand the past, and sometimes it helps untangle those things to rewrite your identity.

But for me going forward, it's also about understanding what comes from my ADHD so I can better communicate around it and communicate with myself so that I don't feel like a bad person.

But I also communicate with the people around me to have the right language so it doesn't sound like excuses or I'm just like, oh, I'm just I'm just always late.

I can't do anything about it.

So it's not about that.

It's more of like, Okay, well, I just want you to know that because of my ADHD symptoms, it's hard for me to be on time.

These are some things that I'm trying to do to mitigate that is, these are some things that if it's not too much for you, maybe maybe you can do this to help me with this process as well.

And so it really gives you that language, and that makes it especially in a partnership about like you me and then there's ADHD.

Right, Like, we're talking about how we can solve for this thing, and I'm taking responsibility for my part, but I'm also asking as a partner if you can be able to support me in that instead of just being tied to an identity that you're not sure what is you and what is HD.

So I think for me, that's been one of the biggest pieces.

And then I think the other piece is around just understanding what my strengths and weaknesses are and with the lens of ADHD, not so I can fix all of the weaknesses is, but more so that I can put myself in situations where I'm leveraging my strengths more.

And that's been the main part of the journey that I've been on with coaching, and a lot of our members are on with coaching as well as really that reframe to place yourself in better situations and communicate better rather than just thinking, oh, there's all these things that are bad about me that I need to fix.

Well, this kind of brings me to this proactive approach to ADHD that you talk about speak me through this specific perspective, because as I understand it, you know, we've gone back to the history of like what it would maybe have been like to be a kid who has an undiagnosed ADHD and your cold a nuisance and you're cold, annoying and as you said, you know, parents don't want their kids to hang out with you like you know your skold it all the time.

Probably when you get an ADHD diagnosis, it would be very easy for you to think of it as a weakness.

You like to think of it as a as a strength.

Took me through that a little bit more.

Yeah, I think it's a It's such a fine balance and it's a really big sticking point in the ADHD community.

I think on one end, there's the extremely deficit driven approach of I have ADHD, I have all of these things that are wrong with me, and I need to fix all of them.

That is not the mental model I ascribe to.

But also on the other end, there's this superpower model, which I think that borders on toxic positivity when you say that ADHD as a whole is a super is a superpower and and a lot of adhds in the community have an allergic reaction to that with good reason, because it undermines the support that is required for people with ADHD.

If everyone just believes that we're all superheroes because we have ADHD, then we won't get the right support, the right accommodations that we need.

From when we're a child to when we're adults.

So I paint the two extremes because there are a lot of people who sit on each end of that extreme.

I think it's important to take a balanced approach, and it's the approach that we take at Shimmer as well, where you do have challenges as a person with ADHD, and those challenges are important to be aware of, but it doesn't mean you need to solve all of them.

You don't need to sit there saying I have bad memory.

I need to solve that problem.

I need to train my brain to have better memory, because I'm never going to have great memory.

That's just not going to happen for me.

And that's okay, I accept that.

And instead it's contextual.

So maybe I don't want to be in a job where I'm playing Jeopardy or whatever.

We ever quiet, Yeah, yeah, exactly right, And so there's other ways to approach it.

But then on the other hand, people with ADG and all people, not just people with ADCH, but people with ADCH don't often realize this is that they have strengths.

And there are strengths that are common for people with ADHD around creativity, around nonlinear thinking.

Even impulsivity can be something that is positive, like for entrepreneurship.

Sometimes you do need that impulsivity to be able to take risks that other people won't take.

So every kind of weakness oftentimes has like a strength on the other side.

And so I think it's important to take a balanced view to who you are as a whole.

And then on top of that, I think a big part of our approach, and one of the first things I realized needed to happen as an ADHDER is before even doing all that, you really need to define where you want to go as a person.

And people with ADHD have impaired prospective memory, which is basically looking into the future.

We often just spin our wheels faster and faster in no particular direction, which again is probably relatable to a lot of people.

And so the first thing we do in coaching is help people think about where they want to go in the future.

And so for some people that'll be a really hard activity because if you've never thought of it, and for some people it'll be easier.

So once you define that, then it becomes easier to say, do we really need to fix all the challenges that you have to get there, or do we maybe need to like switch gears a little bit, or are there certain strengths that you can be able to draw and to move you closer to that future that you envision.

And so both of those two things, in terms of looking into the future and then taking steps to get there that's more aligned with your strengths and challenges together creates an entire system that helps you just live a life that you're more calm, happy, fulfilled, feeling well, whatever you want to define as your kind of objective function.

It just sounds like a very realistic approach, Like there's no like, there's no extremes in that of like either this is a superpower or like stomp out every single thing about yourself that you don't like, which, yeah, personally, I think is like, you know, the middle ground is often the best in terms of these things, Like the balance of things is always where you find like the most piece.

I guess, which is what you're.

Saying exactly, And I think that, I mean, we all know how social media and algorithms work.

Actually, I recently listened to a Mel Robbins episode that had research that was so interesting that talked about how all of the perspectives on the Internet were actually mostly written by like ten percent of people, and those ten percent of people generally fall in extremes.

We are all scared to go against what we think is the popular opinion, so we see those opinions and we decide to ascribe to one of them, and that's how a lot of polarization happens.

And I think within the ADHD community, this polarization is also at least we all perceive it to be happening, but I think there are probably more people in the middle than we think.

Yeah, Okay, we're gonna take a short break, but when we return, we're going to talk some ADHD friendly strategies for work, for love for life, So stay with us.

So I had this listener reach out to me the other day and she was like, I really want to know how I can manage my executive dysfunction as somebody with ADHD, and I kind of have to be like, I don't really know, but let me get back to you.

Let me ask someone who does know.

So one of some of the strategies that you've used to help yourself with deadlines, with focus, with burnout in your career.

Yeah, so the first half of my answer is going to be an unpopular one because people always want hacks, But it is so important to first identify where exactly you are going and because you might not need to fix the thing that you think you need to fix.

So I will first say that and get that out of the way, even though nobody will listen to me because people always want the hacks.

So for me, some of the things that have been and the most helpful is first one is the reframe that not everything needs, not all the solutions need to come from me doing something different internally.

It a lot of it, and it's easier is if you set up your life to be different, because then it's a gift that keeps on giving.

So that might be setting up your environment in a certain way that is conducive for you to be able to focus.

It might be having a specific room in your house where you're working in another room where you never work in and then that helps trigger your brain into I'm in work mode and I'm not in work mode.

And it might be having certain systems that your whole family knows about.

So one that is really common is people who work from home, which is a lot of people now when they're writing, they will put a little sign on their door where their kid and their partner all know that this means like I'm in deep writing mode, and so they don't get that distraction.

So again, all of these I'm giving like little examples because it all comes from working back from what your challenges and what your goal is.

So if these things don't work for you, I would not also abandon them.

You need to think about how you can implement that better in your life.

And so that kind of brings me to another one that has been so helpful for me is learning what your motivators are and then injecting that into your work.

So, for example, for me, novelty and accountability are two of my strongest motivators.

So when I can't get something done, I ask myself, Okay, what is a way that I can put accountability into it?

Do I have to say with my co founder that in our next working session he needs to check in with me on this, Like that's accountability or for novelty, do I've been wanting to do this thing for a long time and I can't do it.

Do I need to do it on Canva and put it in pink instead of doing it on em now and then just move it later on.

So really understanding first what are your motivators, and that you can figure out by looking backwards at let's say a week or a day.

If you can't think back at a week and think about what are the moments of the day that you were most excited and most motivated and think through what was there for you.

So the most common ones are novelty, interest, passion, accountability, urgency.

Those are some of the ones that are common for people with ADHD, but you might discover that there are other motivators for you as well.

And then the third thing I will say that has been so helpful for me is energy management.

So people with ADG have generally a late set circuit rhythm.

They sleep, want to sleep later, and work up later.

We also have more erratic energy bursts throughout the day, and for a long time I tried to fight against that and just you have these narratives in your head of like I should be able to be as consistent as everyone else, like why can't I work from nine till five?

And then there's these other days where you just work for like twelve fourteen dollars straight you knock out like a whole weeks of work, and then the next day you can't do your nine to five and you wonder why, well, because you've just knocked out a whole week of work the day before.

So really learning what your energy looks like, what times of the day you are energized, and maybe putting deep work during that time, what times of the day you are in maybe more of a crash boat, and maybe you want to do a walk outside because you know that that really brings you up.

And also, if you're a woman, oftentimes, depending on your hormonocycle, your energy won't look the same throughout the month.

So that awareness again and then matching that awareness with what sort of tasks go in there.

And so the meta kind of message here is really figuring out how you can work with your brain and body instead of fighting against it, because oftentimes we fight against it because we think that we need to do things in a way that we've just seen other people do.

And when we listen to how other people like the tips that other people put out there, they're generally from people who are neurotypical who and it generally is the average thing that works for everyone.

And if you have ADHD, you're generally not super average.

Yeah, probably not.

I want to talk about that.

Adds one word you mentioned, which was urgency, And yeah, how urgency plays a role in ADHD personally?

I feel like I've read a lot of research that like the urgency effect is a lot stronger.

So people with ADHD often prefer working under a tight deadline.

How do you how do you suggest people manage that when they also, you know, want to be proactive about not being stressed right up to the time that something is due, or doing something the best that they can do it rather than the fastest they can do it.

How do they kind of navigate that like the complexity of like wanting to do it in the moment when you have the most adrenaline and wanting.

To do it.

Well.

Yeah, so that's a really tough one because we all know that we do things better like with ADHD, that we do things better at the last minute.

But the problem is you probably face a large degree of shame leading up to that that moment where for maybe weeks or months, you are thinking about the thing, and you are thinking about how you're just not doing the thing and how bad you are and how you should be doing it, and that just weighs on you.

And that is a really really large cost, and so it's different for each person.

If you feel like that cost is not big, not big for you, one option is do I have heard of people who are like I just accept that I do things at the last minute, and I will do it.

And it depends on what job you have as well.

Some people are able to do that, some people aren't.

So I'll first say that, like, you might not need to solve it.

Maybe you need to solve the part where you're ruminating, and maybe you need to solve the urgency part really figuring out which part you need to solve.

But if you do want to not do things at the very last minute, which I generally can't in my job, the way that I've done it is one way is by building in like micro urgency moments using my motivators.

So again similar examples before.

If I know that there's a big project that's due, I try not to make I try when I do the project planning part, I try to build in multiple smaller urgency moments for me.

So I will do a meeting maybe a quarterway through where I know I need someone's feedback and they're waiting for my for what I have, and we've communicated ahead of time that on this day we're going to talk about this thing.

And that for me is enough for me to be able to do that quarter of the work because I have that pre set out for me.

And if you have the I would say privilege, let's say, if you have an assistant or if using SUSPREI tool, having them be able to do that for you because they know that you need that.

And setting the meeting if there's a meeting in my calendar, and I know everyone's different.

For me, if there's a meeting in my calendar, I will prepare for it.

If there's no meeting my calendar, I won't prepare for it.

So and if there's a meeting with someone else, I will more likely prepare for a while.

So just really pulling on all of those your own motivators and then building in extra urgency moments is really helpful.

And then another thing is really just a lot of the times we do something.

Let's say we wait until the last minute and then we do this thing really stressfully and then we say, oh my gosh, I'm never doing this again.

This is so stressful.

I hate this, and then within a month you forget, You totally forget that learning that is so common, not just for this example, but so many examples.

So I think one thing that's also really important is finding your own way of making sure you capture the things that you've learned in the past.

And so I mean with me, I use Schimmer, but it's not just negative and like learnings, but also wins.

So I have a folder in my phone and in my laptop and in my email.

I have three different ones that I capture, like testimonials, photos when someone sends me an Instagram comment that says that, like my ex video has changed their life.

And because I need reminders of those things because on days where I'm not doing so hot, I will forget and I'll be like wow, like all this is for nothing and nobody.

I've not changed anyone's life, and I've just been here working myself off for no reason.

And so I get these narratives in my head, and when I can just look at these pictures or look at these messages, it reminds me and kind of grounds me in the past.

Because it's harder for people with ADHD to remember the past, especially when they're in like an emotionally dysregulated moment.

Yeah, I can.

I can only imagine how tricky that would be, just being like, oh, I can never remember a good thing that anyone said to me.

Like the the intersection of like self esteem in ADHD is like a whole nother conversation.

I had a friend who actually, speaking of like the urgency stuff and meeting deadlines at the start of every single semester when we were at UNI, he would go through all the core syllabuses and then put all of the deadlines in his in his calendar three days beforehand, and he kind of was like, I'm going to use my memory, the fact that I know I'm not going to have great memory recall to like and some of them he'd do like three some of them, and he'd do like five.

Some of them he'd do like two days beforehand.

One day beforehand.

He was like, I'm just gonna, you know, go and you know, trust that I'm not going to remember which ones I did for which of these.

I'm just going to trust what's in my calendar and get it done at this state so that by the time that rolls around, like I get to feel the urgency.

I finished the work, and then I have like a day to edit, or have like a day to fix it, or I just submit and I'm like happily surprised by the fact that the deadline hasn't passed yet.

I feel like for some people that wouldn't work, but I saw it work incredibly well for him.

It was like, honestly, I was like watching it being like, how do you just lie to yourself like that?

And like it was so weird, Like he knew that it was a lie, and he would still believe it even like it was just the most interesting thing that he'd found, like this hack for his brain.

I love that.

Yeah, he's I mean, he's externalizing his memory.

And also once he gets there, even though he knows, it's still a lot of effort to do the calculation and exactly.

Yeah, it's kind of like when I think a lot of people did this.

It's not just an ADHD thing.

But when I was younger, my clerk was always five minutes ahead.

I put all my clocks five minutes ahead, and I knew it was a lie, But you just don't, like, I'm not constantly calculating the time so I just end up getting to places I think five minutes.

I thought I would be there five minutes early, but then i'd be there on time, which is perfect, Oh.

My god, perfect.

Yeah.

See I never did that because I just knew.

I was like, well that's not the truth.

But then again, like I had executive function where I can just be like, oh, I'll just get there.

Yeah.

So it's like interesting, how like maybe, yeah, it's just so interesting how different people do those things.

I want to talk about love.

I want to start by talking about rejection sensitivity.

This is a word that I hear in regards to ADHD all the time.

I've done an episode on it before.

I have, I think a pretty general knowledge of it.

Can you talk us through it?

Why is it so common amongst people with ADHD?

And I guess my third question, so sorry, three questions at once, how can people manage it?

But firstly, what is it?

Why is it common that we can talk about for managing it?

So, rejection sensitivity dysphoria, which is commonly known as RSD, is essentially a phenomenon, I guess you can call it where people with ADHD will feel like they're rejected by other people.

Or feel like there's negative sentiment coming towards them, and it's defined as like real or perceived rejections.

So oftentimes it falls in that second category of perceived and it's generally created through well one emotional dysregulation of us.

Just the moment we feel something, we like, jump on that feeling, and then it becomes bigger and bigger, and then we're kind of just swimming in that feeling or or I guess.

And it's also because we've had an entire lifetime of people telling us that we were wrong, are we doing it the wrong way?

And then we've internalized that and then we continue to tell ourselves that.

And so whenever there's like a small I guess like signal, you feel like you've done something wrong.

And so for me, for example, like whenever I'm in an our argument with someone, uh work or relationships, I will always think that I'm wrong, like one hundred percent of the time that's my immediate reaction.

Sometimes people need to convince me, and this is happened in relationships where they're like no, no, like let's have a conversation about this.

There's no right or wrong.

We're just trying to get to a understanding, and so I've been I've been unlearning that I'm just like, oh, no, I must have done something wrong, like you must hate me.

So it is for most people at ATDHD, this lifelong unlearning, and especially in like logically, I know in people's situations it's there's no there's often not like a wrong, but I just feel that way, and so I guess you're second part of the question of like what people can do with it?

Yeah.

One really for me that's been most helpful and I have been working on with coaching.

That comes up for a lot of our members too, is really understanding like what your triggers are and what sort of situations these come up with come up in the most And this actually goes for not just RSD, but also impulsivity.

It's the same thing where I do a lot of impulsive, stupid things and I don't realize it's wrong and it's hurt people until after it's done and people communicate it to me.

And for both of those things, what I worked on with my coach is separately for those two things, understanding what situations do those commonly happen in, and just the awareness of that when you're about to step into a situation like that, Like for example, with impulsivity, maybe it's drinking, and you can have that pep talk with yourself to say, okay, like I'm entering this situation with awareness, and so you can it could be awareness that your RSD might be triggered.

It could be awareness that you might do something impulsive, so that you can put and it's the same solution again.

You can put that pause.

So when someone says something and you immediately your brain starts spiraling, you need to get into the practice of putting the pause.

And same with impulsivity.

When you're about to have an impulsive moment and you just need to figure out how to put the pause.

The best thing you can do for yourself is understanding when that generally happens, because it's it's not random for each person.

It's going to be in different situations where that happens.

And so really just knowing in this situation, these sorts of conversations generally make me feel this way, and if that happens, I'm going to do this.

And if you have that plan beforehand, when you're calm and collected and you've written that down, ideally I used to have.

I think when I first hearded this exercise, I used to have a sticky note and I would like put it in my closet where I would like get dressed before going out, where I would more likely to drink.

And so really just like putting it where you would need to see it to remind yourself of that, and over time you'll need to remind yourself less because your brain is kind of trained to go trigger and then thought and then like being able to block that thought.

It's like putting yourself in a waiting room.

That's like what that sounds like to me.

I'm like, okay, before we react, or like before we do something like forcing your self to like sit with it for a.

Little bit exactly, and knowing when you might need to be in that waiting room, because yeah, when you're emotionally dysregulated, you might not be able to put yourself in that waiting room.

So like basically giving your brain an auto pilot, saying like, if this happens, I go to a waiting room.

Yeah, it's like if then, which I love and I just like can't imagine what it would feel like to be Like everybody who says something slightly rude or just slightly off or not even like you just interpret them.

It's like not liking you.

My friend actually told me about this rule, which is like the twenty five percent rule, which is there is like, actually only a small amount of people, maybe twenty five percent of people who you will never convince not to like you, or who you will never convince to like you.

Sorry, that's what I should say, never convinced to like you.

And that's like one in four, which might sound like a huge number, but it's just kind of like doing the math of like, actually, not every single person could possibly not like me, but also I'm down to accept that maybe like a quarter of them will, and that's just a certainty that everyone's going to find themselves in.

So I don't know if that's also helpful, but yeah, I would just be wild.

Yeah, And I think the other thing is I often, whenever I have a feeling RSD is one of them, I often think that it's less of a reflection on the other person, and it's usually a reflection on myself.

So I would say the other tip that I would have is if you think that everyone's having some sort of negative thought towards yourself, it might not be, but I would challenge to think if you maybe have that negative thought towards yourself, and so yeah, that is the case, then you need to do the work to be able to reinforce your strengths, reinforce pass wins, to really build up your self confidence, which is is a practice of building self confidence of continuing to put yourself out there and seeing that things are going to go well for you and that you can handle these situation.

And so as you build up your self confidence, you will find that these situations, you'll less likely feel like other people don't like you because you back yourself so hard.

And that's such a long journey, right, but like you want to get to the point where you back yourself so hard that you wouldn't think that they don't like you.

But even if you had all the signals and they didn't like you, it wouldn't even impact you because it doesn't matter because you back yourself so much.

Yeah, which I love.

I'm like, this is something I find even in someone without ADHD.

It's like the things that sting the most are the things that you think might be true exactly, And that's that's something that is for everybody so it's like, yes, where is that pain coming from?

I want to talk about a bit more about relationships as well, and maybe some of the common hurdles or pitfalls that people with ADHD might find when they're falling in love or even in friendship.

Yeah, so I did a whole series called ADHG Go Feels and add Toogle dates on this, so it's really fun if you want to check it out.

But I think, like in the early stages, one of the really common ones, which is a interesting one because I do this and I've been done this too, is definitely around love bombing.

This comes up so frequently because it's related to emotional dysregulation in that when we fall for someone, it's very common that we fall for them, like really hard, and then we ignore all the signals, even if there's red flags or whatever it is, and we pour so much love in them that it can also sometimes scare people away.

So even in a relationship where it could have worked, maybe you just freak them out because you came on too hard, and so that in itself can be a challenge.

But also then there's this transition of like when you finish the initial dysregulated love bombing, it can feel jarring to your partner when you suddenly like change the way that you act.

And I know everyone goes through a little bit of this, but I think with each years we feel this more and it's very common, this full love bombing thing.

I think love bombs obviously not the official term for it, but everything get is heightened, and this is a very sensitive moment where it is sometimes helpful to be aware of that and then make sure you're I mean, it's your choice if you want to try to control it and slow it down.

I think a lot of people give advice to slow it down.

I actually just find it important to communicate.

For me, I actually enjoy the really strong I'm falling ahead over my feels heels feeling.

I just will explain to the person that this happens to me, I think this is what's happening, and just keeping the communication open so that they're aware that I'm aware of this and we're kind of a decision together.

But I know a lot of people do give the advice to there's tactics to essentially like kind of like draw that love period out longer so that you can be able to explore things in a more calm way.

So I think it's really person dependent.

Obviously there's no right answer.

And what do you think or from experience, what happens after like the love high kind of crashes, Like I feel like that state where you know there may be love bombing that maybe intensity like can only last for so long.

What happens then?

Is it a case of like you get bored or you get confused, or you think you've fallen out of love with them?

Yeah, what does that feeling feel like.

A lot of the times it does.

It does feel like boredom.

And I think that there's a process of figuring out if it's because of the person in your relationship that isn't actually right and you were just stuck in all the feelings, or if you haven't found a way to potentially value and fall in love with the other parts of a relationship which are maybe not the same as the parts of the relationship in the beginning.

And it also I think a lot of the times too, because you fell so hard, you weren't thinking very critically about things like for example, most of my neurotypical friends I actually know that they have this list of like no negotiables and things we're in a relationship and all of those things, and I always thought it was kind of interesting because I was like, oh, there's no point in me making that because I've actually never chosen a relationship that I've been in.

I've just fallen into it.

I don't know why I would have.

That list, when would I use it.

But I did actually recently create the list because my co founder, who is neurotypical, he had this list and we were talking about it and I was like, Okay, I'll try to create the list, and so it was helpful going through the thought process around it.

But I'm just not sure if I would use it in the same way that are able to use it in the same because I'm not as level headed going into a relationship.

Yeah, which I feel like could be both so much fun and super scary, and you're like, yeah, I'm just here for the for the ride, like wherever this goes, Like I kind of know I might not be in control for the first little bit, which I don't know.

You said you enjoyed the feeling, so it kind of sounds fine.

Yeah, I do enjoy it, but I definitely have gone through phases where I had like pretty strong fears of what if I can ever be in a long term relationship, what if I'm only good at this beginning part.

So those are definitely things that I have thought about.

I'm currently in my first ever ADHD ADHD relationship.

I've alw AHD neurotypical relationships, so I'm starting to change my mind about things because we talk really openly about ADHD symptoms and we communicate through it, so it's felt different.

So I'm hopeful.

I'm hopeful for you as well.

Okay, we're gonna take one more shortbreak, but when we return, I'm gonna kind of talk a bit more.

I want to talk more about this relationship that you're in and how you're managing it, and also you know some tips for people who are diagnosed and just for tips for people in their twenties in general, So stay with us.

Okay, So you mentioned during your first ADHD ADHD relationship, how is that different from dating somebody who is neurotypical if you want to talk about it, of course.

Yeah, yeah, of course I have thought about this a lot, and I actually, coming into this relationship, I thought that I had to be in an adh G neuorotypical relationship one me.

And my co founder is neurotypical.

So even from a business perspective, I've always thought, Okay, we have different skills, we have different strengths, and together we are stronger.

And I do think I still do believe in that.

But I used to believe that it couldn't be a different way.

And so now I'm in an adhdadd relationship and there's different pros cons.

I think, obviously there's certain things where we are both going to be bad at and therefore it's going to be harder to get done, like chores or lock things around the house.

But I think the pros is that there's so many things I didn't realize until I was in an ADHDADHD relationship that I used to need to at least explain and try to explain myself because it looked like I was either being lazy or careless, or I didn't love them or whatever.

There's a lot of misinterpretations or even worse than that, A lot of the times I would not even try to explain.

I would just feel like I was going to get judged for something and therefore just not do it.

Versus now, I think in a lot of situations.

We will just talk about things like the communication will just be more open and I will be more comfortable sharing things because I know that she'll have a similar either a similar perspective or or at least understand that perspectives are different.

Yeah, I feel like it'd be so comforting just being like, oh, I don't have to I don't eat, Like you have some of the same knowledge as me, and.

We can laugh about things that we can laugh at ourselves rather than laughing at the other person.

But yeah, it's been It's also been hard for me to untangle because this is also my first queer relationship, So some things I'm like, I'm not sure if this is coming from interesting part or the I'm dating a woman part.

So it's like, is.

It easier because it's ADHD or because like, yeah, women just tend to have more planning skills.

Yeah, that's interesting, or like tend to just like be easier to work with slash be with.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's like I wish from a scientific perspective, if these could have happened in two steps, that would have been helpful.

But no, that's so funny.

I love that you wanted to control group.

That's so me, I don't I get what you mean.

This is another thing that's like my second final question has been coming to the end of this episode.

How do you deal with or how do you think people with ADHD can deal with this feeling that they are too much, that they are too much for love, they're too much for the workplace, they're too much in friendship, they're too much for their family.

Have you like kind of had to overcome that in your own life, and like how did you kind of go about it?

Yeah, So I always thought I was too much, and I just as I mentioned at the beginning, I kind of just accepted that I was a bad kid.

And even in my first job in consulting, I was told that, oh, your your work is really great, but you're I think even some point they said I was doing too much.

I was doing a lot of pro bono and volunteering stuff and they're like, that's not the point of your job.

And then I was doing too much like social and culture stuff.

And also I wasn't being like reliable and consistent in enough.

So I think it's a big it's actually a mix up in too much and not enough, which is kind of ironic, but you constantly feel like you're in one of those two buckets.

You're either too much or not enough.

And so for me, one big the thing that has been really helpful honestly has just been changing my environment.

As a entrepreneur.

You're never too much.

You're expected to be too much, so you're expected to push the boundaries.

You're expected to be really inspirational and loud and be doing a bunch of things, and so that really helped because the expectation is just different.

And then the other thing is like speaking about relationships.

Even in relationships, I always felt like I was either too much or not enough.

And I think in this current relationship, we've had this conversation many times, and I think it's because she also has ADHD, but she's also too much quote unquote, and so I think it just changes the barometer because everything is contextual right.

Too much is like too much for what, too much compared to neurotypical people, too much compared to what's expected of you.

So if you can change the comparison point, then you no longer become too much.

You just become different than other people around you.

But everywhere is different in a different way.

So I think if you have the privilege to change the context around you, the environment around you, that's generally easier.

And there's a lot of members who come to us even at Shimmer, they'll say things like, Oh, I just like want to be productive because I'm not productive enough, I'm not organized enough.

And then turns out what actually would make them happy is just placing them in a different environment or a different job, or having a different sort of system so such that they don't need to do all the high horse power work that they think is required to be able to get to where they want.

So really questioning those aspects.

And then the other piece, which I know I've touched on a lot, is just finding your way to build up self assurance and self confidence.

Yeah, and the like the little tactics I talked about about keeping your winds really handy, keeping making sure the people around you are really supportive, And a lot of it starts with leadership as well.

Uh, if you are gassing up the people around you and leading by example and they think about it, they're probably gonna gas you up back.

So a lot of the times we sit here wishing that like the world was different, But if you just do how I mean, there's like the cliche like treating other people how you want to be treated, but it really works.

Three examples.

It's a cliche for that way to make someone do someone something that you want them to do is for you to do it, and they just they see it and they're like, oh okay, but if you tell them that they should do it, they're not going to do it.

Yeah, it's like a total that's like I can confirm according to psychology that it's like a very real effect.

And also if you do something for them, they're more likely to like you as well.

And if you do something like and you're more likely to like them.

Like it's this whole interaction of like reciprocity.

Like I've had this feeling recently where I'm like I started to understand why cliches are cliches, and that one like treat people how you want to be treated is like one of my favorites.

When I'm like, oh god, that's so wise, Like they were so right on that one.

Yeah.

There in my So, I went to my for a undergrad I did business school and I had a negotiations class, and I don't remember anything from any of my classes.

I have no memory, but this one really stuck with me, and they gave us this one talking point where when someone where when you do something for someone and they say thank you, you tell them, oh, no problem at all.

I know you'd do the same for me, and you're like reinforcing reciprocity.

I was like, leaky, see there here, guys, a little bit of manipulation, doesn't it can't go far enough.

I have one final question for you.

What is one piece of advice?

This is a question we ask everybody.

What is one piece of advice that you would have for people in the twenties that has nothing to do with what we talked about today, nothing to do with ADHD, nothing to do with yeah, any of the things we touched on.

Just a piece of advice from you to them.

I, based on my experience, I would say, just experiment and have fun.

I think that oftentimes we take everything a little bit too seriously and we get lost in things that we later on decide weren't even important to us to begin with.

So what that looks like for me is really just doing some work figuring out kind of what your values are.

They might change over time, but just doing putting a little bit thought behind them, and then just ensuring you're living semi accordingly to them, and then just experimenting, because sometimes you do you don't really know what you're going to like or if something's going to feel good for you unless you actually unless you try it.

And a lot of the times people get caught up too early picking a path, and especially I know you said, don't say ADHD, but especially no No no, who are super who are like multipotential lights and they have lots of hobbies.

And we're told by society that you need to pick one career and know your purpose and just do it for the rest of your life.

And if you have that narrative in your head, it is really difficult because who knows when they're eighteen what they want to do.

And I think that's yeah, really changing.

I honestly think that's like one of the biggest mistakes that society has made is making people decide so young.

I just feel like there's so many, so much unhappiness, and so many people who become like obsessed with the wrong things like money and like wealth or like status because like what they chose at eighteen was meant to be the thing they had to do for the rest of their life.

So I love that advice and I totally resonate with it.

Well, I want to say thank you so much for coming on, even as someone who doesn't have any HD, I actually loved some of those tips just for like genuine as, like as someone who works by themselves and can get distracted very easily.

Like they're just so helpful.

Where can people find you and where can people find shimmer?

Shimmer is at Shimmer dot care and I'm at INSTAGRAMADHD dot Crystal, and yeah, just head to our website.

That's the easiest way to learn about what we do, whether you or someone you know has ADHD.

We have the ADHD for Adults program, and then we have the ADHD for Teens program, so all sorts of behavioral supports and community supports.

The goal is really just for everyone with ADHD to reach their full potential and also reach it in their own way that works for them.

Which I just think is amazing.

Well, it was such a pleasure to have you on board.

Remember guys to go and check Chris out and all of her work.

It's fantastic And if you enjoyed this episode, give us a five star review, share it with a friend who you think might need to hear it, and follow us on Instagram at that Psychology podcast if you want to give any feedback, if you have any further questions or thoughts about this episode or any other episodes, if you want us to expand on anything we talked about, or if you just want to see behind the scenes, we'd love to have you over there.

But until next time, stay safe, bekind, be gentle to yourself.

We will talk very very soon.